Posts by M Gale
2428 posts • joined Sunday 22nd April 2007 18:21 GMT
Page:
Go directly to the dole queue?
Or alternatively, implement proper security, treat a MAC as more of a session token than a permanent key, and don't end up firing a bunch of people who might be smarter than you and bring in more money for the company than you because you have to act like a BOFH.
This article is about random devices leaking information out. So, have a webcafe or BTOpenZone-style web login that pinpoints who is using what and where. You get a nice audit trail showing who did what, your employees can randomize their MAC as much as they like, and you don't have to act like a bastard who thinks they are running GCHQ, ultimately engendering disrespect from your colleagues and peers. That in itself can end up proving more dangerous to your network security than any toyphone or tablet.
Only prevents honest people connecting.
ifconfig eth0 down hw ether 00:00:00:00:00:01
ifconfig eth0 up
...whups.
3 people are stuck up prats with no sense of humo(u)r.
Oh come on, that was pretty funny.
Best security?
I still remember a friend of mine who had just convinced his boss to get BackOffice. That's basically NT4 with Exchange and IIS. Well, I told him to chop that damned web server off at the firewall, and he laughed at me. He said it's NT, it's secure!
Yeah. So I went home, tapped in the IP address of his server along with a little bit of hand crafted unicode. I printed out the results, walked to his house and said "is this your hard drive? Is this your format c: command? Aren't you glad I didn't add the /y switch?"
That web server was chopped within the hour. While we're at it, how many people in the Win9x days had their file shares open to the world due to Microsoft being stupid and enabling NetBIOS on the dial-up adapter? I've personally managed to send a message to someone's printer saying "DISABLE NETBIOS YOU PRAT". Hopefully they got the shock of their lives when the printer next to them spat that out.
So yes, Microsoft has finally, at last, managed to get a semblance of somewhat, almost-security after a shitload of revisions. Even then, they only managed it by copying Linux, or do you think they invented UAC all by themselves?
These are facts and they make Microsoft sad.
Send a link to this page in email.
I went and searched for this function, simply because I've never, ever used it in any browser.
You're right, Chrome doesn't have it, yet. There's a whole thread about it as a feature request on one of Google's forums. Some people are referring to it as a "minimum requirement", though I really don't know why. It's like people have never heard of CTRL+C/CTRL+V. Personally I'd hate a button I end up accidentally clicking and having to go "OH FUCK OFF EVOLUTION/OUTLOOK/THUNDERBIRD/WHATEVER".
I'm sure if enough people complain though, Google will write one line of Javascript and embed it into a permanent bookmark for you. Until then, bookmark this:
javascript:location.href='mailto:?SUBJECT='+document.title+'&BODY='+escape(location.href);
Taken from http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?tid=660667a236a9d1e7&hl=en
Posted in Google preps mobile payments launch
At last?
Anything as long as it doesn't mean having to use (or rather, being entirely unable to use) that godawful Checkout thing. I'm a Maestro card owner. I'm not going to change bank for the sake of a few toys on my toy phone or toy slab. Every single other business I deal with has absolutely no problem taking my money via the plastic I already have.
Anyway, Android is out-selling iOS devices now. Why haven't we got Android Market pre-paid cards in Tesco/Wal*Mart/insert supermarket here?
Well.
...Except for WGA, which as I understand it has been snuck onto people's computers under the guise of a "security update" at least once.
Posted in Apple iPhone 5 to sport CRT-style screen
Re: Paul_Murphy
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/01/apple_headmount_patent/
That is all.
Apple keyboard?
Reminds me of the old Spectrum ZX81 and 16 keyboards!
Internet Explorer? On Linux?
Just not in their DNA.
Letters and/or digits.
"Microsoft's love affair with digital rights management (DRM) for documents continues with Mango: you will be able to set permissons on email that stop people from forwarding or printing things such as embarrassing or compromising company memos and plans."
Because a camera can't take pictures of a screen. Oh no.
