I met him at a book signing a few years ago.

Queued early to be at the front & had a small rucksack of his books with me.

The look on his face at first was "Oh no hear we go, another person just going to get a few signed copies & then sell them on ebay". The way his face lit up with joy when I instead pulled out battered, well read paperbacks instead of mint 1st editions.

I'm glad to be one of the many true fans of yours.

Thank you for your work, few people achieve greatness in their lifetimes you did, multiple times over.

Given that I plan on moving to China in the next 12 months

This is encouraging news for me. Sadly I don't have anywhere near fluent mandarin and am desperately trying to learn.

Can they not just fix the memory leaks in the Chorme browser itself first?

Sorry, forgot they did an OS called Chrome when I clicked on the article & by then I was already in rant mode.

Prior Art, with rounded corners too!

http://bit.ly/Su9LAO

Expect they wrote the lawsuit papers before even filing the application.

Can you do the same for Apple patent stories?

I'm confused by this story...

At first glance, it sounds as though it's just scaremongering by a PR firm more than anything.

"Juniper researchers also discovered that 12.5 per cent of free finance apps had the ability to initiate a phone call without going through the dialer interface. Two thirds (63.2 per cent) didn’t provide a description of this capability within the app. However, after installing a number of these applications, it became clear that this capability was legitimately used by the app to contact local financial institutions."

- Okay, right... so the apps that required the permission did actually use the function legitimately. What's wrong with that?

"Meanwhile, 5.53 per cent of free apps have permission to access the device camera"

-Okay, right.... going by the detail provided on finance apps, what % of free apps use a camera legitimately as part of their software?

Not going to take a second glance as it's nearly 4pm which is pub o'clock.

Is that Sooty image used with the appropriate permissions?

Either way the court may rule it's going to set a precedent.

Don't let me in!

I don't want to be mutated. I like the idea of my posts being lovingly looked at by a moderator before they 'go live' (I miss you Sarah). Why should I be forced to give up that thrill just for the sake of a little formatting?

..but...but...

... Macs don't get infections!

As others have said. Yes & No.

As computers have got faster more data has been collected.

Some analysis is now possible on the user desktop in ways it wasn't before.

In some ways... snore... blah blah.... Excel, Qlikview, LogicXML... blah blah... R... BIG DATA!... Hadoop, Google... snort, dribble... MYSQL, cubes, RapidMiner, SAS. Some more chat about products. "Users are best placed to understand their data than analysts in some cases"

That pretty much covers it right? Speaking of which anyone seen Amanfrommars recently? I miss him.

Yeah, but can it...

...run Crysis on full settings.

- Mine's the one with the dust & the Penguin book of Bob Monkhouse jokes in the pocket.

<Title>

"The only weakness of thermal imagers is that they don't work at all well through windows"

Simple answer then. Use Linux.

@The number one programming error

I'm sorry AC. - Blaming a low budget for your poor code is not on.

If the project is release ready then the code must be free of bugs (the major ones like these 25) otherwise it doesn't get out of Alpha/Beta.

If it will cost more than management are willing to spend then they can either open source the project & hope someone will fix it for free or leave it in beta & risk it in a production environment.

Release software should not have these errors regardless of budget. End of.

@Dr Patrick

"need room to hide the three midgets with iPhones doing the real controlling"

Love it sir, love it.

So...

...when people think up these banal and irritating flash ads a light bulb really does go OFF above their heads.

Couldn't you have just told us "whenever we look at streaming flash videos an angel cries"? Lightbulbs?... pffft!

Open Office

I'm pretty sure that by now about 200 commentards will have mentioned open office.

To all who have... STFU they're MPs. Government policy = if it costs lots of money and does not deliver on it's promises then it's what they use otherwise no deal. IMHO It's the reason they have PRINCE2.

Paris because it's been a long week and I need someone to make me smile. Bill G doesn't.

Has nobody considered the japes that could be had with this device?

Imagine the fun going to the urinals and (with a few modifications) being able to piss dry ice, bright pink glowstick fluid, etc.

Where do I buy?

IT Angle

I loved way you crowbarred in the Nortel link to get an IT Angle.

Good show sir, good show.

El Reg = an 'Internet scandal-sheet' says BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/11/close_to_you.html

@It's obvious

Matt, I do hope your joking with that statement. You need to get an antivirus program regardless of how secure your operating system is.

One of the unmentioned problems of the Open Source World is the lack of 'great' antivirus packages for Linux.

Now, as soon as Norton port over their excellent AV software to that 'ooboontoo' thingy then I'm there.