* Posts by Michael C

866 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Mar 2007

Horror AVG update ballsup bricks Windows 7

Michael C

Wow, so AMNY holes to pick from

First and foremost, does no other device, even a mobile phone, never connect to the same subnet as your machine?

Can you actually trust the users to not click on links (no amount of training can fix stupid, and even the best fall for extremely convincing and well played phishing attacks).

Does nobody ever make a typo in a URL?

Do you trust the server you;re sharing a connection with to be infection free? some of the worst ones were spread by "KNOWN SAFE" sites who were the victims of SQL injection.

Being secure and having trained users, better still web filtering and white-lists on top, is great, and we all SHOULD do that, but lacking AV entirely is just plain stupid. no levels of security can protect you from even someone walking in the door with an infected disk or drive and plugging it in. Even commercial software IN THE BOX (including popular software from big names) has contained viruses on disk. Some "blank" hard drives even contained viruses from the factory, and PCs often do as well.

Do you not get e-mail at all? There are a thousand e-mails you don't even have to PREVIEW to get the virus in them.

All it takes is a single machine in your VLAN to get infected, and it could spread to the entire network in minutes.

Michael C
Megaphone

here, fixed it for you.

The best ADDITION to all AV products is to look at what causes infection - and stop doing it.

Western Digital WD TV Live Hub

Michael C

no issue here

HDMI to TV, Optical audio from TV to rack stereo. TV does not support DTS, but it passes through just fine...

Michael C

file formats...

I wish this issue would just go away.

Of the bulk of the file formats, most of them can simply be placed inside of an MPEG wrapper and require no conversion at all. If you have VOB files, convert them. BR is an MP4 file already and should not be converted to alternatives. Just about everything else can be pushed through handbrake quickly and easily as a batch process.

You might have some "odd" formats, but why? just because that's the format it came in when you torrented it? CONVERT IT! Try a few samples, and you'll probably find many of them convert in seconds or minutes because its not actually trans-coding the contents, just the wrapper. The rest, you need to check the quality after conversion, but it's usually a non issue (and face it, if you cared that much, you would not want some arcane compressed format that has to be converted on the fly in firmware playback anyway, you'd have a near top quality direct DVD rips or MP4 files to begin with.

Lets all drop the format wars. The ONLY time file format matters is when it;s either DRM (which few if any of these things are going to support anyway aside from a single format tops), or they can;t be converted and you simply go get a new file in a different format and delete the old.

This "mine supports 40 formats and your supports 5" argument is moot. It needs to support essentially just the common standards, which DLNA carries (which is actually quite a small list). AVI, MPG, MP3, AAC,and that's about it. everything else can easily be converted to one of those, and as a simlpe batch run.

Apple patents glasses-free, multi-viewer 3D

Michael C

not quite

Its the SAME image, just to different sub-pixels based on where you stand in order to ensure the correct eye is receiving the correct image at the right time.

It's not on-the-fly sending 8-10 different renders, its sending the same render to multiple subpizel locations. The decoder for the video does no extra work, just a lense (though, there would I assume be 1 lense set for each pixel, enabling subpixel targeting).

Michael C

simple

because in order to actually feel safe in investing the money to R&D an idea, including what might be many years and many millions of dollars, we have to ensure someone ELSE doesn't take the same idea, make it work faster using more money invested, and cut us off at the patent line.

You patent IDEAS, not products.

Michael C

Not so fast

They did not claim to have built such a system, let alone tested and proved it. A patent ca simply be for a theoretical process. This CAN work, its within the bounds of technology, it may just require a supercomputer and a few dozen sensors for now until chipsets and sensor technology catch up. The original PS3 was more than a rack full of CPUs and boiled down to a simple console in a few years.

As far as pixel altering speed, this is not ridiculously complex. DLP systems have been doing that at 1080p for almost 10 years (as a retail product, not just in labs). They've recently been doing it at 120 and 240hz. It should not be unreasonable to use a similar tech to target sub pixels on a screen a larger distance away in similar variation of speed. Yes, much greater accuracy, and probably 400+hz is required, but it should be possible.

Who said anything about green?

Michael C

Sorry, what?

I never saw DVM as a way to get greener. The monitor needs to be just as big for the user either way, so all I'm saving virtualizing desktops is a few dozen watts on the front end on a machine off most hours of the day for a server farm running 24x7. At best I'd have called it a wash in terms of juice.

I saw desktop virtualization as a means to more effectively manage system images, patching, roll outs, crashed systems, diagnostics, security, simplifying centralized backups, and more. Going green? nope, wasn't on the radar.

Apple Facetime flings out frightening random calls

Michael C

From descriptions

This seems to be a central server issue, not the device randomly dialing on it's own. I'm sure this will be a bug hunted down quite quickly. it seems to be very limited in scope.

that said, I've not only received random calls from random phones before on actual cell lines, worse, many, many times I've gotten voicemails or texts hours and sometimes days after they were sent/left. Typically in the wee hours of the morning. I have to have the phone set to continuously alert if i get a message because I'm on call, and sometimes don't hear the first page. Since i also have GV texts duplicated to the wife's phone from some people, as well as voicemails sent to e-mail, her phone often goes off too (in case mine is dead). If AT&T or Verizon delay a voicemail, or the the mother-in-law texts the GV number instead of my wife's number, and it gets delayed, i might have both phones go off within 10 minutes at 3AM. This happens at least once a month, sometimes more (and often from a wrong number).

A sporadic, server side, and evry random issue that Apple will vigorously hunt down and stop i can care less about. SMS systems and voicemail taking days to deliver messages and choosing to in the wee hours of the morning, especially when they were IMPORTANT, or time sensitive, that's bad. I'll take a little face time bug any time.

