* Posts by Andre Thenot

19 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Mar 2007

Microsoft loads botnet-crushing data into Azure

Andre Thenot
Coat

Should be Quantified Threat Intelligence Program

… or Q-TIP.

Dodeca-core Apple Mac Pro coming next month

Andre Thenot
Black Helicopters

Bluray requires trusted computing

You can get a Bluray burner and reader for your mac. But I presume you're talking about the ability to view BD discs that are protected. If I'm not mistaken, that requires trusted computing to ensure that the decryption process isn't tampered with. OS X doesn't have that built in (and in my opinion, it's just as well as I prefer to remain in charge of my machine).

Large Hadron Collider scuttled by birdy baguette-bomber

Andre Thenot
Coat

New Reg unit

I guess you need to add the "aircraft carrier underway" as a new unit of energy. :)

Pssst... Apple tablet on way, whisper Chinese moles

Andre Thenot
Coat

I call it...

...the MacTouch

Google spins out Chrome 2.0 pre-beta alpha

Andre Thenot

Mac Version... what for?

Since Chrome runs WebKit, what's the point? Mac users already have Safari. And if they want the latest version, nightlies can be grabbed at webkit.org.

Does Chrome also have the same DOM/CSS inspector & editor, network transfer/latency charts and JavaScript debugger like Safari does?

US customs: Yes, we can seize your laptop, iPod

Andre Thenot
Stop

Re: the real point is

Sillyfellow wrote:

"also, because we havn't gotten as terrified by all this BOGUS 'terror' stuff as we are supposed to be, this is a way of trying to keep us all scared so we are easier to control and manipulate."

So in other words, we are terrorized to prevent from being terrorized. Same difference. Except that from a statistical point of view, the cure is worse than the problem.

EU accidentally orders ISPs to become copyright police

Andre Thenot
Stop

If you'll excuse another car analogy...

So does this mean that companies that build and run highways should be charged in connection with all the crimes their users do? Clearly they have enabled this drug smuggler to carry his illegal cargo. Obviously they are at fault for providing a fast getaway route to that bank robber. They are even allowing child abusers to be in the same lane as vehicles with children...

How crazy.

Cooperation is along the lines of a road worker noticing some bank notes flying out of a van and calling the police. But the way things get implemented with data, it usually ends up as a full car search at each toll booth.

(appropriate road sign)

Google out-visions Jobs on Mac roadmap

Andre Thenot
Joke

@Mike Moyle

I see you've been reading RFC 2551 - The Roman Standards Process -- Revision III, Copyright (C) The Internet Society (MCMXCIX).

Apple okay with Safari 'carpet bombing' vuln for now

Andre Thenot
Boffin

Only a problem on Windows Safari

On the mac side of things, the downloaded files trigger an alert box warning the user they're about to launch/open for the first time a file downloaded from the internet and specifies the URL and date/time it was downloaded. So in other words, they rely on the Finder to do the user notification at launch time.

In a way, this similar to Perl's tainted mode where data from the outside is accepted but flagged "untrusted".

Since Windows Explorer doesn't do this, the warning needs to be done by any app doing the download. So the Windows Safari should probably differ from the mac version in handling this.

Pentagon rattles sabre at Google's Street View

Andre Thenot
Alert

Nothing to hide

But I thought that "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear"... Please, help me: I'm getting confused as to which propaganda I should be believing.

Seriously though, if the military is concerned that a simple street view might provide an advantage to a hostile party, then perhaps we should all be concerned with the carelessness of said military to expose sensitive data to the public at large.

On a lighter note, blacking out images is a perfect illustration of "security through obscurity".

Just how cute are cats? W3C can help

Andre Thenot
Boffin

Differences with <i>

It seems that §3.2.19 of the aforementioned spec provides the relationship with the <i> entity:

The <i> element should be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate. In particular, citations should use the <cite> element, defining instances of terms should use the <dfn> element, stress emphasis should use the <em> element, importance should be denoted with the <strong> element, quotes should be marked up with the <q> element, and small print should use the <small> element.

That should set things straight. Of course this will be blissfully ignored by all these web page authors who have attended the MySpace College of Web Design. :)

UK shamed in world privacy league

Andre Thenot

@ Cameron Colley

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear? Fair enough. If you truly believe this, please post the following personal information: Full address, Phone number, Salary, Credit card numbers, social security, etc.

You won't do this because you don't trust the people reading this. Rightfully so, may I add.

