Posts by stizzleswick

About time, too.

Though Apple is not the only company to have used such policies. Many companies seem not to understand even now that the European Union is every bit as much of a Union as the United States. Now, how would people from Montana react if they bought a product in Indiana and could not get any service for it in their home state -- because they bought it across the state line? That is a ridiculous idea, which most companies do not consider such nonsense.

Interesting...

...that somebody previously convicted for copyright infringement all of a sudden claims to be so hot-and-wired about it that he wants to "punish" other infringers by his virus.

<rant>On basic principles, I regard any software that flies false colours and installs itself on any machine I own or control (as its primary user and/or administrator) without notifying me first -- and giving me an easy option to prevent the installation -- as malware, no matter how well-intended the software may be.

People who write such software, or cause such software to be written and/or distributed (certain executives at Sony come to mind...) should be committed to gaol for no less than the number of years equal to the number of computer users whose rights they have thereby infringed. Make that a French or Turkish gaol.

</rant>

Heard of the services...

...refuse to tell world&dog where I am or what I'm doing unless necessary for what I'm doing where I'm doing it. It's strictly nobody's business where I am at which time.

The comparison limps a little.

Google is actively collecting data (as has been pointed out on this website), whereas Apple at least offer the opportunity to turn location services off, rendering much of the data collected less useful (IP address data may still be collected, so statistical analysis may still yield data useful for marketing purposes).

The point being nothing. Your telephone company, somewhat depending on where you are, already collects that data and then some. Otherwise they could not send you an accurate monthly bill, and in some jurisdictions, the telcos are even required by law to keep all connection-related data for a year or even longer. That includes location fixes on where you have used your phone and how you have moved during the conversation, if you did.

The detracting point in Apple's contract is that it allows Apple to sell that data. In most places, telcos are not allowed to do that. In some others (China, the U.S.A.) they are required to hand over the data to any government agency asking for it with or without probable cause.

Back to my point: Google doesn't even give the user an option. They just collect the data, whether the user wants them to or not, no off-switch available except for completely avoiding their services. Which in this day is practically impossible because the major internet search engines are all interconnected and skim data off each other -- so if you send off a search via Yahoo! (or the basically identical Bing, or AskJeeves, or whichever), Google will also get a search request and thereby, your data.

I'm not going to judge. A lot of people these days seem to be happy posting their personal data for the general public to enjoy in places like stayfriends.com or myface or whatever it's called. As with the current version of Apple's contract, they can choose how much they let the service provider know. I personally have always been one to only hand out my personal data when the perceived benefits outweigh the perceived possible damages, so when my phone asks me whether I would like it to send my current location to anybody, I usually say "no."

If you want total privacy, get off the internet. You're not going to get it while connected. Too many entities are in part required to collect your data, can't live without collecting your data, can't bill you, and so on ad infinitum.

Back to the difference, which is the only point here I'll stand behind: there is a difference in going out and collecting data without notice, like Google does, and giving the user an at least partial choice. Nobody is required to use an iPhone, and those who choose to do so can turn off location services without having to resort to a lawyer.

Me, I'm off for a pint or two, in the bar around the corner where the streetlight is malfunctioning, with location services turned off.

Been there...

...done that. Windows embedded? *chortle* Works, so long as you don't want to do any work. Same device (a thin client in one particular case) under Linux turned out to be a real workhorse. Navigation on Windows CE or embedded? Slow, sluggish, buggy. Again, same device on OpenSource, worked fine, all the time. MS are seeing what their competitors are doing. I would wager a bet that managers up to the mid-level are realizing what is happening. Only His Steveness obviously is oblivious. The mobile variations of Windows have been in decline for years now (I won't feed you the statistics -- I don't trust any statistic I have not forged myself; look 'em up yourselves). Honestly, I believe Steve B. is doing an ostrich impression here, sticking his head in the sand so he won't have to read the writing on the wall.

I'm off for a quick one -- the jacket where the wallet has just been stolen out of, please.

The basic idea is nice enough...

...but for many companies, shifting sensitive customer data (like, e.g., emails) to any place not within the company's DMZ is simply a no-no. For those companies, there are several solutions available that are not Redmond-branded and have nothing at all to do with the biggest data collector in the world, whose "Don't Be Evil" mantra has been more than just a little unbelievable to the discerning potential customer for quite a while. They're in the business of selling customer data. None of my company customers would be silly enough to hand them the keys to their hard-earned customer databases.

