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* Posts by Ian McNee

159 posts • joined Friday 2nd March 2007 00:17 GMT

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Ian McNee

Linux should be for everyone, not just us geeks   

In Nerd alert: first Lucid Lynx Ubuntu beta fun

Linux

Nigel: there's always the Ubuntu Alternate distro if you want to remove the "commercial" parts that you don't like or you're free (in every sense) to use Debian if you want to be pure of heart.

Don't diss the mainstream Ubuntu distros for doing just that: going mainstream to popularise a quality Open Source OS among non-geekdom. If this happens then maybe one day us geeks can give up our Virtual Box Windows VMs as Linux gets much broader support from software and hardware vendors.

Ian McNee

WTF?   

In Note to Captain Kirk: Warp speed will kill you

Alert

Including those Sta-Prest nylon outfits?? Surely not! :-o

Ian McNee

And presumably...   

In Note to Captain Kirk: Warp speed will kill you

Go

...the hats would be like the ones they wear on Thunderbirds - suitably shaped so that the hydrogen atoms simply bounce off the shiny sky-blue plastic coating. Sorted.

Ian McNee

Hard Data   

In Too fat to fly: Kevin Smith and OpenOffice

Troll

Yup it's true: the Open Office 3.2 32-bit Debian package is a whopping 139MB - I mean talk about bloatware! Whereas M$ Office 2007 is so svelte and neatly trimmed that it fits on only 3 CDs! Oh...erm... *cough*

As for the inclusion of AbiWord (and presumably Gnumeric as with Xubuntu) it seems a sensible compromise as an install of Open Office is only a couple of clicks away. And I would imagine GIMP was removed as it's fairly processor intensive, overtaxing the Atom.

p.s. Andy: nice to see the merits of Umbongo are growing on you at last :-)

Ian McNee

Meh!  

In Google forced to use humans to support Nexus One

Stop

Google employing fleshies to talk to other fleshies? It's not April 1st is it?

Next you'll be telling us that Nexus One owners are making voice calls instead of simply plugging the device into the USB port behind their left ears for direct brain to brain digital communication! Preposterous!

Ian McNee

Exactly!   

In Google's Android code deleted from Linux kernel

Linux

And also it's not like:

- Google have another allegedly open source OS in the pipeline that they might want to strong-arm vendors into supporting rather than the main-line Linux kernel

- Google are fashioning said imaginary OS to coincidentally support their Mountain View Chocolate Factory ad-opoly money hoovering/printing machine.

As if!

Ian McNee

Yes, there are two types of people...   

In Apple vs the iPad Bedwetters

Troll

...those that believe this article was AO trolling about the (Mess)i(ah)Pad and those that realise that AO was actually adressing some wider issues here, rather incisivley in his usual charmingly toxic fashion.

Ian McNee

Excellent...  

In Danes ditch Microsoft, take ODF road - at last

WTF?

...but since when did Bhorat have an interest in Open Document Standards??

Ian McNee

Whaa....??  

In Remote tribe discovered worshipping iPad

Badgers

It seems that not only did I sleep through the iPad launch but the whole experience left me so underwhelmed that I've been comatose all through Feb and March...

p.s. Lester: surely there are some photos from Prof Macbucks?

Ian McNee

Mmm...   

In Next from Apple: The Pocket iPad

Paris Hilton

...iDeposit...

Oh dear, 'multi-touch' takes on a whole new meaning. And is there a gesture for 'wipe-clean'?

Ian McNee

Yes, this is a scummy job that ACS:Law are doing...  

In Which? warns on pirate letters

Stop

...and possibly not in the nicest manner, BUT...

They are simply acting on behalf of media corps or trade associations who have a short-sighted view of how to monetise their (client's) copyrighted material. Perhaps El Reg can dig out who these companies are so that we can, if we so choose, withdraw our business from them.

Ian McNee

Flight of the Conchords are *SO* 2009...  

In New inside out hover-magnet fusion reactor debuts at MIT

Welcome

...rock-on Flight of the Levitated Dipoles!

Ian McNee

Can't possibly be true...  

In MPs frozen out of super-secret copyright talks

Stop

...let's face it David Lammy's boss is Lord of Darkness...erm...I mean Mandelson, he would never cozy-up to big business and freeze-out our democratically elected representatives! And he's part of a Labour cabinet who are so big on open government, preposterous!

Ian McNee

And...   

In MS spins IE security disaster into Windows 7 upgrade opportunity

Linux

...Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Knoppix...

Ian McNee

Jubtastic possibly - but no Bulgarian airbags  

In NZ gal's Bulgarian airbags halt traffic

Stop

C'mon Lester - have you been at the sauce early today??

