* Posts by Daniel

149 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Mar 2007

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Armed police swoop on MP3-packing mechanic

Daniel Silver badge
Coat

Problem solved

If he'd had a white iPod this wouldn't have happened.

It's his own fault, I mean a _black_ MP3 player? What did he expect? I for one can clearly see the confusion caused to the poor woman who reported it, small square black objects being as they are easily mistaken for fricking great firearms.

Mine's the trenchcoat with ammo pockets and built-in shotgun harness

eBay gets negative feedback about ban on negative feedback

Daniel Silver badge
Happy

I agree

It's about time. A business is a business is a business, whether bricks and mortar, a company website or via eBay, and customers should be protected whichever medium they choose. For too long eBay powersellers have been enjoying the flexibility offered to private sellers (with the accompanying lack of accountability), whilst running a business in everything but name.

One wonders when the Inland Revenue will get in on the act too?

ABC fined $1.43m for NYPD Blue a*se flash

Daniel Silver badge
Paris Hilton

Bunch of a*se.

I'm sorry but WTF? Does this mean that every episode of Baywatch needs to be shown after the watershed? A string bikini doesn't exactly cover the buttocks now, does it?

Paris because a*se is her specialty.

IBM hands server tech to Lenovo

Daniel Silver badge
Flame

Inevitable?? Only if you're a Dell troll

@AC: Don't work for Dell by any chance? Seriously - anybody who says that Dell have a better range of products and a better management story than IBM needs to wake up and smell the silicon. IBM may have their faults, but their range of products and *services* (which are all-important considering they're not in the market of competing at commodity level) exceeds that of Dell and HP combined.

"Overpriced in comparison to Dell"

It's called a Value Proposition as opposed to a commodity market. Glad the customers understand the difference even if you don't (see IBM Q4 results for proof).

"IBM is unable to compete with Dell and HP"

See above - IBM Q4 and FY07 results.

See, you're making me angry now. I'm not claiming to be completely unbiased (I purchase, install and use IBM products on a regular basis), but your uninformed Dell trolling gets my goat.

</rant>

RIAA wiped off the net

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@Bill Cumming

ROFL - Co$! Laughed my ass off when i saw that abbreviation....

Mac lambs line up for slaughter

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@ Chris Miller

Has there ever been a secure OS?

OS/400.

HP to reduce PC energy consumption by a quarter

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Black Helicopters

@ Matt Bryant

".... but then IBM stuffed up their PC bizz, admitted defeat and flogged it to the Chinese!"

Course they did. I mean, I wouldn't want to question your obviously superior intellect, but isn't there a small possibility that IBM might have decided that PCs and laptops are commodity items, and therefore didn't fit in with IBM core strategy? As opposed to 'stuffing it up', as you so eloquently put it?

Toxic chemicals suit dumped on IBM

Daniel Silver badge
Dead Vulture

Trial by media

Seems to me in cases like this there's always an element of trial by media. Before one can presume guilt or innocence, it's necessary to review all the available evidence, and hear both sides of the story. That's why we've got courts and juries.

In my experience IBM is a highly ethical and responsible company and I would be extremely surprised if they were found to have acted improperly in this case.

Microsoft spits out final XP service pack, beta version

Daniel Silver badge
Coat

Vista vs. XP

Microsoft said in a statement: "Windows XP SP3 does not bring significant portions of Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP."

What, you mean I won't get the "New and Improved" file copying, a.k.a. 4 hours to delete 1GB, User Access Control, a.k.a. "we'll secure you against yourself by forbidding you to do anything" and other nice touches?

Superb - I'll download it immediately.

Cloakroom's that way? Great, thanks.

Canadian runs up $85,000 mobe bill

Daniel Silver badge
Flame

@ Jeremy Davis

HSDPA (for the civilised world i.e. Europe) = 3.6Mbps over GSM (real, available and working) and rising fast

EV-DO (for the colonies) = 2Mbps (note: NOT the same as 2MBps), 3.1Mbps with revision A (ratified June 2007, theoretically available around now) *

In short, GSM doesn't have EV-DO because it would be a step backward for us, not because we don't know how good (ahem) it is. Now run along and play nicely with the other kids...

* Source: Radio Electronics, http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/cellulartelecomms/evdo/ev-do.php

Ex-Microsoft manager in $1m expenses fraud rap

Daniel Silver badge
Paris Hilton

re: fines

Don't forget the 'up to 20 years imprisonment' - that's the real kicker, not the fine.

