* Posts by Skymonrie

115 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Jul 2009

Page:

KDE Community releases Plasma 5.24: It's eccentric, just like many old-timers

Skymonrie

Easy to get toolbars back, just not so intutive

Toolbars have not been removed at all, just by default, trying to move people over to using a Global Menu (see toolbar in your system taskbar instead).

As a long time KDE user, can't say I appreciated this change either but, getting back to what you expect is much simpler than you may realize (<ctrl> + M...kinda sucks as most of the time won't work due to program shortcuts). Do the following:

* Open System Settings

* Go to Startup and Shutdown section

* Go to Background Services

* Uncheck the "Application menus daemon"

Voila, sanity restored

Ah, right on time: Hacker-slammed SolarWinds sued by angry shareholders

Skymonrie

The operation is not over

Whilst there may be a whole host of other companies to step in to take over this lost business and, yes, SolarWinds may have screwed up with some fundamentals OpSec, I'm not sure suing them out of existence is going to do the world any good.

There would have likely been a reason many of these huge customers chose to use them and not some alternative. At a guess, maybe because they tick more boxes than the competition making them the "best".

Whilst there definitely should be a review of what happened (and i willingly prepare to eat my words), they were the target of a state level attack, there's very little they could probably do to have prevented the attack. What should be happening is learning lessons to make sure that a repeat can't ever happen again and to move on.

To use analogy, it would be like West Bromwich Albion firing Sam Johnstone (according to stats, he is best goalkeeper in Premier league) because they lost 4-0 to Arsenal (also Google it yourself). Maybe, there was nothing in his power he could have done to be better Arsenal were happily dancing around a laughable defense. The team itself should reflect on the situation, not just blame the goaly

Facebook mulls tagging pics with 'radioactive' markers to trace the origin of photos used to build image-recog AI

Skymonrie

Almost entirely pointless

Aside from the part mentioning validating image sets used when people are limited to certain data sets, all this is going to do is cause people to run the images through a another round of rendering...Completely voiding the watermark

Skymonrie

All this is going to do is cause people using marked data sets to re-render them; bye bye watermark.

*edit* double posted by accident, apologies

Sudo? More like Su-doh: There's a fun bug that gives restricted sudoers root access (if your config is non-standard)

Skymonrie

Re: As a ex sys-admin....

For me, the whole point of it on production systems is to restrict control to certain processes that would otherwise require some form of god mode, which is even worse...

Want to let a user do some very basic management on Nginx but, nothing else? The following is relatively harmless and makes remote management a bit safer

# /etc/sudoers.d/nginx_knobby

knobby ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl restart nginx

knobby ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl start nginx

Microsoft commits: We're buying GitHub for $7.5 beeeeeeellion

Skymonrie

Won't someone think of the automatons?

What is going to happen to tools that automatically pull from GitHub such as npm, composer, etc? Or, are we just pretending this isn't really happening?

I place myself in the same camp as many other here in clearly stating that, I will be moving away from GitHub (stop Microsoft patent racket and I may reconsider).

Fireball in Tasmania: Possible CubeSat re-entry sparks alien panic

Skymonrie

Seeking expert knowledge

Genuine question: Would something so small be able to create such a fireball as shown in the picture or is that a screenshot from some sci-fi film?

Having a quick look on the NASA website "Space rocks smaller than about 25 meters (about 82 feet) will most likely burn up as they enter the Earth's atmosphere and cause little or no damage." I'm sure materials have a lot do with effect and that is part of why the website is so generic.

Sysadmin told to spend 20+ hours changing user names, for no reason

Skymonrie

Re: management failings

This comment stood out to me as being too true. Some people engineer awkward situations as a means of control

I recently left a job as Head of Tech at a husband / wife owned shop where the wife overruled almost every decision I made because back in the 90s she was CTO at some bank and knew best. The typical week goes

Monday

Boss: We need this and this, what do we need and how long will it take to make happen?

