Posts by fidodogbreath

Also known as

Glasshole 2.0.

Shame it's not Twitter that's going away instead of Dorsey.

Microsoft realised that "certain versions" of drivers for Intel Smart Sound Technology (SST) could tip Windows 11 into a blue screen (of death)

Welcome back, Windows 95. We missed you.

"The Cloud will help you collaborate and share with your co-workers. We would never use it against you. Our people are our most valuable asset."

/s

MICROS~1 has their finger on the scale

My company sent me a fire-breathing workstation laptop - 10th gen i7, 64GB RAM, Nvidia RTX graphics, etc.

Word (O362.5 x64 version) absolutely brings it to its f-king knees when I open a 250 page doc. The fan screams at max speed, text onscreen lags behind typing by by 5-10 seconds (!!), scrolling is janky, text search is slow, etc. In contrast, Cyberlink PowerDirector runs very smoothly when editing and rendering FHD video content.

The hardware is not the problem.

Perspective

Geez...and we complain about trying to troubleshoot $RELATIVE's computer over the phone...

Liars, damned liars, etc.

I have a hard time believing those numbers.

The iOS setting just blocks the IDFA. Apple's developer TOS says that the app has to respect the "user choice" for third-party ad SDKs it contains, but iOS does not enforce (or check) whether that occurs. iOS sensor permission are also not very granular. Apps can access environmental sensors, gyro & motion, battery level, volume settings, etc. with no permission request needed, making it easy to generate at least a temporary fingerprint on the fly.

Indeed, there have been numerous reports of tracking SDKs simply ignoring "Ask app not to track" and using fingerprinting to create a new unique identifier. None of those were caught by the App Store's vaunted review process.

In addition to loose control of sensor access, iOS has no built-in tool to show what domains your device is reaching out to. Thus, the average user has no way to know that this exfiltration is occurring. For that matter, an app could send fingerprinting diagnostic data points to its own parent domain; if it's encrypted, how would you differentiate that from 'legitimate' app traffic?

There's also the issue of so-called "app analytics," which -- if they come from an ad seller such as Google or FB -- can return device data points to their mothership that the advertising systems can access to create a fingerprint indirectly.

Given the billions at stake, it seems likely that numerous ( if not most?) apps are tracking people anyway, by hook or by crook. As such, I think it's reasonable to assume that "Ask app not to track" is not really the ad-pocalypse that advertisers portray it as.

Creative Cloud?

More like a Creative Cudgel, to bludgeon users into overpaying to rent apps they don't need in order to get the handful that they do.

TITSUP

Total Inability To Spur User Participation

Brave search is currently ad-free, the bad news being that "the free version of Brave Search will soon be ad supported"

Not surprising; infrastructure and bandwidth cost real-world money.

Of late?

Printing and Microsoft have been uneasy bedfellows of late since MS-DOS 1.0.

Some of that can be laid at the feet of printer manufacturers (*cough* HP *cough*), but printing has always been at least somewhat janky.

It can bring you a beer, though

1. Get up.

2. Go to fridge.

3. Call robot to fridge; wait for arrival.

4. Get beer from fridge, place it in robot's cup holder.

5. Return to couch.

6. Call robot to couch.

7. "Look! Ass-tro brought me a beer!"

Highly targeted by "device" fingerprinting?

Unidentified users get generic ads for either extra-small condoms or exciting career opportunities in adult entertainment.

Users whose, um, private pics are backed up to Google Photos get 'relevant' ads based on their Chrome incognito browsing history.

"has uses beyond that"

Self-expanding proprietary compression could make it easier to hide the full scope of their spyware SDK in other apps.

Not Intu it

In terms of customer (mis)treatment, Intuit and LogMeIn are locked in a race to the bottom.

10 meters?

Then again, Logitech claimed that "The Logi Bolt USB receivers provide a strong, reliable, drop-off-free connection up to 10 meters (33 feet)

That's the same range they quote for the Unifying receiver. I've never had one of those work reliably at a distance of more than about 20-25 cm (8-10 in), and even then only with clear line of sight. With towers, I have to use a USB A male to female extension cable to get the receiver right up onto the desktop.

My work laptop sits on my desk in my home office, but putting the receiver on the "far" side of the computer (where the USB-A ports are) is too far. The keyboard dropped keystrokes, the mouse missed clicks, etc. Had to use a short USB extension to bring the receiver around to center of the desk. Even then -- at 5-10 cm and with new batteries -- the keyboard was unreliable. Maybe the workstation-class laptop gives off too much EMI/RFI? Whatever the reason, I gave up on the Enraging Receiver stuff in favor of an old USB wired keyboard and a vintage MS Wireless Mouse.

Passatwurst > my B5 Passat-worst.

Those tools won't happen without proper standards to give them a wide set of target platforms

...and those standards won't happen -- or if developed, won't be implemented -- because proper standards and interoperability reduce vendor lock-in.

Poetry

Drones and airports go together like a duck to an acid bath

Oh, El Reg, how I love thee.

Be the change...