Posts by David Perry
46 posts • joined Wednesday 26th September 2007 11:57 GMT
Criminal or not?
Leaking who spent what isn't criminal, it just shows them up to be careless, stupid or all sorts of other nasty words. However if the source of the 'leak' had bank account / card transaction details for each entry, that I would have thought counted as proper theft therefore whoever it was should be subject to police investigation (assuming this 'sensitive' financial information was sent to the Telegraph - if it wasn't then just get the mole investigated).
Cost $125,00 now...
But that's less than the total wage bill for these employees for the year I would imagine?
Posted in BBC has newsgasm over Obama's dog
Pitbull called palin?
She has no substance - all bark and no bite. That would be insulting to a pitbull, in the way she tried to insult the nation's intelligence - read today that even the McCain camp had issues with her incompetence. Stop cos I'm an animal lover.
@ Steve
Theory says if you take printing seriously it's probably safer to spend more money on a printer that'll last - e.g. one of those big ass laserjets. I have a 3 year old HP Photosmart at home, doesn't get a lot of use admittedly and has only needed two cartirdges changing in that time, but it gets looked after, moved with care and a wipe down every now and again.
On another note, having just arranged a UPS changeover for a client, I'd have loved the chance to have been able to have the old one given a FREE WEEE-compliant disposal (having said that, I'm assuming it's WEEE compliant process as I don't remember seeing the word in the article).
@ Rise in mobile phone thefts
At least it'll be much easier to track their escape if that happens, in the way people fleeing the country by plain are trapped a) by customs, but also b) by fact airline tickets appear on their credit card bill.
Copter cos if builtin tracking
Posted in Dancing Baby v. Universal: Baby wins!
@ EvilGav
Good point there.
Wonder what would happen if El Reg were to ask his own publicists what they make of this? I'd chuckle if he watched it and laughed or was like "yeahhhh I'm likin this".
@Virgin got it right
My thoughts exactly Stephen. I'm sure there was talk months ago of the BBC working WITH ISPs to setup what amounted to a server (or cluster) strictly loaded with a copy of all the data held on the master iplayer servers - ISP takes each program's raw file once into server over their line, reroutes all iplayer media URLs to their own server.
Surely what they're paying in bandwidth on iplayer content now they'd recoup the initial investment very quickly and save from that point onwards.
Posted in Satnav turtle locates cannabis stash
Wonder if
The cops said COWABUNGAAAAAA when they found it. Use to love the tv series when I was a young un
software disrupting systems
Norton AV may be slow but it's never screwed up on me. Their internet security suite as a whole, mainly the firewall, isn't worth bothering with.
Posted in Google's $1bn AOL stake turns to dust
AOL moves to SaaS provider
"AOL is now offering the chance to deliver your entire desktop to your computer. WIth updates and support provided by your AOL broadband line..."
You mean like that Britt? Perhaps we should go for a joint business dev role there lol
Posted in Apple's secret iPhone app blacklist
Makes me glad...
...I rejected upgrading to an iphone on grounds of I couldn't tether to it via bluetooth (even moreso when I read here on El Reg that an application which would support that function was killed off, once let alone twice!). Sticking to sony ericssons from now on as I was assured by a helpful o2 staffer that the new W and C series phones tether nicely with HDSPA :)
From a freelancer
I look after IT for some small organisations using straightforward setups. The only things in my remit that are outsourced are a news content delivery system (linux box in a rackmount PC case that was supplied with a news service, therefore maintained, by another company) and website/email hosting as whilst I've had an email server program running I couldn't persuade it to talk to an antispam filter. I guess in brief, only outsource stuff that no-one in your organisation can do full stop, or if training would in the long run work out less economical than an external provider doing it.
Having said, that if things go wrong you can blame someone else if you outsource any service :) shame an unnamed website host won't tell me why hyperspin (website monitor) is telling me the server has been up and down like a yoyo the past few days...
