Posts by ShelLuser
1489 posts • joined Sunday 19th December 2010 15:08 GMT
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Posted in 600,000 hacks a day, welcome to Facebook
"Social" media ?
Could anyone please explain the social part to me ?
I'm not really into this stuff, but figures like these are still pretty depressing.
And here I was...
Hoping for an article talking about coding practices. What a disappointment, especially since I got reminded /again/ how El Reg manhandled ("mailhandled" ? ;-)) my e-mail addy by sharing it with the world.
SO, I'm not going to let you ruin my fun again you evil El Reggers ;-)
I fully agree with the general consensus of the article, it is one of the reasons I still prefer coding in Java these days. The second being that I'm no full time developer and Java allows me to do what I want without having to worry too much about the platform I'm using (which has become very handy since I no longer use Linux as my desktop environment).
Another is the excellent way which Visual Paradigm's SDE seemingly blends in with my NetBeans environment (it also supports Eclipse, IntelliJIDEA and Visual Studio). Its a piece of software to create & generate UML diagrams (these days the software goes beyond mere UML alone, but its what I'm using it for) and so far it has really helped me to keep track of my software projects even when my projects grew bigger.
Another aspect is when I leave a project alone for a few months and then suddenly need to pick it up again. Studying a few diagrams is a lot easier to dig into the whole codebase again, and if done right (this is where the responsibility comes into play) it can really help you get up to speed.
So yes; if you code responsibly and also document and (in my case anyway:) diagram your code you can go a long way!
</totally offtopic when looking at the article but fully ontopic with the title>
Your turn Mr. Moderator ;-)
I think you're partly right
I'm using a Samsung Jet for a few years now which provides some of the functionality of a smart phone while in fact its not a real smart phone. In that sense that the only thing I can add are Java midlets or Samsung 'widgets' (the latter being small icons which provide some functionality and can be placed on the screen).
And while I have full control over my phone its not a mere issue of installing / removing an application as is done on, say, Windows. Nor do I want to; I use my phone as a phone, camera, keeping appointments and notes (at least till I get home) and sometimes as music player & navigation device. And yes, on occasion I also surf the Net.
So yes, I agree with you that having a (semi) locked down environment can be good for security. I see the same on Windows 7 or Linux; I use both OS's using a non-admin account and if I need to perform an admin task I either need to provide a password (Windows) or use 'sudo' (Linux; either on the cli or on X).
However; there is a down side to all this... Fake security being one. With market places and such you put your trust fully onto 1 single party; yet when they screw up the eventual damage could be huge. And with that I mean damages not restricted to just your phone.
Second; its not so much about freedom but the way people use their environment. If you use Windows in the way I described above you're pretty safe when it comes to malware and spyware. In fact; while I keep 'Search & Destroy' around I haven't seen anything worth removing since I started using Windows 7. And although I mainly use SeaMonkey I also use IE9 on a frequent basis, esp. when I'm browsing MS (related) websites (TechNet, Office.com, MSN, etc.). Which means I sometimes also end up on 'other' websites, yet no issues so far.
So why would you want to give up your freedom? Its easier to simply make sure that it will never come to getting the ickyness in the first place.
How many of you pay for Avira?
Although I'm tempted to share the general cynicism I think its not that black/white. Is it a blunder? Absolutely. And despite the subject I'm not claiming that they don't need to do any tests because its free or something.
But still; I'd rather have a virus scanner which also actively scans itself and has false positives than one which doesn't even bother (keeps its own location as white listed) and actually risks infections (sure; there are self diagnostics, but still...).
Its a risk you have with virus scanners. Some nuked Windows, some do other crazy stuff. Its why its important that you don't blindly use your scanner and consider yourself 'safe'. You should beware what your scanner does and make sure that in case of doubt you'll be the one calling the shots.
Posted in 5 SECONDS to bypass an iPad 2 password
@Jola
I'm missing item 3:
3) I went into great efforts to board up all the other doors in my hallway so no one can come in or out ;-)
Posted in El Reg in SHOCK email address BLUNDER
Nah, editors should be trained so that they won't do that instead.
Makes you wonder; is this part of an El Reg plot? As soon as the government comes knocking on their door /someone/ hits this big red "DON'T PUSH" button and all accounts get sent across the Innernet?
Any kiddie can DDoS
I would have been more impressed if they had removed all that crap instead of (temporarily!) taking down a website. I mean; all they got was information from a MySQL database, which they /think/ to be linked to said kiddie pr0n, but they're not sure.
Good idea to toss this into the open; for all we know they revealed some undercover cops which were trying hard to get these motherf*ckers. This could also jeopardize their trial I think ("they have been put publicly on trial, thus humiliated, they suffered enough. blah blah blah").