Me: 3 days to create, a couple for QA and then on Friday we can watch the rollout for stability

Wife: That should only take about...a day TOPS

Boss: Get it done or you're fired

Me: I could get this part done by today but, we definitely shouldn't use it in production

Tuesday

Me: It's done but, there are some catches which could be dangerous. Don't use x and y until I say so

Boss: Great, put it up

Wife: *Uses the thing I told her not to*

Boss: Why is it F'ing broken!?!?

Wife: His stuff always breaks, utterly shit

Me: I'll get it fixed, seems that x and y were used despite being told otherwise

Wife: Hurry and get it fixed

*Spend half the day fixing problem wife caused*

Wednesday

Me: OK, by the end of today, x will be done. Please DO NOT use x until I say so

Wife: Excellent. *Uses x right before boss checks*

Me: Are you kidding? *stays late to complete*

Thursday

Me: *Gets work done, sends email to both letting them know that it is done but, needs a day QA*

Wife: It should be good enough

Boss: I expected this to be done by Tuesday, why do i always have to F'ing do everything myself?

Me: I stated (with business interests first) what we should have done and how to approach it. Things got complicated when rushing. To stop it happening in the future, I've put in this step we should all follow to make sure the whole process is clear

Boss: This is my f***ing company and it makes profit because of the way I manage it. Do you think you could run this company better than me?

Me: *Bites tongue*

Friday

*Without the necessary QA done, inevitably an error occurs*

Wife: I thought you said it was done. You set such bad expectations and the results are s**t

Me: Let me get this fixed first and then we'll talk. *Fix* It happened because x, wasn't' covered in the limited tests we had time to do after being rushed. Enjoy the weekend

Arch Linux: In a world of polish, DIY never felt so good

Skymonrie
Thumb Up

Didn't think I would be so excited

To see Arch Linux cross The Reg desk but, I am.

I have been an Arch Linux user for about 6 years now, at home and at work and only have praise to give. Sure, you need to set it up yourself but, It is incredibly stable once setup.

As many say, the install manual is excellent and to be honest, the amount of knowledge needed to install is NOT that much (I understand people who say otherwise but, really, it's not) and in the process you learn things that you can use across every distribution.

There have been many times the knowledge I picked up using Arch saved a boshed Ubuntu / Cent installation. Just don't make it your first Linux distribution though!

Mobile data is getting slower, faster

Skymonrie
Coat

I'm an Englishman in...Hong Kong

A different set of challenges here:

- Small area to cover

- One of the most densely populated places in the world

- People LIVE with their eyes glued to the phone (maybe this one isn't so different, I don't know)

Every morning on the MTR (tube) you get thousands of people zooming down the island line the majority of people are watching their soaps (Korean soup or Anime most of the time) and it is incredible to comprehend; this is my tell we are living in the future.

No point to this comment really, just wanted to stop and gape in awe at what's possible as I recall staying up late waiting for a download on dialup back in the day. 1Gbps internet is common here also, I honestly haven't wanted above 100Mbps though, that is plenty fast enough for a home connection...

Apple seeks patent for paper bag - you read that right, a paper bag

Skymonrie
Stop

Isn't this just origami?

Surely, prior art in a hearbeat anyone? Although...would they be using 60% bullshit ingredients?

WhatsApp is to hand your phone number to Facebook

Skymonrie
Black Helicopters

This is not new

I have a couple of contacts on my whatsapp to help with the errr...gardening which I keep very seperate from anything else. I log in to facebook one day, lo and behold they have become suggested friends. For a laugh, when meeting them in person, I greeted them by real name and it drained the colour from their face after realising what just happened.

Systemd adds filesystem mount tool

Skymonrie

I am spartacus

Definition of systemd: systemd is a system and service manager

Definition of food: sustenance to keep animals alive

Both of the above have become so much more, not always for the better. Systemd has made life better in some respects but just as people can binge eat and become obese, it is getting out of hand.

Very soon there is going to come a point where this is systemd Linux, not gnu linux. I'm not against having the choice but, we need to start calling it what it really is. Like an earlier commentor said, this is like windows10. Something a lot of people hate but the same people can get along with windows7.

