I did A level Computing (AQA) in 2001/2002 and we did a little bit of assembler, some pascal and some prolog stuff. We were taught VB for doing the projects (first year the exam board gave us a problem to solve, second year we had to find our own problem). Although the school dropped this course after I finished as there weren't enough people interested in it and of those who were only a few were intelligent enough to cope with it.

And then...

Now they have to patent the reverse process (get money out of companies shutting down their offshore operations), another for the business process of operating out of a building, another could be having a company website.... etc....

Stupid useless shop people...

Once I was buying alcohol and an 18-rated DVD. They scanned the alcohol through without asking for ID then refused to sell me the DVD as I didn't have any ID, so I just took the alcohol... muppets!

And to 9112...

Or where I work, 112 connects you anyway without having to prefix it with '9'. Our extensions are 100-199 so when we set it up... you can see the picture when we assigned extension 112 to someone - every time we call them we get emergency services.

Now everything over 111 is one out on the patch panels as we had to skip 112 on the exchange.

Grrrr

Barcodes

"counterfeit barcodes"? Since when was it illegal to print a barcode... maybe to slap it on a box to get it cheap but printing a barcode isn't illegal.

@Matthew Banwell

E-mails about Adwords are most likely spam, it seems they have moved on from online banking phishing to Google Adwords phishing - receiving messages about Adwords which links to a dodgy domain on accounts with nothing to do with adwords myself.

@DaveB

"Wanted some memory....forget it...PC world prices for 1MB buys you 8MB from CRUCIAL."

Wow - didn't know anywhere still sold 1MB and 8MB sticks of RAM ;-)

Oooh jailtime fun...

Yes, good idea - who would have expected the Gov to actually listen to advice? Let's bang everyone up in prison as if they aren't full enough already. I know, they could let all the murderers and rapists out early so there's room for the potheads.

They're as good at running successful IT projects as they are at anything else.

And the next patent is...

...using speakers/headphones to play back said music! Oh no, sue everyone for doing that, someone must own "using speakers/headphones to listen to music".

Utter nonesense.

Sure buy another

Yes, because there's no such thing as Delete to get rid of those nasty files. Throw it away and buy another!

Morons. Also would have been a better present if they had preloaded some songs that the kids liked on, at which point they would have noticed the dodgy stuff on there before the kid did.

Idiots

How about - we stop copying CDs onto our PCs when you replace CDs that break or get scratched to hell. Also, please supply me with a 25-drive CD tower so that I can pick randomly from 25 CDs when listening.

Bloody morons. The R.I.Ass.A needs to piss off and die, where do they make up these figures for "damages" anyway - sounds like they pulled them out of a hat, or other dark orifice.

Data Centre Security

I've once had to give visitor passes back to security - who were asleep at the desk! Had to wake them up when we got there too... this was about 4 years ago mind.

Better comparison...

...if they're comparing IE to when Firefox was released.. how about compare bugs fixed since IE v1 with bugs fixed since Firefox v1.

They could spend their time a lot better, like by finishing that new file system they promised for longhorn and vista but then dumped.

Full flight?

"He was then told that since the flight was full, he'd have to pay for the seat next to him to ensure some breathing space."

If it was full, then there wouldn't be an empty seat next to him for him to pay for... unless they booted someone off.

Pulping mailshot

Yes, let's be clever and use skype for a business line... which I assume is rather for your business if you end up pulping the lot. Because VoIP is so reliable at the moment.

Fools - the thing I don't get (unless they're doing it over cable internet) is that they will have already got a phone line waiting to be used from BT - use that as business and the VoIP for home (if you're using the same premises/line for business and home).

1.5m dong

Imagine a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" over there... you start off at 100 dong (about £0.003, i.e. a third of a penny), work you way up the easy questions to 1000 dong (a whole THREE PENCE!) then up to where most people seem to get stuck at 32000 dong (woah nearly a pound there, 96p). Or if you're very lucky you can get the MILLION! (30 quid).

Nice

Works on Opera under Windows too, although (surprise surprise) not IE7 (although I'm sure you could persuade MS to add functionality in if they know it's being used to have a dig at Apple). Nice to see it reported as the "SHiTEphone" after running the app :-)

Fun

Doubt their network can cope with what they're wanting from it, doesn't help that they end up with no new money to upgrade it by giving out (according to the linked tiscali page) free set top boxes, wireless modems, installation...

Although from what I have experienced from what could roughly be desribed as "IPTV" (since it's TV stuff over IP) - Channel 4 on demand - it's all good (apart from that horrible application they wrap it in), not stuttery at all (however that's over work's decent connection, not tried it at home yet).

How much...

How much are they bloody flogging this virtual furniture for anyway?! 4000 euro! Either there must be some rich sad people around or he "nicked" a hell of a lot of cupboards.

Surely...

Surely kids wanting to go on an attack spree armed with a fork or knife (those knives couldnt even cut butter they're so blunt anyway) would nick said cutlery from the drawer at home - or from the canteen at school - rather than buy new?

Mad.

Shop just as bad...