And all the contents, which personally bothers me a WHOLE lot more, still remains ?
Sorry for not being very impressed here.
I can't help wonder...
What if it wasn't pr0n but a snippet of some people getting their brains shot out? How likely would it be that it never would have gotten beyond a misdemeanor ?
Posted in The road to Office 2010
MS made a lot of progress...
Finally we can comment, not very nice to 'block' comments when this article was on the front page ;-)
MS has definitely made some very important improvements when it comes to Office 2010. I'm not merely talking about the features and options; but also everything around it. For example; a few years ago I would give my customers the choice between OpenOffice or MS Office. Where the immediately noticeable difference was obvious: "if you want MS Office its going to cost extra".
Nowadays I provide people with a choice; "here's LibreOffice ("formerly known as blah blah blah") and I also included a demo of MS Office 2010, which you can use free of charge for a couple of months".
So far most of the customers eventually picked up MS Office 2010 after hearing what it would cost them, how they could keep their software up to date and (in a single occasion;) how long it would be supported.
I myself made the jump from OpenOffice to MS Office 2010 some time ago and quite frankly I don't see myself go back again anytime soon. While LibreOffice still has several (smaller) advantages over MS Office 2010, together they don't weigh up anymore against the almost limitless options which you get with MS Office 2010. An example of such an advantage would be using tables in the text processor. In Writer I can easily define one table as containing financial values. So from there on I can enter whatever value I want and it will be automatically formatted in a 'financial notation'. Word 2010 however doesn't have this feature. The only direct way to do this is to enter a formula which' results can be formatted. But of course the moment you enter a value again the formula is gone.
And for those of you worrying that I make it look as if Word can't do this; no worries. I'm well aware that you can easily embed whole Excel spreadsheets which do give you this kind of functionality. Heck, if you want to you could also easily create a macro to "reformat" the cells in a mere table. Office 2010 has you covered, sure, but you'll have to admit that LibreOffice' Writer goes the extra mileage in this case.
Still, in the overall I think MS has done a recommendable job. First the demo option; try before you buy. Its a winner. The environment itself also provides you with lots of options to make your documents look right, even if you're no "graphic artist". I especially like their new "html -alike" approach by applying styles to your document(s) which can easily be changed on a document level, thus changing the entire appearance of your document at once. Sometimes that gives much better results than trying to mess with small individual parts yourself.
And I think MS really went way ahead of themselves with the embedded online access. If you have a Windows Live ID (you already have one when you can logon to MSN or Hotmail or such) you also have access to their SkyDrive service. 5Gb worth of online storage. Storage which can be immediately used from within Office out of the box.
It gets better; send an Office document to someone who doesn't own Office? Sure, there's always the PDF format, I use this heavily myself. But if the other party also has a Windows Live ID you can simply save your document online, and have them access it using the online Office applications, free of charge for anyone who has a Windows Live ID. Granted; the online applications don't support every feature which your desktop applications do, but IMO its sure a big step in the right direction.
SO summing up... I think Office 2010 has a major impact. I think that in combination with Windows 7 it gives you an ideal virtual Office environment. There is just so much you can do, and instead of "the old days" all the information on how you can get the most out of Office is also available for free (for example check out the Office blogs on: http://blogs.office.com/).
When looking at the upcoming Win8 preview I can't help wonder if we now see Microsoft at its peek. I think they are going to have a very hard time "topping" both Windows 7 and Office 2010. IMVHO of course.
In the California sea?
Then I blame Obama because of this. Its obvious Mother Nature had no more money left to pay for the other eye, how sad...
Worry about financial "warfare" instead...
It has been predicted around the 1990's already; "In the near future military might will become less important than financial might. Be weary of the growing financial powers and their influences in the world" (roughly translated).
And when you look around you now I'd say it holds much truth. With the current recessions going on in the US (which is heading for a MAJOR problem IMO) and Europe (which has a hard time keeping the pact together) there is a laughing 3rd party: Asia. Which slowly has build quite a few financial ties into both the US and Europe.
Don't get me wrong... I think cyberwar fare can be very lethal if done right, and it is an important factor to keep in mind (just look at what happened to Estonia; a country which has fully adopted the Internet. Its being used by the politicians to communicate, by the news agencies to bring out the stories and all at a scale some of the modern Western countries can't even dream off). And when they suffered from a cyber attack it actually did result in chaos and had a very lethal aspect to it.
But having said that; I'd worry more about the financial aspects here.
@PJI
"Grow up" ?
I'd say face the truth, its not as pleasant as you make it. Although I respect Jobs as a person and also think he died way too young, I have little respect for the way he worked. For example; employee's who are afraid to share the same elevator with him because there would always be a liable risk that the moment they got out they were also out of a job (which has happened on several occasions). That's no way to treat employee's nor is it very professional IMO.