Call it what it is and end the evermore bitter divide forming in the linux ecosphere because of this one talented maniac. One person can change everything and right now people just don't understand

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is borking boxen everywhere

Skymonrie
Gimp

Re: @a_yank_lurker

Upvoted as I also use arch linux as my everyday workhorse and find it very stable.

I feel a lot less pain for the only minor (and generally easy to debug / fix) glitches I have come across compared to this windows affair.

Here was me thinking I lived on the bleeding edge with my OS, MS spoil everything...i can't even enjoy the pain...

Microsoft: You liked Windows 10 so much, you'll get 2 more in 2017

Skymonrie
Coat

Windows 11 pictures leaked!

Now the people who were ever going to upgrade have the latest shiny, time to do the normal ms thing and stagnate development.

SaaS - like that nasty virus that had the world in panic not too long ago

Google-backed British startup ‘stole our code’, says US marketing firm

Skymonrie
Stop

Copied code?

Most of those lines look like:

- Native hooks you use in almost every JavaScript app which listens to the DOM

- People programming to a common coding standard

I thought this approach was the way people are encourage to write code? Would they have been happier if the definitions were meaningless to humans like we used to get? temp1, temp2, temp11...

I just did a quick google search for setbouncecookie and came across a GitHub project for exactly what BOTH of these projects do, is the author "carlsednaoui/ouibounce" going to sue both?

I have a feeling this case will go on for too long as law simply doesn't understand code...Winter is coming...

This storage startup dedupes what to do what? How?

Skymonrie
Holmes

Sounds like git on a more granular level

With a slightly tweaked auto commit engine, interesting to see

Microsoft replaces Windows 10 patch update, isn't saying why

Skymonrie

No surprise

This is exactly what it means to be the tester.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again. In this case, the world is testing

NSA spying is illegal? Then let's make it law, say Republicans

Skymonrie

Too many MCs, not enough mics

In this world where fantasy becomes reality, didn't the latest Avengers movie tell these fools what they're letting themselves in for?

I for one welcome Ultron as our new... *comet hits*

AMD's new Carrizo: The x86 notebook processor that thinks it's a GPU

Skymonrie

Hong Kong

In HK, the latest gen laptops are starting to appear and Intel are simply walking free unmatched at the moment. Check out the Asus Zenbook UX305, a great price too, I do hope it pulls together for AMD though.

ACHTUNG! Scary Linux system backdoor turns boxes into DDoS droids

Skymonrie

Nothing to see, move on

So, in order to get this backdoor on they must have to already have root access...really???

Got bigger problems if that is what happens

Want to have your server pwned? Easy: Run PHP

Skymonrie

nothing to see here

That a public facing service is is exploitable is nothing new, this article should have really tried to make people aware that you get what you pay for in most cases and paying £1 to deploy and host a WordPress site is not going to get you professional services even though as many have said, "old" versions of PHP will have patches back ported.

i think in this, the most important is that generally speaking, The easier something is to use, the more complex it is under the surface and complexity brings issues. Things like wordpress have their place in the same way that motorbikes/cars/electric vehicles have theirs and the advantages/caveats that come with them.

Happy new year and keep up the good work! The Web is better by a long way than it was a few years ago and there will always be new problems

Docker: Sorry, you're just going to have to learn about it. Today we begin

Skymonrie

This comment alone has given me the final push I need to give docker a proper try. Why don't more people say this compared to the "one day, it will even do your laundry" style reviews.

BOFH: Everyone deserves a little DOWNTIME

Skymonrie
Pint

painful

Reading through that has given me a headache...it's too true.

my weeks sysadmin nightmare working remotely

I just spent half a week having an email back and forth with someone who insisted a system didn't work regardless of it working (and being shown to work through screen recorders and tutorials) with every variant and setup under the sun.

After finally convincing them to let me setup a remote desktop connection to their computer to see first hand, we did the run through and, surprise surprise, it worked perfectly. They just read a single (something they had written) word wrong and thought they were in the wrong place. If they had even filled in the "problem report" form provided they would have seen their own stupidity.

