Posts by salamamba too

Do not adjust your set: Hats off to Apple, you struggle to shift iPhones 'cos you're oddly ethical

happily still using an original galaxy note. replacement battery (double size of original) was under £5.

Science fiction legend Harlan Ellison ends his short time on Earth

Re: Minor pedant

If I remember correctly, he also came up with the sound for the spiderships in B5, which comes to define them more than their appearance (in my view).

Microsoft returns to Valley of Death? Cheap Surface threatens the hardware show

For preventing windows updates

For the home version, set your internet connection as "metered" and on the update options select "do not update over a metered connection".

this prevents all updates, and you can then manually select when you want to update by changing the "metered" setting.

Firefox to feature sponsored content as of next week

Re: Still one version back

I also reinstalled an older version of firefox, mainly as I didn't like the alterations to noscript for the new versions. I'm happy blocking all scripts by default, and then only allowing the ones I want each time. Others might think this is a faff, but I prefer knowing that any access is my choice/fault.

10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10

Re: Yup my first

My first computer as well, but with a 64k japanese ram pack that negated the warranty of the computer the moment you used it.

Always fun when speccie users boasted about their 48k.

Microsoft whips out tool so you can measure Windows 10's data-slurping creepiness

Re: Reporting ...

It's not about transparency, it's about getting more logins to the windows store, so they can tie people to machines. A data slurp disguised as a transparency tool.

ZX Spectrum Vega firm's lawyers targeted by empty-handed backers

This has ever been the case. Remember the old Time/Life adverts for nostalgic music?

UK Land Registry opens books on corporate owners

Re: The interesting one will be how much land around the UK is owned by the big builders.*

"This dataset will not be refreshed or updated"

As we charge thousands for the more recent information. Prices are shown lower down on the same page.

Lord of the Rings TV show shopped around Hollywood

Grunts

A LOTR show could be good, if they can get Mary Gentle to write it.

Hello, Star Trek? 25th Century here: It's time to move on

Over MMOs

I have the same issue with Elder Scrolls MMO. You're in a tomb that has been forgotten for hundred of years, creeping around - and all chance of the proper atmosphere is ruined by having more people run by you that Union Station!

Ethereum just checked that part of a Zcash transaction was legit

except for "poncing a fag".

AKA how to get immediately banned from American moderated chat-rooms.

Unloved Microsoft Edge is much improved – but will anyone use it?

The biggest issue with Edge

Is that I cannot imagine anyone with any regard to privacy running a win 10 integrated browser rather than one from another company.

Police camera inaction? Civil liberties group questions forces' £23m body-cam spend

Re: "the data wasn't collated or held in an accessible format"

" Okay, so here we have different police forces that have spent valuable money on recording equipment, then state that said equipment is either not used, records not kept or not accessible, or records even not made."

- you are missing the codicil - Big Brother Watch was obtaining their data using Freedom of Information requests. The data may well be there, but would take time to collate. Organisations store data for their own requirements, which often don't fit well with the needs of people making FOI requests.

If collating the data is possible, but predicted to taken over a certain number of hours, then BBW would have been told this, and given the option of paying for the collation to occur. I haven't yet seen anyone willing to pay for the information they want on an FOI.

Microsoft ctrl-Zs 'killing' Paint, by which we mean offering naff app through Windows Store

Re: Anyone cares really?

and the snooping is why no-one using windows 10 should open a microsoft account - otherwise you are just linking all the crap win 10 reports on with an actual identity.

May the excessive force be with you: Chap cuffed after Star Trek v Star Wars row turns bloody

Re: Surprised by the enthusiasm of fellow Trekkers ...

While B5 was always better, I quite liked DS9. Your comment about money would make sence if it had been a federation station, but really it was bajoran under a federation "protectorate" type agreement.

Search results suddenly missing from Google? Well, BLAME CANADA!

I ain't Spartacus - " So Goolge will do what it can to make as much money as it can, and accept as little legal oversight as it can get away with."

Isn't that what they did BEFORE the ruling anyway? So, no change.

Microsoft admits to disabling third-party antivirus code if Win 10 doesn't like it

Re: Pushing Edge

I also note you can't remove edge. You can now theoretically remove IE, but win 10 has a hissy fit. To add insult to injury, I can't even get into the "Cortana" folder, let alone uninstall the thing.

Google plans to scrub 'inflammatory' and terror vids from youTube

Is it just me?

Or does this translate to:

We will still put advertising around the video, but we won't pay the poster.