Paris Hilton as icon because... ...why the hell not, that's why.

Newly-homeless kids get free iPod

Daniel Silver badge
Coat

Re: omg

ummm... you have *heard* of an iPod, right?

It may be many things (seed of the Devil, etc) but a piece of sh*t it most definitely isn't.

My $0,02

Vista provokes user synaptic collapse

Daniel Silver badge
Coat

Looks like an error message written by ....

aManFromMars.

Guess we know where he works then ...

</coat>

Daniel Silver badge

And while I'm at it

it's not just OSes that give confusing error messages - my last laptop had a graphics utility (NVidia, if I remember correctly) that gave the following message when changing screen resolution :-

"The chosen resolution may not be compatible with your monitor hardware. If you are unable to view this message, press F1 to return to your old settings".

Hitachi 'collision avoidance' bot does a Ballmer at press do

Daniel Silver badge

@Pete

Pete,

.....ach forget it. Guess you've learned your lesson by now.

Spain goes mad for King versus Chávez

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Re: J

the King of Thailand didn't personally object - his bubblewrapping minions objected on his behalf. IIRC the King actually requested clemency which is why the culprits were simply ejected from the country rather than locked away.

LG to take on iPhone with 'super 3G' tablet

Daniel Silver badge
Happy

Manker?

Manker??

Freudian slip, methinks.....

US airforce: Solar 'leccy is too cheap to meter

Daniel Silver badge
Flame

Hmmm

"...said Matt Cheney, CEO of MMA"

Cheney.

Hmmm.

Where have I heard that name before?

OLPC wants $200 for its $100 laptop, please

Daniel Silver badge
Alert

Re: Who designed this mess

actually somebody's already designed a better one - http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/16/asus_launches_eee_pc/.

The Asus Eee PC costs between $200 and $400 retail, which must work out at the same or less as the OLPC hatchet job, and appears to do much the same thing. And look a lot sexier doing it.

OLPC sounded like a good marketing wheeze when it was announced, with the current crop of ultra-low priced laptops it's looking more expensive and undesirable by the day.

Just my $0,02.

Hey car thief! Gonna shut you down

Daniel Silver badge

Re: Stupid

Will -

Why?

AT&T to deliver IBM services for $1bn a year

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Re: Death Star

Fantastic.

Mr. Shubin, have you been smoking some of amanfromMars's stuff?

NSA writes more potent malware than hacker

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Re: NSW doesn't need malware, it just needs microsoft

Good first point, I think for the second (ATnT) that your fingers have been possessed by amanfromMars - it's got that ring to it...

Livid woman torches ex-hubby's wedding tackle

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@Andy Worth

Priceless - fell off me stool laughing.

Just trying to picture it now.....

Worn out your vibrator? Relief is at hand

Daniel Silver badge

Pure genius

Personally, I work on the basis that since we're reading articles on the internet, and presumably Lester gets his inspiration (at least) partially through his computer+high speed Internet, anything El Reg chooses to report automatically has an IT angle, otherwise he couldn't have reported it and we wouldn't be reading it.

So there you have it - a bona fide Get Out Of Jail Free card for any articles Lester (or any other hack) chooses to write, regardless of subject.

I for one would promptly leave the El Reg readership and start reading CNET if these 'lighter' articles disappeared.

Dubai claims world's tallest building title

Daniel Silver badge

Lifts

"The tower will have 56 elevators travelling at 1.75 to 10 metres/sec...'

Shouldn't that read 0 to 10 metres/sec? I'd be slightly concerned about a lift that never stops at floors, just expects you to jump out when it's travelling at it's slowest speed of 1.75m/s...

</coat>

Google slapped with libel claim

Daniel Silver badge

Own goal

If Mr. Retkin is correct in his assumption that the libellous sites are too obscure to be found on their own, he's just singlehandedly brought them into the limelight and thereby worsened the alleged libel problem.

By threatening to bring this suit (unlike some other posters IANAL so I won't pre-empt the judge by stating whether or not he will win), he's given a whole virtual world reason to read said libellous content. I for one will be searching Google to see what all the fuss is about.

Oh and for what it's worth, I tend to agree with the poster who wrote "The lady doth protest too much".

DVD ripping to be rendered impossible?

