Posts by VinceH

Re: IoT - Idiots or Twats. You choose

I'm starting to realise that lots of people seem to have cheap rubbish routers that can't cope with many connected devices.

With luck, it'll people in that situation that will be first in line for idIOT / iOUT crap, and will think the devices are faulty when it's really their router that isn't coping - and the result is that word of mouth then kills this rubbish before it gets a chance to take off.

Re: Almost perfect

Actually, I've just realised that I've only ever assumed it's no longer possible to put the phone on speaker and play something back.

I might have to experiment when it's not 11 o'clock at night!

If a recording can be played back while a phone call is active, this would be a good - or at least entertaining - solution to marketing calls on mobile phones.

Re: Re I don't get it?

"Neither comes across as a saint here."

Exactly - sort of. Getty aren't helping themselves if they aren't doing something to prevent this from happening to the images on their own site such as using a suitable robots.txt entry to stop Google scraping the images in the first place.

However, there's also the problem of third parties who are legitimately using images supplied by Getty - the images on those third party sites will still be found by Google, and still offered up to people using Google, who can save and use them, just as they can now. Robots.txt on Getty's own site won't help a jot here.

It's a tougher problem - but it is part of the same one - and it's not something for which Getty are to blame themselves. Partly, it's "because of the way the internet works" - the old "once it's out there, that's it, you have no control" problem.

Google, however, could mitigate the problem to some extent: Not easily presenting the full size version would be a start. Since most people probably don't disable Javascript, where they do present images, they could use a bit of script to prevent right-click saving. Perhaps they could overlay their own watermark to advise viewers that the image may not be free to use.

Ultimately, they should force visitors to the site on which the image is hosted, rather than make it easy for people not to go there. Once there, what happens is another matter - but Google will have done their part, and not made it easy to grab images without considering rights.

"Windows 10 has been installing without permission."

That I'm already aware of, since it almost happened with my machine* - but here it was a case of (before I took control of updates). One happened as part of the regular update cycle, and I caught and stopped it. The other, having taken control of Windows Update, was the time when the update screen carried a big splash for Win 10 with it already ticked.

In the example given above, though, the guy was working away at the computer when it unexpectedly rebooted into the update. No 30 minute warning - just working away, then an unexpected reboot into Windows 10. Hence I'm wondering if the usual pop up appeared and he inadvertently said "Yes, please take me up the jacksie" simply by it gaining the focus while he was typing.

* Originally,I had allowed GWX onto my system on the basis that I would eventually upgrade. That was obviously before MS successfully persuaded me it was a bad idea, by way of their foot-cannon.

Re: re: I once bought a forest

A quick search reveals that, yes, it's Andrew Ryan from Bioshock, so:

"it does sound like Ryan was based on people like Khosla."

That's probably the point being made by attributing it to him.

Re: Poor IT Standards at this outfit

"You should help them out, install something better."

It has to be said (although I don't like Google) when my step dad wanted a new computer several years ago, persuading him to get a Chromebook was a sensible move - it's more than adequate for his needs. (Though for other people, mileages may obviously vary).

Yes, I was going to comment that the "big three" should be a "big five" with security and privacy being top of the list.

Also:

"He's not responsible for the server, so no 2:00am calls. And once set up, it is easy to add other devices and get them to talk to one another. And best of all, data security is handled by Samsung."

IOW: "We can ignore security and if it goes wrong, we can blame it on someone else. Yay!"

Re: Issues

"Only solution seems to be to create an eMail account for kid / friend (Kobo) with no credit card. Amazon seems to need a credit card and no way to disable small kindle book purchases via WiFi or 3G"

I bought my mother a Kindle as a Christmas present a few years ago, and her book purchases are done by me buying her gift vouchers. I'm fairly sure (but not 100%) that originally she had to put her credit card details into her Amazon account even to use the vouchers, which we removed again once each was used up.

If it was like that then somewhere down the line it has changed, though, because with the most recent one, her card wasn't necessary.

Re: during a month

How about pockets that act as Faraday cages?

Re: Mutated species...

Mall cops were once humanoid?

Re: The whalesong is deafening where I work...

"Plain text -

That is all most people (I assume) need."

^This.

And as for the logos for each Olympics, might I suggest something that is both adaptable and will uniquely identify each games, while also easily identifying that they are indeed the Olympics? I suggest, the basic five interlocking rings, with the host city above, and the year below.

Now send me five million quid for that effort and we'll call it quits. I take cheques.

Re: Confirmation is needed

Some of us automatically assume comments on El Reg are jokes until told otherwise.

Re: Ads are bad, mmkay

"The Royal Mail now has contracts for delivering bulk unaddressed mail. They really ought to be responsible for the costs of disposal and pass that on as part of the contract charges."

Quite so - and if enough people put unaddressed stuff delivered by Royal Mail into the nearest "red recycling bin" that Royal Mail kindly provides especially for the purpose*, that's what will happen.

Sadly, too many people put it in their own recycling bin, thus adding to the costs they themselves incur in the form of council tax.

* Bonus points awarded for marking the crud "not at this address"

Re: Bloat on the web?

"And if you have a cellular internet connection where you pay for what you download, that shit adds up REAL fekkin fast."

Quite. I was using my phone as a hotspot the other week: if I wasn't blocking the shit out of everything, I would easily have gone over my monthly "unlimited" allowance in the few days I was doing this.

Re: I've

"No denying his influence or talent, I just wish it didn't need his death to get his music actually played."

I was in an office on Tuesday and they had some local radio station or other on, and I heard Raspberry Beret. That particular play will stick in mind because of the timing, and what you say. I specifically commented on it; I don't listen to the radio all that much - mostly I think they play utter rubbish, and this was a very enjoyable exception.

Magic is just technology we don't understand.

(Yes, I know what the actual ACC quote is.)

Re: My opinion on the last bit...

Yeah, but... if the agreements can basically be summarised as:

"We want your data and the ability to do whatever the hell we please with it - including letting our TLAs trawl through it whenever they want. Accepting this is a condition of using our services."

Then what difference does it make, really, if it's a broken Safe Harbour, a meaningless Privacy Shield, a Chocolate Teapot, or the companies undertaking the 'huge burden' of using their own contracts?

(I'm unconvinced of that being a huge burden anyway. They all have terms and conditions that we have to agree to if we want to become part of their product-base use their services - and they change them often enough. This huge burden would be just yet another change.)

Re: Forget future generations

Do we trust them?

I sure as hell don't.

Re: What's more shocking though...

From the oriel.io piece:

"Like regular users when we come across missing sections or errors on a website, we assume the site is simply broken. However, we forget or don't realize that our adblocker can be the culprit not the website we are visiting, and what do we do? - Go somewhere else, get frustrated, complain?"

Here, they seem to be suggesting that some websites are 'broken' by ad blockers, and that the sites themselves are not broken. It seems to me, however, that the sites themselves are very much broken if this happens, and the ad blockers are merely highlighting the fault.

Either way, it's just scare tactics. They may as well have added "think of the children" and claimed that some of these broken websites were sites for kids. And they surely missed a trick by not calling developers of ad blockers terrorists.

Incidentally, NoScript blocked the header image on that page from displaying - wondering why Javascript was needed for that, I checked. It's not an image but an 8 megabyte MP4.

"And this would be a problem.... how?"

That, I think, was exactly Simon's point.