Sounds like another way of increasing revenue

SAP Anywhere goes nowhere, reaches commercial cul-de-sac

or just more opportunities to sell on users data, as European data protection laws won't apply.

They may be back when May drops any pretence at honouring data protection here.

Have we got a new, hip compound IT phrase for you! Enter... UserDev

Standard Practice ... not

Back when I was at Uni - many, many years ago - we were taught that you should site with actual users to see how they used the current system BEFORE you start designing systems. This was to see how the system was used rather than what it was supposed to do.

In the decades since, I've yet to see a software development team do that at any of the places I've worked.

Honor phone for paupers goes upmarket, assails flagships

In UK?

Surely if it is for UK, they should have tried a bit arder, and remembered the U,

New plastic banknote plans now upsetting environmental campaigners

Re: A mix of pork and beef tallow

and the distain of the gurkha soldiers for the indians over this led them to actually grease their bullets in cow fat, making anyone shot automatically unclean as well as inured.

Rule 1 - don't piss off gurkhas.

Why do GUIs jump around like a demented terrier while starting up? Am I on my own?

Re: Microsoft time

i remember this, but a few years earlier

State surveillance boom sparked by fear-mongering political populists, says UN

Terrorism statistics

In 1972 the UK saw 10,631 terrorist shootings and 1,853 bombings; 470 people were killed by terrorism.

In 2007, there were 47 shootings and 20 bombings - all in Northern Ireland and three people were killed by paramilitaries.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7305746.stm)

Threats to western civilisation have been dramatically over-exagerated.

MAC randomization: A massive failure that leaves iPhones, Android mobes open to tracking

Re: food for thought

wont help - theres a good chance your phone battery has its own rfid, and stores are using those for the same purpose.

Facebook shopped BBC hacks to National Crime Agency over child abuse images probe

Re: Answer

"Then there is the more serious offence of "distributing images". This is the offence that traps people who send links because they are "distributing images".

The CPS guidance on that is:

The anticipated showing must to be to a person(s) beyond the possessor of the photographs (R v T 163 JP 349)."

1. As Facebook t&c give Facebook a worldwide licence on all photos and videos posted, Facebook has clearly established that it is the possessor of these photos.

2. In general terms, having the image appear on your screen means that you have made an image. This has been the decision in a number of cases, ranging from obscene images to copyright iinfringement.

This means that, in terms of this investigation, Facebook has licenced explicit child images, then distributed them to other people. The company should therefore be prosecuted.

Microsoft ups Surface slab prices for Brits. Darn weak pound, eh?

Re: But...

As IT companies generally seem to convert on the basis of 1 GBP = 1 USD, I can see no currency fluctuation... Unless they'd like to admit to ripping people off for the last few years?

NHS reply-all meltdown swamped system with half a billion emails

Re: 'Ye Old Exchange 5.5 Bombing of 16GB limits

and can reliably archive all messages for years in case of law suits,r change management etc

Has President Trump’s executive order on 'Public Safety' killed off Privacy Shield?

Re: Privacy Act != Privacy Shield

Add Visa to the list, their data centres are both in America.

Britain collects new naval tanker a mere 18 months late

Re: Cabling and paperwork

China has a similar issue. Much of the wiring on the new Hong Kong airport had to be ripped out and replaced.

Auto emissions 'cheatware' scandal sparks war of words between Italy, Germany

Re: "...by getting rid of the US Military machine..."

" For all their faults, the 'US Military machine' was quite useful during the early 1940s."

Eventually.

New Windows 10 privacy controls: Just a little snooping – or the max

Re: Now that is what I call a bait-and-switch

The same approach employed by Google. I have a permanent "urgent account action required" message from google on my phone as I refuse to agree to their data slurp, and the same message appears every time I get re-directed to You-tube.

Google wants you to either agree to their monitoring your browsing, or downloading a program that will identify that you do not want to be monitored. wtf?

Win10 is mostly dealt with by Spybot... for the time being, along with Thunderbird for mail, firefox for web, open office, etc. In essence, do not use any MS programs if you can help it.

How Rogue One's Imperial stormtroopers SAVED Star Wars and restored order

Re: Loved it

Not only was it a much better film than TFA, but (much to my daughter's delight) it had Donnie Yen in it - Yen also choreographed his fights. When I was introducing my daughter to (subtitled) Chinese films, I started with one of his - The Twins Effect.

The Tarkin CGI seemed to give him a more cadaverous face than Cushing had, but in the circumstances that wasn't an issue.

Going underground: The Royal Mail's great London train squeeze

Bob Howard

I take it the closed off sections are for the Laundry archives?

