* Posts by William Boyle

293 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Aug 2008

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How to kill your computer

William Boyle

WTF!?

Re. Microwaving the MacBook laptop. Why didn't they put the battery back in and try to reboot it after it cooled down? That would show whether or not it was "toast"! :-)

Seagate DeLorean: World's priciest hard drive?

William Boyle

Back to the future!?

So, does it come with "Back To The Future" data restoration capabilities as well? IE, can it restore data that I haven't created yet? :-) Now, that would be a treat!

Microsoft reins in Windows server prices

William Boyle

Yep, Linux is still cheaper (as in free).

Everything that MS server and client software can do, Linux can also. So, if you are a medium sized company with 1000 or so users, a single Windows server w/ enough CAL's for all the systems will cost in excess of $70,000USD. Linux? $0USD. Thanks, I'll take that $70K now and buy some neat x-mas presents for the gang!

Internet Explorer info leak festers for 2 years

William Boyle

Yours truly, from Microsoft

This sounds like Microsoft-Speak for WDGAS (we don't give a s**t)...

US raygun jumbo fluffs another test missile-blast attempt

William Boyle
Black Helicopters

X marks the spot

They forgot the kick the equipment on the proper spot when it refused to fire up. Don't they know that staple technique of all SciFi thrillers, that if your boffin-built kit doesn't work when the enemy missiles (or other threat) is on the way you are supposed to kick, pound, or otherwise whack the offending gear in the appropriate spot (varies with equipment and failure mode)? Man, what Bozos!

Android is turning a profit for Google

William Boyle

No I would not have

The fact of the matter is that I would not have purchased a smart phone until something that is (mostly) open source like Android was widely available and functional. So, count me in as one who shunned the iPhone (too closed), Symbian (too niche), et al. MeeGo may be an alternative for me in the future. As for advertising, I have not found it too intrusive (yet) on the Android, and in reality, my Nexus One works a treat!

Google, boffins crack Rubik's Cube mystery

William Boyle

N-1

And, if you let your wife change the bulb, the number has to be N-1... :-)

Want to use WD diagnostics? Buy Windows

William Boyle

Just say no!

I have given up on any device or software that doesn't support Linux, or at least runs well in the Wine environment. Fidelity is about to lose my brokerage business and 401K account because of this. Sparx Enterprise Architect is a UML modeling and design application I use for significant software engineering purposes which while Windows-only at least it runs well with Wine, so it will stay on my list of acceptable tools.

As for hardware diagnostics, the bare minimum of acceptable tools will have at least the ability to boot and run from CD or USB thumb drive. Seagate does this for their drives, as does Intel for its motherboards.

Removing SCADA worm could disrupt power plants

William Boyle

Guess what?

Most of these SCADA systems are running on Windows. Gee, I wonder why they are vulnerable to viruses, worms, et al? I spent many, many years developing similar software using hardened real-time operating systems, which are used to run much more sensitive installations, such as nuclear power plant control systems, avionics manufacturing lines for the F117 stealth fighter, etc.. Anyone that uses Windows-based software for safety or security-critical systems should be sued into the poor house, and then put in jail for another 100 years - just my humble opinion. Witness the fiasco caused by using Windows for the Denver International Airport baggage handling system - $100's of millions were thrown away because of such boneheaded decisions.

Amazing 'pulse of darkness' ray tech birthed in US gov labs

William Boyle

Science and fiction collide...

I can only imagine what scifi writers will do with the idea of a "dark ray". Instead of blowing things up, maybe they'll just implode... :-)

Dolphin talks to humans – but does he love Toughbook or iPad?

William Boyle

Stupid humans... -Merlin

Merlin

"Stupid humans. Too bad they are so primitive they need computers to talk to us! Oh well, give them a few more thousand millennia and they might become an interesting species, if they don't wipe themselves out first. Oh, and thanks for all the fish. The oil we can do without..."

Cryptome: PayPal a 'liar, cheat and a thug'

William Boyle

Ya basta!

