Re: 3.0
The big feature for me was that Lame is now included, so I didn't have to install it separately when my daughter wanted to use Audacity :-)
Posts by PerlyKing
568 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2010
Audacity 'scared and excited' to be bought and brought under Muse Group's roof, promises to stay free and open source
Dam it: Beaver ate our internet, says tiny Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge
Something went wrong but we won't tell you what it is. Now, would you like to take out a premium subscription?
Google proposes Logica data language for building more manageable SQL code
There's no place like GNOME: System 76 introduces COSMIC desktop GUI for its Pop!_OS Linux
Thursday 15th April 2021 07:28 GMT
Re: MeDearOldMum
And do YourDearOldMum and Great Aunt look after it by themselves, or do they use:
A cut-down version of Slack, made especially for them. And they've been quite happy with it for around 15 years now ... although they still insist on calling it "jake's version of Windows".
That's a bit different from managing your own system.
I used Linux as my main OS from Christmas 2000 (when I totally borked my Win98 installation somehow and couldn't be bothered to fix it) until 2006 when I got fed up tweaking stuff all the time and bought a Mac. After 14 years (2 Macs) I'm back on Linux (Kubuntu 20.04) and while it's improved there are still semi-regular issues. Like trying to use Syncthing as a Snap installation and finding that it couldn't access some files because they were in a hidden directory, with no way to allow access due to security decisions taken by the Snap developers. The hidden directory is in my home directory and is owned by me, but apparently is still a security risk. I worked it out eventually and now happily use a non-Snap installation, but how many "normal" users are going to be able to do that?
Key Perl Core developer quits, says he was bullied for daring to suggest programming language contained 'cruft'
Tuesday 13th April 2021 14:35 GMT
Re: The concept of open source
To me, the concept of open source is more about giving what you can for the common good. Fixing it yourself is certainly encouraged, but I don't think it's essential. I don't know the details of the incident above, but if your project has non-developer users and some sort of feedback mechanism then I think you should expect feature or usability requests. Especially if your project has a GUI.
If you're just writing code for yourself you can do what you like, but as soon as someone else uses it or looks at it, they may have suggestions or requests. I don't contribute to any open source projects but I am a professional developer and I have learned a lot from code reviews and user feedback. You have to be able to open your mind a bit and see it from someone else's point of view, which may be difficult for the stereotypical lone coder.
SpaceX's Starlink: Overhyped and underpowered to meet broadband needs of Rural America, say analysts
Monday 12th April 2021 07:58 GMT
Re: It doesn't add up
It seems unlikely (to me) that rival technologies will not be able to reach nearly all of Musk's potential customers, with a significantly faster and cheaper service, with a combination of more down-to-earth tech like fibre backbones and 4G/5G radio links. Don't bother telling me that those aren't happening, because if *they* aren't commercially viable then Starlink certainly isn't.
While what you say may be technically feasible, from what I've read of the American broadband market the incumbent operators are more interested in milking their existing subscribers and pocketing federal subsidies than in building out any more infrastructure. They're following the American Dream and trying to litigate the competition rather than actually compete.
Also, don't underestimate the difficulty of running physical cable/fibre to a large and geographically sparse population.
Google putting its trust in Rust to weed out memory bugs in Android development
Wednesday 7th April 2021 13:16 GMT
Re: Android One
As far as I know Android One isn't some sort of cut-down version of the Android OS, but a program which guarantees a minimum duration of updates and near-stock Android UI. I think it was intended to cut down on "landfill Android" phones which were dirt cheap to buy but then never received any updates.
Feeling brave? GNOME 40 is here and you can have a poke around in the Fedora 34 beta
Global tat supply line clogged as Suez Canal authorities come to aid of wedged 18-brontosaurus container ship
Prince Harry, the Count of Montecito, turns Silicon Valley startup exec with first job based in 21st Century
Wednesday 24th March 2021 09:35 GMT
Optional
I thought the article was fairly neutral in Reg terms - a bit tongue-in-cheek but that's the house style.