Sony pips MS with 4.1m motion controller sales

Michael C

Sales and SKUs

Sony has reported SKUs moved, not controllers. A box set or bundle is 1 SKU, not 3 sales. The 4.1 million number likely includes 2-2.5 million boxed sets (they don;t break down the numbers), so somewhere around 5-6 million move or navigon controllers sold. This is a channel sales number, but that is because Sony does not enforce on enough of their partners to report back on units moved out to consumers (aggregating that data from tens of thousands of sellers, most of whom buy through the channel and not from Sony direct, is a monstrous task, especially when sony has literally tens of thousands of SKUs.

Microsoft equally stresses this is "sold" units, but at the same time, no guarantee can be made of that. Most of this is pre-order sales, so it;s pretty reliable, but it is still very far from guaranteed.

only Apple, Dell, and a few others, who sell mostly direct and very little through partners and retail outlets, report highly accurate numbers.

As other people pointed out, Sony made a fairly soft launch of Move, rolling out to new nations every few days, and making little fuss other than in blogs and articles, and only in the last 30 days or so pushed a TV marketing campaign to higher levels. Microsoft came out with a bang, and millions spent a day in marketing this thing both before and after launch. Sony also has a smaller user base by about 20%

Given 4.1 million skus (~5-6million devices) we're probably looking at between 2 and 2.5 million houses adopting it. Not too shabby. better still for Sony, move is getting rave reviews, while kinect is getting laughed at in viral videos and ripped by analysts quoting its limitations more than its fun-to-play aspects. People are saying kinext is nice to add if you like Wii, Move is what you get if you don't like Wii or think it;s limited in game options. If the trend continues, Sony is going to win this, even though i thin they have made a much slower start and might not be getting the attention it deserves. I'm personally not a fan of either (though i have done write-ups on all 3 platforms and spent many hours with each), and I own no console other than a PS2 and won't say which i feel is the better product. They're both good, in their own ways.

Michael C

really?

I've not seen any reviews other than paid sponsored ones where kinect was a "must have" xmas present. I've seen Kinect panned as limited, laggy, needs a massive room, and having not much of a future outside of nice games since no buttons really limits options for genre. Move is being hailed as genuinely NEW, and having massive implications on game variation. Its also apparently east to port to older games, so there might eb a hundred games in a year for it, and a few dozen for kinetic. Devs are also used to the nunchuck model of programming motion, where Kinect is a very new interface, and very difficult to use and code for.

What I see being marketed as the must haves are:

- iPad

- PSP slim

- Motion plus adapters for Wii

- inductive charging pads for controllers

- the general console itself

Also what I've seen is move controllers as stocking stuffers... Yea, they're considered a low enough priced item to not even warrant being a gift, but a stuffer, aka, an impulse buy...

Ransomware Trojan is back and badder than ever

Michael C

many ways to avoid this

1) uninstall all Adobe products, as you should have long ago...

2) Back up your data regularly, and not just by copying to an external HDD (where the same virus can easily find the same files and encrypt them there too) Use a real backup application that actually creates backup files, or an online backup service like Carbonite or BackBlaze (and not the one in Windows Vista or 7, it's bugged, and has been since it's inception).

3) Don't use IE, and use noScript or similar blocking technology to prevent anything more than simple HTML code from displaying.

4) Actually use an AV product with adware/spyware tools. I'd stay away from Symantec of McAfee retail products (though McAfee ePO is not bad), but many other products are highly rated.

5) never click on a link in an e-mail unless you know who and WHY they're sending you a link (aka you were expecting it).

6) don't store personal information that can be used against you on your PC at all unless those files are encrypted (and only do so if you HAVE to.)

How to kill your computer

Michael C

I tried all this and more

with a gateway laptop, and it would not die... Though in place of unpredictable liquids, i simply shorted the PS cable, but still close enough... I never did try direct input of 110v, but i know that would have done a lot more than simply trip a fuse on the board, and would have been obvious damage.

I not only stopped the fans, I sealed the vents and put it in a 115 degree oven running burn-in tests from a linux DVD... nearly a day and I got the CPU and HDD hot enough to melt the casing, but it was not going to die...

Supremes to hear Microsoft's Word appeal

Michael C

Finally

A case with a questionable ruling and massive fine that the Supremes can use to weigh in on patent issues like this.

Reading the patent details, and the way Microsoft "infringed" I don;t see how it even got this far, unless it was intentional to simply get a good case to this level with good media attention. What Microsoft is doing with XML in this case is really simple, placing one document inside of an XML record using an optional (but documented) XML field. What i4i argued they did was something slightly different (with the same end result of getting one document inside of another) but Microsoft did not actually do that, since doing that is done in SGML, not XML, which needed no such construct. The use of XML this way is obvious, and thus the patent should not apply. the USPTO did agree, when applied to SGML (as the patent describes) it is a valid patent. The courts decided it should also apply to XML, even though its not using the process the same way i4i detailed it, and even though XML is itself what should be targeted if it was in fact infringing.

this should be a good show. hopefully shed a lot of light on patents, especially software patents.

WTF is... up with e-book pricing?

Michael C

complete lunacy

First off, just sitting around waiting for someone to write a book doers have costs, but those are soft costs, and lets not complicate things here..

Starting with step 3: First proofread might be 6 hours for a romance novel, but not for a proper fantasy or epic pushing 900 pages. lets be reasonable and give it 2 minutes a page, a fair average for a fast reader who's actually analyzing the story (and taking notes) not just reading it quick. this is not a proofread, this tis the "do we want to buy their book or not" read. lets value this person at $100/hour (their pay is probably $30-50/hour, but they need facilities, a PC, corporate overhead, management, etc; ask anyone and they'll tell you a salaried employee costs $100/hour.... ) First proofread, $500-750 average?

Additionally, we might read 20 books before we like 1 and are willing to publish it. lets say this person finds 3 new books a month to publish.... Cost per book published, probably $4-8K.

Now, from here we change everything: Assuming $100/hour costs...