Posted in HP exec: WebOS tablet will trounce iPad
Meh
Plenty of "better" options out there than the iWotsits. Myself, I like a fondle-toy that fits in a pocket, which the iPad doesn't. Now if the iPad really was a small, fondlable Mac even I'd be interested at the price it is. However, it's a toy with pretensions, so I'm really not.
Seriously, a 10" screen? And Saint Jobs telling us all that 7" is too small so we'll never see a 7" iPad? Might as well buy a Netbook. All the functionality of an iPad, cheaper, has a real keyboard AND you can do more with it. Including playing Angry Birds via Chipzilla's AppUp store.
The iPad and other huge tablets just won't have as much market as smaller, book-sized form factors. Either Apple will realise this and start releasing more portable slabs, or they won't and people will eventually either go Droid or Netbook. You know people get the same sort of hypnotic "Ooh Shiny, what is it where can I get it from" reaction from my nicely pocketable Tab as the iPad? Should tell you something, that.
Other iPad slayers, indeed. Sorry matey, but for many people a 10" expensive games console with no keyboard is dead on arrival. Apple seem entirely uninterested in doing anything for these people either, so they have to go elsewhere if they fancy a bit of "Ooh Shiny" that doesn't break the bank and is actually portable as opposed to merely battery operated.
Whether they go to WebOS on the other hand, is another matter entirely...
If you don't like BLINK and MARQUEE...
...You really, really won't like http://therevolvinginternet.com
Not a bit.
Re: Well.
To paraphrase a film that I'm sure plenty of geeks enjoyed (and no doubt, LSD freaks tripped out to):
"This year we put a 15 on the box."
Guess the film.
I'm rather pleased.
No, really. If Microsoft keep stuffing the UI up like this, people will eventually lose patience with having to re-learn ways of performing common tasks every other year. In the past, it was the file-format lock-in and the stagnation of other company's products that kept Office on top.
Now? Not so much. Export as PDF, anyone?
You can try scanning a bank note.
However on many scanners, it'll get halfway through and then complain that you're not allowed to scan that. Some will, some won't, but you don't know until you've bought the thing and tried it.
I've been told it's the same with printers, but I've only ever seen it in action with a scanner. Kinda creepy, really.
Posted in HP exec: WebOS tablet will trounce iPad
C - Sony
Because I'm old enough to remember when "iPod" was "Walkman".
I HAVE played with it.
Animations? Whoop de frigging do. My Tab animates the orientation change too. It adds next to nothing to the user experience. Having a half-decent processor adds to the user experience, due to things not shuddering and jerking regardless of the OS.
Changing everything for the sake of changing it does nothing for me, sorry. It's not slicker. It's not "more complete". How much more complete do you want? "Click on icon, app starts." Really, you can't get much slicker than that without dipping the thing in oil.
Larger screen? That only helps if you buy a 10" tablet, which is something I really do not want to do. I'd rather get a netbook and be able to use Windows and Linux on it, if I'm going to buy something large enough to need to be put into a bag rather than a pocket. Subjective I know, but still..
What does the Android 3.x UI do to improve things on tablets over 2.x? I'm not complaining about faster and smoother. Faster and smoother isn't the UI, it's the mechanics underneath. Unfortunately all the supporting foundations mean shit if the bricks and mortar look like a dog's dinner.
Maybe 3.x is "better" and maybe not, but I feel I really have to counter this inane, mindless, almost Apple-fan-esque drooling worship of the Honeycomb. It's not a new paradigm. It's an annoying bunch of changes. Where is the button that says "fuck this, I want it as it was, it wasn't broken so don't fix it thankyouverymuch"?
30,000 songs, maybe a little bit of a piss-take.
However I have to say, I have the occasional tune I haven't (yet) paid for.
I'm willing to bet that if the BPI came a-knocking, then the judge who would eventually try me would likely possess more unauthorised copies of media than I do. As would the jury.
Cast the first stone and all. Is your entire music/film/software collection legit, Orlowski?
What, every single item? Sorry, don't believe you. Very much thumbs up for actually letting me say that in a comments section, though.
Keeping track of EVERY coupon?