As this is clearly a story of international significance to those of us in the IT professions I took it upon myself to...erm...uncover the particulars of this story: it would appear that the pair of "traffic cones" in question were 100% natural. And all the better for that IMHO.

</perv>

Ian McNee

Key-O-Bard: that certainly is a USP...   

In Toshiba Satellite T110

Coat

...a singer with DRM perhaps?? Now...warez my coat...

Apologies *blush*

Ian McNee

Very energy efficient...  

In Toshiba Satellite T110

Headmaster

...8 hours on a 61Wh battery? Hard to believe that even at idle this notnetbook only burns 7W. Shurley shome mishtake...

Ian McNee

May I be the first to welcome...  

In 'Doctor Dark Energy': The Ultimate LHC eccentric?

Alien

...our new Magnetic Devil Particle Overlords

Ian McNee

The only place to hide is Barking  

In Triumph in Geneva! LHC beams up and running again

Alien

It's beginning! Just as predicted in the prescient work "Doom: the LHC Chronicles" by that great luminary Prof. I D Software! Run for your lives!

Ian McNee

Sing-a-song of Samsung...  

In Lite-on ETDU108 slim DVD drive

FAIL

Nick: maybe you should have checked what else was available right now. How about this little Samsung *writer* (inc. dual layer and DVD-RAM) for less than forty notes:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Samsung-SE-S084C-PSBN-8xDVDR-6x-DVDDL-5xRam-USB-BUS-Powered-Slimline-DVDRW-TRU-Direct

This has the added advantage of being shiny "piano" black which, as any geek knows, makes it go faster (as long as you polish off grubby fingerprints). If the Lite-On had a worthwhile USP for this market segment, e.g. ultra-low power consumption (solar powered?) or possibly a UV-reactive luminous blue paint job, it might be worth considering. As it is it's just a big fat fail.

Ian McNee

M$ rooting for Linux Security??  

In Boffins boast newfangled rootkit blocker

Linux

Looks like clever stuff, though I can't claim to be competent to judge the real-world significance of this. Presumably this is aimed at Ubuntu servers, are these rootkits responsible for a significant proportion of servers that are compromised?

On another note, interesting to see M$ researchers so concerned about Linux security. I guess they must be twiddling their thumbs because the new versions of Windoze are so secure... *cough*

Ian McNee

Upgrade within days of release =/= most technical of the technical  

In Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Stop

C'mon Gavin - we know you're only a hack but you're a hack on El Reg: engage brain before uttering such nonsense! Anyone who has *worked* in a production environment and is responsible for maintaining the delivery of a service for more then five minutes knows that the last thing you do is download and install the latest version of anything as soon as it's released - except in a *test* environment.

Yes it appears that there are a few issues with Karmic and those that have been burned are those "must have" jockeys whose jaw drops at the paint job rather than kicking the tyres and looking under the hood. The "most technical of the technical" know that when the soft and smelly hits the rotating and blowy on a live system one's time appreciating one's favourite hop-flavoured beverage at the local hostelry can be severely curtailed.

<smug>

I'm certainly not the most technical but I only moved from 8.04/SuSE 10.1 to 9.04 Desktop & Server a couple of weeks ago. When the dust settles on Krazy Koala in a month or so I might stick it on a test box to see if the tyres squeal and the suspension is improved when I take it for a spin. Or I might be in the pub entirely undisturbed by anxieties about long evenings at the CLI resuscitating X.

</smug>

Happy Tuxing!

Ian McNee

Yet another 32GB USB flash memory stick...*zzzzz*  

In PNY Attaché Original

Troll

Difficult to get excited about these things any more unless they mark a significant improvement over other things on the market. OK, this device is quite cheap and quite fast but not the sort of thing anyone is going to get excited about.

Anyone supporting end lu$3rZ knows that the main problem presented by the EBKAC brigade is that they have physically damaged the device AND failed to make backup copies of any important data thereon. Common stories being: "I didn't have a spoon to stir my coffee so I thought this would do", "The step ladder was rocking so I put this under one of the legs to fix it so I could safely lick the live light fittings on the ceiling", etc..

How about testing some of the ruggedised USB devices like the Corsair Survivor to destruction?

Ian McNee

"Government Has Top Twat"  

In Labour party unveils Tweeter-in-chief

Stop

And that's news how?

However, £64k (presumably more for being Top Twat) for a turd-spurt of ten twats an hour? As Yosser used to say: "I can do dat! Gissa job!"

Ian McNee

And in other news...  