Daniel Silver badge

Look....

how many times do we have to say it?

As long as it's possible to *watch* a DVD, it will be possible to *rip* it. At the most basic level, it's possible to intercept the video signal direct from the video card (on a PC), or copy the stream to an analog device, i.e. a TV.

Until they decide to make DVDs incompatible with every current viewing device, they'll be stuck with the fact that DVDs will be rippable.

The industry should focus on ways to make it more attractive for people to legally own material, rather than this futile quest to achieve the impossible - as long as DVDs cost as much as they do, there will always be an incentive (and therefore a method) to rip them.

Accept it, and move on.

Apple's Safari 3: a crashing experience for non-US users

Daniel Silver badge

@Rupert

Beta? Beta implies "Complete product, may exhibit the occasional bug or unexpected behaviour but is generally useable".

Safari for Windows doesn't work, period. It's not a Beta, or even an Alpha. I'm using US Windows XP with no language packs or other weird stuff.

Google Personalised Homepage - widgets don't work, section headers are missing, hyperlinks missing, layout stuffed.

Live Mail - generates fatal error on login ("Safari has experienced a fatal error and has to close. We apologise for the inconvenience")

El Reg - no clickable links to articles, anywhere. Site completely unuseable.

Shutterbugs.nl - layout b0rked.

Those were the first links I tried. Didn't bother with any more because any browser that can't cope with Google (and of course El Reg) has no business being on any computer of mine.

Rupert you obviously posted your comment without even trying the product; I strongly suggest you at least bother to superfically test it before making unsubstantiated whining accusations, then you'd see what all the fuss is about.

Daniel Silver badge

Reg broken on Safari

Hmmmm... just installed Safari for Windows to see if it's worth looking at. My first 3 web pages tried didn't render properly, including El Reg which doesn't work at all (no clickable links to the articles).

Google personalised homepage - applets broken, no AJAX headings readable.

The Register - Article hyperlinks have disappeared.

www.shutterbugs.nl - layout stuffed.

Any browser which can't deal with Google is doomed, IMHO.

Very, very, not impressed.

Asus pitches wee Eee PC companion

Daniel Silver badge

For 150 euros....

...I'll take one, if it delivers on the promises. Looks like a keyboard-equipped competitor to the Nokia Internet Tablet, and at half the price.

If, and only if, this product makes it to market at the quoted price, it might be the breakthrough product many of us have been looking for.

Up until now this sort of thing has been more like a laptop in all aspects except for performance - high price, low battery life and extreme fragility at the price of a budget laptop, but with the performance of a PDA.

Let's see whether they can make this happen....

SEC slaps admin order on IBM

Daniel Silver badge

Fair enough

SEC: Stop doing that.

IBM: Stop doing what?

SEC: Uh, something illegal.

IBM: We're not doing anything illegal!

SEC: Well, stop doing it anyway.

IBM: Ok.

Royal Society unearths top secret nuclear research

Daniel Silver badge

Jasmine for President

That explanation rocks, yeah.

It takes a fair bit of talent to explain a subject like this in laymans terms so that people who don't wear white coats can also understand it, you've done a great job.

Thanks!

'Dettol Man' cleans himself to death

Daniel Silver badge

Death over time?

"We do not know if death occurred quickly or over a period of time." - now I haven't studied biology in a long, long time, but as far as I remember death is pretty much a binary operation: black or white, on or off, dead or not dead?

</pedant>

Strange spoofing technique evades anti-phishing filters

Daniel Silver badge

Cyfaill's Smugness

Cyfaill, your smugness is only exceeded by your inability to read an article and work out what it's really talking about.

If you'd bothered to take a moment to analyse the real issue before jumping into the pulpit to start preaching, you'd have seen that this problem almost certainly has nothing to do with a phishing site per se, and everything to do with content fudgers, injectors or similar which corrupt and rewrite the code of respectable pages in real time. This being the case, any phishing detector on any platform would report the page as genuine, because it IS genuine. (at least as far as the detector can see).

Oh and thanks for your advice to "look at the whole URL and being sure of were you are" - I'm sure there are at least 3 people on the planet who hadn't figured that out for themselves already.

And while I'm at it, I'm quite sure the people experiencing this problem don't give a rat's arse whether it "impresses you with it's safety". They've got better things to do.

</rant>

HP escapes fine for boardroom spying scandal

Daniel Silver badge

One wonders.....

