Posts by AlbertH
100 posts • joined Wednesday 18th July 2012 12:07 GMT
Re: does tend to prove the point
Breaking into and abusing any Windoze kernel is trivially easy (due to the stupid anti-security decisions made by William Gates back before he needed to shave). The faults in Windows persist right up to today.
Conversely, the Linux kernel has remained largely secure despite its massive installed base. It's the predominent internet OS - for servers of all kinds, routers and switches. Even Microsoft use it where Windows won't scale! Android is just a shiny desktop, and does nothing to compromise the basic kernel.
Kaspersky are just like all the others of their ilk - selling non-existent solutions for non-existent problems. (None of their "solutions" actually do anything useful)
Re: What Security?
Kaspersky want to SELL you a malware solution for a problem that CANNOT exist. There is no means of any software installed with user priveledge gaining root access without manual user intervention.
These are desperate times for the anti-this and anti-that manufacturers. Even the latest iterations of Windoze are getting more secure, and MS's own, free anti-malware programs do the job better than these bogus third-party efforts. McAfee, Kaspersky and all the other snake-oil salesmen are rapidly going out of business, and these specious claims andmalicious lies are their final efforts to keep their businesses alive.
Re: What's the purpose of O2 now anyway?
They've also sold what used to be the best ADSL ISP in the UK (BeThere) to Sky. You want a betrayal? That's the worst!
Also: Be persist in trying to take money from me for service I've cancelled. If they persist, they'll be in Court for harassment. I'll be seeking damages in £100k+ range (and I'm told that I'll probably get it!).
The sooner they go out of business, the better.
Re: here's another one
I got a ticket for parking in a prescribed place.
Illiteracy and stupidity should both be actionable!
Re: Send an invoice back
More than a few times I've invoiced companies for wasting my time, £35 per letter or email sent, £25 per phone call made, £15 per letter, email or phone call received and my personal favorite £15 for drawing up and processing each invoice.
I started doing exactly that after my bank charged me £25 for a letter telling me that I was £2.14 overdrawn. I replied (enclosing an invoice for £30 for MY letter) thanking them for their concern and that the account would be adjusted that day. Over the next year, they ran up over £600 of debt with me which they refused to pay on the grounds that the claims were "frivolous".
I took them to Small Claims Court - the bank Manager refused to appear, so I had to send Bailiffs to compel his attendance (and to shut the branch for the duration of the Court Action). The reputational damage to Natwest was significant, and I was ultimately awarded my money, damages and costs. Natwest had to pay out almost £8000 and lost most of a day's business at a city centre branch. I moved my overdraft elsewhere immediately, of course!
I hate this silly ambulance-chasing litigious nonsense that's going on these days for all the spurious "injuries" people suffer, but I'll always take on Banks, Parking Companies, Railways, airlines and any other companies who provide me poor or overpriced "service" or try to apply additional charges to their headline prices (the airlines!).
Re: @AC Appeals process a sham, sherlock
I think you need to be a little wary when having these "debts" sold to a debt recovery company
If they do that, send them a brief letter threatening to sue them for libel. It's always worked for me (even against Notional Wastemaker Bank). If they try to substantiate their silly claims in Court, you will invariably win, and they will have publically defamed you - which is actionable of course!
UKPC and Network Rail currently have to pay me damages of just over £7000 for their trying to register me as a bad debtor with a Credit Reference Agency. I'm still waiting for the money, but have been assured by the Court that they are paying for my summer holiday!
Re: Windows FULLSTOP is not ready for the INTERNET
Speaking as one who was there: - Dave Cutler offered Bill Gates proper user and file permissions, "like UNIX". Gates said that it wasn't necessary and would make operation more difficult for the "average user".
This one flawed decision has spawned the malware and anti-malware industries, and ensured that every subsequent version of Windows was insecure BY DESIGN!
Windows networking was an afterthought, and "security" came very low on the "wants" list. In fact, security was seen as a disadvantage as the NT line of Windows was supposed to be the "ultimate" in ease of use (Yes - Bill actually said that!).
Incidentally, I'm an ex-Microsoftie who hasn't used even one of their products since 1995.
Ha ha ha...
"space weapons are banned by treaty."
So are nukes, chemical and biological weapons. The good ol' USA have plenty of all three (and so does Britain, France and a few others)
Aging products, a tortuous supply chain, angry suppliers.....
Of course Apple is in trouble. They haven't released anything truly "new" in the last four years.