Step 4: Send book back to author for structural changes. Re-read it again later, this time read deeper, twice as long, a first proofing instead of a first reading). no one submits a book ready to publish, they always require editing... 40 hours for a SHORT book that is completely stand alone. This is also BEFORE we get a contract together, we might not buy this book anyway...

Step 5: legal team. $250/hour, write contract and get author to sign it. Usually a 3-4 book deal, sometimes more.

step 6: Up-front payment. This is "risk" money, paid in advance on a book not done yet. Often, an author is contracted to write 3-4 books before we ever print the first one, and this small income given on meeting deadlines is all they have until it hits shelves. We pay this, and might not sell enough copies to recoup it, thus the risk. Once sales come in, commission/royalties are deducted from the advance (plus a little interest). Depending on the legalese, this could be 3-10K books worth of royalty.

step 7: Final editing, pagination (done for hardcover, book club, paperback, and multiple ebook formats) , book cover design (also varies by book size, done multiple times), could easily exceed 1,000 man hours for a large book that's part of a series, or be as little as 250 man hours for a simple book like a romance novel.

step 8: advertising. For most books, nothing more than a promo pack of some bookmarks and some cover art prints given to the author, and notifying book stores of the impending release, but for the rare book that actually gets marketed (1 in 10), 10-15% of cover price.

step 9, printing and warehousing. Yea, can only print so many a day, and setting the printer takes time during which no books are being printed, so we print a "run" of several thousand to a few million all at once, store them, and then ship them to stores. about 30% of these will not be sold this year (some may never be). For big authors, we'll do several runs, and for some even rarer several "editions" where things get changed (corrections ,bonus material, preview of next book, etc), sometimes all new cover art. Printing costs about 15% of each book, warehousing as much as another 10%.

step 10: sales. seller takes 40-60% off the top from MSRP. 10 or so of each book goes to the author, so the publisher gets 30-40%. A few hundred to a few thousand man hours to pull this off. So, doing the math, a minimum 5-20K invested up front, as much as 1-2K invested in each book we DON'T publish (which are 10:1 more common than ones published), and 70-80% off the top in costs deducted from MSRP. Publisher might get $2-5 per book sold (and 30% might never be). Out of all this, tops, 25% can be removed from the costs in printing and warehousing but amazon takes 60% where most retailers take only 45%, so that's mostly a wash. Total costs to publish an ebook are 1-2% less than real books.

You don't understand the publishing industry at all, or its fixed costs, you've not taken permanent or soft costs into perspective, I didn't even go into hosting servers for the author's blogs and such... Books have very slim profits. Publishing costs are increasing, not decreasing, as technology advances. eBooks are an additional cost, not a cost to themselves, but each one is the loss of a real book sale. Yes, making an e-book from a book already published is cheap, but selling one to someone who does not already own the book is a money looser. Old books sell for $4-7 in paperback, so $3-5 ebooks are a good sale. First release? If the ebook was $4, who would buy the $29 hardcover? If we scrap the hardcover, all that cost falls to the ebook anyway, and initial sales would still have those books costing $20-25 each (declining over time).

Michael C

my issues

I'll accept the costs of the ebook vs physical book. The pre-printing costs are 70% of the cost (lots and lots of labor, and legal teams working contracts), and that ebooks simply are not boing to be more than $2-3 less than a book (and if you shop around, sometimes mroe.

That aside, the biggest 3 issues are dependability, decoration (a lot to be said for books on a shelf), and longevity.

1: When i read a ton, i constantly traded books. I could simply not afford 20-30 books a year. At a $2-3 discount, ebooks cost more than buying and trading by a LOT. I also borrow and loan books frequently (still do). eBooks have no advantages there until they come up with a universal DRM tracking system that will fully allow electronic media to be treated with 100% of the rights of physical.

2: I have a lot of walls. They're covered in book cases. The shelves are not full of books, but they;re full of STUFF, including the books. Fantasy figures, knickknacks, heirlooms, and lots of books. some of the shelves are chock full of books, others more sparse. If I had no books, it would look odd, and I'de have a lot more blank wall in the house....

3: Can you guarantee that in 20 years, when i buy my 4th ebook reader, than 100% of all my ebooks will work on it, or that I'll get 100% free upgrades to the newest book format for my existing books? in 40 years? in 80 years? I don't think you can guarantee 10... maybe 5. The reader itself has an ongoing cost in addition to the media as well (replacements).

And for me: a lot of my books are signed, or worth more for being first printings. They're as much a collection as they are media.

buying only about 10 books a year now, even if ebooks were half the price, which I know will never happen, the cost is simply still higher (counting reader costs), worse having to make very hard sacrifices to do it.

here's a better plan. I buy a real book, and for $1-2 more, i go to the site and download an e-copy for use on the reader of my choice. Some code in the book tracks my account, and I get new copies in new formats free for the rest of my life, but if that ever fails, i always have the physical book to sell/trade/read.

Michael C

so...

Then, by that logic, if you paid $200 for your reader, than means in it's lifespan you're willing to buy an average somewhere around 150 books in order to break even vs having a paper copy? If money is the object, you must read a lot...

You loose the decoration for your house, the conversation starter it can be, the ability to loan and borrow books, and the ability to sell/trade books as well. iPads work great in regular and dim light, and no too bad outside except at some angles. e-ink works great outdoors and in normal light, but sucks in the dark. There's no good all around solution. Then you have to buy one for each family member (and still have issues sharing books, or deal with Kindles no reading iBooks and B&K's books?).

And then, 20 years from now when you want to re-read an older book, can you??? At least 1 proprietary ebook format was already discontinued leaving people with unreadable books, you;re willing to let that happen again? I'm currently re-reading both the Wheel of Time and The Song of Ice and Fire, neither of which I'd be able to do more than the most recent few books if i have gotten electronic copies on release, some of them being well over 10 years old.

