Posts by Doctor Syntax

"But why? If to make this system work you need the bulk of a wireless keyboard and mouse, you might as well carry a stick-shaped Linux computer."

Different use cases I suppose:

1. Keep the big peripherals at home and use the phone as a phone elsewhere.

2. Carry a keyboard & mouse in luggage. Trade-off keyboard size vs convenience* to personal taste.

3. Hot desking - a keyboard, mouse & monitor will be available in a remote office & carrying a phone is more convenient than a laptop.

There are probably takers for each of these. You might not be one of them, it doesn't mean everyone has to follow you.

*I used to have a Nokia Communicator, a clamshell tending to the size & weight of a brick. The keyboard was quite tichy and so was the 80x24 screen but back then you could get away with hanging a modem off the back of a computer so I did remote admin with that with no real problems. Eventually I replaced it with the next generation wich was smaller - big mistake. But for some reason I can't really get along with on-screen keyboards, even on a tablet.

"http://www.ubuntu.com/phone"

They list 4 models. One's pre-order, one's out of stock according to that page, one's in stock according to the top page but out of stock if you click how to buy. You can buy one model. If I were in the market for a smart phone I might be tempted.

Re: IIRC, Canonical...

"Of course PC users hated Unity with strong hatred, just as PC users hated Win 8."

The difference being, of course, that with Ubuntu the user had the option to swap to a different UI such as KDE or XFCE.

Re: "Low-end == 2 Gb"

Except that in reality much as we developers might whinge the truth is that for most companies time and cost of getting a permanent beta to market are most important.

FTFY

"UIs are important."

Quite. The best approach seems to be that undocked you have a phone interface, docked you have a desktop interface. One of the things about Unix-based systems is that the UI is an additional layer on top of most of the rest of the system and the interface between the layers is clean enough to swap UIs as needed. Of course if you then try to run an application that needs the desktop interface when undocked you're in a hole of your own digging.

Having said that Ubuntu decided that what they really needed was an app-centric interface on the desktop to prepare the way for use on the phone and got it out even ahead of W8. I don't think it's proved as popular as the more traditional desktops.

Re: attack surface

"This looks like it's going to be a security nightmare."

That was my thought. The apps that demand access to all sorts of details they don't need are then going to expect access to all the stuff on the Linux side.

Re: Getting soft in me old age?

"Mr G is allowed to have his opinion?"

Of course he is. And we're allowed our opinions about his, mostly our opinions vary between "he's talking bollocks" and "he's out to damage someone he still sees as a competitor".

Re: Windows 10

@ Semtex451

Don't forget what's not in this week could be in next week and you won't be able to say no. Go & read the T&Cs for yourself. Don't take anyone's word but Microsoft's for what they allow themselves, or rather what you agree to allow them. But read carefully. Note what's not there in terms of restrictions.

@ Lee D

Go and read the M/S T&Cs. Look for anything that limits what they can grab under your agreement with them. It looks reasonable that they'd need your login credentials with themselves. But do they restrict themselves to saving those or do they include the right to capture anything else such as your bank login creds, your Amazon creds, your eBay creds....? Last time I looked there was no limit to what you'd have to agree to. Same thing about transactions: it's reasonable they'd keep their transactions with you but the language doesn't limit them to that. If they capture all you bank transactions, there'd be no problem because you'd agreed to that as well.

Re: Right v. Wrong

"This is not a criminal trial regarding the presumption of innocence. This is a case about justice and duty of the citizens."

Quite so. The FBI are not looking for evidence to prosecute the phone's user. They're going on a fishing expedition and they want to set a precedent for having Apple help them so that the presumption of innocence can be breached in the future.

"In this case the court issued an order for assistance in carrying out a search warrant that nobody claims is not lawful. Whether it requires Apple to create something new might be something reasonable people could disagree about."

The place in which to settle those reasonable disagreements isn't going to be the court of first instance.

There's also the little matter of compensation. Not the compensation for doing the work but the much larger compensation for loss of reputation amongst potential customers.

Re: This is despicable.

"There might be a case somewhere, but it is not here."

The case is setting a precedent to order a manufacturer to breach the security it has built into its own product.

