Posts by Tzael 257 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
Knowing Google they probably put a flag in the compiler options so they could punt out a 'fix' promptly if anyone noticed! Seriously though, I doubt this bug went unnoticed by Google's own staff whether they are developers of the toolbar or the people analysing the supplied data that is Google's life blood.
It's easy to blame violent computer games. At least incidents like this help demonstrate that it's not necessarily the games at fault. Personally I blame up-bringing, there are two entire generations below my own that seem to be incapable of understanding why they should be courteous to those around them.
Why do they think like that? Purely because they've never had the threat of repercussions for their actions. Take any kid who has been given the belt by their parents on a couple of occasions during their childhood, bet they turn out to be more courteous and decent than those who aren't physically punished.
I would almost agree with your sentiment, I personally felt the need to stop at Office 2003 for my own personal and business computers.
As a developer though there is one feature that Office 2007 introduced and Office 2010 extends - that is notably the support for Office development within Visual Studio. VBA is still supported for backwards compatibility.
Shame they didn't make this improvement for Access though, would be great when working with clients who have legacy Access solutions but who aren't willing to invest in a complete rewrite of those solutions. Mind you, I don't mind if this is an attempt to kill off a legacy database solution, anyone who is comfortable using Access should have no problem enhancing their skill base and moving on to a decent SQL-compatible database platform.
You did a poll and opened it up to the masses instead of restricting participants to only those who actually work with embedded operating systems? We're supposed to take the results of your poll seriously?
If the data is actually sourced from a more reliable selection of participants then I would definitely appreciate knowing more about its origins other than "in a recent poll". The data presented in the article is seriously flawed and does not coincide with first-hand experience working with embedded operating systems.
Yes I am well aware of how those who are not directly familiar with Windows Mobile will perceive my comment. Try it for yourself before you have a chuckle, you'll find that all Microsoft applications on Windows Mobile allow for data content to be stored or exported into formats that can be used on a wide variety of competitor solutions.
Some of us are happy to pay the premium for Windows Mobile, especially 6.5 and soon version 7. While Android may be free in one sense, it certainly doesn't come without a price.
Options for mobile phone operating systems are limited. Some of us don't want the all-too-common iPhone, and we certainly don't want our mobile phone activities overseen by a chocolate factory that tells us that if we're worried about privacy, stop whatever we're doing.
Palm's mobile devices certainly count as an alternative, as do BlackBerry phones running RIM's own OS. Then of course there are the devices running Windows Mobile. If I pay the premium for Windows Mobile then I'm not getting locked into some proprietary system and I can easily transfer the data in a usable format to other computerised devices.
This article doesn't mention whether it's referring to UK employment (you'd expect it would given that it's theregister.co.uk and not theregister.com) but I've seen more and more articles that are written by American authors who neglect to consider that there are countries outside of the USA. Which country is this article relevant to?
An office of approx. 30 employees spread out across the entirety of Cornwall and Devon successfully made it into work today despite the snow, I resorted to hitching a lift to make sure I arrived promptly at that office.
Most of the train drivers on the other hand took the day off, meaning those of us who travel by public transport were faced with lots of cancellations, single carriages overflowing with 160+ passengers where normally two or three carriages would be available, and no alternatives laid on to help the many train travellers who pay up in advance for the service.
The "can't be arsed" people just screw it up for everyone else. They should be punished, pay deducted and in fact penalties levied against them for every passenger who fails to make it to work simply because someone thought "oh look, a quarter inch of snow, let's take the day off!". Tossers.
This reeks of bad blood between an employee and employer, it's the sort of thing a spiteful employee who is sacked or laid off unexpectedly might resort to. Or the guy is a genuine 100% honest person who thinks he should be doing the right thing. Oh wait, if that were true then he would have said "screw the Seagate job" and come clean about it to the authorities in the first place, I'm sure he'd have got a job at Convolve out of it.
Don't know the guy so no idea what sort of person he really is. I'm just calling it like I see it.
I would have thought that by now public authorities such as councils, hospitals, etc would have learned that IBM and Fujitsu Siemens are huge black holes that suck up money and offer very little in return.
As a voter and a tax payer I think this is one of those topics that is best brought to the direct attention of MPs, you know - those people who vote on our behalf for all matters relating to the well-being of our country. I don't live in Essex but I find it appalling that tax-payers' money is being used to continually line the pockets of IBM. Surely we've had enough failed deliveries and partial deliveries to realise that working with Big Blue (and Fujitsu Siemens although the article isn't about them) is not in our best interests?