Here's what I'm OK with: I buy a real book. In the back of the book is a code number from the publisher. i go to their website where I enter the code (thereby rendering it used), and they give me a coupon to go to the ebook store of my choice and download an electronic copy. I pay $2 for this privileged to get the first copy. Once every few years, i can go back to their site and get another coupon to go get a FREE copy again, provided its in a newer format not compatible with the older one, guaranteeing i can continue to have support for those books going forward on new devices. I can also go to their site and "sell" the book, disassociating the ebook from my account, and letting me sell or trade the book in such a way that the new owner can also get an ebook (but without having to wait a few years). They'll pay 40% of list price for the ebook if the book is still sold in stores, or $2 otherwise. I get to keep the ebook I bought, but can never upgrade it again, essentially giving it a fixed lifespan. This system doesn't require ebook vendors to support any kind of central system, nor different publishers to support each other, the code in the book is used by the publisher (maybe through a central service, maybe not), and all they do is issue a coupon. The publisher could care less which ebook vendor (and ion which format) the book is in, and the seller only needs the code they provided me. The publisher tracks who is in "ownership" of the book at any time so that electronic upgrades can be given freely.

Michael C

cost cost cost, not my issue

I understand maybe 40% of the cost of a hardcover is in materials, shipping, and shelf, and about 20% for paperback (more books per pound, less space per book). I also understand almost 100% of marketing money is spent during hardcover-only time frames, and additionally, its the time the publisher holds the most risk (for unsold copies). I further understand that eBooks are not automatic, they still have to go through some level of editing and that is a cost, and eBooks further (in general) pass more of the selling price to the author than physical books.

All that said, I expect eBooks to be within a few bucks of physical. Say $1-2 less than paperback and $3-5 less than hardcover. I don't think the publisher, except in some rare cases, can really go much lower on price. I would however like to see books start getting printed with one-time-use bar-codes or keys so I can ADD the eBook for $1-2 more than the cost of the physical book, but we need a universal system for accommodating that so no matter WHO sells the hardcover (since we don't custom print hard covered for different vendors) that any eBook vendor can supply the electronic copy appropriately, and track the key for ensuring it's been used, and further making sure this is consistent across publishers.

My issue with ebooks (at the price of anything more than an upgrade to add the electronic copy), is that you can pry the physical book from my cold dead hands. it;s not the readers (the iPad is genuinly pleasant to read on in nearly all lighting conditions, including low light where e-Ink fails, which happens to be where I read 80+% of the time). My issue is that the $10-15 investment (I only buy hardcover), is not only for the reading, but for decoration and conversation topic as well. Plus, i can EASILY sell, loan, borrow, trade, etc books, and i can do little or none of that with eBooks. i also know a hardcover will read just as well 50-100 years from now as today, but in 5-10 years i might not find ANYTHING that can read a DRMed eBook file.

When i can trade them freely and as easily as books, and come with 100% guaranteed LIFETIME upgrade/device migration rights (that don't require me to keep receipts, and work no matter how old the file is, and never, ever costs anything to upgrade), then I'll begin to consider eBooks as a primary medium, but until that and more is met, I won't get an eBook without a physical book, period, no way. I'll still likely buy all my favorite authors in physical books anyway as they do help fill rooms out. I don;t want a room in my house without a bookshelf except the kitchen.

Apple says no to Android-oriented iPad mag

Michael C

Perspective...

It's a DANISH magazine submitted to a non-Dane Apple store using unlicensed graphics from a 3rd party. Not only was this questionable per apple policy on promoting the competition (for which there is no such policy to reject an app simple because it mentions or even focuses on Android) but it's questionable even for international law and money issues, and possible even IP rights. More so, this magazine does seem to focus on hacking androids a bit much, so it;s not just android, but the hacking in general that could easily run afoul here.

See, Apple is a legitimate seller, and as a seller, if they're aware the developer is doing something illegally, allowing the sale is an issue that can lead to liability issues. Some things are banned for legal reasons, not policy. This has little to do with it containing "Android" in the title. It may have very well to do with the content of said rag, licensing issues, or international issues.

The Mac that saved Apple (and Steve Jobs)

Michael C

well actually

AOL was on System X quite a while before it was on PC. The iMac went on sale in 1998, and was one of only a few machines with an integrated modem AND a network adapter. It was not until AOL 3 the PC even had a non-DOS version in 1996, and it was not very popular. AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 was not released until late 1998, and was the first time anyone on AOL could actually email out to the open internet and browse regular web sites. Mac users were heavy in AOL, and had been since v1.0 in 1989, almost 10 years... Yes, there were some AOL dos users as early as 1991, but they were few and far between.

Apple also had Apple Link, and partnerships with numerous other providers. The "i" in iMac literally stood for "internet" if you asked anyone at the time (and they were wuoted numerous times in the press using that interchangeably with "individual." Getting an iMac online took 2 steps. Turn it on, and choose a provider. 100% of the work was done for the user before the box was ever opened. Conversely, getting a PC online was a pain. ERven machines that included modems rarely could use them out of the box easily, and bundling of ISPs had not yet taken off (not until Windows 98 SE did Microsoft even finish adding the TCP/IP stack to the OS).

Apple made online simple. Even with XP people still had issues getting modems to work. With a strong user base already in AOL, and other services, and with a cheap, easy to buy PC and choice of browsers once you were online (something you could not do on a PC until years later with AOL 5) the internet was much more open on a Mac.

Fanboi primer: How to move your iTunes from PC to Mac

Michael C

Methods

Wow, this not only isn't hard, there are multiple ways to do it. This is a rant flare for PC Fanbois only, and not actually a real issue at all.

Option 1: Consolidate library on PC; copy library to Mac iTunes default folder locations; launch iTunes holding down option key and select library file; wait while itunes imports the PC library file into a Mac library file.

Option 2: turn home sharing on for both machines. Allow automated copy process to complete. (optionally, remove iTunes authentication from PC when u r done). Note, this only moves files purchased through iTunes to the new machine.