We have a peculiar situation in that a commercial company is more trusted than its government. This is a very unusual and alarming situation. The government needs to rebuild trust. In the longer term backing off here in order to contribute to that might be a wiser choice than the one it's taking.

Re: This is despicable.

'ask yourself where the "evil" lies in this case'

Two wrongs not making a right is a valid option in this case.

"There appears to be no limitations on the particular request as to whether the person is alive or dead"

This isn't an unmixed curse. At least it removes the incentive to ensure the phone user isn't a live suspect.

Re: The reason I block ads

"Trouble is, unobtrusive ads don't get noticed and thus get ignored and are, to the ad men, wasted."

That's not really a problem to the actual advertisers. If they're not noticed they don't lose potential customers in the same way that a flashy, jumpy, autoplaying ad sticking it's fingers into the user's ears and eyeballs would.

Re: Ads becoming a self-propogating virus.

"TV ads are time-aligned so you can't escape them by changing the channel."

The solution to that is MythTV & fast forward.

"Last I checked, it's still a human right to not have to provide services for others for free."

Nailed it! At present the device owners are having to provide a service (bandwidth) for others (advertisers) for free. So as you agree, users have a human right to see that ended.

If the advertisers were paying for the bandwidth they're using to piss off potential customers it might be a little different.

Re: Hahahahahahaha

"Does that taste better?"

If the advertising becomes content (and it frequently is anyway) then the site becomes solely responsible for it. If they start including malware in their content then they're going to have to face the legal consequences - such as paying the ransoms for a few thousand borked computers. So they're going to have to be a good deal more careful about where the content comes from and what it actually contains.

Re: External advisors

"Destruction of shareholder value on this scale over this period of time should be considered criminal incompetence."

The shareholders employ the board. If they don't rock up to the AGMs & vote the directors off the board then they must be going along with what the board's doing. Ultimately the board & management are doing what the shareholders want, even if they only want it by default as it were.

"I'll pay you to take it away"

Are you sure you can afford that?

"started to type our own letters, which we were then obliged to send to the typing pool so they could retype them on their IBM Golfball typewriters before sending them back to us for signing."

I had the same experience writing witness statements. We called it getting typos inserted. Although given that there were four different types of stationery it would have been difficult to handle in the days of single tray lasers. The "word processor" was the USCD Pascal editor...

Re: The removed the post it notes from our office

"don't even think of looking at my Rotring pens"

On pain of getting one stuck into the back of the hand?

Re: As any fule kno...

That olsa happens to elReg pasts.

"It's almost like he was being sarcastic"

As if the fact that it was Dabsy wasn't a big enough hint.

"Interesting story on the Reg, given the Reg is the only website I visit semi-regularly that has pop-over ads, auto-playing video ads, noisy ads, etc."

Does it really? I'd never have guessed.

"Basically, Three want to be paid twice for the same thing, which is nice work if you can get it. If they want to make it fair, then lets see them ignore all ads when calculating data usage for mobile customers."

A scheme whereby the customer pays for the 2Kb of content and the advertiser pays for the 2Mb of advertising seems a reasonable scheme. And if the advertiser decides that that's too much they can either stop advertising altogether or devise simpler ads.

Re: Still slurping...

"Advertising in itself is not a bad thing, it's the clunky, abusive, and annoying way it's often done that puts people off."

A distinction without a difference.

Re: Conspiracy theory?

"I do recall that shortly after the shooting it was reported that the suspects had a huge store of weapons and ammunition in addition to those that they had on them"

In that case if the FBI don't have knowledge of such a store they should be concentrating on whoever made the reports. Or maybe it's just some reported making stuff up to fill a news slot and hoping to get lucky by being proved right if such a stash is found.

Re: Apple aims to be the Switzerland of data...

"Probably Cooks[sic] believe[sic] iPhone will see a sale boost in a market segment with deep pockets buyers - criminals."

Sigh. Could you try to exercise a little intelligent thought? One would hope that the criminal market is minuscule compared to the mass market and it's the mass market that's likely to suffer due to lack of confidence. If Apple gave in to the FBI I think there are very few people who'd think "Good for them, I'll buy an iThing." and in the meantime the free society you want to defend from terrorists crumbles a little more.

Re: Trust

@DougS

Ever heard the term "fool's paradise"?