Timing

@Richard 120: Apple does make toys. Only they make their toys better than anybody else (compare iPod Touch to Zune: similar price; just try both and then form an opinion). Apple also happen to make some pretty serious workstations and servers (unlike Packard Bell, they still have two or more machines on the top 500 supercomputers list, last I knew). And, whether one likes it or not, they are also the makers of one of the most stable high-graphics operating systems available at this time. Much of the kudos go to FreeBSD, of course, on which much of Apple's MacOS X is based.

Anyway, Motion has a specialised market in which they are well established. They can afford to sit back and watch Apple take the message to the decision-makers of their target customer companies by pushing a viable tablet machine into the general market.

That is a viable marketing policy: get the decision-making, chair-hugging managers of companies interested in a technology, then offer something tailored to the needs of the company's operatives -- that could actually work out great for both Apple and Motion. The managers buying the iPad, the Great Unwashed getting to use the ruggedized Motion offerings for their daily toil *shrug*. Could just work out. Plus, I guess graphics designers and suchlike are going to fall in love with the iPad.

Me, I'm off for a stiff pint or two...

The ultimate...

...dadaist user manual, IMHO, was the original 1998 iMac's "book" of instructions... a six-page fold-out without any text at all, just graphical instructions that for some reason... actually worked. As a technical editor, that is still my favourite technical manual, because it actually does everything a manual is supposed to do (show the user how to properly operate the device) and does not have a plethora of useless "safety" hints like "do not dry your cat in this device" or similar, which only tends to confuse the user (no insult intended to those who have to supply the US market...). I'm right now rummaging around my basement to see whether I can still find it... it must be in there somewhere.

So does this mean that...

...the people preparing horses for shows and competitions are all pagans? I do remember seeing most horses at all sorts of competitions with their manes in braids and stuff...

Hyper-V? Nah...

...let's hope Microsoft trash that piece of junk (one of my customers was basically immobilized for over a month after a single, "highly critical" software update for Windows Server 2008 took out the entire virtualized machine workforce that was running under Hyper-V on the server in question. Microsoft support said the problem didn't exist, though there were hundreds of remarkably similar requests for help in the forum... my customer has since moved to XEN; everything works dandy except for some of the Windows VMs having occasional hiccoughs, though no more than physical machines would have).

As for the support of operating systems in a virtual environment, I was recently very pleasantly surprised by VirtualBox, which unlike the other big players will happily run even OS/2 (makes me happy because one of my customers needs it and so far had to rely on a worn-out piece of hardware with signs of an impending mainboard failure).

I do want more virtualisation solutions -- the more there are, the more all providers need to improve their offers. My experiences with Hyper-V (formerly known as VirtualPC, which at least worked), however, have completely turned me off that one.

OK, so many people...

...have overlooked the fact that their "phones" are in fact nothing but portable computers. Many times more powerful than the "high-performance" XTs and ATs I started to work on in the mid-1980s. Still, in my experience the major reason for the success of malware of any kind is the sheer idiocy of the users who will cheerfully and without even stopping for a moment download stuff and start it up, without any verification of its origin.

As Mark65 has pointed out, a secured marketplace does have its advantages for those who unquestioningly double-tap on files/attachments named "pornviewer.exe" or similar. The problem is not the device, it's the gullibility of the user. Which (unfortunately) cannot be stamped out. Spam would be a thing of the past if people would only stop reacting to it -- spammers only turn a profit if they generate sales. The same goes for dialer trojans (or, for that matter, all trojans). One may point out that the standard settings for the Windows Explorer -- to hide "known" filename extensions -- further this behaviour, and I agree with that. And, for a quote, "few things are as uncommon as common sense" (though I don't remember by whom that quote is; I have read it in literature dating back to the 1950s).

Particular to the dialing trojan "problem, in a sense, the telecommunication companies are partially at fault; a very few have already introduced cost-controlling measures such as an easy-to-enable option to allow only a certain amount of charges per month when dialling a selectable range of numbers, after which all other attempts will be cut off. And the customers of those companies are usually not being told that the option even exists. I have enabled the option for my contract; my bills have remained the same, though.