I agree that paying their own way is a good thing, but seeing as their major asset so far is fame/notoriety expect to see more stories about them in the media.
As for royal security, apparently that was withdrawn when they moved to Canada. When you leave the firm, you lose the perks. Is that unfair? Probably. I guess even princes don't live in fairytales any more.
Following Supreme Court ruling, Uber UK recognizes drivers as workers, offers min wage, holiday pay, pension
Wednesday 17th March 2021 09:43 GMT
Re: It's not Uber being generous
Absolutely. This is from an email I received from Uber this morning:
From today Uber drivers in the UK will be paid holiday time, automatically enrolled into a pension plan, and guaranteed to earn at least the National Living Wage.
Drivers are an essential part of our everyday lives and we are proud to be making these changes to how they earn with Uber.
Emphasis added.
Proud? Proud?! So proud that they fought it through the courts for five years, but no mention of that from Uber!
California bans website 'dark patterns', confusing language when opting out of having your personal info sold
Wednesday 17th March 2021 09:36 GMT
Re: Cancelling Prime
I accidentally signed up for Prime in the middle of last year. I like to think I'm fairly savvy and careful, but I still managed to click on the wrong thing at some point during checkout. I think there were three options at one stage, along the lines of a big bright button "Yes, sign me up for Prime and take my firstborn!", a smaller plainer button "No but yeah" and a nondescript link on the other side of the page "Beware of the leopard". I may have misremembered the wording ;-)
Fortunately it was fairly simple to cancel it after my free month.
Russia botches Twitter throttling, cripples anything with t-dot-co in the name – including Reddit, Microsoft
Thursday 11th March 2021 08:54 GMT
Re: Getting the hostname from an URL
Can you use a port with t.co? You can add that to the pattern, or alternatively use your favourite language's URL library: Java's java.net.URL class will parse the URL and then you call the getHost() method to retrieve just the hostname, which you can compare with a fixed string. Other methods will give you the other parts of the URL if you're interested.
Where is that army of Russian hackers when you need them?
I haven't bought new pants for years, why do I have to keep buying new PCs?
Friday 5th March 2021 10:07 GMT
Old kit
An unnamed family member is still using a 2010 Lenovo X201 running Windows 10 which is well past its prime. It takes ages to get going, and is then very slow. I have tried, many times, to persuade the owner to upgrade to something newer and shinier - say only five years old - but so far I have not been able to break through the perception that if a laptop was expensive when new then it should still be going strong now. So they struggle on, with frequent tirades of verbal abuse directed at the underperforming item and complaints about how slow it is...
Said family member is also addicted to Microsoft Word so there's no chance of replacing the OS with something more suitable.
1Password has none, KeePass has none... So why are there seven embedded trackers in the LastPass Android app?
Ever felt that a few big tech companies are following you around the internet? That's because ... they are
Citibank accidentally wired $500m back to lenders in user-interface super-gaffe – and judge says it can't be undone
Friday 19th February 2021 13:20 GMT
Re: I bet the bank already has a new UI
I'll take the other side of that bet. Although they may have scheduled a pre-meeting to start roughing out the agenda for a meeting to decide who to blame for the cock-up.
Less cynically, these things take time. But I'd expect some training sessions in the very near future.
The Linux box that runs the exec carpark gate is down! A chance for PostgreSQL Man to show his quality
Friday 5th February 2021 10:41 GMT
Execu-barge
Not quite the same thing, but at a former workplace the company's car park was secured with one of those ramps that rotate up out of the ground. I got to work one day in time to see a large black BMW beached on top of it, as if someone in a hurry had tried to tailgate their way into the car park. Ouch.
ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 1: Workhorse that does the business – and dares you to push that red button
Thursday 4th February 2021 10:39 GMT
Personal hobby horse warning
I think when Matthew said "it’s not something you instinctively want to use," he really meant to say "it’s not something I instinctively want to use."
I have grown to loathe this use of the second person "you" when the author really means "I" but is trying to project their opinions onto me. More examples are variations of "X makes you feel Y" and "You have to Z". No, that's what's happening for you, not for me. Every time I hear this construction, it breaks the flow and makes me question what is going on.
