Posts by janimal

'Windows 9' LEAK: Microsoft's playing catchup with Linux

Re: AC

But imagine the disk thrashing and CPU burning that would happen if you tried that with Windows and VS. I tried the 3rd party virtual desktop hacks on Windows, but Windows just can't handle having more than one "work session" at a time - that's a fact I've painfully learned over the years.

This is also one of several uses I have for multiple desktops. IF you want it on windows you should look up dexpot - it does an excellent job of multiple desktops & several other things too, You can even make it do the cube (I don't bother). I have had no performance issues with it.

@JDX again

However I would've thought these days, more and more people would be using VMs to meet the same goal rather than running hundreds of applications on one PC?

What do you suggest one or two cores per desktop perhaps?

I do use VM's, but not to achieve the same functionality as virtual desktops - the overhead for each VM is much more than running an application on the host machine, but on a virtual desktop.

@jdx

It's not really that useful a feature for most people.

I have been using Dexpot for my virtual desktops on win XP & win7 for years.

It is both excellent and really very very useful.

When I'm working I tend to have a lot of code & browser windows open, but if I want a five minute news break etc... I switch to another uncluttered desktop view to browse the web etc.. check e-mail.

My machine is hooked up to two monitors and the lounge TV via HDMI, I can set dexpot to not switch desktops on one or more monitors, so I have it set to not switch the TV screen. So when we are watching a movie etc.. I can still flip between desktops on the other monitors without affecting what's on TV.

It's also useful if you want to look at something saucy, but might want to switch to a non-naughty desktop at the drop of a hat - like a more useful boss key.

virtual desktops rock.

Heavy VPN users are probably pirates, says BBC

Oh The Irony!

When I try to access iPlayer this evening, it tells me I am outside the UK and won't work. I checked using some online tools & my IP is correctly identified as being in the UK.

I tried different browsers & clearing cache & history.

In the end the only way I could access it was ironically through a VPN service.

Nice one Aunty!

Re: I don't normally try...

You're right, that is not a very good comparison.

Abuse of copyright is trivial and not even proven to be economically damaging to the victim, whereas misuse of guns & ammo tends to result in much more serious consequences, often to innocent bystanders.

Bollocks

I think that 'are probably pirates' is a bit strong but I would agree that it should be unusual for a residential user to have large amounts of traffic travelling over a VPN. Home workers don't normally send a lot of data back and forth. Controlling a remote computer using RDP for instance is unlikely to amount to more than 1GB of data a day. Even VNC wont't be that much worse. Someone downloading/uploading documents is unlikely to be using much bandwidth either.

I frequently home-worked as a software developer. On some projects I have had to download a 16gb build every night (over VPN) so that I am coding to the latest build. Even on smaller projects 1.5gb is not unusual.

Just because you can't imagine a legal high bandwidth VPN scenario doesn't mean they don't exist.

My very well off Brother has his router configured to connect to a commercial VPN service permanently so all traffic from his house & devices goes through it.

Nothing to do with piracy, just simply enhancing his anonymity.

If I want to look up a bit of perfectly legal fruity stuff on the web, I often use a VPN, once again just to enhance my anonymity.

The reality is that the internet these days is more of a profiling & tracking tool for government & corporations.

The use of a VPN makes you harder to profile & helps protect you from random trawling (of course cookie control, browser cleaning, no-script & ad-block are required too). Of course it won't help if you are explicitly targeted by some entity though.

I also dedicate 5mbps of my connection to a TOR relay, does that make me a criminal too?

Twitter: La la la, we haven't heard of NUDE JLaw, Upton SELFIES

@David Webb

Remind her that she is beautiful and that you love her. It's not hard. Or is that the problem?

@Richard 12

er..why not? What is wrong with pictures of naked humans?

It might be worth asking yourself why any culture finds our default state or primary purpose of existence to be in any way scandalous?

The hacking element is obviously criminal, and for most of us, just validates our scepticism of "the cloud" as a cure-all to data management.

Re: Polaroids FTW

I think we should separate the content of the pictures from the hacking.

We all have genitalia, and anyone who expected celebrity versions to be gold plated or replaced by a set of vestigial limbs is going to be disappointed. It turns out that Kate Upton's frippy is pretty similar to an ex-girlfriend of mine - ooh what a surprise!

The nature of the pictures is not what is important in this story.

Most readers of this site are experienced in (& cynical enough) of technology to not trust our most embarrassing peccadilloes to a random 3rd party repository.