Facebook Fake News won it for Trump? That's a Zombie theory

Re: Post-truth

I was taught critical thinking, but then again I went to a grammar school. Is this why so many politicians hate grammar schools?

WHAT did GOOGLE do SO WRONG to get a slapping from the EU?

Re: Who uses Google Shopping?

I prefer Startpage to DDG, it uses google, but strips identifiable information out first. you can also view most resulting sites through a built-in proxy.

Let's praise Surface, not bury it

Re: Bah!

Had to buy a new win10 laptop, as getting the same spec with Win7 was out of my pricerange. 2 days of editing interface and systematically going through all options, plus the godsend of Spybot Anti-beacon seem to have cured a lot of the ills. Marking your internet connection as metered stopped other problems.

Consoles or tablets as competition to PC

I use the laptop for watching TV while I play on the xbox, or watch TV on the TV while I play or work on the laptop.

The phone gets used for actual calls and some "quickie" games that require little thought but are fun. The console gets used for more action/rpg games, and the laptop for strategy games. As far as I can see, a tablet is a mobile phone you can't make calls on, but can watch TV with. The laptop is the most important, and I could cope without the others - not just on the gaming side, but also neither the console, tablet or phone could handle my work.

New MacBook Pro beckons fanbois to become strip pokers

Re: Very weird to be pressing an immobile price of plastic

You could feel the ZX81 (and ZX80) keys depress. If you really didn't like the feel, you could buy a stick-on keyboard that resembled the spectrums. Don't diss my first computer.

Meet the slimeballs who are openly sabotaging Virgin Media

What's their excuse in the South East?

What's Virgins excuse for their intermittent service in the South East this week?

Unless the snails are migrating using Virgin cabling?

Time to crack down on sales of dragon's gold - securobods

Only taken a few years for the Securobods to catch on - maybe someone lent them an old copy of Halting State or Reamde ?

Smell burning? Samsung’s 'Death Note 7' could still cause a contagion

Re: Disagree with general consensus here...

the problem being when your phone battery goes. I am still happily using an original Samsung Note, with replaced battery. It's not just about battery life, but phone life.

Trying to use the phone with an external powerpack constantly attached - as the original battery could no longer hold more than a 10 minute charge - would have been unworkable. Instead, £3 for a replacement generic battery and the phone lives on.

Apple guilty in iPhone ringtone patent rip-off battle with Sony, Nokia

shouldn't the fine be all the iphone income since 2010?

That's the formula apple went for against Samsung, and that was for the rounded corners bit.

Chap cuffed after treating commuters to giant-screen smut

I thought I saw this story before

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/17/big_screen_entertainment/

I'm sure there was another one from Indonesia about 2-3 years ago, where a contractor used the bill board to watch porn during his lunch break, but cannot find link at the moment.

Then again, Status Quo used to project pron onto buildings next to their hotel, so nothing is ever really new.

Now feeling really old for knowing who the Quo are.

These diabetes pumps obey unencrypted radio commands – which is, frankly, f*%king stupid

Re: Didn't Homeland do this already?

Insulin overdose by hacking occurred in Person of Interest to an abusive husband.

User couldn't open documents or turn on PC, still asked for reference as IT expert

Re: A whiter shade of pale?

justeat's website was down a few days ago, and their apology for the site being down was in white on a white background. A very mealy-mouthed way of apologising for the disruption.

US govt pleads: What's it gonna take to get you people using IPv6?

Pot / Kettle

I take it from their preaching that US government is 100% IPv6?

thought not

Dutch bicycle company pretends to be television company

Re: Don't use Fragile stickers !

You forgot:

Drop it

Hide it

Lose it

That darling of US logistics

Conviction by computer: Ministry of Justice wants defendants to plead guilty online

Re: Automation....

@ John H Woods - Receiving CCVs without notification has always been possible, just legally dubious. Some councils were notorious for their close relations with magistrates, resulting in no prior notice of intention being given to plaintiffs. As someone who illegally received a ccj like this (for not paying a penalty fine for a non-existent underpayment), I agree with those who argue to fix the sytem's failings BEFORE automating, perpetuating those failings.

The developer died 14 years ago, here's a print out of his source code

Re: Portrayal of computer tech guys in films/tv.

I cant remember the title, but in one film they broke into the baddy's home to make a image of his computer, this was supposed to take 6 seconds using a USB stick (only USB2 32MB around at time). The tense moment was due to the copying taking 8 seconds! I always wanted THEIR USB drive.