Posts by bombastic bob

Wait ages for an antitrust battle and three come along at once: Google sued by 38 US states over search monopoly

Re: The rules did not change

when their actions become anti-competitive, when their business groups (search vs Android vs Chrome) collude to maintain a (alleged) monopolistic status, and when they are (allegedly) CAUGHT red-handed filtering search results for news articles from competing sources (read: Breitbart) or on topics that Google's corporate policies essentially "disagree with" [thus no longer operating in the public interest, in an anti-competitive way, even with political 'contributions in kind' that include restricting free speech and the free flow of information], then they have (allegedly) violated existing U.S. laws and SHOULD be sued and broken up into separate business entities that can NO LONGER cooperate at levels not available to non-Google businesses. This opens up competition, such as NON-Google browsers and NON-Google search engines pre-loaded onto Android phones (that would be ONE such example).

This was done with Microsoft in the early 90's, in case people forgot. Back then, MS Office was leveraging undocumented features so that Word wouldn't crash, but WordPerfect might, due to bugs in Windows 3.x that would cause a 'UAE' screen. I started using undocumented functions too, having discovered the problem WAS caused by bugs in Windows, and that 'GlobalHandleNoRIP()' could validate memory handles and prevent the UAE screens from happening. And eventually Microsoft had to actually DOCUMENT THIS (and similar functions) because their Office business group was, in fact, using them for that very purpose, too. it gave them an unfair advantage to have inside information and actual documentation for these functions, which nobody else had (and could only hope that the names or DLL ordinals didn't change in the next version of Windows). And, of course, let's not forget the integration of the Windows '9x desktop with Internet Explorer... which caused a WHOLE NEW set of anti-trust actions.

At least, that much I remember pretty clearly.

I could go on about Google's purchase of DejaNews, which seems to have been taken over and then dismantled. I have to wonder if any OTHER technologies have been so (poorly) treated by Google, reminiscent of "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". That's pretty much anti-competitive, too, essentially buying up your potential competition and then dismantling them.

Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away: Certification renewals to be free ... but annual

Re: Certification Hell

If you do not have the correct certifications you are assumed to be an idiot and completely unqualified

Only by idiots (and H.R.)

Even degrees are completely worthless in many respects. I started out without a degree, was taking (just) programming classes but decided early on I didn't need it. EXPERIENCE is _REALLY_ what matters, and hiring managers who do not include "or equivalent experience" in the job requirement are asking for a bunch of inexperienced PFYs to flood them with their "degree-based" resumes and little to no actual experience [which means you'll have to teach them "the difference" between shinola and 'that brown stuff', or their arses and a hole in the ground - that sort of thing].

(I was actually hoping this cert thing was for DEVICE DRIVER SIGNING or something _TRULY_ useful, but once again, my bubbles are bursting with disappointment)

Passwords begone: GitHub will ban them next year for authenticating Git operations

Re: SSH is the way to go

I have always found SSH keys the most convenient to use with Git operations, whether on GitHub or anywhere else

This may be true until you are working with multiple embedded devices, and workstations, and have to either AUTHENTICATE EVERY SSH KEY for EVERY DEVICE [and then make sure you erase them when that device gets turned into a test platform (where you still need github access to update it) and THEN suddenly ends up at a customer site for evaluation before you can say "OH CRAP NO!". So even if you erased the source repos in time, you still would need to deal with those ssh keys in ~/.ssh/ ...

and... where can I safely store this alphabet-soup token such that it can be *EASILY* copy/pasta'd onto ANY device... ? yeah, thought so. And don't say 'USB stick' - some of the embedded devices will have all of the ports occupied already, for devices they control, at least for the stuff _I_ am working with.

And access to YOUR login from "any machine" (remote workstations and embedded devices included) is a necessary feature sometimes. This way, anyone (or any device or workstation) needing a 'git clone' could get a quicky copy of the online repo without jumping through unnecessary hoops. Cheapo paid-for version of github limits the number of collaborators, after all...

So many potential problems with devs like me, and yet independent devs or devs with individual logins ONLY dedicated to a particular company's stuff [and it's never "accidentally deployed"] won't have problems with this sort of thing.

the only thing WORSE than this would be 2FA requiring a phone or e-mail to your home e-mail address [when you're on site and not having access to it and you don't want *THEM* having your cell phone number] in addition to user/pass and/or tokens.