Silly girl or alternative uses for criminals
Now there's always the option here that the webcam light came on when they were snooping, but I don't know if every webcam with a power light only turns that light on when the cameras in use (instead of say, always being on whenever the thing is plugged in even if the driver isn't using it). But if it was on and the camera had a light, and the light wasn't on, these people could be used (whilst inside) to write stuff for the security industry to go after real crooks like those committing multi million pound fraud or holding people hostage and using the webcams to broadcast/record ransom videos
How about..
..multiple layers of encryption? or something that auto-expires so you need some kind of physical device (which the makeup of cant be determined) to reset the enc/de-cryption keys of? :)
Flame at paranoid souls (whose x-rays couldnt tell difference between a glass ornament we brought back and a solid clubbing object)
Posted in Lateral thought saves sizzling server
Another corker
Friend of mine's uni had a building that was joined up to main hub building via a line of site microwave link. Same time every day, for same length of time (a couple of hours or something) the link goes down. After several months of trying all sorts of things they did a path analysis on the beam - a tree that had overgrown thanks to the council was being pushed into the beam's path by the dew on its leaves weighing its branches down first thing in the morning then as the day warmed up and dried up the dew the branches and leaves would rise back up again and stop blocking the beam! A stern talking to the council from a uni bigwig later, the tree was pruned heavily.
Flames cos of council stupidity interrupting students dossing *cough* learning sorry online.
If it's gonna be windows...
Why not Windows 98 SE? Runs like a dream on an old celeron 450 with 64mb RAM, so should fly on these things. They only need a basic word processor anyway :)
@ greg
Here here - I do all my ripping in iTunes these days (great for organising stuff for my compilations) at 192, sounds better than a 320 in my book! (I like my bass, and 320 is more about higher range frequencies but still clear enough when encoded properly).
HOWEVER most of the stuff (until recently) on the itms is shite quality - I said that the first time I bought something off it, and only do so when I can't get what I want through other means.
Flames @ apple, even though I'm writing this on my ibook...
Swimming pool on a plane?
Water wouldn't be stable, so all sorts of potential problems:
- weight distribution could change (i.e. rock the plane)
- turbulence could send water everywhere (i.e. if waterproofing around pool area shite then, err, water leaks into other parts of plane god forbid onto electrics!
- they'd need seats for emergency landing there, and if the plane nosedived, you might drown
Some of these might seem slightly paranoid, but I think there may well be good reasons they didn't happen. Shouldn't have been promised in the first place if they were.
Stuck under bridges - thank you satnav
A one-way bridge near my now former home had an asda guy sent under it THE WRONG WAY by satnav - his truck also had the top corner near the chiller unit mashed by said bridge (on top of it is a stretch of dual-carriageway A road). I did have a pic somewhere on my phone, think I might have deleted it tho - will post link if I find it :D
Posted in Dell hits all the wrong keys – again
@ Kenny
Every dell I've worked with has been rock solid! They did all come with the correct keyboard though, or just bought base units off ebay and shoved them in racks rooms or used existing mice/keyboards/screens...
£££ (or $$$ if it's an american)
"Whoever designed this Trojan is making a lot of money, probably thousands of pounds every day,"
So the authorities have extra incentives to track them down, and not only bang them up for a few years but also claim a fortune in fines - i.e. what they've earnt, seeing as it's probably easy to find out how many clients they have :)
@ Re scumbag Windows ME
They'd actually be kind enough to let them near a PC they can use there? Doubt it somehow, the guilty ones would go telling their comrades in arms die Bush die!
And wouldn't mr outgoing president hate to have hate about him spread using software written by one of the biggest companies in US history?
Posted in Dell buys into Dell for $100m
Dell / Vostro thumbs up
I've had plenty of dealings with Dell machines. My senior school bought 150 of them in my last few years there. Ran NT4 fine, and Windows 2000 (on netware :S network) even better. I have a P3 500 optiplex at home which is a fantastic fallback machine (and actually ran a mission-critical service at a radio station when their main streamer kept falling over).
