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* Posts by E 2

766 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

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Windows 8 to ship with built-in malware protection

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""tons of security features," including one that automatically scans boot drives for malware..."

".. the technology is ... uefi ..."

OK, let's get a few things straight here:

- EFI and UEFI are not 'M$ tech'. EFI has been around for ten or more years, are the product of multi-corp consortium intended to replace BIOS. UEFI is just an elaboration of EFI - again by a consortium. No M$ brilliance here except in committee with other computer companies.

- All M$ has done here is write a program to the EFI spec that compares some checksums. I dunno about you but I think this is not very amazing.

- Boot drive virus scanners are not news.

- Pre-infected OS install disks are hardly a serious threat.

Just more BS for the easily impressed, courtesy of M$.

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Registry

Well, friend, UNIX has survived since about 1975 using text files for almost all it's config. So I'm gonna say the registry is not strictly speaking needed.

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Oh come on now

Linux desktop distros have grown up. Your and my 20 years of UNIX experience are not really needed any more.

What is needed is game dev and distro houses to support Linux. If that happened then Windows would vanish down the ash-hole of history faster in a flash.

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Microsoft previews new Visual Studio, .NET

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"...highlight a single pixel and instantly find the line of code responsible for it."

GODDAMN!

SIGN ME UP!

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Intel goes virtual to root out rootkits

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50/50

If I can go into the BIOS or (U)EFI and enable or disable this, than I guess I don't mind. But really... you know... whatever.

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Thus

McAfee bloatware would infect my machine from the firmware up, not merely from Windows registry on up.

I suppose I'll be learning all about EFI scripting and programming and runlevels.

Not that I *want* to.

I cannot understand why Intel would give a damn about this kind of security - Intel makes processors... other people (mebbe that Blue Pill lady) can come up with better virt sol'ns than spamming McAfee into the firmware.

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No

BIOS is pretty hard to program . (U)EFI however is programmable in C using widely available docs and static link libraries. So Intel sees a way to save us from it's processors, which (U)EFI legs are spread wide, inviting penetration.

I worked on DEC Alpha boxes once. They had a 'BIOS' with capabilities exceeding (U)EFI. But not just anyone could slip into the (U)EFI, it was held in some protection.

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Deep inside Intel's 'Ivy Bridge' chip

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Marketting spam

Intel's marketting spam output this past two weeks or so is making me wonder whether AMD has a winner on it's hands with BD. Seriously - Intel has been talking about how wonderful it's processors will be in 2013.

Sad thing is that GloFlo & TSMC might match Intel's current process tech in 2013... this BS from Intel probably will work!

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Ubuntu deploys cloud-ready Ocelot beta

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@David D Hagood

One technical user to another...

Several distros have quasi-supported 'forward ports' of Gnome 2 & KDE 3.5.x to the current release of the distro. This is the case with OpenSuSE and Fedora - I'd be surprised if the same is not true of Ubuntu.

You'll have to install it yourself, which sucks.

What sucks even more is the people who do not understand "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Gnome 2 & KDE 3.5 are excellent desktops, very much the pinnacle of their respective paradigm. I really think distro makers should keep them in the mainline RPMs/DEBs - even if the default is KDE4.x (gaaahh!) or Gnome 3 (puke!).

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Indeed

Gnome was ever rather Macintosh-like, while KDE was the Windows follower.

I cannot see how anyone could mistake Gnome for a Windows inspired UI, nor KDE for Mac inspired.

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Samsung outs 5in Galaxy Note as new smartphone concept

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Oooohh, errr!

I wants one!

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Samsung's iOS rival gets multitasking and HTML5

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Indeed

Apple is patent trolling - the intent is not really to win the suits as much as to cost ASamsung money and to raised FUD regarding Adroid & Samsung.

It is another example of the lawsuit used as an anti-competitive tool.

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'Major' C++ revision receives standards blessing

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Am I the first to post a comment?

Can I haz a cookie?