As you were.
How embarrassing: Xiaomi and Motorola show up to high school prom both wearing remote-charging tech
Monday 1st February 2021 12:23 GMT
Re: Dear. God.
Er, Pascal, while I agree about inefficiencies you seem to have missed the bits in the article about the Xiaomi phone having an active beacon and the transmitter steering the beam, and for the Motorola system "Any obstacle placed between the charger and the phone immediately halts charging".
Otherwise, rant on!
Project Ticino: Microsoft's Erich Gamma on Visual Studio Code past, present, and future
Google, Apple sued for failing to give Telegram chat app the Parler put-down treatment
Wednesday 27th January 2021 14:52 GMT
I get to decide who is intolerable to me.
And I think you missed the point about intolerance. Tolerance only works when it's reciprocal. If one side is intolerant they will take without giving, until they have everything.
If you keep on turning the other cheek, sooner or later someone is going to come along and cut off your head.
One careful driver: Make room in the garage... Bloodhound jet-powered car is up for sale
Nothing new since the microwave: Let's get those home tech inventors cooking
Apple reportedly planning to revive the MagSafe charging standard with the next lot of MacBook Pros
Monday 18th January 2021 15:04 GMT
Re: Sony Xperia magnetic dock
I had one of these and it was lovely except for one thing: it didn't work very well with a phone case, not even an official "Made For Xperia" one. Fortunately the dock itself had a large gap and came with a variety of adapters for different thicknesses of phone (Z3, Z3 Compact, etc.), and without any of the shims in place the phone in its case could sit in the dock. It was a bit wobbly, but that's where the magnets come in....
Monday 18th January 2021 14:55 GMT
Re: Short Apple power cords
Is this a recent thing? My 2006 and 2010 MacBook Pros both came with a power brick which had a longish (14 linguine?) fixed lead to the laptop, and interchangeable wall plugs one of which was also on a longish cable. Longer than any other laptop which has passed through my household, which is admittedly not many.
On MagSafe itself, it may have saved one of my MBPs from a fall once in 14 years of use, but it was definitely easier to attach than a "normal" connector :-)
Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte and hellagram is going hella nowhere
SpaceX wins UK regulator Ofcom's approval for its Starlink mobile broadband base stations
Tuesday 12th January 2021 08:23 GMT
Optional
1. Not everyone in the world has access to Eutelsat
2. Who said anything about doing it for free?
3. Does the USA count as a developing country? StarLink has already been used for disaster-relief there.
This is a commercial venture which will charge whatever they can get away with. I'm going to guess that they've done some market research before spending hundreds of millions of dollars launching satellites, and if they think people will pay more than for existing options (where there are any) then maybe they're onto something.
Leave.EU takes back control – and shifts its domain name to be inside the European Union
Pizza and beer night out the window, hours trying to sort issue, then a fresh pair of eyes says 'See, the problem is...'
United States Congress stormed by violent followers of defeated president, Biden win confirmation halted
Friday 8th January 2021 09:36 GMT
Re: MPs that don't even live in the same fucking county as they stand for.
Don't get you started? Don't get me started! My MP does live in the constituency. On my street. And apart from being a thoroughly unpleasant person is one of the Speakers and therefore can't even represent the constituency by voting!
Thursday 7th January 2021 09:22 GMT
Re: a quirk of the American electoral system
If by "a quirk" you meant "working as designed in order to get buy-in from the smaller states in the late eighteenth century" then you're right. If you meant some sort of accidental loophole then you're dead wrong. Hate him or loathe him, you can't really argue that Trump's presidency was illegitimate without stooping to the same sort of rhetoric he's using to try to undermine the American democratic system. Which is well and truly broken, but won't be fixed by ignoring it or by storming the nation's capitol. Unfortunately fixing it would need representatives from both parties who are more loyal to their country than to their party.