Windows is a fucking operating system, not a supermarket!
I think Opera are confused. They think that because 'operating system' contains their name, makers of OS must include the Opera browser. T***s.
I'd much rather trust a browser from the company I paid money to for the OS than trust a browser from some ballot screen where it's more akin to playing the lottery - for the vast majority of people will make an uninformed choice.
Ah good old "Buggered to Hell" is still around eh? I'm sure that anybody who's served time as a computer technician will have their own collection of woeful tales resulting from having to repair Packard Bell computers, especially if they had the misfortune of working on some of the models from the mid to late 90s...
So if alphabetical sorting is out then I guess the next ordering sequence to opt for is chronological. Oh dear, that still puts Opera after Internet Explorer...
What's this? Opera don't want Microsoft to use their own browser logo on the ballot screen? Next they'll be saying Microsoft isn't allowed to use the name "Internet Explorer" anywhere on the ballot screen with the only way to select Microsoft's browser being a cludge where you hold down alt and shift, drag the Opera logo over the top of the Firefox logo, then let go.
I'm surprised Opera haven't demanded a lottery for web browser distribution. It's about the only way they'll get a share of the market worthy of any merit.
I read the title of the article and my first thoughts were "Great! Finally, people will start to ditch that PITA mail software. My clients who use bundled mail software such as that which comes with OS X, Windows or MS Office rarely have mail problems, but the four clients who use Thunderbird all do so 'at the recommendation of their IT department' and are submitting support requests several times weekly for trivial mail problems usually relating to poor handling of the IMAP protocol by Thunderbird.
Unfortunately Mozilla would rather flog a dead horse than put it out of its misery...
I'm still curious what the effect of wireless transmission of power will do to the thought processes of people in the vicinity. The brain's a complex thing and doesn't take kindly to excess electrical charges. I need to learn more... First thing to find out, is electricity being transmitted directly or is the technology reliant on an oscillation power source and therefore the transmitted power is in fact a harmless radio wave? Ah well, time to find out!
It's hardly a miracle in scientific advancement to ensure that a) the cabinet is waterproof and b) there is a drainage channel. Sheesh, if man was able to implement the marvel of London's sewer system in the 1860s then I'm sure that tapping a drainage port between each cabinet and existing roadside sewer channels will be child's play with today's technology.
You do realise that there are a number of existing deployments of submerged infrastructure across the UK that works on the exact principle I described originally? BT's own infratructure across the Highlands of Scotland already uses submerged cabinet structures that rise up when maintenance is required. These were deployed at the end of the 90s in order to eliminate telegraph poles from the majority of the countryside.
How about sinking the boxes so they are half buried? A hydraulic platform can be implemented to raise the cabinet out of the ground fully when work needs to be done. Sure it might cost BT a bit more, but it's a concept that can be taken further to the point of having the cabinets completely submerged in the pavement unless the equipment contained within requires maintenance.
The only drawback to submersion of equipment is existing utility equipment already buried in the pavement. Suitable sites will be limited because of this.
"We keep you going, no matter what happens!"
So if there's a simultaneous attack against all data centers they use, plus someone finds out where the off-site backups are stored and blows them up, everything just keeps going? It sounds like the cloud dream come true, but is more likely an invitation for litigation with a strap line like that!
Sounds to me like Zhongyi are running low on cash and have decided there is enough ambiguity in their original agreement with Microsoft to make a viable case in their favour. Let's be honest here, if there was an issue then Zhongyi Electronics should have spoken up when their font was included in Windows 98, and again for Windows Me, 2000 and XP.
Just as well Microsoft have retired Windows XP, if they can't sell it anymore then there is reason to encourage migration to Windows 7 in China...
Oh c'mon, this is getting ridiculous. For one thing having known McKinnon back in the day he's not an Asperger's sufferer. Before anyone pulls me up on that I should point out that the old saying "it takes one to know one" comes to mind. It's a lame excuse to try and avoid punishment for a crime he knowingly commited. He knew what he was doing, he bragged about it in the IRC channels we frequented.
This was premeditated crime, plain and simple. Sure at the time it was 'cool' and we were into anything that felt like we were 'freeing' information for the general public, but we knew what we did was wrong. I may not have foolishly hacked into military computers, but back in the mid to late 90s I was regularly practicing techniques on corporate infrastructure and I knew that if caught I'd be going to prison, plain and simple. In McKinnon's case he foolishly invaded systems belonging to organisations that have the resources to track him down. He knew the potential consequences, he took the risk, now let's make sure McKinnon learns his lesson because I honestly don't believe he has.