Re: Sick of Passwords

I've been using KeepassXC (the non-mono one) lately. works pretty well, and is still being maintained last I checked. I have a nice long true 'pass phrase' that I make mistakes typing in a lot, but fortunately there's an eyeball button so I can see what I just typed... and then correct it.

So how does it work if you have multiple devices using a connection.

I can think of when this could really cause a problem, for me at least.

a) Company has a paid-for github site to store source on, allowing 'work from anywhere'

b) each embedded device I'm using for development has one or more copies of a github repo [sometimes different branches pre-checked out for comparison, let's say] and I'm constantly doing git pull/push from these various repos in various places to sync up with the online repo

c) I can type in my password, which is complex and long, fairly easily. and I don't store it anyplace. My fingers do the motions accurately at least 90% of the time. It's over 10 characters long, has numbers and symbols in it, etc..

So, what must I do *NOW* - copy/pasta a token from "someplace" every time I use git? STORE THE TOKEN(S) ON EACH DEVICE??? (*NO*!!!) This could end up creating a very unpleasant experience, effectively *PUNISHING* those of us who use proper passwords, because a *FEW* do *NOT*. it also may force updating the git software, WHICH! YOU! MIGHT! NOT! WANT! TO! DO! FOR! EMBEDDED! SYSTEM! DEVELOPMENT!!! You know, STABLE KERNEL and NOT having to deploy KERNEL/USERLAND UPDATES for air-gapped equipment because "some package" was updated on a dev system and NOW the compiled executables won't run... or a behavior changed... or something like that. yeah even Linux has package-dependency-hell to deal with, and when package 'a' drags in 'b' 'c' 'd' etc. and/or forces updates, it COULD (potentially) end up being a mess. And I really did NOT want to include 'selected .deb files' on the USB drives to update firmware, and have to test ALL of the NEW OTHERWISE-UNNECESSARY 3RD PARTY edge cases to avoid midnight phone calls. yeah I like to TEST before deploying,.

GitHub will no longer present a cookie notification banner – because it's scrapping non-essential cookies

unless the github cookies are used cross-site they'll just be showing how you view other people's repos on github. Somehow I don't think it's all that bad, if no advertising nor "what you see" adjustments are made from that info.

(that doesn't mean there's no 'web bug' on other pages that sneaks a peek at the github cookies to see who you are - that is STILL a possibility, right? Then again so is your IP address in some consolidated tracking database someplace)

Thinking of cookies (in general) there used to be this one plugin [that no longer works nd I can't find an equivalent last I checked] that could put ALL non-white-listed cookies into memory and NOT persistently on disk. You could click a button in the toolbar that would "flush" the memory cookies. Also they'd disappear whenever you closed the browser. So, not only could you white-list only CERTAIN cookies remaining after you close all sessions to that site, you could 'grey list' OTHER cookies so they'd work long enough to get past the analytics crap that login processes seem to want all too often. Then you can FLUSH those things when you're done.

That would make an EXCELLENT built-in feature, wouldn't it? But Firefox's UI changes broke th3e old one (as with many other UI-related plugins I liked having).

We're not saying this is how SolarWinds was backdoored, but its FTP password 'leaked on GitHub in plaintext'

Re: Pasw0rd?? Who would use that, that's foolish!

yeah, using l33t5p34k to encode your favorite word makes it SO much more secure... </snark>

(although I admit doing that when certain password verifiers won't let me do something more secure and easier to remember like an equivalent of 'correcthorsebatterystaple' and then confuse you when you have to use 3 of 4 different things, and if you use all 4, it rejects it...)

regardless, having ANY kind of singular or hard-coded password is *(ahem)* ALWAYS! A! BAD! IDEA! as illustrated with THIS example.

Effectively the same if it had *(ahem)* A! MANDATED! GOVERNMENT! BACK! DOOR!!!

(you know, like the kinds of encryption back doors our politicians often want)

US aviation regulator issues safety bulletins over flaws in software updates for Boeing 747, 777, 787 airliners

Re: Software Bugs

One really does have to wonder at the imbeciles that create this, test it & then release.

Maybe they've just adopted the Micros~1 model, and are allowing the end-user experience to test it.

Re: A Boeing Spokesperson said:

Making them as safe as possible while still economic to operate is the top priority.

That's one of those contradictions that needs to be resolved in any aircraft design. If it were easy, anyone could do it. There are, of course, many other "design contradictions", like structural strength vs weight, fuel capacity vs range, seating comfort vs packing enough people in like sardines to make it profitable to fly at all, and so on.

