...but did Nvidia ever fix the self-destructing chips ?

It'd be an expensive mistake to buy one otherwise !

wallpaper...

You do realise you can change it ?

so the trouble spots are known ?

Simple answer, create a shaded area directly in its path, be it a gift shop, bar, seating area etc., and by putting solar cells on the roof you can power air-con or fans to keep visitors cool, power tills, or use it to heat the pool...

Penguin - because it's an open source idea and they like to keep their cool :-p

revoke their licence instead ?

if they want to be arsey, just revoke their licence and let them bid for access again from scratch !

All those "phone home" processes ?

If they're all for privacy, perhaps the next round of security updates will terminate all processes that "phone home" - I once saw a figure of 22 *known* processes that "phoned home" in Vista a while ago, I wonder how many more do.

As part of this privacy push, they should ditch WGA too !

EU arrest warrants

Wonder if we can persuade the EU to issue an arrest warrant for the home sec. ? :-p

That'd focus a few minds !

Shame it'll never happen...

If a user already owned a legit copy of an M$ OS and was simply replacing / breaking the old machine for spares, they should be allowed to use the "old" OS for free irrespective of OEM bundling - so should therefore get a refund of the cost of the unwanted "new" one.

I can't hear microwaves

but if I sat inside a large (admittedly industrial sized) microwave oven when it was switched on, it wouldn't matter for too long... I might smell crispy bacon before I expire though :-}

Let's shoot the same scientist in the head, and see if he hears the bullet before it removes him from the gene pool :-}

@ Hollerith

"Of course, it depends on what you can do with paper."

Think bog roll and a free hand... although in her case, the bog roll would be for the tears :-(

Pirate icon, although she won't be getting boarded any time soon...

That keyboard reminds me...

...why I got myself an IBM Model M keyboard...

To clean this behemoth up, you simply pop the keycaps off and give 'em a good rinsing off :-)

Which reminds me, I need to arrange a birthday party for it - it was "born" on the 19th November 1989 and still works as nicely as the day it thudded (it weighs more that most laptops) off the production line.

Anyone else got 20 year old computer hardware that's genuinely still in daily use ?

The inaugral competition should be called...

(going by the prize)

Camel of The Week !

It's gotta be Paris, she's milked more liquid out of balls than most...

@ Mighty Spang

"ok so he's got asbergers. but he's intelligent. did he not know that breaking into other people's computer systems was a crime?"

You could liken it to walking down a street at night - some shop windows are left clear so you can still look at the goods. Others have shutters to hide the goods completely, and some have shutters with holes so you can still see the goods.

Although what Gary did was seemingly "wrong", all he did was look through the open holes in the shutters.

"to let him off sets an awful precident. there are plenty of people saying that a lot of criminality is to do genes and upbringing."

That's like saying someone with tourettes should be prosecuted for profanity, a catholic priest should be done for offending muslims, or a blind person should be done for falling down an "obviously open" manhole. It could be genes, upbringing, or sheer bad luck that put them in that situation, without any hint of malice in their actions.

This might have a practical use

(my wife's first comment when I told her about it, laughing)

"It'd be good for the blind - they could 'see' views"

Good point...

Pint - for the beer goggles :-}

WGA

Even with a legit machine, i'm not letting that sh*te anywhere near my machine.

I'd rather use "potentially unsafe" updates for Autopatcher !

"Vocalists' song stylings are pitch-corrected"

Sounds like a good excuse to create a law requiring any such recording to be reduced in price by 50%

How about...

I realised many years ago that many users are clueless, and most menus showed far more things than they were ever likely to use (yet alone understand).

I've been arguing that there should be a simple toggle available between "expert" and "simple" modes in most applications for some time, perhaps this would help address the issue.

Paris, because i'm sure you can guess which mode she'd use.

Can anyone with a fresh install of windows...

...tell me what the memory footprint is before you load any apps...

Linux boots for me into about 230Mb of memory tops, whereas my current install of Win XP runs at about 450Mb after a fresh boot with about 42 processes (it's fairly lean by most standards).