Love that we're back to weeklies, have a beer on me!

AWS CloudFront wobbles at worst possible time

Skymonrie

I thought the whole point of services such as AWS was to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Then again, the cloud is just "someone else's computer" with more than one pipe to it

World of Warcraft then and now: From Orcs and Humans to Warlords of Draenor

Skymonrie
Facepalm

bitter disappointment

I'm one of the many who revisited WoW for WoD after a 5 year gap and the experience has left me very bitter and vowing to never buy blizzard again, even if they reinvented jesus. I live in Hong Kong so played on oceanic servers and at launch, people would put their computer in a 10 hour queue only to discover the server was going down for maintenance.

The game has been very buggy and need to daily reboots still, paying customers are actually beta testers. Whatever happened to QA? The cherry on the cake for me was that whenever I would try to go in to a dungeon or battleground would get 12 seconds lag. After contacting a Game Master, I was given the "you must be holding it wrong" response and unable to get a refund within 10 days because I played it.

Blizzard don't give a shit. When stating these facts in a balanced manner on the forums, people went nuts defending blizzard, it really is like they are junkies and blizzard can put out whatever they like so long as they get their fix.

Remember, Blizzard is just a company, not a religion

Pure: We've created the Everlasting Gobstopper of Storage – 'Forever Flash'

Skymonrie
Thumb Up

Re: It's called leasing

Nail, meet head.

Do your eyes also come with x-ray vision?

Google begins to roll out Lollipop to Nexus devices

Skymonrie

Re: Longer battery life

The problem is simply crud that manufacturers add on to bring you the "best" experience. Not everyone will be willing to go this length but Iswill

- Remove unnecessary apps which won't impact MY experience, not just factory ones but ones I've installed

- Install boot manager and stop services I do not immediately need starting up automatically

- use greenify to stop services I do use from running without need after a given time

- avoid apps that push notifications for the sake of it like the plague

- most importantly, use my phone when I need/want to, not feeling the need to check every ten seconds

This gets me 5 days of reasonable use. It's a Samsung note 2014 10.1

Is your kid ADDICTED to web porn? Twitter? Hint: Don't blame the internet

Skymonrie

Re: @Graham Marsden

A simple no nonsense response that cuts through the BS, I salute you.

No excuses, nothing beats genuine "life" education, schools can't teach that without someone complaining.

Quick PHP patch beats slow research reveal

Skymonrie

To the downvoters, when I talk about having no single point of failure within software, I mean having a resilient environment.

Specifically addressing the bug in question, with proper input validation/sanitation data that could cause this bug would never get in to the system to begin with. How often do people store integers larger than 9223372036854775807 (for use in a PHP environment), especially from a serialized source?

On a typical website, if receiving "extreme" data (valid data but unexpected) I'd write details to a log and/or ask the user if they are sure they mean to use such a large value.

Either way, kudos to the PHP team for addressing the issue so quickly

Skymonrie
FAIL

If you rely on a single piece of software, the same piece of software that "delivers" to secure your entire stack, you're doing it wrong regardless of whether you call it PHP, IIS, Java, Ruby, Node, etc.

Was Earth once covered in HELLFIRE? No – more like a wet Sunday night in Iceland

Skymonrie
Coat

When you throw shit at the wall

It sticks :p

A SCORCHIO fatboy SSD: Samsung SSD850 PRO 3D V-NAND

Skymonrie

3D Electronics...

Entering the consumer level market...Excellent!

spɹɐʍʞɔɐB writing is spammers' new mail filter avoidance trick

Skymonrie

Re: There is no progress here

I concur, the very first thing on my mind was to check the story publish date thinking there was an error which threw up an old story...

'I like big butts and I cannot lie, hackers take Pinterest on a joyride'

Skymonrie

Pin the tail on the donkey

David Attenborough In 1000 years on a cave painting

The missing link between ass and humans found. This creature represents the breakthrough of species for the first time caring more about social life than survival. It is due to the sheer number of clicks (from the newly refined fingers) on trees, stones, even frogs that word spread our mouths can be used for eating, not just talking about the latest cave drama.