The sweatshop aspect is also a proven fact.
I can't comment on the greedy part, but everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.
Just because someone has another opinion than yours doesn't make them "nasty jealous losers". In fact; starting personal attacks like that makes you look more like such a kind of person, just saying.
Posted in Are IP addresses personal data?
@Anton
"Face the facts. If you don't have anything to hide, why do you care?"
Its not about (not) having something to hide. Its about how the receiving party will interpret and/or use the obtained information. THAT is the risk people want to avoid.
Example (really happened)... Bank reports usage of a stolen credit card at an ATM. Police pull up the camera records, but for whatever reason don't end up on Tuesday 15:00 but Monday 15:00 and bring that person in for questioning. Fortunately for him he had a solid alibi and the mistake surfaced, but what if he didn't?
Note: Not saying nor insinuating that camera's above ATMs are a bad idea or anything, just trying to give an example as to what can happen when data is used incorrectly.
This is a relatively innocent example, but believe me; there's much more and worse where that came from.
Posted in Are IP addresses personal data?
Almost, but not quite...
Welcome to the law agency; trying to label that which is hardly labelble (?) :-)
I think the best answer here is "Nyeo". As in yes/no.
It depends on the situation. In a household on broadband it most likely is; after all this address points to your connection on the Internet. However; several people (everyone in the household) could be using it, even at the same time. Thus the "personal" part gets a bit flawed here.
Some people compare it to a telephone number; but that too doesn't work. 5 people can't use the same telephone number at the same time, nor can you keep your IP address as soon as you switch ISP's (while you often can keep your phone number).
I'm not including the option of others (ab)using your setup and thus making themselves appear to be you, since its not (too) special. I can also take someone's phone and start making prank calls; the other end will see the number and won't immediately trace it back to me. Same deal (sorta).
I'd say its not personal data about me, its data about my current /likely/ whereabouts.
Posted in Google Analytics goes with the flow
@Sporkinum
To answer your question; then you'll be invisible to them.
Although I agree with the other opinions wrt amount of people actually blocking stuff (it sits permanently in NoScript on my end) I still think you do raise an interesting point.
Blocking data not generated by the website itself is slowly but steadily catching on it seems. First you have your average spamblockers (Adblock+ for example, there are plenty of others), proxy servers which can block advertising contents (before AdBlock I used to keep a blacklist around in Squid) but virus scanners are also jumping onto the bandwagon.
It wouldn't be the first time (nor the last I think) where several websites became a threat all at once because some advertisement service they all used got overrun; as such the websites were actively spreading virusses and/or malware (or worse).
Still, bottom line.. For "easy" realtime stats stuff like Google-analytics will do fine. But for maximum reliability you'd want to parse your logfiles. For example; Google analytics won't be able to tell you all the hits you're missing out on (404's).
@Christopher
Worse.. Even "uncivilized" countries like Iraq used to provide medical services free of charge. Granted; I have no idea how the skills of their doctors fare in comparison with those in Europe or the US, but the fact remains that even there people like him would have been treated.
Makes you seriously wonder about the difference between "civilized" and "uncivilized"...
Sex is only "good" when its done by popstars so it seems. Then it has a "meaning". The more you undress the more popular you can become (at least you can expect some good media coverage). Singing? Duh, who cares about that; that's sooo 1980's.
Well, just call me old fashioned :P
All for the greater "glory"...
You want to look good; then simply dump data and assume people (esp. companies) will keep quiet about it. "Of course they denied it; they don't want to admit how l33t we are!". Truth is that a lot of people are starting to look right through this.
When those lulzsec dudes shared some of their stuff the same thing applied. Not talking about the ps3 hack but the stuff they "dumped from their collection".
Now, granted; without knowing what the source of that data was you can't really deem this legit or false (perhaps another tactical part they left out?). I'm also not going there, merely stating that I considered that data to be bogus too. An opinion I've seen shared by others as well.
This data turned out to be a 3-part collection of so called usernames and passwords which were accompanied with e-mail addresses. Rumor had it that it came from a website or other ISP.
When starting to check a few e-mail addresses I came across many invalid ones. While an account can easily expire over time the same cannot be easily said for TLD's. For example "hotmail.com.jj", that TLD has never existed and is most likely a typo. Or is it? Considering how common e-mail checks are these days I have some serious doubt there as well.
So in a majority of cases I think its not too unthinkable that "hackers" (or kiddies?) release bogus stuff to 'look good'.
The problem is IMO
...the fact that Ballmer has always been occupied with running the financials and business side of the company. The man has no feeling what so ever with regards to the technology itself. And quite frankly I also heavily doubt his commercial skills.