(this concept of resolving contradictions is part of 'Triz', which was developed by a soviet think tank back during the cold war, and is still championed by at least one Russian engineering company I used to work with back in the day)

How to leak data via Wi-Fi when there's no Wi-Fi chip: Boffin turns memory bus into covert data transmitter

Re: Early WiFi ? (LOL)

1300 Mhz? do you mean 1.3Mhz or 1300Khz? (1300Mhz = 1.3Ghz, a bit fast for 1970's and Z80)

and of course 1300Khz would be audible on a standard U.S. AM band receiver.

This does bring up the point that it's not "wifi" per say that you'd communicate with by flipping RAM bus bits in the 2.4Ghz range. Modulation methods for wifi are far more complicated than amplitude or frequency modulation (think spread spectrum and QAM for 2 examples). So you'd definitely need a specialized receiver, although I expect any kind of "software radio" device would be capable of demodulating it.

That being said, there is a simple defense against this: Faraday cage. Old-style computers were metal boxen with the case relatively well grounded. Do this with a desktop computer [instead of cheapo plastic cases with metal frames] and you'll significantly impede RF transmission from the computer's motherboard. Additionally you could put metal tape and/or RF absorbing material on the inside of the case, for similar purposes. In any case, a properly designed enclosure would block RF transmissions of this nature, especially in the Ghz frequency range.

Your ship comms app is 'secured' with a Flash interface, doesn't sanitise SQL inputs and leaks user data, you say?

movie scenarios already predicted this

I recall a movie ('Hackers') in which a company was being threatened with a virus that would cause ships at sea to capsize, etc. etc. by flooding ballast tanks on one side of the ship and pumping dry the ballast on the other side.

So someone had at least thought up this particular 'ship-related' scenario. I'm surprised that employees of the company making the insecure ship software (apparently) never watched that movie, or at the very least paid attention to what science fiction authors foresee as a possible scenario. The movie has Angelina Jolie in it, after all... so you'd think it'd be popular amongst techno-geek engineering types!

Seriously, though, if Hollywood can predict a scenario where ships at sea (or oil rigs) being cracked into can result in extortion or terrorist plots being carried out, then software companies need to at least hire people with a mindset of watching "hacker-related" movies, if for no other reason than to get a perspective on what people that write books and movies THINK can happen, and at least prevent THOSE things from happening I.R.L..

Seriously as bad as IOT except they're multi-ton ships at sea with valuable cargo and/or potentially environmentally threatening cargo, and not just some light bulb being flashed on/off remotely (as a prank for the lulz).

Re: Standard software development

agreed, you need someone who's experienced with security-related things to at least review it

Rocky has competition as more CentOS alternatives step into the ring: Project Lenix, Oracle Linux vie for attention

Re: "This is not some gimmick to get you running Oracle Linux so that you buy support from us"

when these companies are giving their stuff away for free, how ELSE do they plan on making money from it? I would assume customization and support contracts, and nothing wrong with that, really.

Just being honest up front can't hurt the bottom line, and may actually HELP it.

Re: I always feared...

too much analysis ruins the joke

Right-to-repair warriors seek broader DMCA exemptions to bypass digital locks on the stuff we own

Re: US and walking

Yes, it seems that in Dallas, it's unusual for anyone to walk even a mile distance. I was told (when I was there on business) that it was not uncommon for people to drive 2 blocks. Seriously.

[I was there to resolve a firmware problem that turned out to be (primarily) caused by a former employee of the customer, and in a few days, we got it back on schedule - product shipped, etc.]

Twitter scores a first for big tech after being fined €450,000 by Ireland's data watchdog for violating the EU's GDPR

Re: How impressive

Meanwhile, other companies do deliberate things

and Tw[a,i]tter too, as far as I am aware... [but yes this _IS_ the sad part]

I guess that fine was the equivalent of having one's birthday taken away.

Ad blocking made Google throw its toys out of the pram – and now even more control is being taken from us

Re: "...the stuff that reaches only the right people is worth far more..."

Profit is good. Even better when they DO! NOT! TRACK! YOU!

Re: Server-side tagging is about hiding tracking, not advertising

lessee... if you're logging in with your Facebook or Twitter profile... with those F and T icons on that page, probably reading the cookies and identifying you anyway [whether you log in or not]. it's a fair bet they do, and phone home to momma that you went to that page.

