TrueCrypt and power-down the machine before leaving the room (especially to answer the door) or if there are any sounds of someone trying to break in.
Posts by GettinSadda
615 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2007
Apple FileVault cracked in under an hour by forensics biz
This is a test
Demand for safety kitemark on software stepped up
Thursday 2nd February 2012 15:42 GMT
So, what exactly is covered by this? I understand that MS Office would be covered, as would Windows, but what about Firefox? It's not being "sold within the EU".
How about if my company is contracted by a customer to write them a system for managing their inventory - does that count as "software sold within the EU"? How about if the software is not written by a separate company, but by a different department of the same company? What if the programmers that wrote the code are contractors to the "customer" company?
What counts as a "program"? Does every shell script I write count? Even if it is for myself? What about Javascript? PHP? HTML?
How do you get this kite-mark? Do you have to submit your code for approval to some company that will test it and award the kite-mark? If so do I need to sent each update to them to? So if a security problem is discovered in "approved" code do I then need to pay yet again and wait how ever long for the fix to be approved before I can send it to my customers?
And you do you prove that you have a kite-mark? Are you assuming malware writers won't simply lie? Or are all of our programs going to have to be signed? If so, will computers sold in the EU have to reject un-signed code? Such as Linux?
New forum Wishlist
Thursday 2nd February 2012 10:35 GMT
A few additions
I second the no "need to confirm up/down" but it would also help if there was some indication of what you voted for this comment as I have found myself trying to figure out if I already up/down voted a comment already and doing it again just to find out!
And block quotes - yes please.
But of course I am not yet even in the upgraded club yet (sniff)
P.S. And some way to not have to log back in so often - maybe an option somewhere to select "keep me logged in for N days"
Five ways Microsoft can rescue Windows Phone
Airbrushed Rachel Weisz gets watchdog hot under the collar
Wednesday 1st February 2012 12:59 GMT 
That'll show 'em
So, huge profits made by duping consumers, but at least they will be so very inconvenienced by not being able to re-run the now finished ad campaign.
Of course I don't doubt that when they replace it with other misleading ads which also bring in loads of extra money (from consumers that can't understand why they don't get the same results) they will also be told to stop publishing those (long after they have stopped publishing them anyway)
Way to go ASA!
Sky Anytime+ to pipe BBC iPlayer
TVCatchup
Panasonic pitches portable Skype screen
Tuesday 10th January 2012 15:02 GMT 
Better yet...
Give it a charger/stand, make it touch screen (I assume it will be already) and when not doing Skype it can be a clock / family calendar device, photo album etc. Want to make a call? Just pick it up and it will automatically pop up a menu of actions (when it is removed from the charger) including an option to voice or video call. Incoming call? Just pick it up to answer, or press the on-screen button to answer with it still in the charger.
Samsung joins Ultrabook race
Tuesday 10th January 2012 11:39 GMT
I didn't specifically mean laptop, and the aspect ratio is not the issue - what I meant was this was the sort of resolution that people thought was adequate back in 1996. Now we use screens with considerably higher resolutions on our desktop machines, yet manufacturers think we can live with such poor screens on laptops. 4 or 5 years ago this would have been a low resolution, but now it is what we are getting on "top-end" machines!
Phone maker punts AA-powered blower
Tuesday 10th January 2012 10:11 GMT
Not as short as you might think!
Typical Nokia battery is 3.7V at 700-800mAh
Energizer Ultimate AA is 1.5V at ~3000mAh
According to the spec sheet a single AA cell can give a constant 1A for over 3 hours before it drops to 1.2V. From the Power Performance graph it looks like a constant draw of 2W will run the battery down to 1V in 2 hours. I would hope that this is plenty of time for an emergency call.
Netflix goes live in Blighty
Monday 9th January 2012 17:21 GMT
What were you watching!!!???
You really must have been wasting your money with Sky as according to the Netflix website their TV line-up is basically a few kids programs such as iCarly and Power Rangers, old programs from free channels such as The Forsyte Saga and Poirot, and such delights as Pimp my Ride UK and Dirty Sanchez.
Monday 9th January 2012 10:50 GMT
Wow - What a waste!
I just went to the netflix site and had a look though their available films.
I think the best way to describe the few options there is that they would be what you might expect to find left over at the bottom of the "bargain bin" at a garage, once all the good stuff had gone.
Why on Earth did they go to all the effort of setting up a website, and presumably some small amount of streaming capability, just to fill it with that crap?!
How's Cameron's favourite Shoreditch startup doing? Oh.
Monday 9th January 2012 13:59 GMT 
Hang on...
Total loss since founding ~ £29m
Recently sold for £280m
Profit for founders ~ £251m
That is quite a success!
