Posts by blackworx

Title for a comment that is yet to be written

They have a vested interest in keeping the advertisers happy, ergo they will do things like:

- fail to educate their users properly

- hide meaningful privacy controls

- hide the ability to REALLY delete your account if/when you decide to get a life

Right, puuuuuuub!

Leverage

I don't care if it's an established term - anyone who uses that word when not talking in the mechanical sense sounds like a twat. Bloody beancounters.

Collaptical

Looking forward to using that one

You can't con a title out of me

It's cool that something's been done about it, but frankly if you're stupid enough to hand over your card details to conmen then you deserve everything you get.

Internet shopping has been around for ages now, meaning ignorance and naivete are fast becoming non-excuses, especially when the driving factor that causes people to disregard any reservations they'd normally have is simple - greed.

You're right

That *was* worth reading again

Hmmm

And there was me thinking it was a long-standing pillar of tory doctrine that turning to the plebs for answers is a sign of weak leadership.

Who would've thought all it takes to turn centuries of dogma on its head is a few bullshit buzzwords.

Time for a quote

"...the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offence: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery." - Edsger Dijkstra

Never done me any harm etc.

Well... Apart from finding out at the age of 8, upon typing the fateful RUN [Enter] after inputting my first ever listing (the one for a version of Breakout supplied in the manual for the ZX Spectrum +3) that said listing was broken. I think that did do irreversible harm of the sort that played on my clearly genetic desire to fix anything that's broken and suckered me into coming back for that kind of punishment day in, day out, for the rest of my life. I often wonder whether the people responsible for that manual did it deliberately. Either way they changed the course of my life.

Translated for the hard of thinking:

"With research by the Identity and Passport Service showing that drinking is more important to young people than having an ID card, and tough legislation introduced this month to make it almost impossible for anyone under the age of thirty to buy a drink without ID, it will be more important than ever over the coming months for us to convince you this crock of shit is the solution to an imaginary problem we contrived for you."

Fixed.

PS: Reg, I like the new comment pages, but it's only a matter of time before it all gets blocked for loads of people because the URL begins with the word "forums". And hey I liked scrolling down through hundreds of comments keeping track of all the different conversation threads. Kept the brain ticking over, made me feel less like I was skiving.

Boot ==> Other foot

If these marketing snakes' self-serving interpretation is correct and the law really does state that browser settings explicity imply user consent, then we need further legislation to make sure all browsers default to, as an absolute minimum, no 3rd party cookies. See how much the oily little satan-fellating gobshites like it then.

Bottom line: who in their right mind, if ever explicitly asked: "Do you want to allow ad.mc-adserve.marketing.com to track your online movements? Yes/No" is ever going to hit Yes?

Christ, even those of us who know how to control cookies can't be arsed to do it right most of the time. How much chance does Granny Miggins have of knowing she's supposedly consented to these scum-sucking bottom feeders tracking her online movements?

Paris because fellatio.

Fanbois, take aim, shoot me, the one with the flag!

What is it with people over-reacting these days? This just makes me think of that foam-mouthed kid after 17 hours of Call of Duty whatever-it-is.

Wow

Fuck beautifulpeople.com - El Reg is clearly the place to be. Doesn't matter how ugly the rest of you are, me and this guy here bring the average right up.

@ the real jacob

RTFA

Yes, but

Can it play Crysis with everything on high?

@ AC 10:49

Condescending much?

Groan

Worst. Sub-heading. Ever.

@ James 5

Can the poems Graham, it's arse-whupping time!

(PS: Now I have the opening riff from Lovely to See You stuck in my head. Makes a change from that talentless Black-Eyed Fucking Peas pish that's on constant rotation on the office radio right now).

Jesus

If they are already passing around the data as .XLS workbooks, how the fuck does it become "not feasible" to encrypt that data, when even Excel has half-decent encryption options these days?

Idiots.

Mind you, if they did use password-based encryption I give pretty short odds on the chances of said password being included in plain text alongside the attachment.

The gubbmint tentacle where I work has banned sending encrypted emails in favour of - you guessed it - "password protected" ZIP files sent through the mail on a CD ROM. The reason? Encrypting emails is "too difficult" and "cannot guarantee security".

Idiots idiots idiots.