In Twitter goes titsup

FAIL

...the world did not implode as a result of the generalised outage of Web 2-pointless-oh sites. Human beings have been witnessed vectorising atomic vibrations at one another in co-incidental relativistic space-time (i.e. talking).

This post has been deleted by a moderator

Ian McNee

I *DO* give a flying f*ck...  

In NASA orbiter returns first shots of Apollo moon sites

Thumb Up

Cynical old anti-imperialist peacenik git that I am, I can't help being awed by these low-res images of the Apollo landing sites.

Even though it was a waste of money, people-years and resources first time around (and will be an even more scandalous waste if they go again when we face far more pressing problems now) the little kid in me who remembers watching this open-mouthed on a b&w telly when it happened comes to the surface. I can't help acknowledging that it was still an amazing thing to do.

Don't you just hate having mixed emotions about all things US? So much easier when you can shout with every fibre of your being: "YANKEES GO HOME!" :-)

Ian McNee

So...it's better with Windows?  

In PC-pwning infection hits 30,000 legit websites

Linux

This is interesting in light of Saturday's other article on El Reg about the M$/Asus puff-piece/FUD website www.itsbetterwithwindows.com for netbooks (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/30/its_better_with_windows/).

Netbooks with Linux are one of the IT industry's best efforts at producing secure on-line appliances for Jo/Jill Public to use with relative confidence that they won't be pWn3d. All the more so with so many legit websites compromised in this way. Just a shame to see a decent company like Asus get muscled into M$'s monopolistic attempts to crush all that is Open Source.

Ian McNee

Linux  

In Acer Timeline 4810T

Linux

Looks like a very nice and reasonably priced bit of kit with an optical drive.

Being a Linux user on desktop, laptop and server I'd say it's likely that a little extra work might need to be done to get everything working, dependent on how standard the hardware is. For example a number of 802.11n wireless adapters are not natively supported within everyone's favourite fluffy distro, Umbongo. It can involve compiling and installing drivers from source supplied by the manufacturer or using an NDIS wrapper.

<M$-Sideswipe-Mode>

Having said that, even if a bit of tweaking is involved to get it all working with Umbongo, it will run like the proverbial hot poo off of a shovel compared to Fistula. And do you really want an OS that isn't sure which CPU is still plugged in? *titter*

</M$-Sideswipe-Mode>

Ian McNee

Bye-line trick missed Lester?  

In Swedish chopper chief demands fireproof bras

Black Helicopters

Red-hot Swedish chopper chicks knicks not up to the jub?

Ian McNee

Plod is as plod does  

In Judges rap police over raid on paedo expert

Alert

No surprises here - whether it's Brazillian carpenters on the tube, G20 protests or dealing with awkard people who provide evidence for the defence, plod will wade in with size 10s, batons and, if they think they can get away with it, semi-automatic weapons.

Just as well we don't have a Home Secretary who wants to give plod even more powers...

This post has been deleted by a moderator

Ian McNee

*bleat-bleat* *whine-whine*  

In Firefox users caught in crossfire of warring add-ons

Flame

<rant>

What's that? Oh...it's just Paul Barnfather, Andy and Mike Powers chirping out of their butts about what they can't fill a postage stamp with regarding browser security *yawn*

Yes of course this is a stupid little spat between OSS developers, but who the fuck are you lot to judge? Both NoScript and AdBlock have a long record of producing quality (as judged by the community, not some bean counter in Redmond) plug-ins that make a mass-market browser even more superior in comparison to its main (proprietory and standards-busting) competitor. In other words they've actually done something worthwhile for the rest of us. So: STFU.

</rant>

To the matter in hand...I'm not really interested much in who did what when - nobody's perfect - the fact is that as one of the biggest (and fastest growing) on-line threats is legitimate websites that have been compromised, NoScript is important while AdBlock is just nice (yes I know - ad streams can be poisoned before some pedant points it out - but that's a less significant threat). So let's hope these two patch things up, but if they don't AdBlock is on a loser as it's just not as important as NoScript.

Ian McNee

April fool? Ummm...  

In Jacqui's secret plan to 'Master the Internet'

Stop

...nope - but that was my first thought, I mean, "Mastering the Internet"! (Presumably on completion of the project Wacky Jacqui - not to be confused with her husband, Whack-off Dickie - will henceforth be known as the Internet Dominatrix - she's topped you there Ms Bee!)