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WD launches twin-platter 1TB monster

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Why 5400

5400 RPM drives tend to run a bit cooler and use a bit less power than 7200 RPM disks. In a mobile device that matters.

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ESA unveils billion pixel camera that will map the Milky Way

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Happy

Thank you, all

Thanks for the explanations!

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Haha

31,622x31,622 pixel close up crotch shot. Think of the detail!

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Whither Intel/TSMC/GloFlo?

These corps make 1e9 transistor CPU chips. I don't know how big an individual element in a CCD is... could a billion pixel CCD be fabbed at 28 or 32 or 40 nM per pixel?

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ISS crew man the lifeboat

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Expedition 28

Is a complete sausage party.

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Deep inside AMD's master plan to topple Intel

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But...

Marchand scores!

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WRT Compilers

There are many compilers that produce excellent code for both Intel and AMD. Devs do not have to use use Intel compilers.

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Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

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Happy

Fare well, Sarah.

Best in the future! You'll be missed.

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Oracle VDI now mates with both Solaris and Linux

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So...

VDI is at least curious!

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Do we really want 100Gig Ethernet?

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Yes

Yes, I want 100Gb Ethernet. I want to wired my house with it.

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Google Go strikes back with C++ bake-off

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I could be wrong

Windows 3.0 was mostly written in Pascal, and Windows 3.1 also. The Win32 API at that time had a C binding but the Pascal heritage was there to see in the headers.

Me, I think the bloat has more to do with (1) collusion btwn M$ and Intel and hardware makers: every new Win release drove hardware sales... kickbacks are hardly unheard of in the computer and software business; (2) marketing - people believe(d?) that if Office N needed twice the computer hardware than Office (N-1) then the newer Office must be better; (3) ever newer languages and bindings from M$ - Win7 spends hideous amounts of time pre-compiling assemblies for .NET and those assemblies take up a heck of a lot of disk; (4) and yes DLL hell - Win7 maintains a DB of software titles and versions, and different versions of DLLs for each software title/version - DLL Hell problem is now a fully managed feature of Windows.

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That's because...

C is an excellent abstract model of a load/store CPU.

C++ is an excellent OO and template-meta-programming extension of C.

No scripting language I've ever used could be called a model of a load/store CPU. Thus serious work tends to get done in C or in C++.

Worth noting that FORTRAN is still used a lot for similar reason as C.

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No it isn't.

C-octothorpe syntax is quite different from C++0x, and C++0x does not introduce automagic garbage collection. C++0x just makes C++ somewhat more convenient to use.

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One per cent of world's web browsing happens on iPad

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iPad

Actually, web browsing is the only think a tablet *can* do well.

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AMD gets in Intel's grille with desktop Fusion rollout

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One word: drivers

The question is whether the drivers for Linux are ready and work properly. It took AMD about 6 week after E350 & C50 were on the shelves to make fully functional drivers for Linux available for those chips.

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NASA's nuclear Mars tank arrives at launch site

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They'll be fine

because they have Stephen Harper with them to keep the banks stable and to keep the serfs working!

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Fridge-sized war raygun for US bombers gets $40m

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Two wrongs

not make a right.

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Blinding pilots

IIRC using blinding weapons contravenes the Geneva Protocols.

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Chandra tags ancient black holes

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Question for the boffins

OK, we have 10K times more black holes than previously supposed, and we have that guy a few weeks ago who's results suggest that rogue planets are vastly more common than previously thought.

Are we closing in on the missing matter?

I ask because the WIMP thing just seems very suspicious to this amateur physicist.

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AMD promises 10 teraflop notebooks by 2020

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Linux

Seem likely 10TF is app dependent.

Seem likely 10TF is app dependent. I doubt the CPU part will provide the 10TF, more likely the GPU part will. So apps that exploit embarrassingly parallel algorithms which themselves mostly involve ADD/SUB/MUL/DIV/MADD will do well on this promised platform.

