Posts by Tim Brown 1
179 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 15:09 GMT
Does it do widgets?
Does it do widgets? This to me is the biggest difference between Android and IOS. Redesigned icons are neither here nor there.
I have an Android phone (HTC Desire S) and an iPad2 . I find Android much more useful for 'at a glance' info since I'm able to configure the home screens to show me stuff I want to know regularly in the form of widgets.
"a web-based mobile future isn't just appealing, it feels inevitable"
The kiss-of-death statement, the article's author should think about going into football commentary.
For all the hype, this is just another application manager on top of a linux kernel.
I'm not sure why the article's author thinks html5/javascript development is any better than java (android) or c++ (IOS). Maybe html5 is 'easier' to start coding with, but that lower barrier to entry could just lead to a plethora of badly written apps.
Will they never learn?
When will politicians finally get it into their heads that you can't legislate against an idea?
You can't stop people thinking 'bad' thoughts and disseminating them to others, it's a losing battle. You have to listen, understand and then refute their arguments, together with understanding the root causes that lead to the promotion of these philosophies in the first place.
The attitude of May and her ilk is akin to trying to cure a cold by banning someone from sneezing.
Re: IT angle?
Totally agree with Terry 6.
It's one thing to have a bit of fun with the headline but to mislead your readership for several paragraphs is disingenuous at best and downright dangerous at worst. For someone that only skim read the start of the story they might genuinely believe that Ohio is looking to shut down all internet cafes.
Additionally search engines will pick up the headline and opening and almost certainly this article will now get misquoted by other people as 'proof' of the facility.
Dear Register, if you want to be the tech equivalent of The Onion, then carry on but add something to your masthead along the lines of "don't believe anything you read here". Otherwise, grow up and make fun of genuinely silly government policy (it's not like there's a shortage) instead of rolling your own.
Re: "The Daily Telegraph introduced a subscription last month, with the first 20 articles free"
The technical incompetence of the Telegraph's setup is staggering.
drm is ultimately pointless
You know what, anyone that wants a copy of drm'd content can ultimately just stick a microphone in front of their speakers or a video camera in front of their monitor (if even digital capture of the final output is not possible) Sure there will be a slight loss of quality, but for the pirates that distribute stuff, that doesn't matter.
The sooner the copyright owning corporations wake up to the fact that the best way to prevent theft is simply to distribute content at a fair price, the better. Most people prefer to be honest unless they feel they are being ripped off.
Re: Pointless.
Agree,. and futher actually provides the company with FREE advertising since media outlets (like The Register...) write up the story.
Posted in Apache attack drives traffic to malware
Re: As vague as the last post on this subject....
Totally agree with the criticism of the article, very poor. The Register could do us all a service by rewriting it to explain things properly.
Re: Outstanding
@sp I'm not convinced that it would actually have much commercial impact to have a human review all declined payments and indeed may have a positive effect on the bottom line if you end up with improved customer relations and goodwill. Unless there are an enormous number it wouldn't be a fulltime job for even one person.
For example, you have a report onscreen where you can see a list of summary details, the bank's message and the computer system's proposed action. Scan the list for anomalies, examine in further detail any account that stands out and if necessary take out of the automatic system. Probably take an hour or two a day at most. To cut it down even further, you could restrict the accounts reviewed to just those where the bank's message was one that the computer did not have a programmed action for.
Re: Outstanding
@sp why would it be daft to have a human look at the reason for every declined direct debit? Do Virgin have such a high volume of declined payments that they couldn't cope? Is it old-fashioned to have humans actually doing a job?
At the present time, humans are still much better at context than computers.
Re: Linode
I'm confused about why people make such as fuss about people knowing your credit card number. The main 16-digit number is something that is effectively in the public domain, since, unless you never use the card, you give it out to all and sundry.
Re: Bioshock Infinite & Steam!
I bought Bioshock Infinite via Steam and have had absolutely no problems.
On my first playthrough (two sessions of about 10 hours each - hard setting - if you are used to fps then hard for the first run is the way to go) I was absolutely blown away. In terms of storytelling and look, it surpasses everything before it and sets the benchmark for gaming for years to come. It reminded me of the feeling I got when I first played Half-Life. I believe Bioshock Infinite will be looked back on in a similar way in years to come.
All that said, its niggles do become apparent on a second playthrough. Ultimately it's very much an interactive movie, since there's little you can do different any run. Also that you still need to search everywhere in order to collect together the silver dollars needed to buy the various combat perks (without some of which you'll be stuck on the final fights) loses much of its fun factor after the first run.