My next thought was that this was madness, only a government so stupid and arrogant that it would do things like:

(i) lie to justify invading foreign countries;

(ii) propose locking people up without trial for months on end, perhaps for reading something on a DoJ website;

(iii) remove the 10p tax rate for poorer people to pay for their foreign and security extravaganzas;

(iv) spend £30bn on new and just as unusable nuclear weapons;

(v) steal from the public purse to pay for second homes just around the corner from their first home...oh...how silly of me!

So what do we do? I seem to remember that when the "black boxes in ISPs machine rooms" (Echelon?) were first mooted someone came up with an e-mail signature that contained all the trigger words. These ones here parhaps: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/31/what_are_those_words/

Maybe it's time to revive mass virtual civil disobedience.

Ian McNee

@John Burton  

In ARIN heads off IP address land grab

Black Helicopters

Yeah it seems like you've won the IP lottery now, you'll be handing out IP addresses to your family and friends, work colleagues and neighbours, everything in the virtual garden will seem rosy.

Then you'll start getting the e-mails from needy causes, people with a plan to good things if only they had a few IP addresses, and you'll be generous, you're giving a bit back and helping to make the world a better place.

You'll feel so good that you'll barely notice the subtle change in tone of those e-mails, the people around you, even your closest friends: they're becoming greedy for what you've got that they don't have, they simply MUST HAVE more of your address space!

That's when you'll start to find it hard to sleep at night, you'll keep a copy of a hardened linux kernel on a memory stick by your pillow and no matter how many sacks of IP addresses you stash under your bed you still won't feel secure.

Before you know you'll be down to your last ten million trillion addresses and you'll be staring IP oblivion in face...

HTTP Error 404: Not found

Ian McNee

C'mon Chris...  

In Army officer tossed laptops into the sea

Unhappy

...you can do better than simply making a rather rough summary of a Grauniad web article. Last time I looked you were a journalist!

Ian McNee

Nice analysis but failure to understand the nature of the beast  

In Windows 7 and the Linux lesson

Linux

Leave aside the merits or otherwise of Windows 7, the fact is that M$ is bound by its very nature to behave this way over a new release. And when I say its nature I do not mean that it is institutionally evil or the spawn of Satan (though I'm also not ruling this possibility out...) - it is a huge multinational capitalist enterprise with a dominant or monopolistic position in several of its markets whose inherent logic is maximising shareholder value.

How else can it do this with a product like Windows 7 other than by spending almost as much time and money on roll-out and marketing as on engineering the product itself? So M$ is not only keen to claim that the latest Windows kicks the competition in the pants but is also a "must have" if you're using an older version of Windows. Witness the way M$ has been dragged kicking and screaming into extending the life of XP time and again (thereby eating into Vista sales) because it does the job well enough for most institutions and individuals and probably better and/or more cheaply than Vista does. M$ wants sales, not customers content (enough) with a seven year old OS.

Compare this with Canonical and Ubuntu. Yes Mr Shuttleworth can be heard around release time singing the praises of Wacky Waterbuffalo but Canonical's shareholders do not benefit directly from increased downloads or even installations of Umbongo. However there's no shareholder value to be had in fewer installations or short-term installations, only in more widespread and long-term use of the OS. Hence like other mainstream Linux distros it stands or falls on quality engineering: stability, security, usability, longevity, scalability and the like.

Ian McNee

@Toasted Butt Troll  

In For security's sake! Send your kid to hacker camp

Flame

No-one is suggesting that *only* OSS is used in schools and education, but that it *should be* used. The fact is that the opposite is largely the case at the moment: *only* propietary software is used.

And the point Diana Artemis made (if you had actually bothered to read what she wrote) was that free (as in freedom) software can be examined, modified and improved by students so they learn, as opposed to M$ free (yeah we'll let you download it and use it in strictly defined ways and if you do something we don't like we'll see you in court) software.

As for your point about using software that is most commonly subject to attack, that is a red herring in this case: for students it is more important to learn *why* a bit of software is crap, not just that it *is* crap.

Ian McNee

@Mike Taylor  

In Atom UMPC first casualty of OQO money woes?

Thumb Up

I confess I did not know this - it is truly amazing how language evolves so rapidly (or should that be vapidly) in the world of web-two-point(less)-oh :-)

Ian McNee

James. purely on a point of grammatical accuracy...  

In Atom UMPC first casualty of OQO money woes?

Stop

...I believe that someone who Tweets on Twitter is, in fact, a Twat. And if they Tweet at least once a day they are a Total Twat.

Ian McNee

Oh, get over it!  

In Conspiracy theories aplenty as Amazon delists gay books

Stop

The spokesperson for Amazon clearly stated: "We f****d up", in the absence of any other actual evidence, as opposed to lots of people with too much time on their hands (oo-er!) virtually frothing at the mouth (again...oo-er!) on Web 2.oh-my-god, that's that.