Michael C

Understanding, you lack it

The issues with iTunes on Windows have little to do with Apples coding ability, but with NTFS.

On a mac, the metafile data for each iTunes object is stored in a file header that is part of the HFS+ file descriptor. This metadata is stored inside the file system database as well as in the file, so disk access time to "get info" on files is extremely small. On Windows, that metadata is a part of the file itself, requiring the file to be opened in order to capture album art from it. This creates a massive amount of disk activity as you move through your library. Also, the structure of the iTunes database itself is slightly different, leading to a larger XML data structure on Windows than it is on a Mac, causing additional lag and memory utilization especially on very large libraries. These are not issues apple can work around on a PC until Microsoft replaces NTFS with a modern file system.

Microsoft gets around this issue (to a limited extent) in WMP by a) not loading album are for the entire library and only showing it when a single song or album is selected, b) not making full use of song meta data outside of the ID3 tag, thereby requiring a secondady database containing actual data other than song location, rating, and play count (which can be corrupted), and c) ignoring such features as dynamic playlists or playlist-by-association (genius) in favor of simple "filtered" playlists or manually created structures, eliminating most if not all the intelligence that could be used to make large library management easier.

Blame the source, not the scapegoat.

Michael C
Flame

well

no, because so few people on windows even know what they are, let alone go through the trouble to install the right binaries and a bash emulator.

Michael C

hmmm

I didn't know ID3 and XML were proprietary formats...

Gee, guess i can't use WMP either, or WinAmp, since they also maintain their own database.

Look, the data in the song file is in standard formats. The data in the database only matters to the application. Ratings and other metadata are not part of the file *(they can be, but only in optional or otherwise non-standard fields equally not cross application compatible).

Michael C

not unreasonable

I have 40,000 songs. Every track legally obtained. Starting with about 650-700 CDs (the total lifetime collection of my wife, myself, plus some given to us by friends who didn't want them anymore), got me to around 12,000 tracks. I've purchased about 500 sings directly since, plus the free Tuesday tracks every week going back years.

Then there came Stream Ripper. Tune to a shout-cast station (or other similar feed) that broadcasts "space" between each track and let it run for a few days. It automatically separates the files and names them based on the track titling, and detects and deletes duplicates. For a while i was ripping 4-6 concurrent 256bit feeds, adding half a thousand new tracks a day. It is not illegal to record a broadcast that is free to receive. Modern stations limit easy record-ability by using voice-over, cross fade, etc, under pressure from the RIAA, but in my music preferences, I could care less about Pop and Top 40, so finding stations that ignore RIAA requests to limit recording is easy.

I've not run it in a while (after a few weeks, finding new tracks becomes less and less frequent), and it;s probably time I turned it on again. I run it a few days once every few months and catch a few hundred new tracks, but finding good stations is harder and harder to do.

Anyway, 40,000 songs is far from improbale, or impossible, to do legally. Hell, i know some people who have bought 2-3 new CDs every week since the mid 90's and could legally own that much music through purchase alone.

Android flaw poses drive-by data slurp risk

Michael C

More power = more issues

iOS ain't that bad. It has issues, and limits, but being single sourced for patches and updates, and a trong commitment to ensure devices get those patches for at least 2 if not 3 years, means I don;t get left in the cold with my brand new device and a security hole that will never be patched.

This is a limited attack, but they're getting more and more serious, and better designed, and sooner rather than later there will be a "critical" class security breech on the OS, and for millions of owners they'll have no defense other than to turn it off.

If you own an android that isn't already running 2.2, i suggest you join a class action suit somewhere (or start one) to get a guarantee (and SLA) on patch releases and updates for at least last-sale-date + 2 years.

I love android. I think its a fantastic and powerful OS. I'll not own a device with it on it until I get such a guarantee.

I don't have one necessarily from apple, but enough people WOULD sue apple (and win) if they stopped patching devices still under warranty, not to mention they actually do care about their consumers, and have a good history of patching (viable) threats with speed (they take their sweet time on incomplete POC exploits and attacks that have no viability to actually work, and they should take their time, when we have no real risk).

Google needs to get control of the vendors. Until that happens, android is a security issue waiting to happen. This is going to get bad fast.

Michael C

we know lots of these

its called the e-mail repository, contact database, or any other core file containing user data we might want. The name and path are determined by the OS. in any android device with little or no internal storage, these files will be on SD.

Dirty PCs: How much filth can you take?

Michael C

Worst in my past

I wish i had a pic...

Working in management for a retail PC repair shop in my earlier days, we had a machine come in from a farmer he kept in a barn. My tech opened it up, and 3 people got STUNG. A beehive was built inside the case by enterprising yellow jackets. Fortunately, most of the guesstimated 150 residents had either not been home when he put it in the back of his truck, or flew out on the ride over.

We wrapped in in heavy plastic, put a few bio hazard stickers on it, and returned it to him advising him to see if his insurance company could help in out calling it a total loss.

The nastiest case I'd seen was an old Compaq that lived in a dorm where 4 heavy smokers, 3 cats, and a slew of nasty friends lived with windows closed to avoid being caught having any of the above by campus security. You could smell the machine from across the bench before we even opened it. It was literally caked in tar and cat fur. Several years of build up from smoke being sucked through and filtered by the fur... No components could be seen. We refused to even plug it in for fear the fans might actually work, and send the stench throughout the store...

App maker asks $600 for BlackBerry bling

Michael C

"I'm rich"

it was an app on iPhones (for a few days until it was pulled, and everyone got a refund). that cost $999 and did nothing more than show a gem on the screen. From what I recall, about 10 people bought it, though at least a few did so because they thought it was a mistaken price and wanted to see what would happen.

Dumb people and money, oil and water I say.

Of Kuwait and DSLR cameras

Michael C

not that I'd do it personally...