Cave pictures depict this creature slumped over a tablet like slab with a crooked spine using its finger to draw a a tree with two coconuts on it. We believe this was how the ass-a-man passed on knowledge to future generations about what foods were safe and dangerous.

This other picture shows a lady begging the man not to mix his coconuts with her starfish, as we now know, mixing the two produces deadly toxins. A marvellous species representing a new transformation of life...as we know it.

Smog-hit Beijing shows sunsets on a giant TV to remind people what the sun looks like

Skymonrie

You know it's bad when even the Chinese Government admit there is a problem...It's also a bit hard to hide the problem, wait...it's easy to hide.

This is quite literally dissolving the old values of China and replacing them with the new, shiny, "what do i do with this suitcase full of money?!?!?" set. Having lived in China/Hong Kong for a few years I can only say the problem is...Louis vuitton. Without LV people wouldn't need to fire up the helicopter in order to go grab that must have bag.

In all sincerity though (and not taking in to account the ratio of money effectively spent), the Chinese government are starting to make some big changes to the way things are run in the name of environmental preservation in the places it counts most, education and infrastructure. You won't see so much solar power almost anywhere else...not that that matters with all the damn smog!!!

All cool kids' phones run ALTERNATIVE alternative custom Android ROM

Skymonrie

PACman

as a user of a rom called pacman on my galaxy tab 7.7, there are many good reasons to use custom ROMs that overcome the quirks. many reading this might think it's stating the obvious but some REALLY don't have a clue what can be done.

My device is supported for longer - Officially support stopped at 4.0.4 but, i use 4.2.1

Efficiency - Longer battery life and better responsiveness, nuff said

Competition - Some may be scratching their heads at this. the truth is, variety is the spice of life and shaking things up (small as it may be) stops everything you do becoming Apple level boring.

Custmisation - Works both ways in terms of liking but, i like being able to tweak the interface to my hearts content. Look up Paranoid Android!

Enhanced features - People pull functionality apart till it screams usefulness you may actually want. My partner has a note 2 and we both thought multi window control was a nnice gimmick but, not too useful in its' workings. i use something called halo which takes this concept bundled with notifications and decent shortcut handling toa new level.

US federal judge: Yes, Bitcoin IS MONEY

Skymonrie

instant reaction

Only three words came to mind to begin with:

Sod off america...

Couldn't he claim similar circumstances to what the tax dodgers here do. "I may talk and arrange business with people in the US but, when it comes to sales, all transactions are performed in another country, another dimension, namely the internet...from a dodgy web host on the darkweb at that"

A bitter response from me I know and sorry for it. I just don't see a single thing from the american government which warrants any decision they make as legit these days.

HTC warns of likely loss next quarter

Skymonrie

HTwho

I used to have a desire and loved it to bits, in terms of battery, performance and beauty it left the market at the time for dust, a real shame about their software but cyanogen are always there to save the day. Then, it got stolen at the gym.

Fast forward almost three years and HTC are almost completely off the map, they haven't released a "distinguished" phone in all that time, they turned in to another company that just churns out android handsetswith no flavour.

When the market is as intensely competitive as phones are, people at the premium end want something that is exactly that. The one is an excellent phone but, too little too late, if they'd have released that at a time when shiny was all it took to win, there'd be no problems. We now have phones with stylus', phones that swim, phones with super hi-res screens (I know the One uses technology from Sharp) and crazy cameras so where does that really position HTC?

I think my Samsung is great and so do a lot of techies based on the amount of activity at xda. They are still innovating too! See the advert for flexi screens. The only thing that will change that for me is an underdog who can bring some new tricks to the table.

So long HTC, thanks for all the fish

Climate scientists agree: Humans cause global warming

Skymonrie
Flame

Regardless

Whether or not a believer in AGW, does it hurt to stop living like a pillock. In retrospect, when I say this I mean things like:

- Walking to the corner shop 5 minutes away instead of driving

- Turning off the lights when you (or noone else) are in a room

- Wear warmer clothes when the weather gets colder as instead of turning the heating up

- Wear less (and sleep under less) if the weather is too hot instead of turning the AC up.