Said radio station is pretty much entirely a dell house (mixture of new and ebay-sourced jobbies), all rock solid. We bought some of the Vostro slim towers to run a new phone system (needs 3 machines) with XP instead of Vista and had them setup in a couple of hours (including networking tweaks, services optimisations et al). Not too much crapware either.
Home machine is an ebay D2400 - very happy, although fitting my DVD burner into it was a pain.
Alternative provider
I'm moving to a non-cable area, and was actively considering o2 as my other half has it at her place and it's fantastic service (although zero points for my mac not being able to connect to their wep-secured wifi - doesn't help that gf won't let me change the key cos her pc is happily on there). However cos they haven't enabled as many bt exchanges as the competition I'd have to pay a tenner a month more (even as an o2 mobile customer).
VM has only been glitchy once or twice for me in the years I've been with them, and it tends to be a UK call center when I ring them as well :)
Why can I never think of an icon with a whitty reason for it dammit...
Cop drivers
I was a passenger on a daytime motorway ride recently. Minding our own business on the inside lane around 80, a T5 (police volvo with lots of aerials and computers) didn't have it's flashing lights on (which I thought they HAD to if they're responding to a callout, whether there's heavy traffic or not) and it must have been doing more than 90! My driving instructor taught me that unless you doing more than 80 you'll probably be left alone, though that was 6 years ago.
I know my limits as a driver, and when I owned a car I knew the guy I bought it off (and had driven it a good few times) so had a good idea of it's limits. Most people seem to do 75/80 on the motorway anyway, which if you know how to handle it seems fine. Wreckless driving I ain't got time for though, whoever's doing it.
Posted in Google free to offload '$1bn' AOL stake
or...
Gets you a new data center after you've bullied intel enough (just)?
Blue science cos some serious engineering at play in them datacenters
Croydon
Which part of CR0 (or CRx?) is that? It's my hometown, never seen such a stupid story (as in the way the yob was behaving etc) portrayed in such an amusing manner.
Citrix
Does anyone in government IT know how to work it? If they don't, a good old Server 2003 box running terminal services could be setup by an idiot in 5mins and maintained (and secured in a few more) :)
Posted in T-Mobile doubles 0870 call costs
T-mobile customer here
Just read this piece, am shocked! Not had a dicky of word from them about it, and my latest bill arrived a few days ago. I worked out this morning that the £45/mth iPhone tariff on o2 will work out as better value for me (in terms of minutes, texts and fact you get unlimited data/wifi), and I get the (8gb) Jesus phone for free :) My t-mobile contract is up for renewal by end of July so looks like I won't be renewing now.
Posted in Dog collared with Cat-5 cable
Health & Safety alert
If the knot wasn't properly secured, wouldn't you risk strangling poor doggy?
Don't even think about it if you have an alsation - used to live with one, it broke a sturdy leather lead pulling like hell one day and went for another dog...fortunately not to eat it but to be friendly lol.
@Google addons
Do you really want all your info with google? OK I use gmail cos it's feature-set is fantastic, but I use foxmarks to keep my bookmarks synchronised, hosting the bookmarks archive on my own webspace :)
Security Debate
Sounds like the code monkies responsible should show up to the Reg event that has ll these yellow banners littered around the page. I thought it was a comical irony at first then realised it's in the Security section *slaps self*. UK.gov could do with a few reps there too for that matter :)
Paris cos she's just as stupid
PayPal
You'd hope they still make sure you keep the info for cards assigned to your account in a secure manner though.
Croydon
She gives croydon a bad name! Which it doesn't deserve - like most places it has good parts and bad. Streatham (part she's from) is ok depending on which part you go to - letting the side down, nice move drama queen >:(
Flame cos she deserves to burn in hell
Posted in When flash mobs go bad
Leeds not all bad
A girl I've known for years (and am now semi seeing) lives there. Actually hitting the M62 this weekend to see her :)
Done some work in Bradford, it was alright.
Laser colours
IIRC green lasers are less harmful on the eye - something to do with wavelengths. As a former lightjockey myself, the bar staff were given these smirnoff-branded laser pattern projectors. We contemplated rigging one to the yoke of a MAC250, but couldnt be arsed to rip it apart to point of being able to remotely turn it on/off + fitting motor to it to change the pattern.