...I'm not willing to risk freedom, or any other punishment for something akin to slapping the government in the face (which I feel safe doing here, just not there), but I bet it won't be long until someone hooks a 700mm lens or larger onto a m4/3 using an adapter (easily acquired) just to see the reaction of police.

Michael C

yep

Our Canon SX210IS has an equivalent of a 340mm full frame lens I believe. Its a 14X optical, and with a 14.1MP sensor, going to 30 or 40x in digital actually still takes good images. (thought getting that far needs a tripod, badly).

I agree, this is probably a "media control" issue. At the very least, stop and harass someone with a camera to prevent media from getting that show while they're taking out their ID...

Motorola drags Microsoft to ITC, says Xbox infringes its patents

Michael C
Alert

and what are they infringing?

Can we get some actual data, instead of a "breaking news" style article here? What are the patents in question? What's the reporter's (or better yet expert) view on the legitimacy of those? Is this the x-Box or the x-box 360 or both?

Acer replaces laptop keyboard with multi-touch LCD

Michael C

...and the way I type

the glass too.

Michael C

ouch

800v line screens are rare in the 14" market space ,900v more still. i've seen maybe 1 1050 14" screen, those are even rare in 15 and 17" sizes. 1200v screens are reserved only for pro systems, typically in 17". most 22" monitors don;t cross 1080p anymore (mine do, and I do think 1200 should be standard in 22" and larger, 1440 at 27" and 1600 in anything larger).

asking for dual 1200dpi, in 14", i don't know if those screens even exist. that's a higher pixel density than Apple's new screens in the Air...

As for the design, I'd sooner see an integrated optimums keyboard with real physical buttons than this. When i need dual screens, i still need a keyboard too, so making a machine this way is self defeating. i like the idea of dynamic keyboard layouts, but this is too much of a sacrifice.

Lawsuit says Facebook plunders user names, photos

Michael C

yep

I knew this was a scam as soon as I went back into facebook. I had not logged on in over a year, and went back in only to add a farmville plot and befriend my wife and hew mom so they could reap rewards. i noted several faces in that system that i knew had also not been on face book in a year or more, and also noted my wife's face. i know damned well she didn't upload a list of e-mails since she doesn't have them in a contact list to upload from (she uses webmail exclusively) and we had just gone through a process to export them for use for holiday cards, so i knew she did not know how to do it on her own. This was clearly them using faces of people I knew claiming-without claiming they had used it as well, to encourage me to. i figured that was shady, if not illegal, and certainly did not use the option.

I'm a huge facebook hater. Its a massive time sync with little return value (unless you like gossip circles). For your trouble, they sell your soul to everyone that will buy it, and continually change the security settings and re-default them to "off" exposing you over and over. i have an account simply to make other people happy with their flash games by being a neighbor. I'd love to see the whole sham come cracking down under lawsuits.

Apple MacBook Air 11.6in sub-notebook

Michael C

I disagree on price

$999 is not too expensive. This is a full class (though a bit underpowered for gaming) machine, that most people can do with as a single machine and own no other. NetBooks almost require you to own another system, which not only adds to hardware, but also software license costs, time, and trouble. Even top end NetBooks pushing $600 have far inferior components to $500 Notebooks. Its often roughly double the price of comparable machines to half the weight.

You also neglect the screen quality in your data, far superior to any other 11", better than most 13 and 14" machines on the market. You also compared the battery life to machines with sub-par GPUs, which is somewhat unfair. Compare it to a machine with a similar nVidia, and you'll find its battery life superior. 6 hours of run time on a machine that takes less than 40 minutes to charge to 90% is a good long battery. Only using WiFi when you have to by disabling it (a simple keystroke), could extend that to near 10 hours.

To have a machine that can not only handle it's own needs, including full resolution video and support high res external monitors (and trust me, that video port is better than a GiG-E any day, people will hook this to TVs, not to mention projectors which is the target market - business people...), and this machine can also run a VM at the same time? or a corporate edition of Windows not permitted to be licensed on net-books, even play WoW in better than default resolutions?

If doubling the price is acceptable for half the weight, then compare this properly to a $600-700 notebook, and say this is as much as $400 less than expected.

Would I buy one? no, i have no need for the extra $500-600 in cost just to save 2lbs of carry weight. I'd rather spend that difference and have a far superior 15" machine that also has a similar screen, 7 hour better, better still GPU, and supports 8GB of RAM. That's me, I'm a power user are only travel with my machine from desk to car, to desk, not through parks and city streets and all over hell and back. If I did, I might still choose the 13" Air over the 11", i just don't like screens that small, nor does an 11" footprint feel comfortable on my lap. On the other hand, we're getting mom one for Christmas. Its actually more powerful than her last mac, which has aged well and is far from underpowered for her needs, and she could use the portability.

Google sued for scanning emails of non-Gmail users

Michael C

fail

You assume google is scanning the message first. Wrong. They deliver it first, into a quarantine space, for the user, then it is scanned, then a delivery notification is sent. If tyhe message contained a virus, a placeholder is left instead of the original message, but it was contained in the in box of the recipient (its just not accessible). In any case, the message was the property of the recipient before it was scanned. As the sender, you have no legal rights over what the recipient does with the contents of the message unless there's a pre-existing contract between the two of you (in which case you sue the recipient for allowing Google access, not the other way around).

This is an issue of chain of custody. The custody of the message was granted to the recipient (them being aware of it or not in advance), and they gave prior approval to Google, as a service, to include scanning of that message in exchange for the services provided. You no longer owned the message, so you have no right to tell google not to scan it.

Further, it is common knowledge that internet transmissions are inherently insecure, and privacy is only guaranteed is the message is sent through secured channels (encryption). Your failure to use that in the first place is enough to get this case dismissed.