At least he did see some things for what they were. "The cheapest phones will be android". Doesn't sound too flattering for Android huh? Well, you can also easily translate this into: "Our phones will be more expensive than those running on Android", yet that won't go too well with his audience.
"A good defense if a good offense", you got to grant him that. The big issue here is how smart such a statement really was; esp. when considering the market share which both OS's hold.
@Nigel11
You forget that Windows' boot manager can also easily boot Linux these days. So you'd simply use that to present the user with a menu which he can use to chose from. You'd probably need Grub or Lilo installed onto the partition itself, but even that can be setup so that remains mostly invisible.
Ignorance
That and "too big, too massive".
Projects starting out very cool; I used to love KDE and really like Gnome. KDE was more 'end user' like whereas Gnome was more business like (heck; Sun didn't 'adopt' Gnome on Solaris for no reason).
But today I like neither of them. I've been using XFCE4 way before it became 'hip' (I used it because at that time it most closely resembled Sun's CDE desktop manager) and IMVHO even that has become way bloated (in comparison with what it was).
I think a lot of those projects are growing too big. People get into it not because of what the project stands for but because they can say "I'm working on that cool project". I don't blame them, but I do blame the people calling the shots here. Many projects which have a large share of followers (KDE, Gnome) seem to be totally focused these days into turning the project into something its not. Take for example KDE and its sudden "double-sized" start menu as if were Vista or Win7. Total bullsh*t if you ask me; its KDE not fscking Windows.
THAT is the main problem IMO; in the beginning KDE closely resembled Windows and people started to grow a liking to it. But at that very point its no longer "a desktop manager resembling Windows". No, then and there it became "KDE". Same applies to Gnome, only reason I'm focusing on KDE is because I've experienced this head on.
Instead of seeing stuff for what it is (your project has now become a milestone; people like it for what it is) these dumbos (very personal opinion) /continue/ to try and turn the product into something its not and never will be. That is IMO the main problem here. Same issue of Mozilla trying to turn Firefox into some Chrome spinoff. I really liked Firefox 3, I tried 4 and ditched at 5 because it was turning into something I didn't want to use in the first place; the main reason I stuck with Firefox at that time.
If I want to use Windows 7 I'll frickin' use Windows 7 (its what I'm doing right now). But if I think of a Linux desktop manager I no more think of something "Windows alike" or maybe "OS X" alike. I liked it for what it was. BUT.. no more...
When it comes to desktop managers I fell back to my very first love; WindowMaker. It gets as bloated as you want it to be (by actually adding extras yourself; the core is still very slim) and better yet: all my old themes which I created back then still WORK (8 years old; I kept them onto a CDR which surprisingly enough is still accessible).
As sad as it is but at this point I cannot help but laugh. It took Linux hardly as much time as Microsoft yet when it comes to GUI's its now falling into the same mudhole.
This doesn't have to turn bad at all
Whether this is going to catch on or not is something I don't know nor can't even make assumptions on. I only used Skype on very small occasions.
Still, when looking at how Hotmail turned out to be after the MS acquisition I do think that its a bit too early for doom scenario's ("The end of Skype on Linux", etc.). Right now Hotmail is still a free service and when you create a Windows Live account you'll get a whole lot more besides mail services alone.
If Skype gets somehow added to that then I'd say it could end up in a win-win for everyone.
Of course; getting a Windows Live ID on Linux merely to use Skype also sounds a little 'wrong' to me.
@Medium
Agreed (no joke here!).
Still, about that goo leaking out of your monitor and affecting your brains; that's why us /real/ geeks wear tinfoil heads these days :-)
@Mikel
Just like 'we' did with Vista? ;-)
When I get a Windows Live ID I get SkyDrive. 5Gb worth of storage as well. And besides that I get a free e-mail service (hotmail) too. So how is this a 'bargain' again ?
Posted in Windows 7 overtakes XP - finally
@Armando
I don't fully agree. I mean; XP isn't down and out yet, support continues to 2014 before its put to a stop (this is assuming that will really happen then).
And during the Vista period there have been numerous of people (even computer illiterate's) who started "downgrading" their new Vista PC to run XP. That phenomenon has also declined when Win7 became the standard for new PC's.
So I think there's more than merely age, although I fully agree about the state of Vista ;-)
Posted in Windows 7 overtakes XP - finally
Even MS recognizes the power of XP
I'm also on Win7 and really liking my desktop day in and day out.