It's really not that difficult to automate the posting of a status update (or picture, wall post, event, etc) to Facebook so I think this is one defense that won't work twice in most legal systems.
The guy is probably innocent, but it hardly takes an 'evil genius' to automate the posting of status updates, forum topics, newsgroup postings and other forms of 'interaction' to a number of online resources. I bet a few of you are thinking of your favourite old IRC scripts round about now ;)
Considering the most prevalent hack for the XBOX appears to be the optical drive firmware modification it shouldn't be a daunting task for the XBOX Live developers to check for the existence of an unauthorised firmware image and flag the relevant XBOX Live account appropriately.
If that's the method of detection then the solution is easy, restore the original firmware for the optical drive and bin the copied games. Unless of course the XBOX owner decides they don't want to use the Live service anymore.
Maybe there are mods for the XBOX that are more invasive than the firmware change, physical mods are going to be difficult to undo. If I owned an XBOX I'd definitely opt for the reversible modification.
Long before Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, back in the days of Geocities being an 'online community' and instant messaging done through mIRC, I had the unfortunate task of kid-proofing a computer with internet access all because the parents didn't understand why they should be monitoring their child's activity online.
Long story short, my efforts were in vain because the damage had already been done. A fairly normal 12-year old girl had transformed into someone who could make the adults blush when reciting what she had learned online and had been conditioned by unknown individuals on IRC. Far too young for relationships but desperate to share what she had learned with her peers and experiment. Now a 26-year old single mother who has already had her children taken away from her by social services twice.
I'm totally in agreement with Ben Smith's comment. When it comes to minors going online, it is the parents' responsibility to ensure that their children are not exposed to unsuitable material, or should such exposure occur accidentally then the parents are there to guide their child's moral compass. You don't hand your 12-year old son a copy of the Sun newspaper and expect him to remain innocent after seeing the page 3 model. Why hand him free reign on an internet connection where he'll see much worse than a saucy lady with her knockers on show?
What we really need to persuade our governments to do is to persecute media outlets who manipulate the public outrage to accomplish their bidding. That'd be you Murdoch, you're a git and you know it.
I don't think it's wrong to call us scots tight-fisted, we often joke about it ourselves. I think this is a case of not liking it when other people point it out. It's a bit like when a certain type of woman goes on about how ugly or flabby she thinks she is, but if someone made the same comments to that woman they'd better have fast legs!
Speaking personally as a scot I don't think I'm necessarily tight-fisted, I just believe in getting good value for my money :)
Maybe it's just the SNP that feel as if this is some personal persecution against them, or more likely just another opportunity to get in the papers...
"has bogged bluntly:" - Freudian slip? :)
Don't know why people are making such a big deal about doing a clean install of Windows from upgrade media - all you do with Windows XP Professional Upgrade Edition is boot from CD and during the installation you will be prompted for the disk for the previous operating system you are upgrading from. So you stick your Windows 2000 disk in the CD drive, then when prompted you put the Windows XP upgrade disk back in to continue the installation.
I wouldn't really call the above a hack, it's a feature. A scenario in which someone would be breaking the law would involve downloading/burning an ISO image of the previous operating system to trick the installer into believing that they own the previous operating system. Even that's not a hack though, that's outright theft! (okay so that last comment's going to get a few wry grins from those who should know better...)
Yay, as a developer and as someone who is curious about statistics relevant to our country's well-being, I was looking forward to reviewing and utilising this online resource! Just a crying shame that it requires a Google account, which means that most people I know won't touch it with a ten foot pole... Same goes for me, if anything has Google slapped on it then I walk the other way.
For now I'll stick to the traditional method of reading reports issued by home office and local authorities / police forces / NHS to determine exactly how much alcohol costs the UK each year...
Wow, my town of residence makes its way into an El Reg article!
The locals who oppose the building of student flats are only upset because it seems like buying a house in Cornwall is an impossible task unless you're very rich. Property being allocated to student populations who will only be in the county for two or three years is seen as detracting from the possibility of building and allocating properties to local long-time residents.
Having said that, the damn idiots should wake the **** up and realise that the student population brings more commerce to this town (and Falmouth, our neighbour) than many of the traditional businesses and industries that exist in the area. If the education facilities were not located here then a good number of people would find that even if they don't directly work for the university campus, their business income would be affected.