Still that first screening was worth the price of admission as far as I'm concerned, so anything else is a bonus. For instance, the anachronistic (but cleverly worked into the plot) use of more modern music in 1912-era Columbia. The barbershop quartet (the gayest in Columbia!) rendering of The Beach Boys, 'God Only Knows' is both funny and musically quite brilliant. Also worthy of a mention the spiritual 'May the Circle be unbroken' sung by the two voice leads Courtnee Draper (Elizabeth) and Troy Baker (DeWitt), who also plays guitar on it. There's a bonus video of them rehearsing at the end of the credits.
Hmm...
An interesting (if somewhat vitriolic) analysis of the attack can be found here (the author thinks the people who run MtGox are a bunch of idiots).
http://polimedia.us/trilema/2013/its-been-an-epic-few-days-what-happened/
And now...
So I decided to have a look at the mtgox.com website following this story and guess what, it's temporarily unavailable. So plenty of curious people means the system starts to break? Or are those at the bottom of the pyramid already doing a runner...
Also, to be useful as a currency there has to be some stability in its value. If a loaf of bread costs 1 bitcoin today it should cost around 1 bitcoin tomorrow. Otherwise how on earth can people price things reasonably?
Re: Commodity/currency? Nah, it's a penny stock.
@AC 14:42 - you misunderstand what shares are if you think they have no intrinsic value. They are quite literally a 'share' in the assets of a company. Ultimately backed by the money in that company's bank account, the company's
stock, buildings etc.
That's not to say that share prices can misrepresent the underlying assets - that happens all the time - however there is something solid behind (most) shares.
Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean its a good idea
The email servers I look after have a limit of 15Mb and it's staying that way.
Email is a VERY inefficient way of sending large files, especially if it's something you want to send to multiple people. There's no shortage of file sharing services available now, so really no excuse for using email for such things apart from laziness or ignorance. I don't understand why some major providers are encouraging people to do it.
Seriously? The ASA?
@Alan Brown
would that be the same ASA that usually acts upon complaints long after the relevant campaign has finished and who's severest sanction is "don't use that particular ad again"? The publication of any of their rulings usually resulting in a minor bit of unpaid publicity for the supposedly offending company?
Re: Here's How It Should Have Been Done
I suspect the Spamhaus and Cloudflare engineers actually have a better grasp of the problem than you.
Just because you firewall the traffic from your servers doesn't actually remove it from the wire... it's still clogging up the pipe, so with the assistance of your ISP you block it off as far up the pipe as you can but at some point if there's enough of it, it's still saturating links.
3.5m page hits an hour? really?
As someone used to looking at weblogs I'd love to see a sample of the raw data from which the Daily Mail derives its page impression figures, the numbers appear wildly unrealistic for human traffic. I suspect
a) a confusion between page impressions and file hits
b) a vast amount of automated robot traffic being counted
due dilligence?
If the allegations are true, you do have to wonder how HP's accountants failed to spot an 8bn hole in the accounts at the time the deal was made. It's not like it's a rounding error!
Confusing headline?
"Forges" implies fakes... but that doesn't seem to be the case?
Lul wat?
So is this what passes for legal argument in the US these days, torturous metaphors?
Or is it simply that Oracle's lawyers got their qualifications by watching back-to-back episodes of shows such as Boston Legal, and Ally McBeal?
Re: Phoenix UEFI BIOS
If the firmware has 'variables' it's not really firmware.
There should be a fallback routine to provide some sort of recovery interface in the event of corrupt data.
Re: Playing Devils Advocate!!
There's one basic rule with firmware - nothing a user does should brick a machine unless they explicitly try updating that firmware.
Samsung failed that rule, Samsung's fault.
XP users at risk
I try to avoid using IE as much as possible, sadly there are still one or two sites out there that don't work properly unless viewed in IE.
Also Microsoft took the (purely commercial?) decision not to make IE 9 and above compatible with Windows XP - the only one of the major browser makers to ostracise this OS which is still on around 40% of the world's PCs.
I still run XP on my laptop because there seems little point 'upgrading' the OS when I'd have to reinstall everything and the 'upgrade' would want more resources.
As someone who develops websites I really wish IE would just crawl away and die, would make my life a whole lot simpler.
Not sure but...
don't Twitter have a responsibility to police apps that use their API? Particularly when the developer has to obtain a key to use that API in the first place?
In other news...
Microsoft has markedly improved its monitoring of employees use of the web sites during office hours, paying particular attention to job sites, surveys and thumbs up and down clicks.
A Microsoft spokesperson was quoted as saying "we now try to provide our CEO with a detailed breakdown of who's clicking what, where and when. We took the lead from Facebook, although their system is still a fair bit more comprehensive than ours. Apparently they have a feedback circuit set up so that anyone who clicks a thumbs down, gets an electric shock."
It's reading reports like this...
... that makes me quite glad the world ends on 21st December*
*NASA have claimed there's no foundation in the Mayan prediction, but what do they know!
Re: Speaking of perspective,
@Francis_Boyle
Irrespective of the background of the site itself, the article I linked is still an interesting examination of the science, complete with a full table of references, imagine that!