"so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't."

Surprised the woman in the shop wasn't stupid enough to hand over the prize anyway and think "the machine must be wrong".

Morons...

DRM

If they hadn't bothered sinking vast lumps of cash into the waste of space that is DRM in the first place then they'd probably be better off - 1) by not wasting money on pointless DRM, 2) as this shows people will pay for non-DRM digital media.

The usual senior management being confused by technical issues. The fact is, if you can hear it with your ears then you can record/copy it, trying to stop this is a pointless waste of time.

Hooray for the (hopeful) death of DRM!

@John Imrie

"I was under the impression it was legal to buy them under the age of 16, just not legal to sell them to anyone under that age."

Recently (starting either this month or last - I forget which) they changed it to being illegal to sell them to anyone under the age of 18 - although as with alcohol, I don't *think* it is illegal to *buy* whatever your age, just illegal to sell it to someone under 18.

Upside-down Stamps

So what do they do, install CCTV at every post box to make sure you aren't posting "illegally stamped" letters? Or does the Post Office, upon detecting an upside-down one, rip it open in attempts to find out who sent it. Maybe they just jail the recipient as an accomplice.

Silly

And when it ends some unfortunate sod finds out it's just for the plates (i.e. worth £20) rather than the actual reg number. Wouldn't surprise me really.

Lack of encryption

"Historically, Internet companies have rarely encrypted passwords to aid customer service."

How's this "aid customer service"? Luser 'phones up asking for the password? Wouldn't it be just as easy to go "No, we can't tell you it, but we *can* reset it to "dogfood24", done".

Just hope they don't lose their "security warning" e-mail in transit from themselves to their customers via.. their MTA. Reckon it's a likely chance of them losing most of it then.

TV Licence

Of course, if you don't use it to receive broadcasts and therefore don't pay you *do* have to put up with their inspectors banging on the door demanding to take a look around. A friend of mine didn't have a TV set at all and they were threatening to fine him and all sorts for "not allowing them to inspect" (despite having shown them around the house a couple of times, no TV set to be seen). Bloody stupid really.

If the BBC pays for any of the infrastructure upgrades to support their TV over IP plans, you can guarantee the licence fee will shoot up.

@steve

No mass demand, except from businesses who waste loads of HDD space with "business data" rather than films and other goodies.

Stupid...

They get a telling off for giving out the IP/e-mail addresses in China, yet if the old RIAA was after them they'd get a telling off if they *didn't* do it.

Shame they couldn't "accidentally lose" the logs and get away with it really.

Shame they cut lots of existing features...

We use 2007 now, they've dropped loads of stuff from the GUI admin (ok to be fair there's the powershell thing now which is neat), but they've dropped stuff like creating personal distribution lists through the webmail "until SP1", which is ready "second half of 2007". Been waiting bloody ages.

Re: USP

It'd be called the "World Prison", since they seem to think they *are* the world (e.g. the World Series, which only has American teams?)

Nearly every feedback reply...

Noticed how nearly every feedback reply begins with: "As we promised: NO LIES OR SCAMS!" - dodgy....

Then people saying "It didn't make me invisible" - "This isn't harry potter and the invisibility cloak" - no, it says "become invisible". That implies that you will become invisible.

Who would buy this anyway, must be a load of people with more money than sense, they should just all give their money to charity (or me).

Stupid Daily Mail (but also stupid government)

Bit of a poor attempt to "get with the kids" (who cares if they apply too late, their own fault for being unable to read a normal advertisement)

However, the Daily Mail is throwing its arms in the air because they are "not suitable for a family newspaper". Since when were the mags listed, or night club walls, a family newspaper?!

It's a load of crap

Just 30 seconds after turning on to channel 4 at 9:27pm on Friday was enough to get me contemplating suicide - or at least, killing everyone in the bloody BB house.

How can they think anyone with half a brain cell *wants* this sort of crap after 6 or however many series of it they've subjected us to. Should have been binned after the first series - shame the other channels all copied it with "I'm a celebrity*, get me out of here" on ITV. I can't remember what the BBC version was. At least we get a few months without the celebrity* version of it this time round.

*Term used loosely

UK

In England we have different size and colours for each denomination, smallest being £5 and largest being £50. Add to that the textured "paper" (cotton based IIRC so it lasts longer), raised print in certain areas, water marks, the metallic woven strip and the foil hologram thing, they look far better than other currency notes I've seen

AA

So they don't want them to let people use 'AA' as a keyword? There's countless companies whose initials are AA - e.g. the Automobile Association.

It's just a typical American sueing-frenzy.

'Phones *are* worse

We use Exchange/Outlook, so I don't need to check my e-mail, I get a notification when I receive a message. Then it waits until I'm not busy for me to read it.

However the worst thing is the 'phone, especially if something like the mail server has gone down - endless calls with "Did you know e-mail is broken" - yes, but how am I meant to fix it whilst telling everyone on the 'phone that I *know* it isn't working. Results in me hitting DND when anything big happens and getting an angry boss after me when I forget to unset DND afterwards.