Enough is enough! I have stopped doing any online transactions via paypal. I hope that enough others join me to send them an unmistakable signal that their policies are unacceptable! Ditto their owner, eBay... Time to create a prime-time competitor to eBay, IMO.

US 'Anubis' stealth assassin robo-missile nearly ready

William Boyle

theft

You stole my post! :-) Really, this article brought that movie to mind immediately. I think I preferred Selleck in the Magnum P.I. series, but it was a pretty decent movie of the genre when it came out (1984).

DARPA asks you to cram petaflops super into single rack

William Boyle

wishful thinking for the $$

Yeah. This spec and a couple of quid will get you a cup of ok coffee most places in the US.

Jobs: I'll decide what to do with Apple's $40bn cash pile

William Boyle

Buy Microsoft?

If Apple were to purchase Microsoft, would that mean Windows becomes iWin?

Windows server revenue outpaced Linux in Q4

William Boyle

No accounting for free

So, what is the value of the free distributions of Linux and BSD that were installed on these servers that were shipped? I know that in the financial services market, a great percentage of servers are running CentOS, Fedora, et al. The managers of these systems don't need MS, Red Hat, or IBM support to keep their systems running - they can probably teach them a thing or three...

Aussie net censorship turning Chinese

William Boyle

Get a backbone

I hope the Aussies get a backbone pdq and show this asshat the door to the street, where he and his ilk belong - in the gutter where their minds already reside.

Computer Engineer Barbie coming soon to a toy store near you

William Boyle

Where's Ken?

I'm waiting for the followup Ken the computer geek doll with a plastic pocket protector and an XKCD cartoon on his T.

One month later, Google still censors China search

William Boyle

When (if ever) will the other shoe drop?

My guess is that this entire situation is undergoing vigorous debate at all levels of Google's corporate hierarchy. It is still unclear what they will do next, but it will be "interesting" I'm sure, as in living in interesting times... :-)

Arab conned into marrying bearded lady

William Boyle
Alert

Pig in a poke?

That old saw definitely comes to mind here! Along with Caveat Emptor...

Slovakian police chief quits over Dublin explosives run

William Boyle
Alert

Human errors ARE system errors

Slovakia's interior minister, Robert Kalinak, said: "What happened at Poprad airport was a stupid human error. It is clearly an individual error not a system failure. Disciplinary proceedings against the policemen responsible are underway."

This is so short-sighted. When people are part of the system, then individual errors ARE system errors, and have to be accounted for in the planning of the system. This just proves that there is NO foolproof way to stop determined (and "lucky") terrorists from getting thru security with dangerous substances. Place a few ounces of semtex in a rubber, place it up where the sun don't shine, take a shower to clean off any residue, and you have a high-probability chance of passing airport security. That's the point - the system has failed not in detecting the explosive. It has failed in not knowing who is MOST likely to want to blow themselves and a lot of innocent people up, and keeping them away from the airport in the first place.

Pants bombs vs America: The infernal conflict

William Boyle
Flame

Ass-urdities abound

Methane when mixed with air is a highly explosive substance. Next attack - feed lots of beans to the bomber before takeoff along with a bunch of wide-necked balloons to fart into. Mix that with some oxygen (available on the plane), and voila! We have a true butt-bomber!

Bumbling NJ firemen, cops blown up in 'huge fireball'

William Boyle

Under the heading...

I think this comes under the heading of "Don't do this at home!"... Doh! Homer Simpson would be proud!

William Boyle

Using diesel

Normally, diesel vapor needs to be compressed w/ oxygen in order to explode. However, liquid diesel fuel burns quite nicely. Many years ago while working in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to clear huge snags of trees piled up by bulldozers clearing the forest for a new interstate highway we would use diesel as an accelerant to help burn 50 ft. tall piles of green wood. Probably the most dangerous job I ever had - climbing 50 ft up on a pile of trees with a honkin' big chain saw to cut up the trees to drop them into the fire in the center of the pile. The pay was good, and I was a 20-something in my "immortal" youth, but looking back in hindsight I think I must have been out of my bloomin' mind! :-)

RIPA III: A legislative turkey comes home to roost

William Boyle

crypto law sausages

Re. The whole business brings to mind a comment attributed to Bismarck: "Laws are like sausages – it's best not to watch them being made."