I actually know someone that runs quite a large online business that loses money like it's going out of fashion, but this is fine by him because he is banking on a big company buying the business for more than the losses at some point! He will probably manage it too!
Kodak heading to Chapter 11
Friday 6th January 2012 09:26 GMT
I can't help thinking that ten years or so back (once the writing on the wall had become too big to ignore) they should have split the business into two separate companies owned by a holding company. Then you get Kodak Film Products and Kodak Digital Products owned by "Kodak". Over time you grow KDP and allow KFP to shrink. If KFP fails, you let it go bust and live on with the remaining KDP owned by "Kodak".
Is this a naïve way of looking at it? If it was possible, surely we would currently be seeing headlines such as "Kodak's ageing film division collapses as Kodak Group goes from strength-to-strength".
WD slashes warranty periods on Blue and Green drives
Thursday 15th December 2011 10:34 GMT
NEWS FLASH
WD ADMIT THAT THEY HAVE RELIABILITY PROBLEMS THAT THEY CANNOT FIX!
At least that's what I read in the article - it is the message I will be taking away with me and using in any future purchasing decisions. The only logical reason for reducing the warranty period is that you have too many failures within the existing period.
BT fibre rollout reaches Scotland, Wales
Car safety agency sparks e-car battery probe
Monday 28th November 2011 15:15 GMT
Any news of similar tests for road cars *with full fuel tanks*? I was under the impression that crash tests are normally done with empty fuel tanks because they tend to catch fire if the tank is full. In fact the Euro-NCAP test specifications refer to "ballast in the fuel tank".
Maybe EV tests now need to be done with "ballast in place of the batteries" or internal combustion cars should be tested with real fuel!
Graphene circuits from an inkjet printer
Amazon's Android-friendly Kindle Fire splutters
Tuesday 22nd November 2011 12:58 GMT
Wrong target audience!
This review is basically like a motoring review that says "This Ford Fiesta is far smaller than my Mercedes SLK and slower than my Ferrari. And look - there is only room for two full sets of golf clubs in the boot!".
It is not true to say "If someone wants an iPad, it appears they're still likely to buy one." because this review is written by someone that is not in a position to understand the concept of wanting something, but being unable to afford it. There are millions of us that would love an iPad, but can't justify spending our money on it. We may just stretch to a Kindle Fire though!
Mysterious sat-pic China desert markings - EXPLAINED
Friday 18th November 2011 17:11 GMT 
Or...
Seeing as how there are also a number of interesting painted "airport shapes" nearby, and some large squares that appear to be covered in craters, could this be to do with developing a system that can target bombs or shells based on visual cues rather than GPS? The crazy-paving patterns could be the start of getting a system to be able to track location based on city streets.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=40.491071,93.468995&spn=0.001611,0.003484&t=h&z=19&vpsrc=6
Go back to the future with Red Dwarf
Three touts dongle-sharing DIY hotspot box
Assange brings down British justice system
Official: Kindles get heavier as you add e-books
Wednesday 2nd November 2011 14:26 GMT
WTF?
A Kindle with no books loaded contains an equal number of electrons as it does protons (excluding any static charge), and a kindle stuffed with books contains the same balance. Is this boffin seriously suggesting that new atoms are added to the flash memory by writing data? Or that the existing atoms gain protons (and so change to become different elements)? Surely the electrons simply move from one part of the flash cell memory to another when a value is written.
Tesla pre-sells all 2012 Model S output
Monday 31st October 2011 10:12 GMT
"I can only add that our (UK) house which is moderately large and uses electric cooking averages a consumption over the year of 4 amps - any significant numbers of electric cars are going to swamp the grid with demand"
From a report on EVs by the Royal Academy of Engineering:
"With or without EVs, the HV grid will need radical changes to cope with the
planned increase in renewable generation and the different geographic location
of supplies and loads. In addition, there may need to be some reinforcement
specifically to cope with EVs, particularly under Scenario 3, but as they will be
spread evenly across populated areas, the widespread use of EVs is unlikely to
require major changes."
Monday 31st October 2011 09:57 GMT
A few points...
"...if your house (most UK houses have this) has a 50A main breaker."
This is news to me (as a qualified electrician). The most common rating for the "service fuse" is 100A, though some smaller properties such as flats do have 60A.
"The Coronation Street adverse effect is I presume known..."
Indeed - the electricity distributors are quite interested in the bonus they will get with electric cars. When smart metering is rolled out, there is likely to be a provision added to temporarily turn off the charging for your electric car. What this is used for is when there is a demand surge (or a drop in supply such as a station shutting down without warning or a dip in renewables) a number of car chargers will be turned off for a few minutes while fast-reacting generators are started up. At the moment companies sign special contracts to allow some of their systems to be turned off for up to 20 minutes for this purpose. There is also serious talk about building systems where you can sell back some of the power in your car when the grid needs extra (you could have a switch that allows this to drain you down to 80% or something).