Sadly rather than uplifting the general population's understanding of computing, we have dumbed down computers & devices. 20thC sci-fi novel vs. economic reality. :(

The problem with this story is that the media is going to shoot their load over the content of the pictures and everyone will ooh and aah along with the Daily Fail, before going home to ooh & aah just as scandalously with their chosen.

No doubt some idiot will suggest they shouldn't take nude pictures of themselves. Why the hell shouldn't they?

My question would be why shouldn't people be able to take pictures of themselves naked? I think that is the default state for a human and nothing anyone should be shocked, offended or ashamed of.

Best shot: Coffee - how do you brew?

Re: Easy to make

Instant coffee tastes nothing like real coffee, except maybe kopi Luwack, which tastes like Dowe & Egberts instant coffee, just much, much, much more expensive!

Freshly ground, strong roast, Arabica for me every time thanks.

I do love my aeropress. For the price, ease of use and also portability (great for decent coffee when camping) it is pretty awesome. As you say, shame about the crema though :/

Claim: Microsoft Alt-F4'd Chilean government open-source install bid

@Rodrigo

Thanks for the link to that article. Dr. Edgard Villanueva's letter is awesome!

I especially like this...

". If the transnational software companies decide not to compete under these new rules of the game, it is likely that they will undergo some decrease in takings in terms of payment for licences; however, considering that these firms continue to allege that much of the software used by the State has been illegally copied, one can see that the impact will not be very serious."

Re: "like any business, it is entitled to lobby in a democracy"

"On the other hand, the politician lost support. Microsoft is being blamed, and it is a lot of fun to point fingers at any big corporation, but we're being told that Microsoft didn't do anything bad, it just lobbied."

I think you are supposed to read between the lines here.

The reality is lobbying isn't democratic at all. It isn't an activity of equal opportunity. I have zero opportunity to lobby my government. All I can do is write to my MP about any issues I feel strongly about. On the two occasions I have tried this, both times I received a response to a letter I didn't write. On both occasions I replied pointing out this error. the explanation was that for any hot topic they get inundated by 'form' letters from grass roots campaigns and in turn create a 'form' response to those form letters.

So for the average Joe, the interaction between constituent and "democratic representative" is pretty much an automated ignore everything system.

Even if they were to listen, for an MP to reflect the wishes of their constituents would often mean defying the *whip and thus be punished by their own party.

Who tells the whips what to say? Ultimately the lobbyists after all those meetings on luxury yachts in the med & promises of future lucrative board positions etc...

We all know it's true, but no-one is willing or able to change it.

* This is a British party politics mechanism which basically removes any true representation from our so called democracy. I don't know if other "democratic" systems have a guy going round saying "you have to vote with the party line regardless of your opinion or that of the people you represent on this or we'll be slamming your bollocks between the door & door frame until the next election"?

RealVNC distances itself from factories, power plants, PCs hooked up to password-less VNC

It is the same for

every single tool ever invented, as well as food and plants and pretty much any object you can think of.

Humanity might have done some amazing things, but in general humans are pretty rubbish! :)

London cops cuff 20-year-old man for unblocking blocked websites

“Internet users have sought ways to continue to access the sites by getting round the blocking put in place by the ISPs. One of the ways to do this is to use proxy servers. This operation is a major step in tackling those providing such services."

I'm pretty sure copyright infringement is the number 1 crime on Joe public's mind.

We'll all sleep safe in our beds tonight!

PS. I didn't think operating a proxy server or just visiting a blocked site was a crime? When did they sneak that in?

Microsoft KILLS Windows 8.1 Update 2 and Patch Tuesday

How long until a functional update

...bricks millions of machines?

I betting within 6 months.

Brits stung for up to £625 when they try to cancel broadband

Re: Please

Indeed! Especially the outrageous and surely criminal £625 one!

NEW, SINISTER web tracking tech fingerprints your computer by making it draw

and then all they'll see is some generic porn and lots of cat videos :/

I now do most of my browsing in a VM, running Linux, using FF & no-script and accessing the net via VPN with a frequently changed, usually foreign, exit point.

"you ain't seen me right..."

Microsoft: You NEED bad passwords and should re-use them a lot

I gave this exact same advice out to a friend 3 weeks ago.

It works well as long as the user understands what needs to be protected & what is fluff.

'Apple is terrified of women’s bodies and women’s pleasure' – fresh tech sex storm

Re: I'll bite .....

It doesn't actually matter whether you 'get it' or not.