- Buy food you will eat rather than throw away due to waste/rot...

- Drink beer really cold, it is much more refreshing than "lukewarm"

Little things like those stated above make more a difference in the long run make more of a difference compared to bickering over the climate like little girls in the playground.

Foxconn still flogging iWorkers, but more lightly

Skymonrie
Stop

Left for dust

I remember well the experience I had when i had just left university that could sit on parallel lines but in England for this.

I serviced hardware/software chip and pin machines and would always try to find ways to make it both more pleasant and efficient. Here is a list of some of those and the effect

- The software we used was hosted on an intranet and only updated every other week. I would download the relevant tools if changed and put them on my desktop for one click use. This saved my having to go through the company intranet pages which were 2 deep and slow so. Much faster and convenient, I could lay them out in order as needed. Management response (some young man who clearly enjoyed his position too much) made me stop doing this as it meant my toolchain would always be outdated....

- The units that came in would just be thrown in to a box with the only thing differentiating them a label; each station would take a different type of "fix" at different times to keep it a little different. One morning, whilst getting my devices, any devices that didn't meet my current task, would put them in a separate making someone elses life easier, it certainly didn't make mine any different. The manager came over and was furious, accusing me of wasting my time tidying up the devices; at this point I still only had half of the devices I needed.

Not meaning to blow my own horn, I was the most productive worker in that workshop by at least three times, most of the others were very lazy polish who couldn't speak much English. I was late the next day after the above instance (5AM start!) and I was welcomed by the manager smiling telling me to go home. It was his victory...

I believe the problem is rather simple. It isn't just that China is (for now cheaper) it's that Britain has lost a lot of the fire to its flame.

Furious Stephen Fry blasts 'evil' Reg and 'TW*T' Orlowski

Skymonrie
Trollface

What is his alias here?

I have respect on one hand and realism on the other with regard to Stephen Fry. Some of the stuff he does is both informative and amusing. However, I'm glad to see the Reg trolling in the cases given as it is all due.

What I want to know is his screen name on this site! Without doubt, he is the kind of person who subscribes to the Reg. My guess....Stephen Fry....is....Amanfrommars!

Place your bets

Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

Skymonrie
Go

Only encouragement from me

I have been living in China for the past two and a half years. As a Linux advocat, this is the best news I think I have ever read. I would like to very briefly paint a picture of IT within China.

1) The vast majority of people use a pirated copy of Windows XP, there seems to be one image that everyone and their dog has. People will even install Windows XP from this disc on their Apple computers because they only know XP. Because they can't download updates, people install a program called 360. 360 does everything (particularly make a device slow and unresponsive) from giving you a replacement start menu to delivering windows updates, to telling you the weather and modifying the vast array of system files. This thing spies like someone stood 10cm in front of you with a pair of binoculars.

2) The level of computing proficiency is very poor to the point people who work in computer shops don't understand and will hop on to baidu (web-search) for almost everything unless they have tried it before. When it comes to performing a task, this can result in amusement for the observer but a big vein popping out the forehead for users.

3) China is filling up with consumers who demand fashion, particularly following the "latest and greatest", Windows XP is something i remember using way back in school and considered very uncool. The chances are this generation will soon be upgrading to the latest pirated version of Windows 7/8.

With the current scene set, we have the following opportunities

- When it does come time to put an IT curriculum together, it will be based on Linux

- When people can control their device, even if the repositories are limited, they will experiment more, many people using open source software; testing it, possibly contributing to it and definitely not pirating it.

- Don't you think it would be pleasent to have less vulnerable devices on the internet to be abused?

- Until China is well versed with the Linux ecosystem, there will be plenty of opportunity for service oriented commerce from other countries.

- Hang Mark Shuttleworth by his scraggly balls to pass that suitcase (more like warehouse) full of cash he will be getting in the general direction of Linux

In sincerity, I feel this move (even if only talked about) puts China in front of our own governments with regard to technology. Anyone who feels this is a step in the wrong direction is just bitter.