Re: Speaking of perspective,
Just to follow up my own comment here's a scholarly link for further reading
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=1453
Re: Speaking of perspective,
I'm glad someone took the effort to reply, rather than simply downvoting me. I welcome a discussion on this, I've always been confused by the ready acceptance of the Big Bang Theory. To me it speaks more to humanity's inability to comprehend infinity and a need for endings and beginnings, rather than a genuine 'origin of the universe' .
Semantics aside, I didn't understand you when you say we're on the same magnitude of ants.
I can't help but laugh at every single one of the theories for the origins of the universe. It's like an ant trying to comprehend the earth's rotation around the sun. We just don't have the scale or perspective and no theory can ever be proved.
however...
I have an iPad2, I've chosen not to upgrade to iOS 6 for now.
In their wisdom, Apple don't upgrade iTunes separately from iOS, so no new version for me.
Re: US Patent Office Email Address
Or how about
president@whitehouse.gov
Dear Barack,
The US patent office is not fit for purpose. Please get rid of it.
Re: and no more secure then than today
You seem unaware that many of the higher-end office typewriters used a once-only polymer tape ribbon for crisper, clearer print. Very easy to read stuff typed off one of these.
Re: right to know?
But the actual terms of the settlement remain confidential - HTC could be paying Apple $100, $10, $1 per handset, we just don't know. For that matter, Apple could even be paying HTC!
right to know?
I'm curious as to why public companies such as HTC and Apple don't have to make the terms of settlements like this public. Surely the shareholders are entitled to know?
How many of you actually read the story?
and I include the Reg headline writer in that.
The body text says he is allowed no internet access WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF HIS PAROLE OFFICER, so in practice the parole officer will give permission for reasonable access.
That's not to say that he won't breach the conditions of his release though, as to properly enforce it would mean putting him under 24-hour surveillance.
Re: WoW could have been eternal
I also abandoned WoW due to lack of challenge.
While as dj1234 points out there may be heroic (and now challenge) modes, but these are built around re-running content which you've already done only 'harder'. Some people may enjoy this, but it doesn't work for me or most of the people I played with.
As someone else notes, the game population now seems to consist mainly of 'give it to me now' kids.
For anyone who liked the older style WoW but with up-to-date graphics and loads of dynamic content such as zone events I suggest you check out Rift. That game looks like going from strength-to-strength with its new expansion due in a couple of weeks, which triples the game world size.
how about some sort of authenticator?
To access my online bank account, not only do I need my login id and password but I also have to enter a one-time code from a physical authenticator device.
Surely Experian and co could implement a similar measure for their systems? In their case it seems all the more important given the wide-ranging and sensitive data they hold.
Big fan of ARM and Acorn
I went from a BBC B to a BBC Master to an Archimedes 310 to a RISC PC
Eventually I had a x86 PC card in my RISC PC so that I had Windows compatibility too. It was interesting to compare the two processor cards at that time. The x86 bulky with a fan and heatsink, ARM all slim and sleek with just the bare silicon. It was obvious which was the better design.
Nowadays my Risc PC lives on in the form of the redsquirrel emulator.
Laser nuts
"Do you expect me to talk?"
"No Mr Bond, I expect you to die."
Posted in XBMC coders acquire TVonics brand
One reason TVonics collapsed?
I'd never heard of them until just now, so their marketing must have been... meh.
Amazon didn't think this through
It seems to me that Amazon need to think a little harder about their 'wiping' policy.
If you're the sort of person that pirates material then remote wiping of the machine is almost certainly pointless since copies of any books will already exist elsewhere.
And if you're NOT a pirate then all Amazon are doing is generating bad publicity for themselves.
Either way, they lose.
I don't know
I don't know who's right and who's wrong, so I do my bit by contributing to the distributed computing project at climateprediction.net
Palm first
I had (still have in a cupboard somewhere) a Palm Treo smartphone before Apple even dreamed of making a phone. Programs that ran on it were called applications or apps. Admittedly there was no integrated app store on the phone then since you'd purchase from a website 'app store' and then sync the app onto the phone.
Come to think of it, Palm did a hell of a lot of stuff before Apple...
except...
How does all this work when you start to take into account international boundaries?
Say you have an american posting on a website run by a company incorporated in Bermuda hosted on severs based in Sweden....
@Ledswinger
"Soon all you'll need is a keyboard and screen plus a decent smartphone."
And with that I point you at the new ASUS padphone - http://uk.asus.com/Mobile/PadFone/
Sooo... in summary
They re-wrote the code because they couldn't think of anything else to do and otherwise might have been made redundant...
Entrapment
If any of these monitors is also seeding, then couldn't that be considered entrapment? as in "oh look lets make our copyright material available for free and see who takes the bait?"