So if you're confident that complete and full disclosure is not a problem, then you are really saying that you have a complete confidence that your government is perfectly trustworthy, which is to say that every single person part of that administration is flawless, always competent and completely incorruptible. This applies to any country, BTW.

Even if you discount the possibility of a government going sour a few years or decades from now, there's still the risk of breach of data security.

I once did a project for a police department which involved the database of all their current and past officers, complete with social security IDs. Are these people doing anything wrong that they want to hide? Presumably not. But nevertheless, when that project was over, I destroyed all the copies I had of that database: no data = no leaking of data. That protects me and protects them.

A.

ISPs turn blind eye to million-machine malware monster

Andre Thenot

Smart ISPs vs. dumb pipes

Many people, myself included, like to see the ISP as a "dumb pipe" for bits. We want a basic connection in full-IP to the internet and could care less about any extra services.

I'd venture to say that this is exactly how the IPSs hate to be seen, for it makes them a commodity on the same level as a water or power company. Instead, they try to come up with some "added value" so they can be seen as delivering a service.

The problem is when they try to argue both sides at once: in the dumb pipe scenario, they are not responsible for anything but pushing packets through the wire. If they choose to play the "service" card, then maybe they could look into assuming some kind of responsibilities.

Sony breaks out 'mass market' Blu-ray players

Andre Thenot

Works great

I got the BDP-S300 in June and it performs nicely. No complaints so far. It also does a very good job at upscaling DVDs.

Some have remarked that a PS3 is about the same price. Get it if you play games but since I don't, I felt the S300 to be better suited in my living room.

A.

Google invades Outer Space

Andre Thenot

AdWords

One wonders how this will be used for advertising purposes...

Mars -- Mars™ Chocolate Candy Bars. Free shipping.

Sun -- Contact us for SunFire™ servers customized to your needs.

A.

Apple unwraps trio of aluminium iMacs

Andre Thenot

Keyboard replacement

If you need a good keyboard, check out Matias.ca: they make the Tactile Pro which uses the good old mechanical switches instead of rubber contacts. It makes the sound of a 20-year old IBM keyboard but for heavy-typing it's the cat's meow, if a tad expensive.

A.

Lawsuit targets Apple over laptop display dithering claims

Andre Thenot

Silly

I may be wrong but high-end graphics users rarely relied on Apple monitors, especially when color accuracy is important. There are other vendors that provide displays with much better gamuts, and until very recently these were based on CRTs (which excludes laptops).

What Apple does provide is their ColorSync workflow to allow various apps to cooperate with a color-matching engine and correctly handle the ICC profiles of various connected devices.

A.

Vista – End of the Dream?

Andre Thenot

The infamous Quartely Report

I'm glad Apple took the plunge to rewrite the entire OS. As a user and a developer, my biased opinion thinks they did a good job. However, this is a hard thing for a publicly-traded company to do. The board MUST show to their investors how they are moving the company towards increased profitability in the short and the long term.

In the case of Apple, they didn't really have a choice: the old architecture (MacOS toolbox) was in much the same state as Windows: it worked but was having trouble with the explosion of APIs and features that had been added between System 6 and System 7. Therefore I'm lead to believe that it was easier for Apple to convince their investors that this rewrite must take place. It is worth noting that OS 8 and OS 9 were minor updates to get people to wait for OS X. And as others pointed out, 10.0 and 10.1 weren't quite stellar.

In Microsoft's case, they are doing well financially, so how are they to tell their investors that they are rewriting their main product so they won't make much money on the OS front in the next 5 years? I think they'll have to wait until they are actually hurting before they can make a case for a full rewrite. Of course, rewriting Windows will go overtime and over-budget just like Apple's rewrite took much longer than anticipated. And the investors know that and are probably not quite ready for that just yet.

A.

French succumb to Franglais

Andre Thenot

Consistency, but not at all cost

As a franco-american, I have an strong opinion about this.

The problem with French "borrowing" foreign words is that it comes at the cost of a certain consistency in the language. When you know the French rules, given any word you can know how to pronounce it. Contrast this with English where you need to know the origin of a word to be able to pronounce it--and there are exceptions to that too.

Unfortunately, when it comes to technical (IT) jargon, there's no elegant way to get things integrated. If a new concept is invented by English-speaking folks, then let their language get the credit for it. Renaming doesn't really make sense unless there's already a word expressing a concept close to it. Rather, it just introduces a greater confusion.

Perhaps an idea may be to keep the English radical of a word and tack on the endings that jive with French grammar. But if that's not possible, just keep the English by default: even though "le refactoring" is not French, people understand exactly what is meant.

A.