Lay down your souls to the gods of rock 'n' roll: Conspiracy theorists' 5G 'vaccine' chip schematic is actually for a guitar pedal
Tuesday 5th January 2021 13:29 GMT 
Molten guitar leads
Just don't look at his face: Gary Moore's last live performance of Parisienne Walkways
Dutch officials say Donald Trump really did protect his Twitter account with MAGA2020! password
Thursday 17th December 2020 09:31 GMT
Passive aggressive?
A Twitter spokesperson said:
We proactively implemented account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the United States, including federal branches of government.
(Emphasis added)
Trump famously uses his personal Twitter account instead of the official US presidential one. Is this Twitter sort of sticking to their own rules and "accidentally" not securing a personal account?
Also, I find it hard to believe that he previously used yourefired. Although I would have no trouble with yourfired ;-)
As UK breaks away from Europe, Facebook tells Brits: You'll all be Californians soon
Wednesday 16th December 2020 14:35 GMT
Re: privacy, what privacy?
From The Fine Article:
And the “UK GDPR” part? Well, let’s see just how G and P that is once Britain tries to get a bilateral trade agreement with America and has to start putting things on the table.
All part of the wonderful world of being in sole charge of our own destiny, taking our rightful place on the world stage, etc.
We take a look at proposed Big Tech regulations in the UK: Heavy on possible fines, light on enforcement
Asus ROG Phone 3: An ugly but refreshing choice – for gaming fans only
Monday 14th December 2020 12:51 GMT
Re: No page up/page down
What I get from this is that if something isn't a problem for you, it couldn't possibly be a problem for anyone else.
PageUp and the rest are standard keys, which some people use frequently even if you don't. I'm sure you can map (for example) Fn+Up to PageUp but that's just not as convenient as having a dedicated key.
Maybe gamers don't use PageDown et al. and so Asus decided to drop them from a dedicated games machine in order to make the arrow keys bigger (or something). I could at least understand that rationale, but if you're used to using those keys and they're not there I can also understand that it would be rather annoying.
I don't understand what bearing the screen size has on the issue. Many moons ago I had a Lenovo X200 for work, which had a 12" screen and a full keyboard, also one of the best laptop keyboards I've ever used.
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there
Chuck Yeager, sound barrier pioneer pilot, dies at 97
Wednesday 9th December 2020 17:17 GMT
Re: Citation needed
Having read the section on the NF104 I heartily agree that it is not a fan website, but a fascinating resource on that aircraft.
The rest of the web site seems pretty random, and I can find no mention of anyone called Kalimera, or anyone other than Chuck Yeager being the first to break the sound barrier. Google has no relevant hits for "kalimera sound barrier" and nor does Bing. Can you provide a direct link to the page?
Tuesday 8th December 2020 14:57 GMT
Citation needed
I'm afraid I'll need more than a fan website to convince me that some unknown was the first to do X.
There are quite a few claims to have broken the "sound barrier" in diving aircraft prior to Chuck Yeager's flight, but none of the aircraft at the time had the power and/or aerodynamics to do it in level flight, which is why "in level flight" is a big deal.
A few of the X-planes (the X is for eXperimental) have been rocket powered, as they were designed for specific purposes which only required high speed for a short length of time.
Trumpian politics continue as senators advance controversial Republican FCC commissioner nominee
Thursday 3rd December 2020 09:12 GMT
Re: what's going on?
What's going on is that Trump has lost what was left of his tiny mind. Section 230 protects web site owners from liability for what third parties post. Unless he's playing a deeper game than anyone gives him credit for, Trump seems to think that without Section 230 Twitter et al. will be forced to let him post whatever he wants. The rest of the world thinks that without Section 230 Twitter et al. will ban his accounts in a heartbeat rather than be liable for the content of his posts.
The whole censorship argument is a complete red herring.
Censorship is what happens when the government prevents citizens from saying something. What is actually happening is that Trump has been posting garbage to Twitter's privately owned web site, using his private account, having accepted their terms and conditions about what is acceptable there. Furthermore, Twitter hasn't prevented him from saying anything, but they've added tags to his tweets when he says something "controversial" (i.e. lies).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