One wonders, of course, if the outcome of this case would have been different if it were a private individual committing the 'crimes' of which HP stood accused.

I for one find it slightly disturbing that a large, influential corporation that nevertheless gets caught with both hands firmly in the cookie drawer, receives in effect a let-off by the SEC, and be required to do nothing more than promise not to do it again.

It's difficult to believe that the punishment would be as lenient if the defendant were of lesser means. Locked up with the key thrown away would seem more likely.

Apple moans over sex toy ad

Daniel Silver badge

Re: wtf?:

@bws: it's got nothing to do with the 'i', they're annoyed because they use silhouettes of people in their ads, and now Ann Summers are doing the same. If anything this is a harder case to prove than a copyrighted 'i' but I'm sure the Jobsworths will do their best...

Drive-by Wi-Fi 'thief' heavily fined

Daniel Silver badge

What a load of ....

Pure, unmitigated bollocks. I think this quite succinctly illustrates the phrase "the Law is an Ass".

I'm not a lawyer but I'm sure there's more holes in this prosecution than a ton of swiss cheese. Are there any lawyers out there who'd take up this guy's case pro bono and give the donut munchers a swift and well deserved kick up the arse?

- Daniel

Danes 'prove' sudden iBook death syndrome

Daniel Silver badge

Anthem Surface Area (ASA)

Quote: "Denmark's national anthem is "Der er et yndigt land" and has a total area of 43,094 square kilometers. "

Congratulations to The Register for finally after all these years making this scientific breakthrough and discovering a way to measure the unmeasureable, specifically the Surface Area of the National Anthem.

Of course, we'll be expecting the relevant physics papers to be published in a refereed journal to back up these extravagant claims, but that shouldn't be a problem for the intrepid scientits (sorry, scientists) of El Reg.

A Nobel prize is in the works.....

IBM prepared to break knuckles of low-income students

Daniel Silver badge

Re: Ripping off the taxpayer

Quote: "...it's an absolutely [sic] disgrace they are asking a bankrupt public body for money."

GET REAL: this was a business transaction, where both parties signed on the dotted line. The school district was low on money which obviously didn't stop them spending it, which in turn is how they ended up bankrupt.

IBM provided a service and a product, and has a right to be paid for that. The customer was, as always, free to choose which supplier offered the best value for money.

I strongly suggest you do some research, study Business 101 or something and come back when you've got a clue.

Oh and by the way, this poor defenceless little school district has had nearly 18 years to work out a repayment schedule for the (already reduced) amount they owed. Instead they chose to start begging to be let off at the last minute, and attempting blackmail by roping in some bad press for IBM in the event they didn't get their way. If ever there was a case of chronic financial mismanagement combined with abject panhandling PR golddiggery, this is it. Hope IBM gets it's money before these jokers mismanage themselves back into bankruptcy again.

</rant>

Panasonic CF-Y5 Toughbook laptop

Daniel Silver badge

IBM ThinkPads are tougher

IBM's ThinkPad T series laptops have been featuring a magnesium alloy cage and pretty much all this 'tough' stuff for years - they just didn't feel the need to name their entire laptop range around the fact....

It's a well known fact the IBM laptop salesmen would stand on their laptops during customer demonstrations, along with tipping them off tables and the like.

Medion muscles into UMPC market

Daniel Silver badge

mmm...

.... and they've managed to make it relatively sexy as well. Not exactly cheap though - if you can buy the Sony for 100 quid more the Medion might be a tough sell.

Any thoughts on the split keyboard?

Hi hon, I'm on d plane

Daniel Silver badge

Remote detonator anyone?

Hmm .... wonder what this will do to the security guidelines at airports. Up until now, most security measures have been put in place to prevent people putting bombs in their rucksacks/shoes/belts/drinking water, but now the terrorist shites can put their noisemakers in the cargo compartment (with a GSM detonator of course), then set it off from the safety of the passenger cabin. ("Safety" being, of course, a relative term)

How long will it be before we're not allowed to take *any* baggage *at all* on flights? Or clothes and shoes, for that matter?

Think I'll start a nudist airline with free GSM calls - that should win 'em over.

Vodafone explains N95 crippling

Daniel Silver badge

Re: So we can have the Nokia firmware if we prefer....

Afraid not. The Nokia update service that you can use on the Nokia site to update your phone detects if you have an Operator-customised firmware and if this is the case, won't upgrade your phone. Instead, it refers you to the operator site to get firmware upgrades from there.

