* Posts by Steven Walker

86 publicly visible posts • joined 12 May 2006

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Free-market think tank urges EU to unbundle Windows

Steven Walker

Dreamworld again ...

Stu Reeves

There were some obvious typos and below I submit the corrected last paragraph:

PC Planet: ... Oh and the camera you have doesn't have any Vista Drivers yet, but hopefully in few months time there maybe someone will write some.

Cust: I'll take Linux.

BOFH: Building changes

Steven Walker

SCO

I think you will find that they own 30 and that it was skipped to save on royalties. Think before you use that number, it could cost you!

Skype worm blows bubbles at victims

Steven Walker

With friends like these

"So the only people who should be falling for it are people with friends who can't string a sentence together properly, and people who are generally disposed towards clicking links with "erotic" in the URL."

Well that would include a significant proportion of people who comment on El Reg stories ... and the occasional contributor :)

Cursing senior plod samples electric justice

Steven Walker

Sell it on eBay

They could have raised a fortune selling the right to pull the trigger. Imagine it, zapping a top cop - legally :)) The rap stars and drug dealers would have paid out big time.

Spanish TV turns Wiki-hoaxer

Steven Walker

Give the Brits some credit

We are working hard at keeping the Spanish figures high. Why can tourists not learn how to cross a main road?

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_12078.shtml

Latins prefer Microsoft to Google

Steven Walker

Politically incorrect

I just thought that I would further wind up Webster Phreaky by repeating an old latin american joke:

An Argentinian is an Italian who speaks Spanish and thinks he is English.

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German hurls computer from apartment block

Steven Walker

That's OK then

"It was later revealed that it was actually his visiting mother in-law from Cybertron."

I think most people have been tempted to throw their mothers in law out of a window. At least he still has a PC.

Spanish telco defiant over huge broadband anti-trust fine

Steven Walker

What about the customrs

I have been paying roughly 50% more than UK ADSL

customers for the last seven years or so. It is wonderful news to hear that Teflonica have been fined €150m for their evil practices. It would be even better news to hear that the penalty would be passed onto their wholesale customers and then onto the retail customers.

Queen honours civil liberties and astro-boffins

Steven Walker

Order of Merit

This report could be read as saying that Salman Rusdhie and Barry Humphries have been awarded the Order of Merit along with Tim Berners-Lee.

In fact they were awarded a Knighthood and CBE respectively which are vastly inferior to Berners-Lee´s OM. I point this out not just to be pedantic but also to stress the importance of Berners-Lee's recognition.

Iran approves death penalty for pornographers

Steven Walker

Karim said

¨... instead they will string up the (mainly female i'm guessing) cast members who are soft targets ...¨

Does that mean that the male pr0n stars would be hard targets?

YouTube - uTube showdown stays alive in federal court

Steven Walker

What??

Rick, 2005 was AFTER 1996.

Google adds PowerPoint viewer to Gmail

Steven Walker

Free Power Point Viewer

I am not accustomed to defending the Gnomes of Redmond but for years MS have offered a free PP viewer. Viewing presentations in Windows has not been a problem for a long time.

It probably does not work in Vista ;)

So what's in a URL? The Reg URL?

Steven Walker

What is broken?

You have found a great solution but what problem is it solving? Leave well alone!

Steve

Dell cheers Q1 with workforce decimation

Steven Walker

Cringely

So he was half right but accidentally said IBM when he meant Dell?

Creationists open biblical history museum

Steven Walker

Actually, you can meet him. His name is Jesus...

Its been a while since I looked at a bible but I could have sworn that Jesus was not around at the creation. He came in much later - how much later rather depends on your point of view on this topic :)

Steve

Laptop overheats, vapourises Brazil... almost

Steven Walker

Beats me

So finally I have seen something that runs hotter than my Macbook Pro!

Steve

Downing Street rejects Vista petition

Steven Walker

Linux fans business models don't work!

Dear John Bishop,

I live on planet earth. What planet are YOU living on?

There are a few companies you might have heard of that who do not agree with you. Take a look at:

http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Members

I know, you are the only one in the regiment who is walking in step :)

Steve

Hotmail is dead! Long live Hotmail!

Steven Walker

ah come on! The new hotmail interface is good! It's a massive improvement

A massive improvement does not necessarily make it any good!

HP faces lawsuit by three News.com reporters

Steven Walker

Fines

I am not at all happy with the concept of civil courts punishing offenders by fining them and giving the proceeds to the claimants. The victims are entitiled to be compensated for their costs, loss of earnings past or future etc, loss of reputation and any other real loss they incurred. It is fine if the courts err on the side of generosity.