"Note just under 19 cars require a MW of power - one 1MW capacity wind turbine in the UK provides on average 24% of capacity. - so 19 cars need provision of FOUR medium sized Wind Turbines"
This would be true... if those 19 cars are being charged 24/7. Chances are that you could charge significantly more than 19 cars with the output of one 1MW wind turbine. And as stated above, the electric cars are perfect for smoothing the uneven generation wind turbines can give.
Nipples and teen lesbians sexy even when ironic, ASA rules
Leo DiCaprio slated to play Turing in biopic
iPhone 5: Apple 4S, pundits 0
Wednesday 5th October 2011 16:45 GMT
"But we're not going to beat up on Apple..."
"But we're not going to beat up on Apple..."
Some current El-Reg articles:
* Ten... Androids to outshine the iPhone 4S
* What's not in the iPhone 4S ... and why
* Samsung seeks bans on the iPhone 4S
* Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5
* Apple stuffs Intel desktop CPU into iPhone 4S ad
Gov to spread mobile masts to remote corners of Blighty
Tuesday 4th October 2011 11:00 GMT
OK, I get really upset with this whole "covering n% of the population" because what it really means is "covering the home addresses of n% of the population" and although that is fine for fixed-line systems, the whole point of mobiles is to be able to use them _away from home_.
You may be hoping to be able to "...stay connected to Twitter from the mountains of the Highlands through the Lakes and down to the coastline of Cornwall..." but those are the sort of places that get excluded as only a very few people live there.
Crystal Acoustics MediaMatchBox
Reebok used 'very fit woman' in buttock-related deception
Amazon revamps E Ink Kindle line
Rogue toilet takes out Norfolk server
Friday 23rd September 2011 12:56 GMT
A company that I worked for years back did computer maintenance and we were called out to a computer that had died suddenly - only to find that it had been cavity wall insulated! The site was being insulated with the expanding foam insulation that is pumped in through holes drilled at intervals. Unfortunately it turns out that there was a hole in the wall behind the computer and the foam had spilled out and filled the case!
Faster-than-light back with surprising CERN discovery
Friday 23rd September 2011 09:17 GMT
Programming
The first computer course I did (long after I had taught myself how to program) was mainly full of stuff that I already knew, and so tended to be boring. However, it did introduce me to a couple of rules that I still hold as fundamental:
Rule 1: No non-trivial computer program either a) works perfectly first time, or b) is entirely free of bugs
Rule 2: Any programming issue can be boiled down to one of two things: a) Garbage-in:Garbage-out, or b) Speed
Acer Iconia A100 7in Android tablet
Blighty's slow-crawling broadband streets revealed
Wednesday 21st September 2011 10:15 GMT
Plaistow does have broadband, just not ADSL.
You should be able to get 'wireless' broadband from Kijoma (I assume it is WiMax)
Not ideal being tied to a single supplier - but then much of the country only has BT* broadband so the situation is not much better!
* Even if it is re-sold by someone else, it is limited to BT Wholesale
Hitachi GST flashes HP 3PAR OEM deal
Apple plan to rate shops etc by number of iPhones visiting
Ultrabook makers turn to fibreglass to cut costs
Electric cars: too pricey until 2030 (or later)
Wednesday 7th September 2011 12:08 GMT
@John Smith 19
"Note that this reports seem to have been sponsored by a group which *wants* EVs & hybrids to succeed"
Yes, the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership is made up of organisations such as the following EV enthusiasts:
* Air Fuel Developments Limited (A company that make synthetic petrol)
* Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (a body whose main aim is the "introduction of binding biogas production targets")
* BP Biofuels Ltd
* British Sugar plc (operators of the first bioethanol production facility in the UK)
* Energenics Europe Ltd (producers of "a fuel borne combustion nanocatalyst for diesel fuel")
* Gas Fuelling Technology Limited (specialist in Compressed Natural Gas for cars)
* Jaguar Land Rover
* Mechadyne International Limited (Develop methods for making ICEs more efficient)
* National Non-Food Crop Centre (biofuels)
* Neste Oil
* Organic Power Ltd (biomethane)
* Shell International Petroleum Company
* UK Petroleum Industry Association
* UKLPG (the Trade Association for the LPG industry in the UK)
* Vireol Bio-Industries plc (Bioethanol)
* Zeta Automotive Ltd (Develop methods for making ICEs more efficient)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
