* Posts by Nick

238 publicly visible posts • joined 4 May 2007

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Judge backs Halifax in Chip and PIN clone case

Nick
Stop

Chip and Pin in ATM's - Where exactly?

My 'horsey' bank card recently foobar'ed up and stopped me withdrawing money from cash machines - it rejected the card as unreadable.. However, it still worked perfectly in retailers Chip + Pin machines, and allowed me to get funds using the cashback mechanism. I believe this was due to the magnetic stripe being zapped rather than the chip knackering up.

Several cash machines, both new (installed within the last 12 months) and old, and even the banks own machines didn't seem interested in reading the card, so unless I got really unlucky with dodgy machines, Id say that chip reading ATM's are few and far between.

Good luck to 'yer man though, although I think me may have better luck participating in a quest to find some golden rocking horse poo.

BSA urges London companies to check for pirate software

Nick
Joke

Ross Kemp...

I saw a trailer on one of the Sky channels the other day for a programme called 'Ross Kemp on Pirates'. Are the BSA employing the bald headed nutter now?

Volvo readies plug-in hybrid V70 estate

Nick

Rozzers

Whats the betting the Rozzers will have some techy figuring out how to rewrite the software to make it use both motive sources at the same time - extra power and acceleration for those motorway chases! Great!

HMRC goes underground to find new tech boss

Nick
Go

The CIO Merry Go Round...

So a CIO who's a bit rubbish goes to a Government department thats a bit rubbish with its IT on a £180,000 Salary (plus "Expenses" no doubt). Don't blame him - Id too it too, and then jump at the end of the 3 years to start another 'challenging' career change.

Is that the distant sound of the theme tune from 'The Magic Roundabout' I hear?

Gordon 'to sacky' Wacky Jacqui

Nick

Yeay!

I was having a bit of a rubbish week thus far, so this news has made me smile again. I just hope they don't give her some other senior cabinet position for her to bugger up.

Digital Spy struggles to pin down tainted ad infection

Nick
Paris Hilton

@ The Wuzzy FotNot

As a regular visitor to both here and there, I would say that El Reg's 'Comment' area also features a similar degree of vacuous commentary, only with an occasional IT bent to it, so if I were you, I wouldn't start waving my woggle too enthusiastically. However, if this knocks a few of the funktards that inhabit DS, then so much the better I say. There's far too much hatred of others on there these days.

Paris, because whilst DS is a bit lightheaded and has its knockers, it does have some uses too, especially if you're after some evening entertainment.

Junk email volumes hit high

Nick

Only 90%

Lucky them - we're current at 99.7% of all inbound messages to our company as spam, and another 0.5% being other neer-do well virus type traffic. Luckily its filtered 'in the cloud' so we don't have to churn through it here.

Also, my webmail account which generally has 650 messages in the spam box (Messages over 30 days automatically get ditched) is now showing nearly 1500. Based on the number of other messages I recieve there, Id say its about 96% spammage.

If only we couldn't divert all that processed meat to 3rd world countries - we could cure world hunger in one fell swoop.

Brown red in face after blusher found in cab

Nick
Thumb Up

I wonder...

... if perhaps his fingerprints and DNA could be grabbed from the bag 'o swag.

London cab & bus trials for satnav speed-governor kit

Nick
Black Helicopters

Cabbies.

I wonder how long it will be until they figure out to cover the reciever in tin foil to be both compliant and non-compliant at the same time.

Why don't we have a tin-foil hat icon?

Google auto-links YouTube, Google accounts

Nick

Not bothered...

Doesn't bother me, as I choose to use all these free services from Google, but as well as password integration, how about integration of other features, for example insight data into Picasa. In fact, its Picasa that needs integration with Google...

Microsoft: Don't rush to download Windows 7 RC

Nick
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All fine here.

Managed to download it fairly quickly yesterday morning - installed itself within an hour in an old Dell D610 with a gig of RAM. Feels a tad slower than the 7000 beta release, but works perfectly. I did however have to plug into the network to get the drivers for the wireless and graphics card but seems fine to me. Its certainly as fast as XP though.

Still looking good MS, but I'll still stop with 'nix for my home machines.

Apple drives iPhone app developers to the brink

Nick
Coat

Interest(ing).

I wonder how much money they're making on interest? A reasonable amount even at todays shocking rates. If I were a developer, I would charge them for late payment fee's, but I suspect that won't be allowed in the contract, along with the right to sue, change the contract on the developers terms and other such activities which Apple don't like. And I suspect their response will be "If you don't like it, don't develop for us".