Michael C

better

even if they did look at it, they only did so after delivery or at the point of delivery, in which case the message, via chain of custody laws, was no longer in the sender ownership, or Goggle's stewardship, it belonged, legally, to the recipient. At that point, a pre-existing contract between Google and the recipient triggered, allowing Google to scan said message in exchange for services provided to the user. They scanned HIS message, not yours, since you no longer owned it, and have no rights.

Michael C

misguided

The second that message hit the in-box of the person it was sent to, it was no longer yours to control, but THEIR property from that second forward, and their standing contract with Google allows Google to scan all their property, sent or received, in exchange for their free service.

If I send my friend a text, is she breaking the law by uploading it to texts From Last night? nope. That text belongs to her (unless we have a pre-existing confidentiality agreement). You can;t sue Texts From Last Night for having that message, nor can you sue google for scanning an e-mail that did not belong to you anymore.

If they were scanning messages you sent to provide YOU ads, and tracked YOU directly when you later went to googles sites or services, that would be a violation of this law, but you don;t own the messages someone else got, and if they let Google scan them, that's their decision.

Michael C

more over

As soon as it lands in the inbox of the recipient, it is not longer your property at all... It belongs to the recipient.

So long as Google's logic does not scan an e-mail until it is associated with an inbox (virus/spam/etc filtering may happen first, but are usually stage 2 processes after address confirmation and routing), then that message was instantly property of the recipient on delivery, and then as scanned (possibly even before delivery notification) it is scanned with the permission of the owner, not the sender who has no say anymore.

More over, it is well known that anything sent over the internet unsecured might as well be a broadcast. If not secured, or bound by a contract between you and the recipient for confidentiality, then it's not private communication.

Michael C
Stop

look at this differently

It is no longer your message as soon as it lands in the inbox of the recipient. The USPO is no more libel for the contents of your message once its received. Should a person you send letters to choose to scans them and post them online, with or without your permission, you can't stop them. In this case, they're approving Google to do a limited subset of that, scanning them for content to show them ads so they can have a PO box for free. That message is no longer your property as soon as it has been delivered. You have no rights in what the recipient chooses to do with it, unless you have some other legal contract with them guaranteeing they do not do this, in which case, sue them, not Google.

Case closed.

Michael C

well, they do actually have this power, quite legally

As soon as the message is delivered to an in-box of a Google user, it is not YOUR message anymore, it is their property, and under their contract with Google, it can be scanned and used for ads. Done.

If they were scanning all messages that came through their service, delivered or no, and were sending ads BACK to the sender without proper consent and disclosure, they could run afoul here. However, same is true of postal mail, the Post Office is only responsible for protecting the content until such time as it is delivered, after which it is no longer your or their property, and if the recipient chose to resend it, with or without opening it, to parties you did not want it to go, too bad, it's no longer your property to have a say over.

ANYTHING sent via unsecured internet communication, or unsecured post, it tantamount to a broadcast. Once it leaves your hands, your control over that item is limited at best, if at all. If you require your communications to be private, they must be sent through secure means. Once released, it can not be called back.

Most coders have sleep problems, need 'hygiene and care'

Michael C

This is simple

Its not even so much about being over worked, not so much even stress. People who write code often have large chunks of it floating around in their conscious mind. They're constantly chewing on logic problems. More of their brain is active more hours of the day than most people. They also very frequently end their day with large amounts of unsolved problems.

We sleep to take what we've learned during the day and convert that information into new brain pathways and permanent memories. However, the brain does not like to do that when it still has lingering questions or unsolved problems. This translates into stress, as the brain fights to solve issues, or sleep is imperfect and incomplete as the brain can not commit a lot of data.

I usually sleep very well, but recently, I started working on a large series of shell scripts to handle processes. I haven't coded in a decade. Its about a dozen big scripts that work almost as a larger program would. A few thousand lines of bash. I've been sleeping terrible, having dreams about processes failing, errors unchecked, and then some really out-there dreams I can't even begin to explain... I had the same issues years ago as a programmer. Job was great, fun workplace, low stress, minimal hours, but just having all that logic in my head all day, I was worn out, yet I could not get good sleep...

Google lures Microsoft Officers with Docs plug-in

Michael C

Office Web Apps

Or is it Office Live Apps now...

Anyway: Office 2010, online. No apps to install. Works in the browser. Edit, share collaborate, etc. Word Excel, PPT, OneNote, and more. Also nativly integrates with Office itself, so the more powerful editing features can be accessed with a click if you have office 2010 installed. Any doc open in Office can be saved there directly, from within office too. Editing shows up live on the web in near real time. You can even host a presentation right through the site, share folders, ad more.

Its pretty slick, and free. No Office purchase required.

Since it's full yoffice 2010 native, it not only supprots simple office functions like google docs, it supports all the fancy business features as well as the facy looking user graphics options 2010 improved on.

Gawd, reading this sounds like i work for Microsoft.... (i do NOT).

I;d only reccomend purchasing office to people who need more than a simple word processor, or worjk in a business environment that heavily uses it. I prefer other lighter apps for ordinary stuff. Even $99 is too much to spend on office for simple things. However, this being free, not a bad deal...

iOS 4.2: An 'ace' for iPad, a 'meh' for iPhone

Michael C

less than descriptive list from HP

OK, so e-Print compatible printers work. no link? no model search?

I can print TODAY from my iPhone to my HP printer which sits on the network, from 3 different apps. I've been doing that for more than a year. However, my HP printer isn't listed anywhere i can find. It's a near 3 year old multi-function job (c6150 i think).

Can they not simply throw in the old 900 series PCL driver (which almost every single color HP recognizes and can print from), and have the phone use that? the iPhone can find my printer on the network all by itself and print to it (and others I've tried too), so why would it not be supported? Oh, it also supports Apple's auto-detect printer driver thingy (it had a code word a few years ago, Rendezvous?), I'd be hard pressed if the printer already had that tech that the iPhone would not support it...