That's the sort of thing that got the UK's National Identity Register quite rightly derided by near enough everyone outside of New Labour's brainwashed elite. Well, that and the awful privacy and freedom issues.
Given how many coupons are created by how many manufacturers for how many products EVERY SINGLE DAY, you would need the mother of all databases to keep track of it all. Hell, I doubt even Google would be able to keep up. Then you'd need to link that all into various disparate EPOS systems used by various disparate and often-competing businesses.
Then you need to prevent it from falling victim of fraudsters and other black hats.
I think the phrase here would be "good fucking luck".
Posted in HP exec: WebOS tablet will trounce iPad
It's what happens...
...if you piss Sarah off.
I'll be going now, before she gets that horsewhip..
Actually you would likely get sectioned.
But yes, you would likely not get the same sorts of penalties as a sane person. That's if it were proven that you are non compos mentis.
I still don't get...
...what makes the 3.0 UI any more suited to tablets than 2.x? Seriously, asides "oh well you can't run any 3.x apps" there is absolutely no reason I can see to be bothered with Honeycomb. Plenty of reasons not to bother though, like having to re-learn everything and having a bunch of pixels at the bottom of the screen permanently lost to a navbar.
Still, as a Galaxy Tab owner I should maybe consider it a blessing in disguise that the 2.3 update is likely as far as it's going. Well, that is when Kies can get its bloated, slow arse into gear and not keep telling me that 2.2 is the latest firmware.
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
@Mark 65
"I'd leave Linux and wireless internet out of the argument if I were you.."
Two or three years ago I would have. These days a lot more wireless adapters will work with the various toy unixes. Quite a few of them say so on the packaging and if you can get one of those, it does tend to work straight out of the box with not so much as a "please insert driver CD" in sight.
As opposed to Windows 7 which with the same adapter, continually refuses to chat with DNS properly when connecting to a new network unless the adapter is reset first. Edimax model EW-7711UAn, just in case you're wondering.
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
You should really post as AC.
"Microsoft has a number of challenges. You will not see me trying to argue Windows is a superior operating system for tablets, or that they did not miss the boat somewhat with a decent phone operating system."
"a friend of mine was given 7 solid gold androaid phones by google. After 3 days of using them, he became depressed and developed an alchohol habit. And all his friends laughed at him for owning crappy android phones. So he threw them in the river and bought a WinPhone 7 for $100,000. He now has lots more friends and is married to a supermodel. So there."
"The 2nd photo, page 1. I got that far before giving up. The OS looks like a childs toy. It is horrible, disgusting. Why do freetards deem this kind of rubbish to be acceptable? If you want a decent UX buy MS or Apple. Ignore this Google rubbish. It will die soon."
"Why would anyone buy this......
.......when Windows Phone 7 is just around the corner?"
"You say MS completely missed new markets like mobile phones. Well, I was running around with a windows mobile device that had email/a browser in 2005, well before iPhone or Android were even rumored. Admittedly, MS got complacent and too their eyes off the ball, but they, along with RIM and Symbian, were one of the early innovators in the market."
I'll ask again, why do you feel the need to so vociferously defend Microsoft in.. well, not practically every. LITERALLY every post you have made so far? Do you really think they are in so much trouble that they require you to come to their rescue?
Don't think the processing will be that hard.
I've done some pretty good approximations for RGB->CMYK->RGB conversions in Javascript before now. As the screen itself is probably going to have an awful refresh rate anyway, you could probably get away with some cheapo embedded microcontroller that costs about 5p when bought in bulk.
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
Nice posting history.
And people accuse me of having a one-track mind.
Question though.. if you are so confident of Microsoft's continued dominance, why do you feel the need to defend them so vociferously in practically every single post you have made so far?
Letters and d1g1t5
"Twitter has long be a proponent of online free speech, and it does not yet have a UK presence."
Possibly the latter is precisely because of the former. It's a shame how far down the path of censorship and government control of information this country is getting. All with the best of intentions, of course.
Gravestone to mark the passing of freedom of speech in once-great Britain.
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
"and all the rest of the non-current, non-popular printing machines?"