As with email spam, the widespread use of such measures would kill off dialing trojans, IMHO.

Batten down the hatches. My best guess is that most people impacted by malware are not the type who are reading el Reg, but as a professional IT consultant, I will give you the completely free advice to review your security settings, from firewall through AV all the way to the way you handle downloads, mail attachments, and other people's data sticks. With some self-discipline and proper OS settings, I have so far found that most AV software is basically superfluous (really!).

Had Adobe...

...not offered an SVG plugin for MSIE, Opera and the Mozillas some years ago? *scratching head* Wonder why MS is making this effort, anyway; the standards for SVG are open; they can just implement without having to join anything.

Then again, by joining the standards body, they can of course influence it to allow non-standard SVG that then is supported _only_ by MS Internet Exploder...

Not a new problem

Having been a user of the predecessor of the predecessor of the current wireless Apple keyboard (remember the white one? The one I'm typing on right now?), I used to experience excessively short battery life on that one, as well, when I was using a bluetooth mouse. By Logitech. The keyboard's batteries would last up to maybe a month, at most. Since I hooked up a wired mouse (since consequently replaced by a tablet) over half a year ago, no more battery changes. So I don't think this is either a new problem, or one specific to Apple gear (apart from the keyboards being hit being made by Apple. On the other hand, I have so far to see any bluetooth wireless keyboards by any other manufacturer, and I have looked far and wide for 'em).

An engineering nightmare.

From what I can make out from the pictures, this thing has no crumple zone at all at the front. Probably would not even get certified for road use in most european countries for that reason. Why is it that, whenever designers get carte blanche for a concept design, the result is ugly, impractical (yoke steering? Pull the other one...) and completely un-roadworthy?

They should let a bunch of engineers start with a clean sheet and see what comes of that. Probably not a beauty, but it would be practical and a lot more affordable.

This is...

...ridiculous. I remember a nine-button mouse was on the market sometime in the mid-90s; the manufacturer went bankrupt IIRC. Thing is, power users use keyboard shortcuts (especially when using the Creative Suite... honestly, I have no idea where in the menus most of the functions I use in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator are; I hardly ever see the menus). An 18-button mouse is simply counterproductive in an production environment. Maybe it's something gamers can use; I wouldn't know: I tend to use the keyboard as my game controller...

Mine's the one with the tablet pen sticking out of the pocket.

@Gene Cash

Actually, solid propellants are a lot safer for crews than liquid. Unfortunately, they also produce a lot of environmentally undesirable residue, depending on the oxidising agent used. So far, solid fuel boosters have killed 0 astronauts (yes, I know, the Challenger desaster. But those astronauts were not killed by the boosters, but by the explosion of the liquid fuels the failing booster ignited while failing. That is, if they were not killed by the impact on water, as some maintain).

Thing is, so far the Apollo programme does not have the world's best track record (and I'm leaving out Apollo 1 here) for safety.

One should not blame NASA for having learned from their past failures in developing something hopefully more safe. I just blame them for wasting a huge lot of money on development that has (in part) already been done by private enterprise instead of licensing from Rutan, Arianespace, SpaceX et multi al, as just about any commercial undertaking with such a huge range of operations would do.

@beast666 & LPF

Well, the thing is that the Space Shuttle concept has shown that while it seemed promising in the late 1970s, in reality it is somewhat prone to failure despite huge efforts to make it safe: if the Space Shuttle system were to try out for a human-safe rating today, it would fail outright. But that's not the clincher. It is way too expensive per launch compared with more modern approaches, like the Ariane 5 system (which at one point was considered to be checked out for a human-safe rating) and several other, already-existing launch vehicles.

Me, I'm looking forward to what Burt Rutan et al are going to come up with. If they had the benefit of the budget NASA is currently throwing away on a dead end, I bet they'd have something capable of reaching GTO within the next five years, with full human-safe rating. For anybody who can't compute an orbit, from there to the moon it's just a small step for a human, but a giant leap in space travel.

Rock solid

Been using the Kubuntu variant since the alpha-2 stage on a variety of hardware, and for the first time ever, it beats OpenSuSE in usability. Can't wait to get the finished product.

The buyers should be to blame.

I mean, why spend even $100 on outdated proprietary software when you can get up-to-date versions of the GIMP, Scribus, Inkscape etc. for absolutely free?