Best thing to do, do NOT access any *BAD* *BEHAVIOR* web site (like Fa[e]ceB[ook,arph] or Tw[a,i]tter) from the context of the browser you use most often, and erase ALL of their tracking cookies and locally stored data, however you need to accomplish this. Reserve that for TRULY sandboxed browsers. see my earlier comment on how you can mitigate this using the DISPLAY environment variable in X11 environments, logging in as a special user where all history is FLUSHED when you exit the browser...

Re: Misses the point

Legislating internet advertising is no easy task either

I think you're missing the point here. It's not the ads as much as the tracking and targeting of them.

Re: Keep on AdBlocking

Anything that can be done to take google down a few million pegs then great. Bring it on.

a) use NoScript as often as possible

b) set up a browser context where you automatically purge ALL history, cookies, etc. when the browser closes for anything that you need script to actually view the content. Then "flush" when you're done.

c) if "they" track by IP address it's unavoidable, except when you use Tor...

d) make sure your Linux (or FreeBSD) machine announces itself as generic windows machine in the browser info thingy (this may require a re-compile, or a plugin, depending). In short pick something that's very common so you're not "pegged" by it.

in any case, on POSIX machines I always set up X11 so that I can use the DiSPLAY environment variable and log in as "a special user" when browsing ANYTHING (that I don't explicitly trust) that uses script.

It is also possible to erase Chrome history, by deleting files in ~/.cache/chromium and ~/.config/chromium, but you have to be careful which '.config' files you purge if you don't want to get a default config every time. YMMV and experiment, because a LOT of "local" stored data (that identifies you) ends up in ~/.config ...

in any case, assume you ARE being tracked, then do what you can to frustrate it.

Adios California, Oracle the latest tech firm to leave California for the wide open (low tax) Lone Star State

Re: improve our employees’ quality of life

The hope (for the people who already live there) is that moving people from a shitty place doesn't ALSO trend the place they move to into becoming "similarly shitty" because they brought their politics with them...

I've also considered a move to Texas. California's getting pretty bad these days.

Google Cloud (over)Run: How a free trial experiment ended with a $72,000 bill overnight

Re: VISA gift cards

And, also, what were they thinking not to check for recursion / duplicates in the first place?

weren't they testing at the time? I'll never see a programmer (with any significant experience, working on non-trivial projects) that hasn't had an occasional recursion problem or infinite loop in the testing phase. This is even MORE true when going from testing on a limited set of test data into the real world, where 'the unexpected' is the norm.

They can't collect from a corp with no assets.

They sorta tried using a credit card with a $100 limit. Didn't help.

If Google wanted to, they could set up budgeting PROPERLY so this would never happen. But they didn't. And if they hadn't "forgiven" the debt, chances are the courts would have decided NOT in Google's favor during subsequent legal actions to collect the $72k

in any case, corporate officers are registered for all corporations with appropriate gummint authorities. if they wanted to, they could sue the CEO directly (for example), or go after stockholders. So a shell corporation would help a little, but not a lot.

A lot of lawsuits have been won against manufacturers because product documentation/labeling didn't have an explicit enough warning. Not sure if in this case such a thing would apply, but who knows what can happen with high paid l[aw]yers in a court room with an advocate-type judge and/or jury pool.

[this also makes the case of having a private cloud server to test things like this on yourself, before submitting to a provider like Google]

Twitter, Mozilla, Vimeo slam Europe’s one-size-fits-all internet content policing plan

Re: Lead pencils

can you actually buy a pencil that has actual Pb in it? Does anyone even make such a thing?

According to THIS article (from the Washington {Bleep}), some time in the 1500's a large natural graphite source was discovered, and they made writing instruments from this material. And mistakenly people thought it was a type of lead.

So I guess pencils have always been made with graphite as the material that makes the marks on paper.

I guess that deflates the earlier comment about selling lead pencils to children...

Re: But then maybe it’s just the wrong algorithms

The problem is the techno-utopian belief that you can find an algorithmic solution to what are really human problems

I was just thinking (dangerous I know): if it were an option to have "content warnings" rather than content removal, or perhaps no content warnings at all for that matter, how many people would choose "wild west" or "anarchy" over "nanny mode" ?

Re: Indeed

The problem with one size fits all, stay-or-delete approach is in the decision making

another way of putting it: many people will agree to censorship (aka 'moderation'), "for the children" or for any other reason, until it censors *THEM*.