As a vegetarian, I can say without qualification that neither the making nor the eating is palatable in the case of these crypto-restriction laws.

Barnes & Noble whips out Nook e-reader

William Boyle
Thumb Up

Nook e-reader jokes

To significant other:

Dear, I'll be out for awhile. I'm going down to the corner for some Nook-e. :-)

Amazon coughs $150k to student over lost notes

William Boyle

Can vs Will

I think that the problem with the Kindle and similar devices isn't whether or not the service provider (Amazon in the case of the Kindle) does remove content, but whether or not they CAN remove content. Just having that ability is unacceptable to me and the sole reason why I will not purchase and use one of these devices. Though I would like the bigger format that the Kindle provides, I am perfectly happy using my Palm TX as an ebook reader.

Texas Instruments aims lawyers at calculator hackers

William Boyle

The Streisand Effect

I think TI is going to very shortly learn what The Streisand Effect means. They should fire their lawyers who are pushing folks to remove this information from the net, and TI should remove the need for digital signing of software to run on their calculators. My guess is that they will sell a LOT more calculators if they simply open source the software and let people build/install specialized software that meets their needs.

Doctor Who fans name best episode ever

William Boyle

If I had voted

I would have voted for Hartnell's "The Aztecs" (episode 6) or Troughton's "The War Games" (episode 50). I liked "The Aztecs" because it didn't have any alien/robotic antagonists and gave what was for the time an accurate view of aspects of the Aztec civilization.

Astroplumbers fix US space superloo

William Boyle

Hou$e Call$

I wonder what this house call cost, and was it billed at a flat rate or time + materials?

Staten Island manhole swallows texting teen

William Boyle

Doh! Nuts!

Makes me think of a (hypothetical) Simpsons episode - Homer walking down the street, distracted by a billboard for doughnuts (with sprinkles, of course)... plop!

Apple patents karaoke lessons

William Boyle

Singing in the shower

I suppose that next The Boys From Cupertino will be patenting a method and system to improve ones' singing in the shower (msiosits)? Of course, their next blockbuster device will be the iSingAlong Personal Karaoke System...

ContactPoint goes live despite security fears

William Boyle

How much time?

My guess (bet) is that it will take about 2 weeks before it is either hacked, or leaked to the wild. This is just a SWAG, since it might already have been done.

Unsafe at any speed: Memcpy() banished in Redmond

William Boyle

Security Theater

As Bruce Schneier would say, this is nothing but Security Theater, and does nothing to make applications more secure or safe. Unless the underlying code of memcpy_s can validate the passed size with the real size of the target buffer, this is no more secure than memcpy itself. It is the programmer's responsibility to verify that buffers are of sufficient size to handle the data being copied to it. In any case, this is one of those situations where I prefer C++ to C because if the target object has been coded correctly, an assignment will "do the right thing", even if it is a bit less efficient than a raw memcpy, which is often optimized for the hardware the program is running on.

Debbie Gibson battles Mega Shark and Giant Octopus

William Boyle

Into the Annals of B-Movie Classics

OMG!!! Just from the trailer, I can see that this one will be going into my classic SciFi B-movie collection. ROFL! Definitely belongs with the like of I Married A Monster From Outer Space!

Firefox users caught in crossfire of warring add-ons

William Boyle

Nobody's perfect

Everyone makes mistakes from time to time - perfection is to be striven for, but likely never attained. What differentiates the good from the bad is how one deals with ones mistakes. To accept the blame and work diligently to rectify the situation speaks of someone who is of the former rather than the latter class of person. Now, if everyone concerned will just take a breath, communicate, and figure out how to deal with the natural conflicts in a way that benefits all users of these add-ons, then we are all the better for it. FWIW, I use all of the mentioned Firefox add-ons except NoScript, which I stopped using a couple of months ago because it was causing the browser to hang too frequently.