Insert Obligitory "The developers are revolting" "Yes, because they code for 4 days straight on a diet of pizza, red bull and no showers" reference here.

Satellite to offer 10Mbit broadband to entire UK

Nick

My credit card number is....

Wow, sounds impressive, but I think i'll wait until 2010 to see how well it performs. I notice that no mention of 'upstream' speeds are mentioned in the article - I'd be interested to know what it is.

I wonder which will be first, my exchange being upgraded to 21CN/WDS (Q1 2009 apparently) or the satellite being launched and a commercial service offered. I also want to see if anyone offers a 'travellers' kit for this - how nice would it be to take your Broadband with you, wherever in Europe you go?

Turks hijack Kiwi MSN via DNS cracks

Nick
Black Helicopters

Going Down, under.

This raises an interesting point. What if the DNS Servers used by the Great Firewall of Oz were hacked. A whole countries external communications routed via China/Russia. ALL your moneyz are belong to us.

Start-up Bee pledges 'affordable' British e-car

Nick
Stop

Interesting.

Id say thats an interesting concept, but add 20% to the cost of that, just because manufacturers are always over optimistic.

But with these electric cars coming to market soon, all they need to do is get someone to invent a way for people who don't have driveways to charge their car on the street, without the owner being sued for creating a trip hazard.

US parkies in 'burrow-buster' marmot detonation campaign

Nick
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Mythbusters

Mythbusters tested the Caddyshack myth that an underground explosion would knock the golfball into the goal or whatever they call that little hole. When Gasoline didn't work, they tried C4. Still didn't work :)

But made a nice big boom, so its all good.

HP packing workers seal bosses in conference room

Nick
Coat

Unsurprising.

The French are revolting. Many of us have known that for years.

BT health problems will cost more jobs

Nick
Thumb Down

Does not compute...

And yet... when we try and put business to them, they go out of their way to make life extra difficult. We recently bought Virgin Media Business circuits in our company because we just couldn't get them in any kind of reasonable time/cost despite BT Openreach engineers then supplying the circuits.

I suspect that maybe one of their ex employee's has stolen a page from their script's and now nothing computes.

Bucks village repels Street View spycar

Nick
Coat

Now't as Queer as Folk..

They don't like it up 'em, isn't it wasn't it...

So with this hitting newsstands, makes it known that this hamlet of affluence is just that. Why not move to Yorkshire - its grim up there, and as such means you won't get burglarised because they're all down south...

Coat please, with extra flame retardance.

Vulture Central on total G20 terror lockdown

Nick
Coat

WhyohWhy...

Surely to distract the trouble makers from trouble making, why don't they just Tw@dangle Sir Fred from a crane about 15ft above the baying crowd?

Wally found on Street View

Nick
Thumb Up

OMG

I drive down Slade Road dailys, and always thought it was a bit of a shit hole. Now it's also a piss-hole too.

Google Street View hits UK streets

Nick
Stop

Booo

Thats no good, noone I know is covered by the camera's - we've all fallen outside the scope of the evil eye o google. Perhaps it will be coming later in the year, I've seen several of the advanced invasion vehicles doing reconnaissance round by 'ere.

Sega Mega Drive to be revived next month

Nick
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Missed the boat?

That would be cool, if only Sega hadn't already released all the Megadrive games I wanted to play on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade. Oh well, I'm sure they'll still sell at least 10 of them.

Royal Mail disses runaway post van man

Nick
Stop

Umm?

Surely the correct response from the Royal Mail legal team would have been

'The Cheques in the Post' and never actually send it.

3D TV by Christmas, hints Sky

Nick
Paris Hilton

It'll never take off...

Who's going to want to sit down in front of the telly and have to don a pair of sexy specs just to watch Eastenders 3D?

Its OK for the occasional movie or sports, but how quickly with those specs break, are they going to provided enough of them for 7 or 8 people to all sit down and watch together, and will they be available free?

Paris, because I'd like to see her star in a remake of Twin Peaks in 3d.

Iomega muffs hard drive DLNA testing

Nick
Unhappy

t'wonky...

I wonder if its something to do with Twonky? I've been experimenting with it for the last couple of months and version 3.something or other on Linux worked great with my Xbox 360. I went to purchase a licence, and then was told that version 4.something was now available and that I should upgrade. So I did that, only to find that now, approximatly 75% of my video files will no longer play, even though they're fine played back from USB/DVD/TVserity.

I'm waiting feedback from Twonkey, but none has been forthcoming so far. Great product going backwards...

Snacker discovers Nokia phone in crisp packet

Nick

Shock and Awe...