Result !

Our postcode book in work has just gone walkabout, the post office having discontinued them about 4 years ago - about time this became available freely !

(legitimately would be even better, after all, we paid for the sodding thing in the first place)

politically correct b*llocks yet again

"his disability and the fact he did not take part in the raid itself enabled him to suspend the custodial sentence"

Hang on, this scrote was the getaway driver for "armed" robbers - throw the book at him. Anyone else driving like him even without the robbery aspect would be in jail. Conspiracy to commit theft should be an additional tariff on top of any other sentence.

ESC - because that's what he appears to have done !

Lets see...

You can update what is essentially a web page (twitter), which people can visit.

This somehow breaches someone elses "emergency notification" patent since it can be delivered to someone else automatically ?!?

How about server notices being broadcast to users across a network ?

In the olde worlde days of BBS systems you could chat "live" to a user using a messaging system, which is in essence prior art for this patent - one user entered a message, and it was delivered to a third party via an interface.

If this "wins" in court, then no damages should be paid until all senders of spam on instant messenger services are done first.

One small edit gives...

"Downloading Windows exposes users to increased risks - such as viruses, Trojans and other malware and malicious code"

Digital preservation

It has to be stored in a format that will still be accessible long after the physical media it was originally stored on is no longer available.

Essentially, it all needs to be in unrestricted DRM free format, and the file formats need to be fully documented.

Plain text and ascii graphs anyone ? :-}

I won't buy Sony on principle

...the rootkits they included on CDs a while ago... the DRM restricted crap they peddle...

Simple requirement ?

Write into the specs for anyone tendering to supply software that it should conform to open source standards (i.e. OpenOffice.org) or that the complete data structures of the files produced should be fully documented and available without the possibility of retrospective lawsuits, and that any reverse engineering of the code is explicity permitted.

Pre-orders ?

I wonder how far up the rank Natural Selection 2 would be based on pre-orders...

Something like 97% of all purchasers went for the more expensive "Special Edition" variant at $40 rather than $20 for the standard release.

That's some going for an as-yet unreleased successor to the original free Half-Life mod, which holds the title of "my most played game" - far outstripping my time with Elite (I got to "Deadly") and Frontier (yes, i'm an old-b'stard !)

http://www.naturalselection2.com

"I liked the original so much, I bought the Special Edition"

Take your pick;

a) Broken compatibility with the software you want to use $200 for the "ultimate" variant

b) Broken compatibility and a move to linux $free

c) Stick with XP

Difficult one this, i've been playing with linux for a while now !

"new code" ?

"Microsoft claimed the change reflected the use of "fundamentally" different technologies - new code and "latest methods""

Weren't they recently fined $Millions for stealing someone elses' intellectual property for software activation systems ? Perhaps this is the workaround...

Open source needs to license, other than the one that tells you to use it however you want :-)

"continue to "provide support" to people laid off"

For a moment there, I read that as provide support for people who are pi$$ed off (aka pretty much anyone who uses Windows) - yeah, like that support train ever rolled into town :-p

Ubuntu

...on 3 of my 4 machines

What are the odds...

That this guys' sentence will be more harsh than those given to bankers for fraud, such as Madeoff...

Paris, because you've seen the goods she has to offer !

Sounds like...

The Asian bootleggers have found the correct price point !

FAO: Tim

Linux isn't actually that hard nowadays - try booting from a live linux CD (I use Ubuntu) and see if all your hardware works first of all (if it doesn't you'll know where you might need to investigate further before installing to enable a smooth transition).

It might "sound" hard for a new user to get to grips with, but if you install it alongside windows using the wubi installer (the middle option in Ubuntu if you put the CD in while windows is running) and dip into it regularly, you'll soon get the hang of it - I often go a couple of weeks without loading windows on the laptop i'm currently typing this on.

There can be some "tricky" issues with some hardware - for instance I can't get this laptop to suspend and resume when I shut the lid - but it boots quicker than Windows anyway, so I can live with shutting it down (takes ~10 seconds) and booting up again as needed. For many people everything just works as you'd expect without any hassle at all.