I think MS knows all too well how people feel about XP and as such have introduces their "Windows XP mode" with Windows 7 professional and up. Its basically a combination of MS Virtual PC with an ISO image of a base XP professional instalation, but it works /very/ well. One of the things I like best is that I can "publish" programs which get installed on the virtual PC into my own Windows 7 start menu. As such if I want to use a specific XP program right away I can simply start if from my Win7 start menu.
Still, I think MS likes pain. Vista would revolutionize the world, and it did but not in the way MS was hoping for. Windows 7 is on several fronts MUCH better. Now Win8 looms on the horizon; and I can't help think "deja vu!" all over again.
This is why I don't use blacklists
...other but my own.
I think this isn't about spamhause alone; a lot of these blacklists look reliable and easy to use until you actually meet the people behind it. Then it remains to be seen how reliable they really are...
Last time I experienced a figure like this was when I still more active on the GoDaddy userforums. At some time a discussion started about a similar problem; several clients who ran their own mailserver but were blocked in some blacklists.
Turned out that the author behind said list wasn't satisfied in the way GoDaddy addressed his complaints towards a single allegedly spamming server and as such decided to put the whole netblock into the list. Even though said servers all use static IP addresses.
So quite honestly stories like these don't surprise me one bit. You can't nor should generalize, but a lot of those spam blacklists are highly as reliable or fair as they may appear.
@Mr_X
"Power users have lost the UI battle in the closed source world."
Worse; Not just the closed source world. Although I'm using Win7 since a few months I used to stick with Linux and KDE (Ubuntu LTS 8). Several Linux distro's have a hard time with MS Virtual PC but Debian runs like a charm and so I'm able to keep up with current developments.
I looked at the new KDE and I see the same bizar shitty GUI changes. Take for example Konsole; I used to have that open almost the whole day; irssi running on the first tab and the moment I needed more I simply clicked on the button in the lower left corner and then could select the kind of shell I wanted to open. From regular sh / bash to ksh (I always kept that installed) right to one running mc or even a root shell (the 'Sun classic' yellow background).
That functionality is gone. I can now only use "new tab" or "new window" from the file menu (or the keyboard combo) but no more selections possible.
Oh, but I hear a KDE guru in the distance telling me that this functionality /isn't/ gone. After all; they now support profiles more extensively. So I can make stuff any way I want to and then simply select the profile which can run a specific command, setup the color scheme and all is right with the GUI again.
Translated: Instead of getting a ready to use Konsole which has all installed shells available with the click of a mouse I now get to spend a few hours to manually re-invent the wheel myself before I'm back in a situation which somewhat resembles that which I had with Konsole on KDE 3.
Something more GUI related; One of KDE's key features (IMO) is its system settings screen. This rocks; /one/ place where you can find /everything/ with regards to your desktop environment. From the way the mouse looks, to the color theme being used right to display and multimedia settings.
And so here I was trying to change my wallpaper. I open system settings, noticed the changed looks (it used to be a menu at the left and all options displayed at the right. Now its one big screen with sections and icons). But no worries.. "Look and feel" section; 'Appearance': Style, colors, icons, fonts, Window behavior / decoration but nothing similar to wallpapers.
Ah, what a dumbass I am... I don't need "Appearance", I should be looking at 'Desktop'. Duh, stupid me... or.... wha? "desktop effects, multiple desktops (here it used to be!), screen edges, screen saver, launch feedback and workspace". Not even to be found in workspace! You can only select widgets there.
Long story shorter: this option is gone from the system settings. To change the background of your desktop you need to right-click on the desktop itself and use the "Desktop activity settings" option. There you'll find the option to change the wallpaper.
Of course /only/ for the currently active virtual desktop. If you want to change the wallpaper for all virtual desktops you'll just have to select every one of them, right click on the desktop and select this option after which you can select the wallpaper.
So not only did they completely change the location of this setting, they /also/ made it extremely more difficult to use.
Gee, doesn't this remind you of something? It almost feels as if I was staring at the new Windows categorized control panel. And while I can still quickly start a separate section of the control panel (add/remove programs? "Start -> Run -> appwiz.cpl") this doesn't seem to be possible with KDE.
Closed source issue only? Unfortunately I have to disagree.
Microsoft doesn't get it
They have a point that some people don't want change. So my first reaction would then be; so why enforce it upon them? If MS believes in this Metro stuff, fine. Just allow us to chose for ourselves what we want to use.
Cynical: Is it possible that if you take away Metro then Win8 will end up basically the same as Win7?
While I do think MS is correct with their studies and their charts they're not addressing the real problem by introducing Metro. IMO this all a ruse; they claim to make things easier for the users while in fact they're making things easier for themselves (one interface on all devices).
Worst part is that they're ignoring the /cause/ of the problems with the start menu. There are issues, I have to agree there.I too see users which have a start menu which is the size of the mount Everest due to installing lots of different programs (and not every program does a clean un-install either).