Apparently Nokia are working with the operators to deliver customised firmware through their upgrade service, but presumably as/when this services goes online it will still only offer the same old (crippled) firmware that users are currently getting on locked handsets. It's my understanding (from Nokia technical support) that no way will they undermine their operator relationships by offering users the chance to 'de-customise' their phone and go back to vanilla Nokia firmware.

For the record I'm using a Nokia e60, bought unlocked with Nokia firmware, and since configuring VoIP to use Truphone it works like a charm. I'd thoroughly recommend it.

Regards,

US Navy malware infection risked submarine prang

Daniel Silver badge

Punishment fits the crime anybody?

IN THE BLUE CORNER:

A bloke who's pissed off because his company didn't get some business (diddums etc) hacks and deploys malware inside a critical US Military system with the intent to cause real damage, by crippling what sounds like a single point of failure for the US navy undersea operations. Resulting, if he was successful, in significantly higher risk of loss of life, damage to US Navy property and last but not least, significant reduction in US threat response and warfighting capability.

He gets 12-18 months and a fine.

IN THE RED CORNER:

Gary McKinnon, a bloke apparently motivated by a bit of curiosity over alien technology, bumbles his way around the internet until he finds a poorly protected backdoor which enables him to have a look inside some systems with sensitive data and, (unfortunately for him), get caught.

He's looking at extradition and a 45 YEAR jail term.

Good to know justice is balanced and fair.

Oh and while I'm at it, if I understand correctly one sixth of the US fighting superiority in the combat cube, namely undersea, is prone to a single point of failure (and yes, I count the 5 computer systems as one, because this guy could infect them all more or less simultaneously).

Is it just me, or doesn't this smack of mindless stupidity? What happened to backup, resiliency, redundancy etc?

Asbo-breach OAP jailed

Daniel Silver badge

Re: I wish she were my gran

"She should be encouraged, not jailed."

Why?

By all accounts she's an antisocial old bitch who for more than 10 years has demonstrated a clear disregard for common decency and the rule of law.

I have a new hero too - the judge and QC who dared to put her away. She asked for it, but given the tendency of the media to side with the underdog in the search for a story ("Helpless pensioner subjected to prison torture sentence" anybody?) I have nothing but respect for the fact that they did the right thing in this case.

'Cops help kill 32 Students', claims furious blogger

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My $0,02

This debate seems to be polarizing around "Guns created this tragedy" and "More guns would have prevented it". Most situations can't be looked at purely in black-and-white terms, it is or it isn't, etc, but I'm going to weigh in with my 2 cents anyway on the side of the Anti-Gun lobby.

Take the guns out of society, firearm deaths will *drop* on average, not go up. Consider example of America vs. Rest of World as a practical demonstration.

To paraphrase from the book "The Trigger", by Arthur C Clarke;

"Having a gun myself, does not give me back what his gun takes away."

Meaning: even though the force equation would appear to be neatly balanced (gun = gun), the status quo is not nearly as stable as it was when neither party had a gun.

Get the guns out of society.

Ok slightly more than $0,02 but you get my drift.

Regards,

419ers take Kent minister for £12k

Daniel Silver badge

Re: Gullible...

I agree it's strange he would question his faith after seeing first hand what evil can do, on the other hand he's clearly more angry at himself than anything else.

Curious about how he'd react as a man of God if he did actually come face to face with the 419er.

And to the first poster, bet you were well chuffed when you thought that one up, weren't you? Pillock.

Bertelsmann settles over naughty Napster

Daniel Silver badge

15 million???

Quote: "That's quite the discount from the unrealistic $2.49 per song Sprint had been charging. Sprint managed to sell all of 15 million songs over the past 18 months under its previous wallet-busting plan."

15 million songs sold by Sprint at $2.49 a pop? I'm sure that'll put the music companies off, no chance of making a profit there. Are those figures for real???

French succumb to Franglais

Daniel Silver badge

GSM means what?

GSM actually means Global System for Mobile Communication(s), *established* by la Groupe Spécial Mobile. The original version draft included the definition "Systeme de communication global pour un usage mobile (SCGM)" which would bring us right back to bastardising acronyms.

Never heard of "Global Subscriber Mobile"....

Mange tout, my little petits pois, as Del Boy would probably have said.

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