A quick search reveals that it's easy to find Jeanette Winterson's excellent "Oranges are not the only fruit" and a plethora of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographic work. Both of these people have been notorious in their own way for their sexuality and as such a likely target for right-wing/religious homophobes intent on mischief at Amazon.

Move along, nothing to see here. No, really!

Ian McNee

Never mind bridges...  

In Greenbird sail-car wafts in as future of zero-emission motoring?

Stop

...have they tried parking that thing at Sainsbury's? And even if you could find three consecutive spaces you can bet some chav will drive his Nova over your wheel strut!

Ian McNee

Nerver mind The Island...  

In Copyrighted mice give OK on vat-grown organs

Stop

...as any fule kno (who's seen Blade Runner) clones only last for six years at best. And that's if you don't have some psychotic ex-cop running around after you trying either shag you or blow holes in you (or possibly both, it's all very Freudian)

Ian McNee

re: Details  

In Intel chip flaw gets double exposure

Alert

That's my reading of it too - as the researchers say you essentially require admin access to a vulnerable machine to exploit this. However if this payload (in the form of a rootkit) was piggy-backed on some plain vanilla malware it could be very nasty.

The ability to conceal itself no-holds-barred is precisely the point: that after the regular malware is removed and the vulnerability patched the machine is still pWn3d.

Presumably if a fix is possible it will be a BIOS update for mainboards like the Intel DQ35 and, as this board will be the basis of many thousands of OEM machines, it is rather shocking that Intel haven't moved faster to fix it.

But what about mainboards based on the 965/945/915 chipsets? There's still plenty of those around - are they vulnerable too? And third-party chipsets?

Ian McNee

Don't these people watch telly??  

In Prof pooh-poohed in pig-v-whale hippo genealogy brouhaha

Stop

It's on the Beeb so it must be true: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h6sbt/What_Darwin_Didnt_Know/

It's a hittopotowhale or perhaps a whaleopotomi, as any fule kno

Ian McNee

Stand by for Action!  

In Robo-fish to hunt pollution in Spanish seas

Alien

Let's hope the plucky Spaniards haven't seen Stingray, otherwise they may spot our fish-borne reptilian invasion fleet for what it is!

Altogether now...

STINGRAAYYYYY-STINGRAY!! Dadalada-da-da!!

Ian McNee

How about tackling fraud by...  

In Virgin Media to battle modem hackers

Flame

...providing a service that is worth what we pay for it. I've been with VM (and Telewest before them) for a long time and apart from the *advertised* speed of their service things have by and large only got worse.

Yes they finally listened to the torrent (no pun intended) of customer feedback about premium-rate phone support but you're still very lucky if you get to speak to someone who is capable of hearing that there is a problem with the service rather than just taking you through the Fisher-Price script telling you to make sure you're not wearing odd socks or metallic glasses that may interfere with the broadband signal.

And their mail service has been selling itself with the line: "Fed up with puny mailboxes? With Virgin Media you get five 30MB mailboxes" ever since I signed-up with Telewest. Every now and then I get the urge to collect a few old 40GB drives and send them off to VM to upgrade the mail server capacity.

/rant

Ian McNee

And...  

In A grim day for browser security at hacker contest

Linux

...no browsers running on Linux - too tough? Would have been nice to see at least.

Ian McNee

Usual M$ fiddle...  

In Dell Inspiron Mini 12 notebook-not-netbook

Gates Horns

Nice to see that Dell will ship this with Ubuntu as an alternative to Windoze and it will save you a few quid on the base spec (£329 compared to £379) but as usual you get a lower spec machine: not just a smaller HDD but also a slower Atom CPU.

Indeed if you opt for an 80GB HDD (same as the XP model) you'll pay £419! So your Dell Mini 12 with a slower CPU and free OS/software costs more than a Dell Mini 12 with pay-for OS/software. Go figure.

Ian McNee

Street-corner bullshitters and shysters more like!  

In Teen sacked for 'boring' job Facebook comment

Flame

http://www.ivell.com/inter.html:

"Labour Standards, norms and rules that govern working conditions and industrial relations are regarded as basic labour rights. As such, they are considered inviolable and universally applicable. They form together with the core Conventions of the Internal Labour Organisation (ILO), an agency of the United Nations, the basis of our corporate responsibility and are manifested in a Social Accountability Code of Conduct. It is a requirement that our factory partners display a copy in a factory area which is freely accessibly to the workforce."

The term "hypocritical to$$ers" comes to mind.

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