You live on a planet with 7 billion people with their own tastes and proclivities. Do you need to know the reasoning behind all their actions in order to function?

100% driverless Wonka-wagon toy cars? Oh Google, you're having a laugh

@diodesign

Who pays currently if a BMW has an accident? Not BMW. Your legally required insurers would fight it out like they do today.

Re: A managable speed

Except on a motorcycle, when avg speed is a lot higher. Also have they trained these cars in the ways of being overtaken by dispatch riders?

DreamWorks CEO: Movie downloaders should pay by screen size

Ha ha

Hollywood's output is so bad, I thought it was some kind of deliberate strategy to reduce piracy. I can't even be bothered to download it & watch it for free.

BBC hacks – tweet the crap out of the news, cries tech-dazzled Trust

Not challenging

The bbc has been regurgitating government statements and corporate PR releases both on TV and online, without challenge for years.

Unless they actually investigate and challenge these releases there is no point in the news. They should be challenging these organisations on this stuff.

They might also want to follow up on some of the corporate releases. For example BBC news stories (especially online) concerning Microsoft are simply PR statements straight from MS. They never challenge MS' assertions that the latest OS is the bees knees regardless of feedback from users or sales.

Because of this the bcc is a sort of government & corporate billboard. You only really get the news if you can read between the lines or follow up the story at some proper journalistic outlet.

Radio 4 at least attempts to dig behind some of the news stories & challenge some of the statements, however they need a few more presenters. Listening to John Humphries trying to challenge some tech story is painful indeed.

Windows 8.1 Update: Throws desktop drones a bone but still as TOUCHY as ever

Re: Bet they will never fix the UI borkage caused by the new flat look

well said +100 points for you.

They need to spend their time making the UI as configurable as possible, you should be able to change all these things from defaults to something useable.

Re: 'and if you need sideloading keys, you can purchase an unlimited number for around $100.'

Indeed I didn't read the EULA, because I haven't bought win 8(8.1, 8.1.1) and won't be doing so. Even if they stopped trying to force everyone into their ecosystem and fixed metro, and bring back a start menu etc... etc...

Just the aesthetics of the desktop alone are hideous. I don't want to be staring at that 18 hours a day.

Re: @janimal Windows 8 was built for one reason only

I personally use mint on my laptop, the only thing that annoys me about that though is the upgrade process (at least the last time I updated).

The funny thing about that is that it is an HP Elitebook i5 supposedly designed for W7, but with W7 on it and the correct drivers it doesn't recognise the hardware buttons or even the software fn buttons.

I put Mint on it & everything works like a charm, bloody quick too.

Re: Windows 8 was built for one reason only

I assume you can install ubuntu & replace unity with something that isn't crap though? Or have they stopped all that sensible nonsense?

Re: 'and if you need sideloading keys, you can purchase an unlimited number for around $100.'

The problem is the concept of

"Please sir, would you possibly allow me to run my own code that I have written on my operating system that I bought, which is running on my hardware that I bought, please? please? pretty please?"

Time to change the metaphor

The good thing about desks is that you can put whatever you want on it.

The metro interface is like having a desk (say from ikea) but you can only place other items (cups, pencils, post-it notes, fluff etc...) approved by ikea on it.

Re: Windows 8 was built for one reason only

I agree completely.

They are trying to transition the Operating System into a Consumption System.

A consumption system is great for tablets & phones, but a general purpose computing device needs a customisable, configurable, general purpose operating system.

AMD unveils Godzilla's graphics card – 'the world's fastest, period'

I'd like one, but I'd also like a 458 Italia. The chances of getting either in the near future are equally likely.

Organic food: Pricey, not particularly healthy, won't save you from cancer

Re: The first dose of pesticide in the morning

Well since they are built in warehouses, daylight is a bit of a problem. You could make the entire thing of glass but then temperature control becomes an expensive requirement.

Many plants don't make use of the full light spectrum but particular wavelengths. LED's can be computer controlled to provide the most efficient complete light cycle for the plants in question.

In the early days of these vertical farms, light was a real problem. In a vast warehouse it was found that even with glass walls or ceilings not enough light was provided to the whole crop & artificial light was still required. Before implementing this with LEDs, that lighting was very expensive greatly reducing the economic & environmental advantages provided by the method.

Clear enough for you?

Re: it's not just about cancer.

You need to read the post above yours.

Re: The first dose of pesticide in the morning

There is a new form of high tech farming starting to emerge that looks better on

*water use

*output

*pesticides

These are hydroponic vertical farms.