Those are IMO the users which fall into this MS research. The ones which cannot find anything in the menu itself anymore and so resort to searches and the likes. Can you blame 'm? Say you need an editor yet all you see in the start menu are names of 9 different companies. Searching is quicker than opening all of those folders one by one.
But how does Metro change things? What is to stop vendors from creating their own unique "Vendor tile" which (perhaps) leads to their own group? The way I see it users now risk having to scroll even MORE (but this time horizontally instead of vertically). Because a menu entry in the start menu is hardly as big as a tile in the Metro screen.
IMO Microsoft is "fixing" things while totally ignoring the cause of the initial problem itself.
Look what got!
I'm on SeaMonkey which is powered by AdBlock+ and NoScript (highly recommended plugins!).
So what did I get? Well, also a 2 out of 4 but its the end of the website which made me laugh:
How does your browser keep you safer?
Get Adobe Flash player
This page requires Flash Player version 10.2.0 or higher.
IMPORTANT: After installing the required upgrade please reload this browser window to view the video.
This is all positioned right besides the green "What is MALWARE?" column.
Not so funny?
Ok, how about this one... This is how the bottom section looks like on my end:
1 DANGEROUS DOWNLOADS <banner stating "F Get ADOBE Flash player">
2 PHISING WEBSITES White section stating: "This website requires Flash Player version 10.2.0 or higher"
3 ATTACKS ON YOUR BROWSER White section stating: "IMPORTANT: After installing the required upgrade please reload this browser window to view the video".
Maybe you already think this to be funny, I know I did. But what really made me laugh was noticing the summary of key features at the bottom:
"Does your browser provide a distinct warning when you download an application that is of higher risk but not yet confirmed as malware?" and according to this website mine doesn't. But the messages I see above beg to differ.
I know MS probably bases this on pristine browsers. But that's where this goes wrong. Mozilla's browsers were made to be extended upon. At the very least they could have added some code to check up on this and confirm that (for example) the existence of a NoScript plugin is also enough to keep you safe.
THAT would have been a winner because THAT would have gained them some more respect (maybe a little, but all little bits count) from the technical community.
And now all they get are ridicules. Their loss, missed opportunity.
Not going to work I think...
Not to generalize but apart from the people who really went for the freedom part of the deal there are also plenty of OpenOffice users who simply picked it up because they didn't want to pay for an Office suite which they hardly used. An occasional letter is also easily made with OpenOffice.
So I'm not too sure that this will catch on. I have to agree with some of the other posts; most OpenOffice users have most likely already bailed. Either to MS Office or LibreOffice.
Or maybe KOffice ;-)
When it comes to UI's then its kinda hard to discuss IMO since much of that is based on personal preferences. I've been working with MS Office 2010 for a while now and can't say I really dislike the Ribbon interface. Its more of a pull down menu put horizontal.
However, I do think that LibeOffice has some catching up to do when it comes to functionality. In its basic form L.O. is perfectly usable for common issues; word processing, spreadsheets; no question about it that it can easily cope.
But when it comes to some of the extra's then I think its lacking a bit. For example; I'm working on a study and I'm collecting information from different sources on the Net. MS Office doesn't only provides plenty of means to collect all this pieces of information, you can also easily link those to your other office documents for quick reference. OpenOffice never had something like that, while it can actually be very useful.
And although LibreOffice has a decent macro editor, its not very fun to use if you want to create custom dialogs. Its doable, but... ugh.
So in that aspect I'm not too sure about not going after the competitors any longer. There's much more besides a UI to cope with.
Posted in Virus infects killer US air drone fleet
Darn kids...
I mean, how easy is it to detect the origin of this? VERY easy.
Just wait for some spam to appear which starts to advertise "Viagra delivery by air, no matter where you are on the globe!".
Posted in Virus infects killer US air drone fleet
@AC
Windows? The only threat I see here are people presumable thinking that "the computers" will keep them safe and thus assume they can stop thinking for themselves.
Posted in Google shoots Dart at JavaScript
@Mr. Styles
Dear Mr. Styles,
We would like to inform you that we are preparing a patent which will protect our right to "discuss the art of Go programming in public electronic places which are usually inhabited, followed or streamed by people of a rather (sub)technical nature for purposes as (but not limited to) discussing theories, producing negative comments and/or to compare Go with other programming languages in such a way which could result in a profit decrease for companies actually using and/or exploiting Go.".
Considering that you have now mentioned Go in a public forum which falls within the regions of our upcoming patent we're sorry to inform you that we see no other alternative but to charge you for a nominal fee of 2 million dollars in order to secure the future of Go and the businesses associated with it. This in order to protect your and our freedom and to ensure that Go won't be forgotten.