I seem to remember that Vista broke most of those.
Posted in Who's nicked Vaz's fondleslab?
Homeopathy?
Isn't that the school of "medicine" that dictates you should take a poison, dilute it down thousands of times and this somehow becomes more potent the more you dilute it?
Makes about as much sense as Scientology, then.
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
Now that's an idea.
See title.
Only for a fair comparison, if the Linux distro is something awful and techie like Slackware or embedded-linux-for-routers, then the Microsoft option has to be MS DOS.
Ubuntu vs Win7 vs OS X perhaps? All running on certified hardware to remove any issues over "oh but you were using dongle Foo when dongle Bar is so much easier to set up.."
How many dear old aunties with the requisite lack of computer knowledge are there amongst Team Reg's relatives? And what tests would this hypothetical gauntlet to be ran contain?
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
Steam is currently being ported to Linux.
...though god knows why I'd want it.
Well lasers are pretty wicked.
And cool.
But only in a metaphorical sense.
Posted in Desktop Linux: the final frontier
apt-get dist-upgrade
Or the pretty graphical version "click the button that says upgrade".
I don't see any option in Windows XP or Vista that lets you upgrade to 7, outside of paying Microsoft a lot of money.
Don't forget that UAC is a poor rip off of the sudo/gksu/kdesu commands.
Oh and.. boot from a CD to grab files from a b0rked OS install. BartPE does not count, as it is illegal.
While we're at it, I still have yet to see a Windows firewall with the functionality of iptables. Geeky and technical, yes. There are graphical front-ends though, and Windows still is hopeless compared.
Oh, you also can't run Compiz in Windows.
Also, plugging a wifi adapter in without fucking about with drivers.
Also, connecting to a wireless network without having to right-click "troubleshoot problems" to kick the thing into life every other time you try to get online.
That enough things? I'm sure various people can think of more things that various Linux distros do, that you can't do in Windows.
Much as I don't like Microsoft...
...I have to wonder. What are the figures for the first three months of life for all the other Smartphone platforms?
Posted in Eight New Yorkers sue Baidu for $16m
Letters and digits.
Does this mean that Sarah Bee can get sued for laying the smack-down on commentards, because El Reg's pages can be read within the US?
I was always under the assumption that while web pages may be able to be read by the public, the servers are very much someone else's private property. They'd have more chance if the server was in the US under a .gov domain.
Posted in How to choose the right screen size
Been saying this since HD came out.
Not that I'm some luddite who doesn't like it. Just that most people don't sit with their nose touching the screen. From the other end of a living room, unless you have a super-sized screen (above, say, 25-28 inches), are you really going to tell much difference between HD and even a normal DVD? And no, I don't have crappy eyesight. It's good enough to see the "invisible" pixels on an iPhone4, at least.
The biggest benefit I can see with HD, is that finally broadcasters have upped the bandwidth of their digital channels to approximate a level of quality achieved by standard analogue PAL several decades ago.
Sticky issue.
When does "comforting a crying child" become "spoiling a little brat who's learned that all s/he has to do is bawl"?
As the title says.
Posted in PS3s overheat after firmware update
"It's only video games that are keeping the PS3 alive for now..."
Asides those early adopters willing to shell out 400 quid on a toy, who seriously buys a PS3 primarily for playing blu-ray disks now?
The game is just the start? No; it's the start, end, and middle too. At least, ever since Sony got rid of Other OS. Now that's a decision that I think some execs are kicking themselves over, given recent events.
Poor old Sony, I almost feel sorry for them. They've had nothing but cock-ups the last few weeks!
Posted in Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E 16in laptop
A bit like SRS then?
And yet SRS does manage to widen the sound a lot, if not quite being the "two speaker surround sound" that it alleged to be on launch. Was still pretty amazing all those years ago when I bought my little NuReality box.
Not that I know how this pseudo-3D works, but I can guess with a bit of edge detection, shape recognition and other such funkiness then yes you can turn a 2D image into 3D, if not a completely authentic 3D.
Posted in Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E 16in laptop
Plenty of laptops, not just Sony, call it "i link".