They've shot themselves in the foot with their only supplier of screens, memory and microprocessors - Samsung won't deal with them directly any more. They've had to source components on the open Asian markets, and have lost their "favoured customer" status with all the component brokerages. Their component prices have multiplied recently (nearly 400% up).
They've even upset their principal manufacturer Foxconn by trying to force down factory prices so Foxconn just changed their lines to making generic PCs for more profit! The prices to Apple ROSE by over 300%....
Their only hope is to carry on their spurious litigation against the whole of the rest of the computing world - they've patented rounded rectangles and multiple touch. They'll just have to buy "friendly" judges as usual and flood the legal system with these bizarre claims. Microsoft will be in trouble over the "touch" content of Windows 8....
Re: Yea more netbook junk
My Samsung Chromebooks are marvellous. They run Ubuntu really well, have long battery life and are robust but light enough for daily commuter use. They also cost me well under £200 each, and are significantly more capable than my previous 2006 Sony Vaio laptops (which cost £1400 each).
You're just wrong!
Hopeless Dopes
Virgin-on-the-ridiculous are utterly hopeless at anything they try to do:
"Fibre broadband"? No - the same old ratty coax cable that was installed as cheaply as possible in the 1960s.
"Unlimited Internet"? No - traffic shaped, DNS-restricted, download limited, and never as fast as they claim.
"High reliability"? No - average time to restore lost service measured in weeks, not minutes.
"Low Cost" No - slightly cheaper in some ways than Sky, but you get less than half the service.
Making the company bigger will just make their service poorer.
In Budapest and Vienna, there's full cellular coverage throughout the subterranean parts of their metro networks. It's been like this for at least five years. This is now also done in many other European cities.
London Underground are notoriously slow at taking up any kind of innovation. Getting even the most basic radio communications down the tunnels took many years. Getting Police, Fire Brigade and Ambulance "Tetra" radio underground took the Kings Cross disaster to even begin installation!
Each tunnel is equipped with several leaky feeder cables, so it's a fairly trivial matter of adding cell sites at stations and combiners on to the existing infrastructure.
Re: Cellular
No - it's just luck that there's a cell site close enough to the station that gets into most of the platform areas.
Re: "Most influential tech-tweet of 2011" title on the tweeter's site
to the best of my knowledge Dr Black's doctorate is a real, earned one; not a made up or honorary one.
That may be true, but it doesn't save her from being irredeemably stupid.
Re: God I'm getting sick of Fry
Brian Cox is a lecturer in Astrophysics.
I can't stand the guy, but he does know what he's talking about when it comes to space and the universe. More by luck than judgement - he was one of my graduate students, and (to quite quite frank) was the dimmest of the lot. If he had two brains, he's be twice as dull.....
Re: Funny
That's strange - you must have the special "friend of a Murdoch" package that's unavailable to the rest of us!
Re: I was afflicted with 3 myself - but not any more!
Unfortunately, Three are a complete joke in most of London. They have less than one hundredth of the capacity of even the execrable "Nothing Anywhere", and it's seldom possible to get any kind of connection at all. When you do, it's at rates much worse than GSM data....
There isn't a competent, fairly priced mobile service of any kind in Britain.
Re: It's not that Windows is not selling well
Indeed.
Amusingly, Nokia are testing their latest hardware with Android 4.2 at present (according to my inside man!) and they have plans to compete with their own Windoze product!
Re: OpenJDK ..
No - of course not. It only affects Windows
Of course....
.... it only affects Windows (l)users. Those of us bright enough to delete the Redmond rubbish don't (and won't) suffer from vulnerabilities like this.
Re: Non-admin accounts, Software Restriction Policies, ....... LINUX!
Simple fix:
Get rid of Windows. Install something that works properly!
Re: Doesn't Samsung supply Apple with A6 processors?
They also supply Apple with screen and memory (albeit indirectly).
Apple approached almost every Far Eastern component manufacturer and broker to try to source their parts elsewhere. LG, Sony, Fujitsu and all the rest told Apple they'd be happy to supply all the parts they wanted - at massive mark-ups because ALL of them buy their parts from Samsung....
Most of the component brokers I work with refuse to deal with Apple - they have a dreadful reputation for getting brokers to source parts (using their time and efforts) then pulling out of the deals at the last minute.
Re: Karma
Nope
Android
That really is all!
Re: Where to go then?
PlusNet is just BT under another name. The throttle the hell out of connections - migrate to BT and the speed triples.
BT have clueless, incomprehensible script-monkeys on their hell desk, and PlusNet aren't any better....
Re: Oh bollocks
Not "if" - it's "when"!
Entirely Typical
The stupid complaining about the silly.