Love on the buses: The S-100 and me

William Boyle

A trip thru memory lane

Boy, does this article bring back memories! I worked at ComputerLand in Los Altos in the early to mid-80's where we sold Cromemco's, CCS, and other S-100 bus systems, along with IBM PC's, Apple II, III (there was a dog!), and later the Lisa and finally the Macintosh.. I learned WordStar on an S-100 system belonging to my good friend Bruce Ravenel (one of the architects of the 8086/8087 processor family) in Mountain View. All that great stuff helped me segue into software engineering where I have developed a very satisfying career over the years. In those days, the Silly Valley was the place to be if you were into computing.

NYC granny shoots mugger with .357 Magnum

William Boyle

The Last Gun Moll

The last of an era! "Gun moll shoots scum in NYC"... ROFLMAO!

eSATA: A doomed stopgap?

William Boyle

eSata != USB 3.0

There are distinct advantages to eSata vs. USB 3.0. Speed is not the only criteria. Besides the fact that the internal drive cannot sustain either eSata or USB 3.0 data rates, eSata is IMO much better suited for external drives that are continuously (mostly) attached to a system, and especially for external RAID arrays. You can add a nice 4 port eSata RAID controller to a system for under $50 USD these days (25 quid?) that will provide you with a very nicely performing backbone for RAID 5/10 enclosures. So, for a total of under $1000 USD you can put together a 4.5 TB array (6 TB including parity) that takes up about as much space as a shoe box.

I'll admit, I do like USB drives for data that I want to sneaker-net between systems. If it's under 16GB, I'll use a thumb drive. If more, then a nice USB enclosure with a high capacity HD is ideal. Unfortunately, it will be some time before USB 3.0 is as ubiquitous as USB 2.0, so even if one has a USB 3.0 drive, it still be limited to the speed of the system to which it is attached.

That said, I will admit that I will likely be the first person on my block to buy a USB 3.0 drive and controller for my workstation, and possibly a controller for my laptop as well.

Amazon waves DMCA in Kindle channel lock-down

William Boyle

Amazon - Sony all over again?

First off, I will not purchase any consumer product that requires DRM. Second, I will not purchase any consumer product that locks me into one platform. Third, well I'm thinking about that. In any case, it's this sort of cruft that will keep me from purchasing a Kindle, ever - at least until Amazon realizes that they are only shooting themselves in the foot and alienating their customers. I buy several hundred U$D of ebooks yearly - none of them are DRM-encumbered, and in the future, none of those will come from Amazon... So, to you Amazon, I say :-(>

Police law-interpretation: What next?

William Boyle

Police misuse of Power

IMO, when the police, acting under the Color of Authority, misuse their power, the sanctions must be immediate, severe, and painful to not only the perpetrator, but also to their superiors. This could include major monetary damages payment to the abused. This is the ONLY way to make sure that the authorities keep their activities under control and appropriate to the situation. I used to love visiting England and lived and studied in London for a year in my youth, and a number of members of my family have lived there for decades and contributed materially to the life and culture of Britain. Given its current totalitarian climate, I will not visit, pass thru, or otherwise place myself under the control of the British authorities ever again. I know that my sister, formerly a member of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is considering similar sanctions.

Ethernet — a networking protocol name for the ages

William Boyle

A helper in their midst?

Back in '81-'82, before I became an engineer, I was a corporate sales rep. at ComputerLand in Los Altos, CA. In that capacity, I got to know Robert Metcalf and Howard Charney at 3Com when I sold them their first 100 IBM PC's. I later met up with Robert in Boston at some IEEE meetings and dinners. I will always admire and respect him and his straight-forward manner. He is truly someone who can tell when "the emperor has no clothes"!

Did we say you can read that?

William Boyle

slippery slope

Pertaining to the closing sentence "But once the authorities start to dictate what books or documents we may possess, we are on a slippery slope". It is clear to me that (formerly) Great Britain has already slid well down that slope, and fallen over the precipice. The US is also falling, hand-in-hand, with GB over that edge. Too bad, as I used to have a great deal of respect for the British people, but you seem to have let the inmates take over the asylum.

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