Buying in every sense of the word?
If that's a real purchase agreement, the DRM should allow the burning of a movie to DVD or Blu Ray once or twice - after all, we can burn something from iTMS a few times legally (unless you go for pricey option, where possible, and get unrestricted MP3). How many appleTV boxes have actually been sold anyway? Am sure the last time I heard it mentioned, the answer was 'not many'.
Posted in UK government websites out of control
Seeing as a lot of organisations are sceptical about google's motives with our data, let's hope it's not going to be asked to index anything they don't want REALLY well indexed. Some bad news might innocently creep up to the surface :)
Flames, cos, google on sensitive info = playing with fire
Posted in Canadian geeks to turn off the tech
I can do it if....
I don't need to fire up the computer after setting up in the afternoon for the first dance song (DJing Saturday at a wedding, so laptop is needed, and seeing as my boss who took the booking neglected to check for special requests etc I MIGHT have to go online somewhere to obtain said requests). On work grounds, my phone (Tmobile MDA) is also staying on - I'll just have to check my email using that instead :)
Friday night I'm watching a flim on DVD with female company, tho once that goes off we can amuse ourselves for hours on end...
Penguin pic cos isn't linux about working around restrictions and stuff? hehe.
intelligence my backside
Intelligence is getting experts to do this, and to put back together dismantled gear properly obviously - techs aren't known for their customer service, but they should have got an expert with the customs guy to examine it. I'd call that a claim for loss of earnings, especially as GHCQ seemingly approved the disclosure of this!
Having said that, how big are these things? I'd have taken it in hand luggage personally, in the way that if I was DJing abroad my laptop + key CDs would be with me in the cabin and a change of clothes/undies.
Other shield types include...
...a metal MESH - faraday's cage :D
...lead - poisonous if not coated in something nice like leather, but a fantastic up yours to radio signals
Icon cos if someone tried to nick my identity I would happily watch them suffer hell.
Posted in O2 PR calls Reg readers 'techie nerds'
@ Mark
My last serious gf (admittedly 3 years or so ago, but still very good friends with) used to say "my geek get youre own" all the time - she was very protective of me, and I loved her too (until I got bored after 6 months, but in hindsight she was best gf I had). A few friends of mine happily sing my praises when I work 'miracles' [they call them that, I call them usually more tedious than hard things to fix/do].
Heart cos I'm a tech with a heart, and am sure a lot of my fellow techs have one too :)
Erm
It's still April 1st - excuse the scepticism.
Paris cos she'd be too thick to notice this :)
Posted in PC superstore unhinged by Linux
A good thing (yes shock horror) about PC world is...
< good bit >
..that you can get their online pricing and pick up the thing in store! I buy most of my PC parts and spares for me or other people from dabs.com and only ever had one problem (they sent me 3 routers instead of 1, and didn't charge me extra yay). But if I want something in a hurry, like that day, it's good to know an hour after ordering, if it's in stock, I can boogie over and collect it in person.
< /good bit >
< bad bit >
However I won't disagree with the attitude of the staff advising (if you can call it that) customers. When I was helping choose my sisters first laptop 3 years ago, I saw one particular unit that looked like a good choice - I had a query, however, over works suite 2000. Collared the nearest smiling person in purple shirt, and asked him "do you know if works suite 2000 comes with proper word 2000 instead of the pansy on-board works word processing component" - I expected a two part answer, a) did he know the answer or not, and b) if he knew the answer, what it was. All I got was "I work here" and an arrogant grin - tempted to swear at him for his unfounded arrogance - I said "that doesn't impress me - either you go and find the answer or I tell your supervisor you shouldn't have a job here, and I know more than most of you put together". I'd imagine most readers of this fine e-zine know more than most pc world staff - here's the funny thing, I was rejected when I went for a job with them when I was 17! Might apply again for a non-sales role just for a giggle to see if I get any further now I'm 24...
< /bad bit >