The Yanks really haven't got a clue. They're steeped in stupid religions, teach crap like creationism to their children and insist on the "right" of everyone to carry sidearms.They're just another version of the Middle Eastern bigots.
Just stupid.
Next Door
I live at number 667. Does that make me the neighbour of the beast?
No big deal. Change his wage slip number.
Anyone stupid enough to have that kind of superstition is too stupid to employ. Just get rid of him and hope he starves before he breeds.
Re: I like it -> decent commercial
looking to go back to Blackberry just for the secure messaging
You'd better look elsewhere - BB is in NO WAY "secure"!
Nonsense
Ask Galaxy owners if they would definitely buy a Samsung device next time - probably 10-20% would
Errr.... No. Recent market research showed that the numbers were exactly the obverse of your claim. The conversion rate of ex-Apple users to Android products is scaring Apple. There's nothing they can do to stop the loss of userbase.
When Galaxy S3 users were asked if they would exchange their phones for a free iPhone 5, NONE of them would.
Practically - the iPhone is incapable of 4G operation, has abysmally poor radio performance (calls are frequently dropped, cell sites are frequently unreachable, wireless network connection is unreliable), is really easy to break (failing switches, cracking screens), have poor battery life (most users have to recharge twice each day), and the software is simply flaky and poorly designed.
The Android eco-system has developed very quickly. Android 4 is faster, more stable and has a wider range of quality software than iOS, and most of it is free! Apple haven't got a product that can compete...
Stupid is as stupid does...
Could ultimately be an ad for anything.... which means it ends up being an ad for nothing.
Obviously the advert was aimed way above your head. No need to feel bad. Most Apple users are fundamentally stupid - they buy Apple because they're intellectually challlenged and believe that it's "Easy to Use".....
What's the point of an ad for a brand?
Perhaps you should ask the same thing of Apple! Their adverts for their computers were always designed to be "aspirational" and suggest that there was a justification for their excessive prices. They were always trying to sell a "brand" rather than a product.
Sore foot, Apple?
Heard of the expression "shooting yourself in the foot"? That's Apple - they sued their ONLY supplier of screens, memory and processors. Samsung have (of course) increased the prices of the components radically....
Apple then contacted LG to see if they could buy screens - "Yes" said LG, but then pointed out that they only bought them in from Samsung, and the price had just gone up radically....
Every "manufacturer" that Apple tried told them the same thing....
Have you noticed that Apple have stopped advertising their (abysmal) IPhone 5 and their (abysmally under specified and grossly overpriced) tablets?
Re: on the other hand....
Given that a fair few doctors use iPhones (around 60% in the US)
....given that you can buy a medical "qualification" in the US, and that 90% of US "medical practitioners" are entirely unqualified, I really don't think that this is much of a recommendation!
Re: Wow
Its almost as if Microsoft still think it still belongs to them even after I bought it.
The EULA actually suggests that they do. Like their "operating systems" - you can't buy them (even if you'd ever want to), you can only lease the right to use them. Their software remains "their" property. It's now going the same way with "their" hardware.....
Re: More Irrelevance
With its late-to-market products commanding miniscule market share, it is doubtful whether MS will ever become relevant in the tablet space
Yep - another "Zune"!!!
Re: It's not a security hole - it's a financial disaster
1. In order to run this jailbreak, you need to have a second machine with Visual Studio running a remote debugger session to the Windows RT device.
Correct, but so what?
2. There is no pre-compiled ARM software out there for WinRT. You'd have to write your own.
Wrong. It's all over the 'net.
3. Even if you did, the jailbreak does not - and cannot! - survive a boot. So one boot later, your imaginary software won't run unless you jailbreak the device again, using the VS remote debugger.
Wrong. It can and does. You just have to apply two small patches.
4. The stuff Microsoft charges for is Windows Store apps, and you can already sideload those - in fact, MSDN specifies exactly how to do it. Not exactly a big money-saving secret.
Wrong. M$ are desperate to have an "App Store" like Apple and Android in their typical "me too" fashion. Their potential cash-cow has been bypassed, and they're really pissed about it. Once again M$ bungles.
NO MS software or operating system has EVER worked properly. Their coding ineptitude and their money-grabbing tactics have both been exposed yet again!
Game Over, Microsoft.
Re: A little misleading
Basically, you are likely to be better off buying a system with Win7 pre-installed rather than attempting the downgrade yourself...
Actually you're much better off buying a system without the Windows Tax (you'll save about £150) and stick Linux Mint on it. After about 10 minutes acclimatisation, you'll wonder why you ever paid Microsoft anything for their brokenware....