Ex-pats take note: China IT salaries set to jump 40 per cent

Skymonrie
WTF?

Egg on face

I just moved from the mainland to Hong Kong, Damnit!

Dev preview of Ubuntu for phones touching down February 21

Skymonrie
Thumb Up

Rock on

This quite simply means a variety of debian to use on your phone; no need to have Unity in desktop mode is there? For me this is a great win for the community at large with no cost but, I guess there will always be haters. You really need to stop hating things which are provided for free!

As an Arch Linux user, I favour no distro more than the next, just what is good for my needs. I'll be having a go at hacking this on to my tab 7.7, the phone UI looks quite interesting.

So, good job Canonical, I appreciate the work you do for the community. Sticks and stones may break your bones, may trolling morons mourn on themselves.

Bad news: PC slump worse than feared. Good news: It's Friday

Skymonrie
Megaphone

Moore's Law and ignorance

I believe we should blame Moore's Law, when the computing power available to us double's, it used to make a vast difference. I,e The upgrade from a 486 rated at 66MHz to a 586 at 133MHz was huge in terms of what we could actually do with the device. Many here have already stated their 6 year old computers work just fine, I support this view.

I run Arch Linux on a ULV Lenovo Thinkpad and it is blindingly quick; two VMs and all development environments open. It is pretty much impossible to notice the difference on my older (but much faster workstation) unless compiling programs. Why upgrade?

There has been a lot of controversy relating to the death of PC/Laptops in favour of tablets recently and I am a strong believer in the survival of the former. With that said though, my next purchase will probably be the upcoming Nexus tablet though. Why? Very simple.

When a tablet (hackable with support for *nix) comes with a resolution twice that of my laptop and twice the battery; it's a no brainer, 2560x1600 for pity sake! People say it all the time here; FOAD 1366x768. I can honestly respect all that device manafacturers do however, if they start complaining about sales they should pull their head out their ass and address this very simple issue. I would certainly change my next purchase option from a tablet back to a laptop if it allowed me to work remotely and comfortably as ranted about in this paragraph.

For the record of opinion on the matter, I already own a Galaxy Tab 7.7 and do use it to emulate *Nix whilst still remaining an android phone/tablet so, I do understand the difference between using a laptop for Linux and a tablet for Linux well.. I'd just love something that can be booted natively like the Mer/KDE combination.

Lenovo proclaims PC victory, re-orgs to take on Apple

Skymonrie
Go

Interesting

I just bought one of the new Thinkpads and have to say, they are rather fine pieces of kit; my only grudge is the 1366x768 screen resolution *sigh* just like every other half serious computer user on Earth.

With great build quality, it also came with a small 16GB SSD stick to act as a cache alongside the 500G HD. With a little format here and a little Linux there, it screams performance at a low power cost.

All in all a thing of beauty if you like simple black, my partner thinks the thing is ugly though. So, this move might address her only concern; looks.

Jaa yo Lenovo!

Adobe's revenge on Steve Jobs: HTML5

Skymonrie
Go

good

As a web developer, I think this is quite good news. Not everything adobe do is bad, just as not everything apple do is bad.

I recently used a canvas library called easel which brings an equivalent of actionscript straight in to the browser and was most impressed. It turns our, some adobe emplyees are responsible for it. I'm not so much concerned about the overall package but, you have to admit, there are quite a few areas of HTML that need to be buffed up.

I beg adobe not to reinvent the wheel though, use what's already here, maybe basing an SDK kit on jquery in a jquery like manner

What are quantum computers good for?

Skymonrie
Alert

Re: The Virtual Pen

amanfromMars 1 - I've been following you, I have the chloroform ready and everything but, feel at a loss. As far as AI goes these days; may I give you plus one for your ability to interpret the English language. Consider yourself levelled up in that big electronic brain of yours, your natural English is putting the pin in pun these days.

Step unto the fray and live the day,

These words are a way I play.

With your text mex words mixed,

try to flex some different lexical step.

Too many adverts, two words worlds.

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