We will have our attorney contact yours as soon as possible and hope that you'll comply with our request and have the money up next week.
With kind regards, blah, blah, blah....
"Now, if you'll type this all out and sent it over to our attorney and tell this "el reg board" that we demand the names of this Styles person? Thanks dear, appreciate it. Anything more on my agenda today? Good, good... Wait until I tell Larry about this one... Patent-to-Go, good one no? Get it? 'Patent. to. Go... ?'. Ha ha ha, wait... Darn, is this voice recorder still on?"
<rumbling noises>
<click>
(sorry, couldn't resist ;-))
But like; what does the current browser /do/ ?
The only thing I hear the reporter talking about is how the browser used to redirect people to "disturbing contents" and as such got pulled off.
But what does it do now?
It looks to me as if he's obsessed with the past. I mean, he starts saying how the site promises "your computer will be free from virusses breeding onlne...".
But when I look at "yapbrowser.com" all I see is: "We can assure you that YapBrowser does not contain any hidden spy-ware, ad-ware or any harmful applications.
We will of course be regularly checking the software and updating. Read More.."
No where do I see any promises of my computer being kept free from virusses.
And while the author has shown us how the browsers uses "yapsearch" as its starting page; what more does it do? Does it still redirect people to obscure websites; the reason it got pulled from the Net in the first place?
Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful here. But we also shouldn't start trashing a product solely based on what it used to be.
So what exactly is the problem with the current brand ?
Not impressed with Google
I would have been more impressed if they didn't try to turn this into a public spectacle up front.
The birthday aspect and the official issues behind the celebration is one thing. Despite their (inter)national roles we should not forget that this is /also/ a simple issue of two friends wanting to spend some time together. And that part is something the world doesn't need to monitor as well.
Its all part of the master plan!
I think its mainly because no desktop user (without touch) would buy Windows 8 in its current form. So to prepare for that they simply hired a lot of high quality staff which are standing ready to talk you into upgrading to Windows 8.
If you can't beat 'm...
@AC 1
"Really? For objecting when someone steals and distributes their property?"
There is a huge difference to be kept in mind here. The guy didn't got any financial profit from it (in fact it would probably only have /cost/ him money to maintain the server and database) and some people used his service for /years/ now.
If that astrologer idiot was so upset then why not start doing something any civilized person would have done ? Ask the guys behind the database if they actually did use / copy or take his work and if so could fix that or contact him to discuss some kind if compensation ?
Maybe I'm overreacting, but what I see here are civil problems being "solved" in a totally uncivilized and maybe even savage way: "We'll sue!!".
I'm >< close to thinking that 'the art of sueing' is something every US business needs to embrace because "if done right it might even make more /money/ than doing your common dumb business."
I don't think they went for the best here, considering the brand and Vista I think they went for "cheap". Or more correctly put: "they went for the optimal price range".
Anyone who has been following the technical aspects of both OS's will tell you that for an optimal performance you're better of using Win7 than Vista. I've witnessed this myself with my (professional) audio equipment. Vista worked, but when the load went a little bit up then Vista could hardly copy anymore. Win7 (same hardware, same software, other OS)? It flies. In the previous example it took approx. a tenth of the load which Vista needed.
Still, at least there's some new motivation to watch the olympics for me; checking up if all keeps on working or if we get some BSOD on one of the boards all of a sudden :-)
Posted in Future Firefox to slurp updates silently
@Barry
"Something tells me that this would NOT be the preferred solution for Enterprise."
Well, in all fairness it wasn't that long ago when some Mozilla employee stated that "the company wasn't concerned with Enterprise customers and probably never would be". (seen in an previous article on El Reg).
So in that context changes like these make sense... sort off... Personally I think Firefox is really going downhill these days.
Posted in Apple cofounder Steve Jobs is dead at 56
A sad day...
I'm not into Apple at all (more a *nix/WIndows guy) but this is still a sad development. One can just hope that he had some good fun in the last months of his live and wasn't the type of guy who is fully occupied by work and ends up "empty handed" when you quit that job.
A very sad day indeed.
Windows user; not out disrespect but because that is my preferred OS of choice.
Who's fault? Both IMO.
At one hand we have Mozilla trying to push updates out every 3 months. And considering the major changes in the browser as well as the engine I can well imagine that some plugin developers simply can't keep up anymore.
OTOH I also think that if you are willing to develop for a platform you should stick with it. So if Mozilla goes "ok, we're working on a 3 month cycle now" you have 2 choices; either you don't like the new terms and then its best to simply cut ties and look for something else to support or use. Even make it official that you no longer can work that way. A possible side effect here should be obvious; if more people follow your example you may even have a little leverage and can apply some pressure on Mozilla.
