Posts by jaywin

Re: WiGig will not replace HDMI

It might work OK for the first guy in the office to get it. However, once you've got a cluster of 4 desks each with a couple of monitors, a bit less so!

Re: SCSI anyone?

> there is using wired just for wired sake, there are plenty of scenarios where there just isnt any point in using wires over wireless

Go on...

We can only get a finite amount of data over wireless. Wired can effectively carry infinite data. And as more and more people try to push larger & faster amounts of data over wireless, it's going to stop being a viable option sooner-or-later. Maybe we should concentrate more on making the things that are helpful working wirelessly (mobile internet / mice / headphones) better, and keep the things that don't (desktop monitors / printers / desk phones) cabled down so we can take advantage of the better wireless?

Re: "The program's been a success"

I suppose to make a fair judgement, we really need to know what percentage of pre-existing OS's were eligible for the free upgrade. There's a fair percentage that don't run Windows 7/8 to start with, then there's the Enterprise editions which also don't get the upgrade.

If only 45% of the total numbers were eligible, and they've got almost half of them to upgrade, that'd be a fairly good outcome for any marketing department.

Re: You now see where the revenue stream is

I've called them Apps ever since using Risc OS in the early 90s.

Re: confused - - - -

Right, firstly, give up with the industry shill nonsense. Look through my previous posts, you'll see I'm a developer. I have with nothing to do with the advertising industry. I'm interested in this topic, the technical details of such, and your interpretations, and it'd be nice to get a sensible discussion out of that.

At no point did I say you were completely wrong - in fact I clearly said some behaviour - notably tracking and registering the presence of an adblocker would be covered by the directive. What I'm doing is questioning your assertions that all anti-adblock scripts are illegal. Now, if you'd like to explain to me why I'm wrong, that's fine, I'll happily admit you've spent a lot longer looking into this than me. But please give me a little more than "the big man told me I was right", and "everyone's opinions are worthless, but mine's right".

So...

> Javascript specifically developed to detect the use of an adblocker could never be considered as "for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network" - seriously where do you come up with this rubbish?

That's not what I said. I said the Javascript is only being executed from your computer because it's a necessary technical requirement, behaviour which is expressly permitted. If the page is set to no-cache, and is small enough, there's a reasonable chance it will never be stored locally apart from in RAM. And besides, the directive is talking about retrieving information from the user's equipment, which this behaviour is clearly not doing. It doesn't say anything about banning script activity that the user has moral objections against. Only those that may result in private information being transmitted.

It would be possible for me to write a piece of javascript, which would prevent someone from easily viewing content if they have an adblocker, but that doesn't reveal that to myself, or store that information anywhere. Please explain to me how that would cause any privacy implications to the visitors to that page, because I just can't see it. [Again, if I was sending that information back to myself, or storing it locally, I can see your point and agree that the directive would apply]. Forcing someone to view an advert also doesn't imply any privacy revelations [e.g. static advert served identically to everyone with nothing other than number of views being stored].

> Nothing is certain in law (that is why these are "test cases")

Well quite. Not that you would have gotten that impression from the rest of your post...

Re: confused - - - -

> Held in memory = stored in memory.

From Article 5.3:

"This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network"

So the temporary storage of a script locally in order to enable that to be executed is not covered by the article.

AFAICT, Alexander is arguing that because a piece of javascript is looking at the contents of the page it was loaded with, it is "gain[ing] access to information stored in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user". I'm not sure I can agree with that, especially if that data is only stored there for technical reasons (which is allowed), and the script is only looking for the lack of an external resource being loaded (in which case it's not interested in any information that is stored on the terminal equipment, it's interested in the remote information).

He says that scripts accessing information from the DOM for various purposes are allowed, but I can't see anything in the actual text that means this looking to see if something has been removed from the DOM / not loaded would be banned. There are a multitude of valid reasons for using the same techniques (probably the exact same source code - something isn't there, load an alternative - be that alternative text / error message / etc), so I'm not sure you could really ban this because it happens to be caused by the existence of another piece of software (of which the javascript would remain unaware of).

Now, if the script was storing a cookie to say you've got an adblocker, or transmitting back to the server information about your computer and it's adblocking, there's plenty in the directive to use to complain about, but if it's happening locally, and nothing is being stored, I just can't see how it falls foul of the article.

