Just say No!

To putting any of your data on a sever owned or operated by a US Company.

Forget the Cloud, be it Amazon, MS or pretty well anyone else for that matter.

Say Yes to

Encrypting anything sensitive on your emails

use HTTPS instead of HTTP for as many web pages as possible.

Use Google or Bing searches via a TOR proxy.

etc

etc

And with the latest webcam exploits, just stick an image of giving someone the finger with 'That means you USA' beneath over the lens.

Then pull the plug on your internet connection, put your phone in a lead lined box and relax with a smile, they can't track you (for a few minutes that is)

Who watches the IWF?

Just asking you know?

They seem to be a bunch of self appointed unaccountable <redacted>.

What happens when they decided that even Teletubbies is far too racy for us to watch? What then?

Black Choppers naturally. you can't have anyone write a crit on the IWF now can you?

Telegram from the Queen?

WTF?

didn't you know that the world's last telegram is about to be sent (well, next month) somewhere in India?

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/indias-last-telegram-will-be-sent-in-july/276913/

Come on El-Reg please join the 21st Century or are you all stuck using 110 baud dial-up modems and ASR-33 Teletypes?

so how cheap is cheap?

Instead of telling us the costs of these devices we get 50% approx of the text talking about the management musical chairs being played. Pah.

Fail for totally obvious reasons

Sorry...

I think they are on the wrong track here.

People fiddling with their phones is a sure-fire way to stop any conversation (at least in Men who apparently can't multi-task).

The more people rely on their smart-device for their communication fix the more socially inept they will become.

Asimov described it perfectly when he envisaged a society where people never actually met 'face-to-face'. That is IMHO the way we are going.

Put down your frigging iDevice/Android and actually speak to people and interact with them directly. We (well those of us who are human that it) need social contact. Buy this I mean proper interactive contact and this half-arsed communication called Facebook/Twitter etc that so many seem to rely on these days.

Yes, I got out of bed the wrong side this morning.

Some good (awkward) questions here

for example

and if they required employees to put down a monetary deposit with the company when they joined.

I am sure that a few well known Indian Companies could not answer this with a NO. At least one uses this to keep their employees from leaving mid-contract.

Loved the DSOTM Cover

Would go well with one of the more recent covers of it by the Flaming Pips. (or something)

All that needs to be said about DSOTM is

20th January 1972 Brighton Dome. First night of their 'Tour 72'.

The start of an era. I still have the ticket stub.

Nearly made it

I started programming on a PDP 11/40 in 1974. Now I'm nearing retirement age it is really sad to see such a wonderful O/S pensioned off.

Add to that the fantastic 20 years I spent at DEC in Reading then you can see that VMS was a big part of my working life.

Pretty well everything else since then has been downhill.

VMS Clustering still takes a lot to be beaten if you ask me.... Introduced in 1983, dies in 2013 RIP

Another reason

To avoid LinkedIn and MS-Exchange then?

<-- To both of them

Te-he

Obviously you will need at least one of these in order to use Windows 9.0. Otherwise the bizarre colour scheme will confuse the living daylights out of you.

Next, MS approved stokies. They will phone home before the let you light one up. Won't someone think of the children!

You can tell that this is a really bad idea

when (and using a little imagination) you could replace 'Motorola' with 'Apple' and the reactions are the same.

Mines the one with a boxed set of 'The Prisoner' in the pocket.

(And yes, I am old enough to have seen it when first broadcast on UK TV)

Still on message then

Probably hoping to be asked back when Mr Balmer is ousted.

The next step

in Samsung's plan for world domination of everything that uses technology in your home or on your person.

When they have done with Apple, watch out Microsoft you will be next.

Balmer is transforming MS

into an NPE.

Remember that pretty well every Android Phone gives MS possibly in the region of $10 due to patent licensing deals.

Soon they will wake up to the fact that they can make more money out of the competition than they can from their own phones. $10 per device and no R&D expenses. The Shareholders will love that. Far better ROCI.

Eventually the won't need the droves os Windows or Office devs. I'd estimate that they could shed 50% or their staff. Thet will keep the shareholders happy.

I look forward to seeing Balmer retire. His (& BG's) shareholding will keep them happy until they kick the bucket even if BG keeps giving millions to his charity cronies.

FoxConn also makes stuff for other companies

But that would be worth reporting now would it?

If it has the word Apple in it then you are bound to get a lot more hits thus Ad views and therefore $$$ ££££ etc for EL Reg funds.

sigh.

TGIF, only 9 and a bit hours to beer time.

Meanwhile...

The Samsung Tractor/Trailer arrives at the USPTO HQ loaded with 10,067 patent applications and ties the whole schebang down so hard that no one else will be able to build anything more than a 4G phone for the next 19year + extensions.

Nuke for obvious reasons.

When I were a lad,

Hipsters were Jeans worn on the 'hips'....

Coat with a pair of Loon Pants on underneath.....

And when revenues drop?

Because of all those casual, upgrade every other version users stop paying Adobe a cent,penny etc?

What of the shareholder return then?

could this turn out to be Adobe's footgun moment?

for this user it is. I won't be spending another bent penny on Photoshop with them. I know that I'm not alone here.

Where is Eadon when you need him?

I would have thought that this article would have been much too hard to resist for a rant or two.

Only joking.

MS are doing a really good job of messing it up themselves. Many of us are waiting to see what the 'New' version holds. Will we get a proper 'Classic' UI?

Stay tuned folks for the next thrilling installment of the 'Battle of Microsoft'.

Just remember 'The Last One'

Full of hype like

The last computer program you will ever buy.

Nuff said.

Then there is the 'going off grid' situation

Many Photographers go out in the field for long periods of time. Sometimes this is in places with limited ot no internet connectivity.

Imaging the situation where you are out in the field for a few weeks and you want to edit some images.

Then you get the message

'Adobe Says No'

And you app won't start simply because the app has been unable to phone home to verify that your subscription is still valid.

MEGA - MEGA Fail all round.

{as an amatuer photographer this applied to me a few years ago. I spent time on Kergulen Island in the Southern Indian Ocean. No internet for more than a month unless you were willing to pay the $20/min for a slow satellite connection}

What about 'Shadow Rabbits'?

giving the two 'ears' salute to all Patent Lawyers out there.

Ok, Coat. gone.

Included in the Box

A set of DVD's (or download links) showing how you can get arms/shoulders like Mr/Mrs Universe. You are going to need it if you use one of these things for any length of time. Unless you happen to be an actor on CSI.

A solution waiting for a problem.

Steganoraphy tools to become mainstream?

I guess that with the ability to strip Exif (I already do this anyway to any images I upload) and watermarks, all we are left with is to encode some data using steganographic techniques into the image. That way, you can prove that you are the owner by being the only one able to decrypt that bit of the image.

In other news,

UK & US Gov's sponsor development of automatic steganography detection software.

Seconds out round 6?

The only solution is to NEVER share anything but postcard sized image that is compressed to JPEG level 2 or 3 (i.e. crap).

Paris because she loves being seen clearly.

Comparing Like for like is a forgotten art then?

Samsung make a whole host of other stuff besides phones and tablets.

Their product range is positively astronomic when compared to that of Apple's

do Apple make Washing Machines? nope.

Whilst it is true that Apple's margin is decreasing, that 30%+ level is something that most CEO/CFO's would willingly cut an arm or a leg off for.

But hey, this is EL Reg so balanced reporting is an activity that is banned from all reporters psyche.