Posts by Mark Major

Capita's bespoke British Army recruiting IT cost military 25k applicants after switch-on

A few smart developers

As always, a team of half a dozen decent developers could have done better, for a fraction of the cost. We're only talking about a dozen applicant web pages, a database and a back-end candidate approval process?

Twitter hackers busted 2FA to access accounts and then reset user passwords

Re: 2 Fiddle All

I'd contend that, for the public web, it'd be better to have the password 'Password' and 2FA, than just a '%66u5$"£$"4tgg3' password alone. Not that I would do that, but.

Twitter says hack of key staff led to celebrity, politician, biz account hijack mega-spree

I doubt many people with that level of fame or power are using Twitter to chat to their mistress or anyone else of significance? For many, I'd think Twitter is just an instrument that their 'team' use - and probably via some workflow approval system in third-party tool?

Spotify boasts 10 million paying subscribers ... Um, is that all?

Re: Happy to pay

Can confirm there are no volume constraints - you can play it as loud as you want.

Seriously though, 'Unlimited' is unlimited. I listen to it all day every day. I have discovered hundreds of bands I would never have heard of.

You'll hate Google's experimental Chrome UI, but so will phishers

>2 subdomains deep, including ".com." or ".co.uk." or other TLDs

= Scam warning

Almost as simple as that, surely? Who legitimately uses nested subdomains named .co.uk.??

Who fancies a billion-quid bonanza? Just flog the Home Office some shiny walkie-talkies

RE: This will be completely successful, and will come under in under time and budget.

I laughed so hard, I cried *weep*.

It always seems like half a dozen smart and motivated people could do a better job than any of the massive companies that get these types of contracts. NHS data sharing, BBC archiving system, failed, failed, etc. Obviously, more people for rollout and support - but the solutions would be solid if created by a team of half a dozen good brains - compared to whatever corporate blah actually goes on and ruins these things.

Twitter turns 8: Five tech kingpins whose first tweets are UNBELIEVABLE

I thought the Gates one was quite witty

"Hello World". What else could a programmer possibly put when testing an unfamiliar system?

French youth faces court for illegal drone flight

Re: Neighbour

Just go visit, if you're ever-so keen to see her. She's a lovely old lady. Offer to do her shopping and she'll probably offer you tea and home made biscuits. Could be a bit awkward if you don't speak French though.

fWHoaR! Researcher crack eternal mystery of what women want in a man

Trick-cyclist?

I never heard that before. I had to go and check that the XKCD Chrome Extension which does silly word replacements on every webpage is still turned off!...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xkcd-37/kjlobohamcahepbjhcnjhhpdgmhjkjli

Sony set to axe 5,000 workers worldwide as it flings PC biz overboard

I love my VAIO

The laptop is five years old and used daily - including heavy duty stuff like HD video editing.

It was £1500 with dual SSDs in a RAID, a 1600x900 screen and internal 3G. It was definitely worth the £1 per day of use I've had from it so far and I would have bought another without hesitation.

The screen just broke in the past month (it now has lines down the middle) , but am still using it with a separate monitor. The only real thing that bugged me was that I could not upgrade the Nvidia graphics drivers as Sony stopped releasing updates for the switchable Intel/Nvidia graphics.

The cheap VAIO my wife purchased though (circa. £500) - well that is rubbish!

How the NSA hacks PCs, phones, routers, hard disks 'at speed of light': Spy tech catalog leaks

SEASONEDMOTH ?

IRATEMONK ? COTTONMOUTH ? RAGEMASTER ? MONKEYCALANDER ? DROPOUTJEEP ? HOWLERMONKEY ? GODSURGE ? DEITYBOUNCE ?

If this were April 1st, I'd laugh!

I wonder if they really use these code-names internally? Their meetings must largely consist of, "Maybe we could use... errr.... ummm..... you know, THINGUMYWOTSIT.... errr, MONKEYBALLS... no, that's not it. Ummmm..... OWLHERITAGE??? You know, the one that intercepts the mobile phone signals!!?"