For reference - full [English] text of article 5.3:

"3. Member States shall ensure that the use of electronic communications networks to store information or to gain access to information stored in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned is provided with clear and comprehensive information in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, inter alia about the purposes of the processing, and is offered the right to refuse such processing by the data controller. This shall not prevent any technical storage or access for the sole purpose of carrying out or facilitating the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network, or as strictly necessary in order to provide an information society service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user."

Re: Camp spoof

Pretty much everyone except for the UK.

Re: Eurovision is way more than a cheesy competition

It's a shame so few people understand the differences between Eurovision, the EBU, the EU and the Eurovision Song Contest. On the other hand, it's bizarre how much hatred a singing competition gets. It's not like it goes on for months or people are forced to watch it.

> The issue with Windows Phone 7 & 8 never was UI or performance as I understand it, but the incompatibility with Windows Mobile apps coupled with the lock in to the store.

The main issue, as MS seem to see it, is that it's not got the same UX as Android. So instead of iterating what was a great UX, with unique features (e.g. unified messenger hub for sms / email / facebook / twitter), good performance on "lesser" hardware and at a reasonable price, they've opted to bloat out the platform, try and rip off the obvious bits of the Android UX, force people to make worse UI's for their apps, and remove the features that the existing users liked.

I just wish they'd stop this whack-a-mole style development path, with new ideas coming and going quicker than they can actually get them to work, and instead focus on making an OS that is different enough from the opposition to make it worthwhile, and that people actually want to use (i.e. like they had with WP7 - just updated).

Re: Country with largest population wins?

Each country will generate a top-ten from it's phone votes. Points are then allocated to those top ten and added to the points from the top ten's from the other countries. This means country size is irrelevant.

No, the EBU (organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest) are nothing to do with the EU. Hence countries like Russia, Azerbaijan and Norway are competitors.

Re: WIndows Phone.

No.

Microsoft's phone division made something different to the competition, which worked well and was popular with those who used it. Then they started listening to marketing droids who told them that they needed to be more like Android. Then they also got forced to change direction twice by upper management wanting to create an "experience". End result is a weakened, fractured OS that's only real plus point is that it's more stable, smooth and secure than Android.

If they'd just stuck with their vision, and marketed that, we could be seeing a very different market share today.

Re: Wow! 3 (count'em...THREE) files at a time!

Yay! More Microsoft bashing by comentards that can't be bothered to find out what they're talking about...

You can open more than three files at once - they all appear in a list in the sidebar - almost like tabs! However, you can easily have three files visible at once, split vertically. And you can select which file appears in each at your whim.

Yes, this is possible in VS proper, but when I try it I normally end up in a fight with its window manager trying to snap to anywhere and anything other than the bit I want.

Brilliant

Re: Underimpressed...

> To me it looks like every other dime-a-dozen web-based IDE but hosted locally.

Under the skin it's Chromium.

Re: Really....

In fact, if you did manage to write a web browser that doesn't load any DLLs (or equivalent), you still wouldn't have this protection - because you don't need it.

Re: Really....

Firefox will be loading DLLs (or equivalent), virtually every browser does as a matter of course. It's incredibly difficult to write any non-trivial piece of software for a full OS that doesn't dynamically link against any other components.

What's changed is that Edge is now verifying that every DLL it does load is signed by Microsoft or the Windows Hardware certificate, so the only external code it will ever load, even if another process is injected / hacked or whatever is guaranteed to come from MS. This certificate checking is being done with kernel protection so that it's not possible for a user process to bypass the checks.

Same as splitting different tabs into separate processes, I expect this development to be taken up by the other browser developers as a matter of course.

Re: No comprende

> The Windows IoT thing doesn't even have a display.

That's strange, I've got mine hooked up to a screen and its quite happily rendering to it.

I wish people would criticise MS for the stuff they do (there's enough of it) rather than making things up. Like the guy down the page who says you need a windows PC to drive the Pi when you use W10 IoT - you don't. You only need one for the initial imaging. After that they run stand alone.

Re: No comprende

No, 67MB is the size of the partition it creates on the 8GB card. Apparently it requires the other space (you have to manually expand the partition) to allow you space to store your apps. I've found the 67MB partition is actually big enough for the OS and a couple of simple apps, I've not looked at how much space is actually occupied by the OS files.

My point that it is only 67MB is not to challenge Linux for the crown of smallest usable OS, but to counter Mark's position that you wouldn't be able to shrink W10 down very much.