Not and finding someones phone in a crisp packet, but that they have Aldi's in America. I thought it was all 7/11 and Walmart, and perhaps a couple of Tesco's dotted about the place.

Ryanair may charge cattle to use the bog

Nick
Stop

The 'elf.

So, I take it the 'elf of safety hasn't been consulted? Surely people are just going to wazz in their seats, up the wall e.t.c. damaging the electrics, causing higher rates of corrosion e.t.c.

Stop, I'll hold it in until we land.

Hollywood to totally recall Total Recall

Nick

Why?

Why the heck does this need redoing? Its fine as it is, and doesn't look too dated.

If they're remaking old sci-fi films, I'd like to see a reworking of Soylent Green, perhaps with the after effecrts of the 'discovery' covered.

And rehashing? Has Hollywood run out of ideas?

Virgin Media boosts bottom tier broadband

Nick
Coat

Lol

I love how they call the base package 'M' for Medium. They should have gone with a number system and made the top package 11. As in, "It goes all the way upto 11".

Philips prices up 21:9 ratio 'cinema' TV

Nick
Thumb Up

Yeah, but...

... Its still only the price of 3 cinema tickets plus popcorn!

Satellite-hacking boffin sees the unseeable

Nick

Cool, but not that cool.

Not particularly new news as anyone with a Linux STB (and I'm sure others) has been able to do this for some time. What does sound useful is the visualisation tool which is able to extract the data and 'model' it effectivley. Much easier to highlight and then click on a red blob amongst the stream of ASCII flowing through than it is to spot a HELO or equivalent as it whizzes past at several thousand BPS.

AA sniffs out Blighty's best bacon sarnie

Nick
Stop

BBB

So (to copy an advert slightly), where the bloody hell are they? Can't find Bob on Google Maps, on the AA site, or in Tomtom. I can't be driving round willy, or indeed nilly asking for big bobs bites. I shall have to continue to frequent my best bacon sarnie outlet (Busters, home of the Belly Buster) in Darlaston, West Midlands (round the corner from Ikea off of M6 J9 ).

US only kidding about 'clear to fly' January deadline?

Nick

Bah!

Bah, doesn't seem to work with Chrome, although FF and IE seem to be OK.

I wonder what would happen if all eligible people in the world applied together.

On a plus note, the popup seems to indicate that none of the information you submit is secure. At least they're honest about it.

Cellular repeaters: Can you hear me now?

Nick
Coat

@Ben Park

You're probably right - Tora Bora probably have to make do with Satellite Phones or Camels.

Mac fans see MS porn everywhere

Nick
Coat

Shock + Awe...

So, basically iPhone users here are judging something on appearance before understanding how they work? Basically style over substance?

I'd never of expected that from a worshipper of Jobs.

BBC: Top Gear Tesla didn't run out of juice

Nick

As Robert Llewellyn's character might say...

... Engage Smug Mode.

I for one welcome our fibbing tyre smoking overloads, and if you don't like the programme, they've now invented a wonderful device called a 'remote control'. This little gadget allows you to choose from potentially hundreds of other channels of exhibitionism and showmanship. Or alternatively you could press the red button (no, not that red button, the other one with Power written on it) and go and read a nice wholesome book or even an articulate bipartisan thoughtful news paper such as the Daily Mail.

Corrupt cop abused police database to blackmail child abusers

Nick
Coat

In unrelated news...

Jacqui Smith has said that she intends to set up an 'ID warehouse company' to auction off publicly collected information, once she leaves her post in the home office overseeing the rollout of the National ID scheme. :)

Pret customers get free Wi-Fi

Nick
Thumb Up

Bwahhaha.

A local Starbux has free wifi, courtesy of the hotel in which its situated, just off Junction 10, M6 ;) Great way to refresh yourself AND your e-mail after a couple of hours in the Gym.

Seagate slashes bare drive warranties

Nick
Thumb Down

Spin Spin Sugar....

On my last drive shopping spree, I bought 3x 250gb Maxtors from 3 seperate stores, I entirely expect the drives to wear out after about 18 months (24x7), especially when purchasing the cheapest consumer units going. My next purchases as I extend the RAID5 volume will be from a different manufacturer to slightly reduce the risk of simultanious drive failures, and any drives replaced under warranty will be noted and monitored for further ELF. Any drives making it past 3 years will be exchanged for new units on a rolling programme too. Unfortunatly the quality of the cheap drives these days means that long term reliability cannot be expected (I don't have any experience of expensive consumer disks, but suffice to say that Server SCSI/SAS drives that feature in Dell/HP servers that we use seem equally as pants), which is why I've had to invest in a home RAID5 solution, and will be looking at remote backup next. Its such a shame, as my 120 mb (yes, thats megabytes) IDE drive from my first 386sx is still going strong with no bad blocks, whilst countless drives in the interim have come and gone without so much as a SMART alert.