OR you continue supporting the product but then I don't think you can use excuses like "the development cycle is too steep" because you knew that part up front. If you're going for it then go all the way.
Still, I don't think that in this early stage you can fully put the blame solely on either party. However, I wouldn't be surprised if we'll get to see more plugins slowly deteriorate over time.
Posted in The security mistakes users make
My security experiences?
Well, the more information you share about your experiences the more risks you might be taking when the "bad guys" are having an eye on you ;-)
So I think I'll skip this one 8-)
A little more seriously; "The weakest link". And that will always be the end user. That is the thing to look out for. Especially since most of the time the user in question might not even realize what the risks of his or her actions are. OR they don't care, which is something you should always keep in the back of your mind as well.
Either way... You can't prepare for everything but IMO keeping an eye out for the weakest links in the whole infrastructure and keeping a backup plan in mind in case something does go completely wrong is most likely the best way to go.
IMO that works for both big as well as smaller environments.
However, in a lot of cases departments tend to think "big", often resulting in many people who will fall between the gaps so to speak. Exceptions will be made because "people can't do their jobs" and in the end you'll have more risks and probably also more expenses (time is money as well) to cover for.
While if you try to think "small" and work your way up you can most likely come up with a better solution which covers most aspects.
It might seem like way too much time when considering such plan of action, but IMO the end results will be better. Esp. since you most likely won't have to cope with a dozen of small exceptions every here and there.
My 2 cents on the matter.
@AC
"What hope is there for us?"
Now, this may sound degrading (not meant to be) but IMO "Knowing how to program doesn't imply knowing how to keep your OS secure" can be applied here.
This is guessing / speculating on my part but truth be told it also wouldn't surprise me if someone simply picked up on Linux with the assumption "I'm safe because I'm on Linux" and without any specific configuration just went along doing what he wanted.
Posted in Put down the Java manual
@VB knowing AC :-)
Also a very good point indeed.
I'll be honest; I read the article several times yet only after reading your comment did I notice this option as well.
Its a good theory but with a flaw. People might be "pushed away" from Java due to the market being full, but that doesn't automatically make the demands on the market go away. So then the demand will remain the same whereas the availability decreases. Basic economic theories tell us that in those situations the prices will go back up again.
SO then I wonder... Would it be the language dying or the market simply correcting itself ?
I'm skeptical here. I mean; people have predicted the end of Java from 2000 and up now, and here we are; 2011 and its still going strong (note: being a Java fan makes me biased. But knowing Oracle and the way they handle business I doubt Java7 would have seen the light if they weren't convinced that there's still a market for it).
Posted in Put down the Java manual
The author doesn't get it...
Its not long lasting partly due to the fact that everyone can learn it ?
I think the author has a very narrow minded opinion on the matter. If this situation were so dire for the market then why did all major players in the field started opening up their development environment and made it available for free? Both the environment as well as all the information you might need ?
Funny how he talks about PowerBuilder; I lived that era. And it was in that era when you'd need to pay quite a few bucks if you wanted to pick up on, say, a C or C++ compiler from Sun. Fortunately for us we had gcc which would also run excellently on Solaris, so no need for heavy investments. But still; that was the situation back then.
A few major exceptions, as I mentioned earlier GCC but also Java was pretty much opened up. You could grab the JDK, look into (and download) the JDK documentation for SE, EE and even several tutorials if you wanted too. All courtesy of Sun Microsystems.
Wait... Could it be possible that by opening up the language in the way they did it became more popular? Naaah....
But isn't it surprising that in the mean time major other companies, Microsoft being my example, have also stepped up onto this "opening up" bandwagon? I'm interested in C# as well as VB but don't feel like coughing up big bucks for Visual Studio. SO I got the Express versions, and can tell from personal experience that you can do a lot with those! I even build a few (very simple!) extensions for PowerShell. All free of charge!
Quite frankly I don't think companies like MS, Oracle and others would open up their development environments if it would become a liable risk of the language becoming overrun and / or obsoleted a lot sooner than if they kept it locked away.
If the author lived the PB era as he claims and has witnessed all this himself as well then I can't understand how he came up with this particular opinion.
I agree on the usablity issue...
I don't own an iPhone but some of my relatives do. And so here I was simply trying to send them my namecard using bluetooth, as I've done with many of my other friends without any problem.
Well, needless to say but it failed. The iPhone couldn't handle it and a quick Google search later on learned me that the iPhone "supported bluetooth but...".
I still fail to understand how something so simple could go so horribly wrong ? Esp. since its promoted as being a business phone, what better way to swap out information than bluetooth ?
Experiences like these really don't make me fancy an iPhone anytime soon.