We do not need 10TF to run Word, Powerpoint, IE, Firefox, Windows Media Player, etc. Some people may get the benefit in their Excel spreadsheets though.

10TF might enable full realism in gore spatters in first person shooters running on notebooks... and that's not a bad thing IMSNHO!

Seriously though, two points:

(1) I work with boffins. Boffins collectively are a small market segment, but every one I know would like to run simulations on their notebook at Starbucks if they could;

(2) Such computing power could enable apps that currently are impractical. What if you could just speak to your computer rather than typing or using a touch screen - that would probably need a lot of cycles yes? Who does not want a Star Trek computer?

Tux because Linux offers a bogomips measurement right in the boot up log messages!

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Duke Nukem Forever rocks up on shelves

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I guess DNF is why

...Steam is unreachable this afternoon, LOL?

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RedBubble’s Nazi trouble

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@Julz L

re: Profiting from Genocide

It's free speech and in this case the speech _is_ IMHO offensive.

Yet Israel (gov't) has never shirked from invoking Holocaust guilt in diplomacy, nor from labeling high profile critics of Israeli policy as antisemites.

"Never again" - certainly and of course, and hopefully not just for the Jews. We could have done more in Rwanda & Yugoslavia...

Better if the Holocaust was recognized for the atrocity it was and, if you will, the warning of what organized people are capable of - and not used as a token in humour and politics.

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Inaccuracy

The comic portrays Hitler drinking in several panels and some of them imply he is stoned. Hitler was a teetotaler however.

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Tory terror changes promise moon on stick

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Well

Obviously anyone who objects has something to hide! That's a line I get frequently from conservatives in my neck of the woods.

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Canadian Conservative Party website defaced

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Mushroom

Funny thing is

Tory party CA gov't has essentially stonewalled the press regarding the hacks of sensitive gov't systems... but issued an immediate press release stating that Harper is OK, did not choke on his breakfast.

If Harper had been told that the cook who prepared the hash browns voted Liberal, then he likely would have actually choked and needed medical help. He's just that kind of guy.

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Oxfam's 'Grow' world hunger plan: More peasants

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Indeed

Most of the car makers would have gone bust in fall 2008 or winter 2009 if not for gov't bailouts.

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Google pits C++ against Java, Scala, and Go

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Go

@John Lilburne

Mr Lilburne:

By all means please post your list of restrictions. I am very curious to see it, and I promise not to flame or down vote you.

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You have heard of RAII?

If you know how to write in C++ then you know how to write in C++.

I'm quite good at coding in C++ - I do not assume that ability and the methods I use carry over to, say, Java.

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Joke

@Rocketman

So are you suggesting that God, not humans, created software optimization?

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@Werner McGoole

"C's use of pointers is probably the main thing that makes it slower than old fashioned Fortran, but if you code carefully and don't use pointers, that gap will close."

Can you elaborate that? I ask because I am thinking about the use of pointers in C to avoid eg copy-on-call when passing large structs to functions...

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Livescribe Echo Smartpen

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Brilliant

That is a very good idea!

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Linux 3.0 all about 'steady plodding progress'

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Version number jumps

I recall Slackware jumping from v3 or v4 to v8, and Patrick explaining in the readme/release-notes that more or less, if M$ can do it, so can I.

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Outland

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Meh

Side scrolling games are so 1980's.

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Steve Ballmer window-dresses Windows 8

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One thing you can say for Windows

It is an excellent platform on which to commit acts of virtual mass murder: Doom et co., Quake et co., Half Life et co., the list goes on and on and on.

There are fewer options to commit virtual mass murder on the Mac, and very few indeed on Linux.

Therefore Windows has an important use case.

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Launch Parties

And lots of drugs at the launch parties! Lots and lots of drugs!

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ActiveX

Look under the hood of most MS products - much of what you see will be implemented with COM/DCOM/ActiveX interfaces. Really.

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Linux versions

Well the kernel has been on 2.6.x for years now.

Not that I think that's a good or bad thing, just saying.

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