Viewsonic ViewPad 7 Android tablet

Michael C

Meh

I'm simply not impressed with the 7" form factor. 90% of the "quick" needs I might use this for, a 4" screen does just as well and is far more portable. For the times when I'm out and about at length, or lounging on the couch, saving 3" of diagonal is not worth the loss of size and resolution (not full keyboard sizing. Even though it's virtual, not having to crunch fingers if MUCH superior to a 7" layout).

Capped at 32GB storage even though the slot should accept more, low res display, no wireless N support, only a 3MP camera (and 0.3 front), and no HDMI (WHAT?!?! it's from a MONITOR COMPANY FOR SHITS SAKE!!!!). only 4-6 hours continuous use on a 3600mAH batter?

Oh, and since it has built in 3G, carrier lock is an issue, as are data plans since likely they'll be contractual, or priced higher than AT&T's no-contract offerings.

As for the CPU concerns, a 600MHz ARM 11 is not inferior to a 1GHz ARM9. It;s faster in some things (floating point), slower in others (brute speed). the 11 gets better battery life, a fair trade. since we don't know specifically which ARM11 it is (ther;e snot a native 600MHz model, they've either down-clocked a faster one or overclocked a slower one), it;s hard to say until someone benchmarks it.

Windows hits 25

Michael C
WTF?

Malware

There is simple or user-invisible level of OS security capable of saving a system from a stupid user who clicks without reading (or reads without understanding). The only way to ensure users can't install software they should not (aka malware ,virus code, etc) is to make the process of doing that at all take many steps, the very least of which should require permitting escalated privileges by entering a password, not just clicking "yes." Although neither system is perfect, when a Windows user sees a prompt to do something, they generally allow it, even if they did not initiate the cause for the prompt personally; a mac user is asked for a key-chain, password and pauses, and will more often than not cancel it. They're trained to know key-chain access should not be asked for lightly, and never by a website. This makes by itself macs far more secure since the most common infections are user permitted ones...

Better yet would be to enforce ALL code to install via a localized installer app, not permitting ANY 3rd party integration at all directly to sensitive OS configuration areas, and sign all files installed through said system. Something wants to make a change to your system run at start-up, access a network resource, open a port in the software firewall, or install at all? It should cause a closed system to launch, meet very specific criterion, list itself in all the proper locations, etc. Once installed, being locally signed at install, anything trying to change those files directly would not be able to. THAT is secure. It also ensures a user is informed of anything a program is trying to do/connect-to. Devs will hate having to conform to a locked-in installer model, and it will add a lot of work for small-time programmers, but its a huge step towards security tightening.

Michael C

Developer Agreement

Sorry, per the Developer agreement, this is unsupportable in court. Microsoft is not laible for failure of your code to run due to changes in the OS. As a developer, you;re obliged to accept that changes may break your code, especially if you do not conform to recommended practices.

You're exactly right, we're not talking about enw security requirements, we were talking about back when there was NT (not 15 years of issues), that they did communicate these new recommendations, and they could simply have turned the recommendation into a requirement at their will, and in a SP to NT, locked off access to certain areas of the OS for non-kernel processes and enforced the registry.

This would have only broken apps for lazy programmers, and meant maybe a few days work to fix it (we're talking file paths here, which should be variables anyway, and easy to change, any maybe some calls to the registry to get them instead of storing them internally.). If you;re talking legacy apps, well, who at Microsoft guaranteed in writing forward compatibility? I never saw that document.

A court would laugh at this, as would any sane law firm. It is not an anti-trust violation to change something you have a contractual right between you and your devs tyo change!

Michael C

ME was the vendor's fault

ME was not technically a new OS. Unfortunately, all the vendors played i to be, and used it to sell hardware to people that didn;t need or want it, and who would never use ME for what it was designed for.

ME was essentially little more than 98SE with some plus pack additions, and a few underlying changes from lessons learned, but the real deal was all the multimedia editions on top. You could call it the first MediaCenter edition if you like. That's what it was designed to be. It did not replace Windows 98SE, it was to be sold complementary to it, as an upgrade if you wanted to use media on your PC more than just playing a CD.

ME required more hardware than most people had access to. It was put on machines under-configured to run it to keep pricing competitive. Microsoft's only failing was not getting out in control of the situation, but with 2K coming out, and XP already in development, they didn't want to piss off their partners.

On a properly built machine, ME was as good as if not better than 98. On the same hardware as 98, it was abysmal...

Michael C

What?

The new start menu is one of the best things about 7's UI changes. Forget managing how your programs appear in the start menu and just type a few characters of the program name and it shows up. Much easier than having half your screen covered by a list of folders. If you want to see all that crap, its easily configured anyway. If you really dislike it, Classic Shell and other apps are out there freely that can easily configure the menu to look exactly like XP. Did i say Free? yes. Took me 2 seconds to find 3 of them.

Why would you give up on the power, features, device access, security, backups, management, performance, and more of Windows 7 just because you don't like what can easily and freely be changed?

Actual reasons to stick with XP:

- Your hardware is outdated, even by current generation XP standards, or has no hardware features that Win 7 improves on (DX10/11? Pretty important improvements for startcraft 2). It its at least a lowest end Core Duo and can support 2GB of RAM, you probably can upgrade, it might even run FASTER (7 outperforms XP in many cases on older hardware).

- You're planning on getting a new machine soon anyway (say, within 6 months), and don't want to upgrade the current one.

- You have legacy apps that only run under XP or earlier, and you don't know enough about OS in general to install and use VirtualXP and don;t feel like reading a short manual. Note i did not say you can't run 7 if you have legacy apps, just that you might not want too if you lack the knowledge or will to have that knowledge.

- You can't afford a copy of the OS.

- You're planning on switching to Mac. (even then, 7 runs great in either a Mac VM or Boot Camp).

- Your company policy is not up to speed yet, and they're sticking with XP until June when they have their 2K8 domain, Central AV, monitoring, and SSDM/SSCM up to date and ready for rollout.