Sony Ericsson to make Android phone

Nick

SE or HTC?

On the basis that HTC seem to be making loads of OEM kit, including the SE x1, and they make the current Android Phone - I wonder if they'll be building the Sony branded version as well.

Doesn't really matter anyway, I'm procuring a Diamond HD in the sales anyway.

Exam board to hear appeal over format cockup

Nick
Thumb Down

Hmmm.

Perhaps the teachers need to take that course as well? Sounds like they haven't got a clue, especially with the bit about links to documents stored on local servers.

Those who can't, teach?

(Oh, and I can say that, given that 2 of my direct family are qualified teachers!).

Teen-bothering sonic device now does grownups too

Nick
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Thanks Auntie.

Thanks BBC. I was happily listening to Ken Bruce this morning whilst doing some programming (read - surfing the net) with my headphones in, and then the news saw fit to broadcast the noise, seemingly without warning.. Now, the voices in my head have been replaced by the the bells!

Being over the age of 25, I can still hear the original mozzy - a recent hearing test in fact showed that it was deep 'bass' sounds that I couldn't hear, or at least, that was before Radio 2 saw fit to blast our ears with wrongness. And I thought that was Radio 1's job?

Wireless comms and the end of civilisation

Nick
Stop

One Vital Element.

You've mentioned systems that can keep running - especially the iridium network. This is all fine and dandy, and yes you should be able to communicate for a while, but what happens at the end of each billing cycle? If their systems don't recieve payment from the customer (eg because all the bankers have either died or gone to Bradford in their Audi's) then the service providers computers will eventually decide that this person's arrears are too great and suspend the service. So, whilst the communication facilities might exist, whether you're able to or not is a different matter.

'Bloody' is an offensive word, declares ASA

Nick

Hospitals.

So you can't use bloody now. How about bleeding, as in 'that red stuff is from my bleeding leg'. However, that falls down if you've stopped bleeding and are now simply bloody. Hmm, how should I address this issue should it arise without risking being banned from the NHS for using offensive language?

Government still losing at least a computer a week

Nick

Hardly Surprising.

It can't really be a surprise that at least one a week goes 'off the radar' given the massive PC estate that the Government runs. Any large enterprise would probably suffer from similar problems.

You're never going to be able to stop staff leaving them in taxi's, the general public stealing them, assets being moved without permission or laptops not being collected from staff who leave. What it does highlight though is that its ESSENTIAL to ensure ANY data storage is encrypted and that your asset management systems accurately lists all accesses available so that when the loss is discovered, you remove access permissions.

Inside Microsoft's 'New Xbox Experience'

Nick

Not bad, not bad...

I quite like the NXE so far, although XBL has been crapped out for most of the day.

Its defiantly a rip off of both Wii and PS3 GUI's though, but thats no bad thing. Seems pretty straight forward to use, but neat, modern and very post 2006.

Yeah, it sucks that MS charge so damn much for what is essentially a laptop HDD, but then, you're not forced to download everything. I for one keep my media on my server and stream it across, so really, its all the XBL arcade demo's that trash the space on mine!

Oh, and to Alan, yes, PC's may be able to play the latest greatest games, but only if you keep adding bits here and there. I got fed up of the constant upgrade cycle when decent graphics cards got as expensive as a whole console! At least with 360 et la, you don't have to check the back of each box to make sure you've got enough memory, cpu/gpu horsepower e.t.c. Buy it, stick it in, play it, job done. You don't even have to 'install' it if you don't want to!

Also, most of the decently specced Games PC's I've seen recently would struggle to fit under the telly where the VHS used to go.

Beeb reprieves Xmas Top of the Pops

Nick

Ferne AND Reggie?

Ferne and Reggie, on the same show, at the same time? Christ, it must be Christmas if both of them are turning up!

They should ask Jimmy "now then now then" Saville back though, that would be better.

Endeavour launch heralds new dawn for piss-drinking

Nick
Coat

Lister to RedDwarf...

...we've recycled the water supply so many times it's beginning to taste like Dutch lager.

Arizona boffins get a grip on their newly-fat pipe

Nick
Paris Hilton

I want...

I want a Smut Hose. All I've got currently is a filth straw.

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