Re: One thing
One feature windows 8 has which is useful is the native support for USB 3.
Over here, on the Linux desktop, we've had "native" USB 3 since it was added to the kernel about four years ago.
I really do wish those Windoze sluggards would make some kind of effort to keep up....
But in the meantime they don't want anyone to know as it might cause a dip in sales of the current iphone if some people decide to wait for the cheaper version?
That will actually suit them. They have a rapidly dwindling stock of components since they pissed off the only company in the world making the parts they need for their higher-end products. Samsung can now starve Apple to death (and rumours from Korea suggest that this is the Samsung strategy)
Desperate
Apple can't buy the high-end components they need to make their high-priced crap except through third-party brokers since they pissed off their principal supplier (Samsung). This has put the prices of the parts they need up by 400%, and even Apple fanbois won't spend $4000+ on the iPhone 5 no matter how shiny it is.
If Apple want to have any product to sell, they're going to have to move radically downmarket, which will ruin their spurious cache and thereby alienate their market... They've shot themselves in the foot and it's probably going to be the end of them. Sell your stock now!
Re: Does it work on Linux?
Except that as virtually no one uses Linux... except virtually every web server, every large scale data store, all the Android Telephones, >90% of the routers you can buy, everyone in China with a computer, all the "smart" TVs, etc...........
Sounds like Linus Torvalds needs to take an anger management course and learn some people skills!
Don't be so damn' silly! When some clown has been repeatedly told to either shape up or ship out - and still refuses to do either - a few harsh words are entirely appropriate.
I am heartliy sick of being told how I have to handle useless employees - they work for me - they do as they're told or they find other work. If they can't handle criticism, they need to go and work in Local Government where they can be entirely worthless for a whole working life and never get criticised at all.....
Re: Err...
It's nothing to do with "delicate little flowers", which is a wholly patronising comment,
It's not patronising at all. If someone has had their repeated error pointed out to them and then persists in telling the world that everyone else is wrong except them.... I'd tell them to "shut the F*CK up and grow up!".
If they can't handle it, they have no place in any kind of pressured environment, which means they're no good for my business, and will spend their lives complaining about every little thing if they get a job elsewhere.
These are the type of people who do not receive references when they leave my employment. I've had three of them try to sue because I refused to lie on recommendation letters, and just had to demonstrate their incompetence and over-sensitivity at the employment tribunals. They ended up having to pay me to leave the company...
Stupid is as stupid does.....
Re: Ironic!
They can't. MS have lost all their creative staff and effective engineers (the dross remains as usual). Even MS haven't got enough money to fix their appalling range of offerings - they've entirely lost their way. Windows 8 tries to turn the desktop into a sub-standard touchscreen phone, Windows for phones doesn't work properly (it's even worse than Blackberry!), Windows 7 is incompatible with most business software, and all of them have stupidly high hardware requirements (ever tried "running" Windoze 7 on an Atom-based netbook?).
Apple aren't much better. Their desktop OS is now aging (the latest version is just a set of patches on top of a seven-year-old OS), and business can't justify the need for the higher hardware prices. iOS is a poor joke. Everything that was good about earlier versions is largely broken, and they just can't compete with the ability of Android to run on virtually any hardware....
Android is now the "acceptable face of Linux" and is stealing a march on everything else. Chrome looks great, and is easy to use - the Samsung Chromebook is fabulous (and insanely cheap). The latest Nexus phone will outsell everything else on the market over the next few months.
Google aren'y being nasty to MS and Apple - it's just that they've lost the plot completely, and neither can compete with Google's pricing policy! Android, Chrome and Linux are all free (in every sense), and their inexorable march towards supremacy in all markets will be fascinating to see!
Returns
My spy in the local branch of a mobile phone retailer says that they can't GIVE AWAY Windows phones of any kind. They had a recent promotion that "gave" a Windows phone "free" with a £15 per month tariff and they had exactly one enquiry (and the prospect left with a Samsung on O2!).
300% of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing!
Interestingly, they can't sell Apple phones against the higher end Samsungs and HTCs - nobody wants them any more (except the gullible fanbois). Android is seems as "slick" and "trendy" and having "lots of free apps"...
Re: duh
If Windows was so bad then industry would grind to a halt.
A recent "Time and Motion" study where I work showed between 30 minutes and 2 hours per employee, per day lost to the inefficiencies, instabilities and inconsistencies of Windows. That's why we've banned it. We also don't allow Mac, due to its basic incompatibility with everything else... There is only one sane option!