US military's RAY-GUN truck BLASTS DRONES, mortars OUT OF THE SKY

Re: The Americans must love asymmetric warfare

@AC "The existing laser defense systems I've been around are already smart enough to give a fault report to the control panel when the lenses are dirty. (much to the aggravation of the poor fool on the maintenance team that has to go and clean 'em!)"

Hopefully remembering to take the keys out!

Ultimate electric driving machine? Yes, it’s the BMW i3 e-car

Of course, they're not going to say anything bad... yet.

"You’ll have to wait until El Reg gets one for a week-long test next month"

Firefox takes top marks in browser stability tests

My Dad's got more tabs open than your Dad!

:P

Confirmed: Driverless cars to hit actual British roads by end of year

Hitting the road?

I strongly feel these need further development before they're let loose. Call me a fusspot, finicky, health and safety bore - but, at a minimum, I think they also need to avoid hitting buildings, trees, pedestrians, cyclists, signposts, animals and other vehicles?

Apple designer Sir Jony Ive holding up iOS 7 development: Report

I've has find all the Ives confusing

It's disconcerting to read all those Ives, like the writer has the worst grammar in the world:-

Ive will be keen to avoid the drama

Ive has pulled the team so far behind deadline

Ive was given responsibility for the look and feel of software

Ive has finished talking rubbish now. Bye! :)

Gates and Allen reshoot historic 1981 Microsoft photo

Quite similar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_Card_F

Texas schoolgirl loses case over RFID tag suspension

Guns

They should get their priorities in order. I'm surprised they haven't issued all the kids with semi-automatic assault weapons ;) Maybe next week.

Ten affordable mid-sized Full HD monitors

Frameless Viewsonic?

Am I missing something? The 'ViewSonic VX2370Smh-LED' (Number 10) review says, "Its frameless design lends it a distinctive minimalist appearance"? To me, the frame looks the same as all the others?

Wikipedia doesn't need your money - so why does it keep pestering you?

Love it or hate it

Wikipedia is still the quickest way to find out about X if you are just casually interested in a topic. Sometimes I'm just curious about something random, but would never spend time finding specialist page(s) or forum(s) and assessing whether the info is any more legitimate than what I can read on Wikipedia within moments.

Also, it's the quickest start point for serious research on Y. Sometimes you just have no idea what to search for or where to search. Sometimes you don't understand all the aspects and angles. Wikipedia gives a good start.

Still, the fundraising issue is disturbing (I did donate, years ago). And, as people mention above, the dominating page 'owners' and deletion of minor topics that are not 'notable' is weird too.

Badges for Commentards

Tracking?

A system to help identify employees that spend all day on the Internet - even if they are the techies who control the internet logs and reporting?

Stephen Hawking gets $3m physics prize from Mail.ru tycoon

I hope all these great minds don't quit science

and spend the rest of their days in private swimming pools drinking champagne.

Google's Drive + Gmail: A 10GB Dropbox killer

Requires a paid upgrade?

From more thorough coverage:-

"If users do want to attach files as large as 10GB, however, they will have to upgrade their existing free Google Drive accounts, which provide 5GB of storage for free. That’s because the new upload limit is larger than the free storage space given to each Google Drive user. Additional drive storage starts at $2.49 (£1.55) a month for up to 25GB of storage."

BBC dishes out fanboi-only telly downloads ahead of ITV plans

Fanbois

Please, please, could The Register stop using this word? I am no Apple fan - and it used to make for funny reading BUT. But years later, while it seems to me that many readers have even grown a bit bored and intollerant of the endless cycle of Apple/Windows/Linux wars in the comments, The Register still seem to do a 'Search and Replace' on every article to get this word in somewhere? It's getting very old and dull!

Gov systems found on 1.9m zombie botnet

Administrator rights

This is all about letting users on with administrator rights, right? Pretty easy fix there then.

Society of Jesus calls missionaries to Second Life

And the award for 'Classic Comment of The Decade' goes to ....

*pauses to open envelope* .... 'DeFex' for 'They should be extra careful. eventually could get very confused about which fantasy world they are actually in at any given time.'