From a Windows users' point of view if the hardware is working ok, the hardest thing is probably getting to grips with the names of different applications so you can install them.

Some "problems" may need what look like messy command line entries, but you can usually find help with the exact command you need to enter via google, but you may well find you don't need to use the command line (aka terminal / shell) at all.

Great...

How about they secure their flawed operating system(s) instead of offering a "reward" for someone who simply manages to show how badly written / insecure it was ?

When it comes to updates, i'd love to see a court rule that Microsoft need to send a free update CD to *every* registered user for each and every security flaw - they'd take a whole different approach to security after that !

re: map completeness

"How does anyone know when a map is "complete" - this is required for navigation."

Garmin sell out of date maps - sometimes by several years - as the latest version.

Not sure how TomTom fare on this, but at least their latest models allow user-updated maps to be used as well.

As a free and open resource, it's a fantastic achievement, irrespective of how (in)complete it might be.

Hadn't XP been pulled ?

I thought you were only allowed to buy XP on a low end system nowadays ?

And the hardware to use it ?

In essence, it sounds like they're making an empty promise, in that the mobile networks will already be capable of providing internet connectivity anywhere by then, but they're making it out to be a "big thing" that they're doing themselves. Political spin at its' corrupt best.

It's alright promising such a thing, but you need a couple more things for it to be truly available - a computer or other device, and to pay for the connection - at whatever cost the networks decide to come up with.

It's not much different from saying every house can have a Maserati - you might not have a licence or be able to afford it but *technically* you might be able to buy one, so that's ok.

We need a "polital spin" icon :-}

Paris - because everyone on broadband would be able to watch her best movies...

Another unsung hero

There's a bloke on a local freecycle group to me who has fixed / built, and given away over 144 recycled PCs...

It's time they were referred to the case of...

Arkell versus Pressdram

what happened to...

only allowing XP to continue shipping (pun?) on slow netbook equivalent hardware ?

BSOD = Blue Sea Of Death

Thanks for the link Norbie

Bookmarked and stumbled :-)

Can anyone enlighten me...

Where the hell did the phrase "bulgarian airbags" come from anyway - I think it was a comment on a story, but i'm not sure...

Paris, because you'd love to put your pric^W pin in them too !

A sad loss

This is a sad loss to the Windows community, as it was often *the* best place to look for solutions to specific malware problems.

If there's any way of keeping the forums available, even as view-only, it would be a great help :-}

It's a crying shame that Microsoft couldn't admit the failings in the security of their products and fund the website themselves - volunteers are free, hosting etc. isn't.

It's so hard...

...only keyloggers, remote exploits, and scam advertisers bother. Nice.

Mine's the one with the BHO in my bank account :-/

Silverlight takeup

I don't know anyone who's ever tried it - including the more technically adept people I know.

Flash FTW ! (oh, and linux :-p )

@ Conor / windows networking

I found no issues on mine - it JWAIS (TM) (just worked as it should) - if anything, it was less painful that networking from another windows box !

Per the other comments though, yes, the default keyring message is a minor pain, and I too cannot get it to suspend (yet) on my Toshiba A60 laptop.

The wireless adaptor I use was not enabled by default, and I started trying to use ndiswrapper as i'd had to in Hardy, but without joy - I then noticed a hardware scan option which found the card, fetched the driver, and enabled it for me (I was on a wired connection at the time)

The lack of xorg.conf isn't wonderful - but i'd like to see some common screen modes being offered if it doesn't detect something higher than 800*600 by default.

I bet...

...they don't sue a single person for downloading the beta !

Windows 7 short review (and comment)

F*ck me it's ugly, and just like Vista, *I* won't be moving to it.

Lets see a review based on an install as-it-is-now on typical user / business hardware - you could start by using a machine of similar spec to the most common hardware reported by Steam (which in itself is probably skewed towards a higher spec than normal).

Mine's the one with the latest Ubuntu beta in the pocket.