They use low power coloured LED lighting,

High water efficiency - also recycled

Are in a closed environment so pests are far less of a problem & if any pesticide use is required it is targeted and much easier to prevent contamination of the environment.

They have a much, much higher output per sq m

Worth looking up.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hydroponic+vertical+farms&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=lcA-U6-cK7Oy0AWPuYDYAw

How Microsoft can keep Win XP alive – and WHY: A real-world example

Re: I read as far as the $500k a year development job...

Indeed as a Soft Eng myself I couldn't help wondering what I've been doing wrong all this time. Trevor's manpower and cost estimates are way, way out there.

Although I have been out of the industry for a little while, my estimate would be more like 10-20 developers @ 80 - 120k ($). In reality they wouldn't even need to be exclusively developing for XP support either.

MS costs for continued security updates for XP would barely be noticeable in their accounts. Just a couple of weeks salary for one of the top execs. :/

"Equipment lasting 20 years might have been fine last century, but as technology progresses, so does the rate at which we churn out new/better tech. 10 years is plenty of time today..."

You can't just generalise 10 years as an adequate lifetime for a capital expense. That's ridiculous. It is all tied in with margins & volumes and opex.

In addition change for what often amounts to little or no improvement is inefficient.

"and in the next 50 years or so, you're going to need to upgrade every year."

Well I hope you're earning very big money from your business degree, because in your world view life is going to get a lot more expensive in the future

No Notch niche: Minecraft man in rift with Oculus after Facebook gobble

yes but head tracking doesn't give you a stereoscopic view to go with it.

Thanks Notch

I would have loved minecraft for the rift, but not at the expense of having to join the facebook hegemony.

Games are one of those tech enabling areas (like porn) where the participants are prepared to pay for new technology. Gamers will spend money on one, my missus won't just to play candy crush or farmville 3d.

I've been watching the VR revolution that never occurred from the '80s onwards. I remember playing this VR tank battle game on a VR stand at the Trocadero in Leicester square. You needed the neck muscles of David Coulthard to wear the headset which contained a pair of exceedingly low res screens seemingly driven by valves and internal combustion engines.

I can wait a bit longer for one that doesn't require me to sell my soul to facefeck.

oh also, where's my flying car? :(

yup with you there - very interested in VR, not at all interested in VR from facebook.

Plusnet goes titsup for spectacular hour-long wobble

Re: Not sure if I'd notice

@sir Wiggum:

Oh come on!

That sort of speed has to be down to your geographic location & the method of transmission. They provide me 76mbps / 16mbps is that because they like me better? No it is because we're on FTTC. However ADSL on our street can't get above 4mbps. Is that the providers fault? Nope just the length of copper between us & the exchange.

Hardly plusnet's fault you only get 1.5mbps

Re: DNS

I use opendns too, but did suffer an outage for about 20 minutes this morning. Although my torrent client was still connecting to peers OK, couldn't make any http connections. So it felt like DNS, but I triple checked that the router hadn't decided to use plusnet's on it's own cognizance

I did have issues this morning, it seemed more like a DNS issue - except that I don't use their DNS servers. I couldn't connect to any websites or my vpn provider, however my torrent client was still happily transferring data.

Since it happened immediately after I had to repair a win XP VM which could no longer update having had BITS borked by a previous update, I thought the machines had turned against me.

All back to normal now.

Another climate change myth debunked by proper climate scientists

Re: Study A, then comment on B?

Fluffy Bunny:The only thing that is definitely wrong is action without evidence.

I have to disagree there. Many of the strategies required to mitigate against possible A.G.W are beneficial in their own right reducing pollution and increasing efficiency, finding alternative energy sources to oil & gas.

We don't just use oil for fuel. We are completely surrounded by its direct and indirect by-products. When you distil the activities of the human race you realise all we are actually doing is digging shit out of the ground, using it to make junk, which for some reason generates paper, and then we bury the junk again usually in a form where it won't be useful again except on geological time scales.

I'm sure you've heard of built-in obsolescence. These days it is built-in to everything. Often if we buy a tool, let's say a first world problem - a garlic crusher. Made in China from materials potentially shipped from further afield. Chucked on a boat half way round the world, trucked across Europe to my local supermarket and bought by the missus.