Cornwall has a backwards attitude to what they refer to as the 'emmit' population. I'm from the North of Scotland where we have a good rep for welcoming visitors with open arms and fleecing them for all their tourist pennies. The Cornish prefer to tell visitors to 'eff off and would rather starve than accept the fact that they can't survive without tourism and the 'emmit' population.
So how long until Apple are asked to provide competitors with access to APIs it uses in its own software? Almost every piece of well-known Apple software (Quicktime, Safari, iTunes) on the Mac uses APIs that aren't available to third-party developers.
I could use mobile phone manufacturers as another example, but the point I'm getting at is that OS developers have a set of private system APIs and a set of publicly available libraries providing APIs for third-party developers. The premise is that third-party developers use the safe, secure public APIs for their development, knowing full-well that doing so will yield reliable results. If they want to reverse-engineer the operating system and find there are methods they can use which might be more efficient then they're welcome to try, but don't go crying to the OS maker when those methods yield unexpected results or are retired/withdrawn further on in a product's life cycle.
I have to say that for many years (since at least the mid 90s when I started using Visual Studio) the MSDN library distribution supplied with Visual Studio has been leaps and bounds ahead of competitors in terms of the comprehension and examples provided. It didn't matter if I was making some simple application that processed and analysed data or if I was authoring a multimedia title using C++, I have rarely found fault with Microsoft's documentation of supported APIs.
Basically this new 'agreement' (if you can call it that when being bent over a barrel and forced to drop your trousers) paves the way for competitors to demand full documentation of the Windows operating system, covering many aspects of it that were never meant to be used by third parties in order to safeguard the operating environment. Next thing we know there'll be some dodgy antivirus developer who will demand that Microsoft provide full documentation for features that really shouldn't be tampered with.
The number of times I've begrudgingly paid for access to third party postal code services when developing ecommerce solutions eludes me. I daresay it won't be long before developers are preparing their own self-contained post code lookup solutions that are not tied to on-going subscription fees.
I'm going to wait until I hear more on the legality of using this data, but if it turns out that using the data is acceptable then I'm definitely replacing the post code lookup solution in all my ecommerce sites with a home-grown subscription-free alternative.
People in favour of abolishing WGA are normally in one of two camps:
1) Won't pay for an OS, and dislikes anything that could infringe upon their ability to steal software.
2) Begrudgingly pays for the OS, only because of WGA.
I've only got twenty years of actual work in the IT industry behind me so I'm not necessarily the most experienced to state this viewpoint, however I feel it has to be said. I've never known people who have paid for genuine software to be bothered about software validation dongles whether they be hardware or code. It's only the guys who had their counterfeit serial port dongles for AutoCAD or are running illegal copies of Windows who display signs of indignation at the concept of their software being checked for validity.
Well if you're going to insist upon sending tasty cheese up to the edge of space, then you have to accept that one of the many members of the alien population in orbit around the planet monitoring our activity will be tempted to swipe the cheese.
I say we prove the existence of aliens by sending lots of delicious treats attached to weather balloons up to the edge of space. At the very least we would be demonstrating a level of courtesy and hospitality to our alien friends.
Bloody stupid, instead of us ending up with one centralised method of catching up on TV from a variety of channels, Sky has made sure that we have a different application for each broadcaster. I don't want to install iPlayer + 4OD + Sky Anytime + ITV Player + all the others. I simply won't watch catch-up TV on other channels, I'm sticking with iPlayer and that's it.
Oh and I also ended my Sky TV contract a few months when the news first broke of Sky's successful attempt to kill a kangaroo. Where's the evil Murdoch icon?
"Missile launched sir, the impending menace of the asteroid will soon be gone!"
...
*BOOM!* (or the equivalent of a missile hitting an asteroid in space)
"Ohmigosh, the asteroid split up into smaller asteroids, we're doomed!!!"
*panning view of lots of very scared military faces*
We may see some manufacturers and content providers teaming up for limited trials in the next couple of years but I think consumers will be wary of format problems. Think of how many people were stung by buying HD-ready TVs that weren't fully HD compliant. Everyone's just about comfortable with DVDs but Blu-Ray hasn't really taken off yet and there are no doubt a few bitter memories of buying HD-DVD set-top boxes and movies amongst the early adopters.
I reckon we'll see a proper roll-out of 3D TV services after 2012. There's a lot of work to do before such services are mature enough and the appropriate hardware is pushed along the production and distribution pipelines.
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