Or alternatively, IEEE1394. Though I think "i link" specifically refers to the mini Firewire ports that a lot of lappies have.
Posted in Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E 16in laptop
Doesn't fit in your bag?
Get a bigger bag. I've got a gigantic lump of 6 year old HP Pavilion zv5000 here that probably won't fit your bag either if that Sony won't. Anyway, while it's slower than pigshit rolling uphill in Winter compared with anything modern, it still has those lovely Harman/Kardon speakers under the two front grills.
Best sounding laptop ever.
Regardless of whether they've been hit or not...
Perhaps these guys should be RDPing into a secure server and having the laptops given the nuke-and-reinstall treatment on every return trip? Shouldn't be too hard if a magic disk can be fettled somehow. Insert disk, boot off disk, come back 10 minutes later to a clean OS install.
That or use some kind of ChromeOS-style cloudbook with the OS booted from a read-only device of some sorts (custom LiveCD? Print with a hologram for authenticity checking?). When you're working with something that sensitive, surely the less that can be gotten from access to the clients the better?
Posted in Linux kernel runs inside web browser
Choc Chip or Ginger Nut?
"(I'm presuming that Javascript can't store data locally on an iPhone)"
Giganto-cookies? Base64 encoding?
Oh yes I'm that perverse.
Posted in Linux kernel runs inside web browser
Second Reality ftw
Future Crew, please come back and show the modern pretenders how it's done!
(that said, Farbrausch have done some p. cool stuff...)
"Yes, that's what my Galaxy S does."
Funny, my Galaxy Tab doesn't. Neither does the ZTE Racer. Neither did the Commtiva N700. Neither does a friend's Galaxy i7500 (the one that Samsung rather unforgivably dumped and left with 1.x). Neither does the Dell Streak. Or the Motorola Xoom. In fact I have yet to see a single device, Android or otherwise, that automatically connects you to an unknown network without some serious hackery going on.
Are you sure you haven't just remembered an open access point called "NETGEAR" or something, and still have its profile? Android (and a lot of other OSes) uses the SSID to determine network identity, which is really annoying when you have two people, with two different security set-ups, who both have routers called "dlink".
Try locating the offending profile and giving it the old heave-ho. Shouldn't be too hard. Tap on the entry then select "forget".
Re: This is why
Uhm, you do know that phones have been able to run apps for several years before the iPhone was a twitch in el Steve-o's pants? It's called Java/J2ME, and there are snoop apps for bog standard Nokia "dumbphones" too.
And no, the PI would not be able to just "send it to your phone". Google and Apple might be able to do sneaky things like that, but your wife's PI has absolutely no chance. They'd have to have access to the device, and even then you might notice an extra "McSnoopSnooperson" app in the list that wasn't there before.
So, carry on banging the secretary, eh?
Re: I regularly get updates from Samsung
I went ahead and installed Kies specifically because of this article. And Geoff Campbell, I'm well aware of Gingerbread ALLEGEDLY about to be rolled out since I did just post the link about it up there.
My Kies information:
Current firmware version: PDA:U7 / PHONE:JKS / CSC:U5 (CPW)
Latest firmware version: PDA:U7 / PHONE:JKS / CSC:U5 (CPW)
So no, Samsung do not update regularly, and never have. That is unless I bought a Tab that's been sitting in the warehouse for however-long with the latest firmware somehow magicked onto it. Their Android update support is infamously crap, hence my utter surprise at this latest announcement.
Also is it just me, or is Kies an awful, slow POS that makes iTunes seem almost slim?
Such a teasingly tempting rumour to believe.
Hence, I won't believe it until it happens.
If it does happen though, I won't have needed this article to lower my surprise levels any further. Microkiasoft or whatever it's called will end up as the only company producing Windows phones if this happens. I mean, other manufacturers might theoretically be allowed to play but why in the HELL would they want to?
Unfortunately, Microkiasoft is not Apple, and only Apple really has the required fanbase to pull off such a vertical strategy. Could be good news for the more horizontally-inclined Droids all round, really.