That garlic crusher then managed to only half crush a single clove, from which it was impossible to scrape the results because the cage is 3mm shy of the outer housing. All that digging, all that fuel to do the job a single time so badly that it immediately gets discarded with a mutter. Probably to be buried rather than recycled because the quality of the materials are so low. Multiply that by millions of garlic crushers and then add all the other 'hardware' sold in supermarkets, everything in all pound-shops, pretty much all Christmas decorations and everything technological bought by an elderly relative on the cheap. etc... etc... ad infinatum.

Even the pieces of paper they make from this activity is no longer backed up by anything of real value.

Most of what we do is utterly wasteful. Multiply that by 7 billion people & the eventual outcome is inevitable; resource scarcity,starvation, civil disorder, war etc... these are the real potential killers of global warming.

Yes it has been warmer in the past, but then we didn't have 7 billion people relying on a society built almost entirely on consumption.

Do you think that there aren't people in power who can see this coming? There are parliaments and board rooms all over the world full of people feathering their nests and preparing their bunkers, whilst doing all they can to muddy the waters so the proles don't see it coming.

Rant End. phew!

Flames because we're all doomed I tell ya!

PSST! New PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled are out there – and will be into 2015, at least

Online Cultrure

This rapid cadence thing seems like a good money making scam.

Ultimately customers just need an operating system that allows them to get on & do what they actually want to do on the computer. However now that much of what everyone does on a computer is online based, people simply can't risk running an OS that isn't getting security support (which may or may not be different from these deadline that are being discussed in the article - it's not clear to me).

This makes it pretty much essential to upgrade unless the machine is not connected to the net, regardless of if it is perfectly capable of performing the functions required.

Are there any consumer rights that are violated by being basically forced to upgrade?

Will we see ever shrinking support periods for future MS OS?

As I'm an older gentleman & time flies as your wrinkle, it already feels like the versions are flying past faster than I can keep up. I only moved to Win 7 six months ago and even that turned out to be a mixed bag. While it is faster & deals with multi-screens better, several of my workflows are longer & fiddlier and generally more annoying than they were under XP and I don't need to buy Win 8 to know that that would be even worse - and ugly with it.

It seems to me they haven't come close to finishing developing W8 yet.

The UNTOLD SUCCESS of Microsoft: Yes, it's Windows 7

Good or Bad makes no difference

There is no good or bad, only different. The only reason for an operating system is as a basis to run other software on their hardware.

With that in mind I think what every single OS consumer wants is a an OS that they can configure to their needs - or possibly to several different needs.

I'm someone who is literally glued to my computer every second of the day. I use it for work, communication, hobbies and media consumption. I use 1, 2, or 3 screens depending on what I am doing.

MS did everything they could to force users to use the OS in the way that they want you to & that one vision simply doesn't go anywhere near to covering every use case. They also violated many HCI best practices, and these weren't just made up. They have arisen through 30 years of user testing on all sorts of different interfaces.

If you are going to let the marketing & finance departments design an OS this is what you get.

Finally although I know that I can configure a win 8 (.1) machine to never show the shit tile interface, I really hate the flat, aesthetic of the desktop. I don't want to have to stare at something that ugly 18 hours a day thanks.

They should forget about trying to brand everything as Windows and make 1 decent OS that is highly configurable - suitable for desktops. Then if they want to force media consumers into a walled garden device paradigm - build some walled garden devices, unrelated to windows.

It wouldn't hurt if they created decent specs for their file formats for their various software and published these so that their own and other 3rd party developers' software can read and exchange data of course.

Who is the dark & baleful entity somewhere deep in their cellars who still after all these years are trying to lock users into an exclusively MS eco-system? CEO's come and go but their policy remains the same. Our way or the highway.

I'll take the highway thanks.

SCRAP the TELLY TAX? Ancient BBC Time Lords mull Beeb's future

Re: Just a News Operation

well except for the fact that 90% of their news output is fecking terrible. Most of them have been converted to sofa chat shows and most of the rest just regurgitate PR statements rather than analyse, challenge or criticise. Only newsnight & question time, that I have noticed lately seem to challenge their guests.

They still do some good drama, but I wish they would ditch the production crew who came up with Merlin & Atlantis - they should be lined up against a wall and shot.

While you're at it grab the bastard who decided every show needs to give you a preview of what is about to happen, and then every five minutes remind you of what just happened and then at the end show you what will happen next week. Whoever you are please, please stop!

Honestly I'd rather have adverts than that crap, although filling those useless segments with actual content would be better.

Just my worthless, subjective opinion of course.

You’re NOT fired: The story of Amstrad’s amazing CPC 464

Re: Loved this machine

OMG, I forgot about that! I remember being so chuffed with myself when I did that.