(I'm amazed I agree with Tw[a,i]tter on anything, even if only slightly)

FCC mulls booting China Telecom from US networks over its ties with Beijing

Re: China Telecom has ties with Beijing?

Spectre vulnerabilities and 'management engine' and so on... hmmm.

Ad-scamming, login-stealing Windows malware is hitting Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Yandex browsers, says Microsoft

Re: OS?

So, does running 'NoScript' protect you? How about generic ad blockers? Or maybe just simple popup blocking?

It would be interesting to know of any of these "irritation blockers" are also preventing accidental download (and running) of executable installers...

icon, because, Linux not vulnerable (apparently)

China bans 105 apps, eight app stores, and says it’ll swing the hammer again

Re: Which appstores?

fortunately, it's possible to install APKs directly on 'droid phones, without an 'app store', unless the CCP has mandated this be taken away... [at which point jailbreaking and other such techniques are in order]

And there's still a Tor network. And there's still private web sites popping up all over the place.

"The Great Firewall" is like putting a lock on the liquor cabinet, to stop your teenage son from occasionally sipping. And it's probably a cheap lock, meaning that 10 seconds with a tweeker screwdriver and a bent paperclip will get you as much liquor as you could possibly want...

I understand that in the USSR of the 1980s, people could get pretty much anything they wanted through the black market, with chocolate and Levis jeans being two of the more popular items. Is _THIS_ what the CCP really wants? Or are they planning on getting "a piece of the action" ??

Re: "Video nasties"

I thought he was just being funny...

Japan pours millions into AI-powered dating to get its people making babies again

Re: Sexless

For grins, after posting I read the 'Salaryman' entry in Wikipedia. There are some interesting insights there, including (apparently) wage stagnation over the last couple of decades...

When expenses go up, but wages are stagnant, the public at large gets *DEPRESSED* and doesn't see a happy future. This could ALSO be a major factor in low birth rate. If it goes on for long enough, it is perceived as "the new normal" whether it really is or NOT [even if this is an artificially created situation]. Then the other consequences (like low birth rate, overworking to keep your job) happen.

realistically, it might be younger women at religious colleges where getting pregnant can get you expelled... so guess what happens?

Re: Sexless

The part about a Japanese woman as a 'living appendage of [her] husband' - I disagree with that completely.

But your comment about male office workers doing 12+ hours a day, coupled with VERY long commutes, is probably the BIGGEST part of the low birth rate problem. Men who are too busy working typically won't find wives. And, intelligently, women apparently aren't saying "I'll just be a single mom" and then have a kid anyway. After all, kids need TWO parents, not a single mom + [government] day care. Intelligent women know this, instinctively.

Also keep in mind that annual living expense increases in Japan may be increasing at a rate4 that exceeds wage increases With less money to spend, you can't afford a larger house to have a LOT of kids in, nor pay for their education, coupled with always being at work or near the office [sleeping in one of those ultra-compact bunk-bed "hotels" most of the week] because you NEED THE MONEY to live on, and so on, such that you're rarely home. "The Salaryman" in other words. It's all too common in Japan, as I understand it.

Facebook crushed rivals to maintain an illegal monopoly, the entire United States yells in Zuckerberg’s face

Re: Facebook is very useful

when I see that a job candidate has a Facebook account, I look for another one.

There was an attempt a few years ago to convince people that if you did NOT have "social media" presence, you would NOT get hired. That was pure B.S. of course. I've had personal web sites since 1995 and had NO need to use Fa[e]ceb[ook,arph]'s platform for ANY reason, and would PROUDLY announce that fact if asked about FB[arph] in any kind of interview. I said it back then, when this nonsense first started circulating, and I STILL say it now [only louder].

thankfully

Re: Unsurprising

Corporate USA got out of control at the end of the Victorian era.

That's a fact from history, "Robber Barons" vs Teddy Roosevelt, etc.. I think the reforms that came about have worked ok, but additional reforms would be welcomed. Over-regulation, though, certainly not.

Unfortunately, FTC and other regulators fell asleep at the wheel (or were maybe "influenced" to look elsewhere) when it comes to "Big Tech".

Re: How many US states?

I doubt political party affiliation had anything to do with this. Personal opinion, maybe, but doing a "me too" response isn't necessary for EVERYTHING coming down the pike. Sometimes that kind of pile-on simply demonstrates a lot of gutless knee-jerk reactions...