These damages should be awarded by judges and not juries who tend to treat awards as though they were Monopoly money.

If HP need punishment this should be done by criminal proceedings and any fines added to the public purse. These damages The US legal system is treated like a lottery and has fallen into disrepute because of that.

IANAL but I believe that, with the odd exception such as libel, the British legal system does what I have described.

Steve

Lax security led to TJX breach

Steven Walker

What?

So let's get this right Chris. You are saying that after installing WPA/WPA2 you need to set up MAC filtering and disable SSID broadcasting to "stop the casual wardrivers"?

Why bother to use WPA/WPA2 if casual wardrivers walk through it but can be stopped with MAC filtering and not broadcasting the SSID?

You really should hot the Preview button before the Post button.

Researchers, spooks favour satnav-based road pricing

Steven Walker

Time shifting

Just taxing the fuel gives people the incentive to travel less with smaller engines. It does not give any incentive to travel outside of peak hours. This is the one advantage of the scheme.

The disadvantage is quite horrific. The bureaucrats will be slobbering with delight at the thought of being able to monitor everyone everywhere all the time. No doubt they will claim it will eliminate terrorism, crime and bad stuff. Like all their brilliant ideas it will hit the 90% who are normal law-abiding citizens and the usual suspects will find the loopholes.

How to enjoy media in any region

Steven Walker

Have TV, will travel - not to Spain

The analogue broadcasts in Spain do not use the same frequency combinations for sound and video as the UK. All TVs brought from the UK can only receive the picture and need to be "fixed" by a local TV shop which usually charges around 50 Euros.

Of course the Brits usually don't bother to learn Spanish or watch local TV so it is often not a problem

Survey: young Brits ready to embrace evoting

Steven Walker

Vote early and vote often

It would be an invitation to electoral fraud and would probably lead to even more disillusionment with the political process. Given HMG's track record with major IT projects this is a totally predictable disaster.

Steve

And the centre of your desktop is...

Steven Walker

No open source? No kidding!

If that post was written with Office 2007's grammar and spell checkers you have destroyed your case!

Ubuntu launch marred by website woes

Steven Walker

Use bittorrent

It took me a couple of hours this afternoon. This is the obvious way to get any new *nix distro.

Midlands police cuff war driving duo

Steven Walker

Cardboard around the windows?

If he was a real geek he would have used tin foil

Hormonally challenged teens refrain from abstinence

Steven Walker

Whiners annoy you?

Smartarses annoy me!

According to the article:

"Of those who said they'd had sex in the last year, 23 per cent ....."

Which makes it pretty clear that 44% are not accounted for. My assumption was that they were too busy bonking to answer silly questions. I have a life and could not be bothered to google for the original story :)

Steve

Woman claims Geek Squader tried to film her in the shower

Steven Walker

Any fool ...

... can issue a press release threatening to sue, some may even get as far as issuing a writ. It is another thing to actually win a case or even a settlement - even in the US. I doubt if more than 5% headlined claims for $millions result in anything at all being paid.

Amazon pushes sex toys to random punters

Steven Walker

New meaning of in box?

And I would hate to have a dildo in mine!

Steve

Why I won't buy a Dell next time

Steven Walker

Craig is just plain wrong!

...when he said

"As an aside. Since most people don't know how to download and create cd's of a linux distro and end up paying for a boxed copy in the store how is it so much cheaper then OS X or Windows?

He can buy any one of a number of magazines for around £6 and they will include a cover disk of whatever distro(s) they are doing that month. He can even have a free disc posted to him if he asks at https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ Or ask the nearest LUG who will probably help him install it too.

But if Craig really want me to prove Linux is more expensive than Windows/Mac he can send me a couple of grand and I will send him a copy of any distro he chooses :)

Steve

UK gov mulls child porn changes

Steven Walker

UK gov mulls child porn changes

Is that Gordon Brown raising new taxes again?

Satnav plunges £96k Merc into river

Steven Walker

Typo???

When the article said that she was driving 'to' a christening did it mean 'from' and the liquid refreshment was more invigorating than a swim in the river?

Oz policewoman in topless mobile snap shocker

Steven Walker

Sloppy journalism

You only gave us half the story. Where is the link? We need this to keep abreast with the story, to decide if her knockers have merit and and if she deserves support.

Steve

'I was angry', Naomi Campbell tells anger management class

Steven Walker

Until she does it again?

... and she will!

What happens when you are executed by electrocution?

Steven Walker

What a shocking story ...

... but I was electrified.

What's the best way to improve the human body?

Steven Walker

Reverse evolution

Trying to picture the result I came to the conclusion that the evolutionists have it all wrong: the apes are descended from humans

Steve

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