Hole

"if owners haven't bothered to change their root password, they represent a gaping hole waiting to be exploited"

there, fixed

menus

i just realised the real reason why i hate vista and why i'm going to have a hard time with 7.

i like my bloody menus dammit. extra clicks to find shit you use all the time != progress. at least give us the choice and i might get behind it. even make the new look default, us naysayers will be happy to switch everything back the way it was for ourselves.

Scots

Christ, bad day for us. First we have inaccurate national stereotypes waved in our face by German shopkeepers, now we're pipped to second place in the sexy accent contest by a bunch of spaghetti-munching soap dodgers. Pah.

This Titleness I Don't Possess

“Germans are generally careful not to employ national stereotypes"

Bullshit. Has he in all his time never once heard the word 'Inselaffen'?

I'm Scottish and I say good on the perps if they can use our national stereotype to extract money from punters. Makes me feel all goosebumpy and proud. I am of course writing this whilst stealing someone else's bandwidth, drinking their coffee and smoking their fags. Shortly to be followed by an unhurried Richard in their lav before sauntering off to "work" where more of the same will ensue. It's ok though 'cos I pay the gas bill.

Title Schmitle

"you can literally smash an E Ink screen and the shards will still display the last thing rendered"

not true. every ebook reader with a cracked screen I've repaired (5 to date) has looked almost identical to a busted monochrome LCD.

Simple solution

Don't use Gmail

@ Efros

"some would argue that anyone using iTunes or WMP gets exactly what they deserve!"

now that's the kind of analysis I can agree with

@Jimbo 6

Well said

Who

gives a flying fcuk?

Couple of observations

I have one, it's alright but the interface can be infuriating at times. e.g. the backspace is right next to "Done" on the qwerty screen, which in turn is right on top of "Send" on the create sms screen behind it. That, coupled with the non-repeating nature of the backspace key (holding it wipes your entire text) means more than a few half-written texts containing something you'd changed your mid about saying ends up getting sent.

Also the accelerometer is crap, but I've yet to use one that isn't.

There's also a few weird eccenticities, like the qwerty keypad not having an ampersand (you have to revert to numpad for that).

The lack of a d-pad means positioning the cursor in text is difficult.

The browser won't render my local bus tracker web site, but the WAP version of the same site causes the phone to crash every time. Joy.

There's no option to lock the widget layout, or line them up, so they all end up half-dragged around the place. Annoying if you're borderline OCD about stuff like that. Also depending on your provider there's often no way to delete unwanted crap (like Yahoo! on O2) from the widgets bar.

All negative points, but just niggles really. On balance I like the phone - just. It's good if like me you rarely use your phone and want something with monumental battery life on a cheapskate contract. Speaking of which, the battery life is the #1 standout feature for me. I make on average 2 five minute calls a day and send half a dozen texts, don't use the MP3 player or anything, and I get 8 days out of it easy. On that front it's like having a Nokia 3210 again.

@Butt Futter: Who shat in your handbag Doris?

Mixed characters

I'm sick fed up of having to reduce my password security for sites like hotmail and its ilk. IME over half the sites/services I've ever registered for have disallowed non-alphanumeric characters.

Meh

You carry a gun, you deserve to get shot.

Mmmmmm

Resistance is floor tile

Great

Yet another thing for folk to install in the "more is more" school of barn door/horse thinking after their machines are already completely riddled with shyte, and yet another thing for me to deal with when I get handed the poorly machine. W0000000t.

Sysinternals

Microsoft's Sysinternals team's "Autoruns" program is very handy for power users. And free. And more powerful than a lot of the paid-for stuff when it comes to clearing out startup crap.

It's also once helped me spot and eliminate a keylogger nothing else seemed able to see.

@HFoster

So the story I just read in the Grauniad about Aston's Kuwaiti (iirc) backers being unable to service current debt levels was a red herring?

And yes, I realise I may have answered my own question there what with it being the Graun and all.

Now Children

"We've reproduced the statement in full because the Home Office has been getting sulky when we edit the dull bits out of their canned remarks."

LOL you lot are such a bunch of bairns! That's not a criticism - it's the reason I keep coming back.

Great

The one thing I would do most with this or any other music player is play music with it, so here's a suggestion: how about reviewing the music playing abilities? Do they sound half decent yet, or is the iPod still as woefully pish as before on that front?

All Hail

The ubertwatmobile