Still, if I were them, I'd have joined in, if for no other reason than to represent the interests of the people in that state, as long as doing so would in some way improve the chance of the case being successful at putting a stop to "big tech". (and last I checked I registered 'Republican')

But if a "pile on" effect in some way EMPOWERS THE DEFENSE, and becomes a "hoist by one's own petard" situation, it's best to just stay out of it, or do your OWN lawsuit.

FCC wasn't the right venue. FTC would be, but for some reason they didn't act... they actually ALLOWED the acquisitions in the FIRST place!!!

Useful quantum computers will be impossible without error correction. Good thing these folks are working on it

Re: photonic cat qubit

this trick works with analog measurements. I've done it. Sample noisy thing 100 times, and do a median and standard deviation to determine how accurate your measurement is. Moving averages also help when the value is expected to change. In theory, once you have a really good data set, and you throw out anything that is outside of 'n' standard deviations, you should have good results. Maybe.

Also have been reading up on QM lately, out of curiosity. Found THIS:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2017/02/28/how-do-you-create-quantum-entanglement/

I guess you could say that the main problem is creating entangled particles reliably, and THEN keeping them around long enough to actually be useful.

also this one: https://erc.europa.eu/projects-figures/stories/how-entangle-two-electrons-%E2%80%93-and-do-it-again-and-again

South Korea kills ActiveX-based government digital certificate service

FINALLY!

massive security crater, finally eliminated.

(government mandated ActiveX to do online banking. what could POSSIBLY go wrong?)

CentOS project changes focus, no more rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux – you'll have to flow with the Stream

Re: Looks like Debian ...

apt is a lot easier, in my opinion. 'aptitude' is a curses-based GUI of sorts, convenient but sometimes kludgy. Just remember 'apt-get' and use the man pages "see also" section, should get to you the info you need.

Re: To the surprise of no one

"Linux" refers to the kernel, not the things that run on it (including the startup application)

Distros basically handle everything but the kernel itself. But you knew that, right?

RH may have gotten too big for their britches. Poettering things are not the only problems, as evidenced by this article.

FreeBSD uses things like 'hald' to compensate [in part, anyway] for not having systemd. I can't recall what Devuan does, maybe alternate builds or patches or a combination of all of that. In any case "a mechanism exists" and there's enough demand for it that packages SHOULD be buildable and runnable without systemd being there. If not, time to submit a patch with some '#ifdef' blocks for when the configure script doesn't find systemd.

Re: To the surprise of no one

not complete enough to build a work-alike.

standard practice when you have proprietary things and other stuff you want to protect.

If these things are _CURRENTLY_ open source, time to fork them and remove anything that RH might object to being distributed outside of CentOS or RHEL

Software contractor accused of favoring foreigners on work visas over Americans agrees to cough up $42,000

Re: However in the UK

uh, with a LOT of that you pretty much described the typical contracting gig...

I actually prefer contracting to 'wage slaving', because the extra pay generally means that I don't _HAVE_ to take my payment in the form of vacation, etc. [vacations are what the 'between gig' times are]

Reading El Reg while working from home? Here's a pleasant thought: Kaspersky says 1 in 10 of you are naked right now

coffee

The nightmare is real: 'Excel formulas are the world's most widely used programming language,' says Microsoft

Re: It's In The Genes

in general, it has been my observation that if you open an e-mailed spreadsheet by a) using Libre Office Calc, and b) starting Calc first with an empty doc and THEN using "File Open", that the likelihood of a macro virus affecting you is very very small. So if you need a spreadsheet via e-mail, that might work.

(better still, the sender should put it in an online doc share, like maybe google docs or something similar, and THEN have the recipient download it with a URL to it, assuming you can't attach the data as CSV or tab-delimited to an e-mail)

i have a nice Buck knife (a Buck 110, ~4 inch blade) I used to wear on my belt when i was in the Navy. But your 7" knife beats my 4" one. I bow to your superiority. heh.

Re: It's In The Genes

you can set a column type if you use the import 'gizzard' as I recall...

(takes a few more steps though)

Re: Makes sense

or - when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a rock that needs busting up...

(shout-out for Sam Cooke - "Chain Gang")

Re: Makes sense

how long before this feature ends up in Libre Office Calc?

even implemented like a macro substitution, it would be useful

(Also, the concept of Ex-hell macro viruses just got a whole lot *WORSE*)