Posts by jzl 400 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2015
Buffer overflows are *the* reason why use of C or C++ for anything remotely security-sensitive should be punished by whipping.
And yes, I know that "correct" use of safe strings mitigates it. But that approach relies on programmers always doing the right thing. Which, as human beings, they are unlikely to do.
I don't see how anything you've said here doesn't apply to an external USB battery pack. With the added advantage that you can recharge a USB battery pack directly, and you don't need to shut down the phone to plug the thing in.
Come back when you've spent a few months in 2015.
iPhones come in a range of storage options. I have the 128Gb one and have never felt the need for an SD card. Besides, the way the Apple OS abstracts away all filing system details (simultaneously one of its most annoying features for power users, and one of the biggest reasons for its simplicity of use) would mean that an SD card would necessarily make the phone much more complex to operate.
As for the non-removable battery, seriously? Who carries a spare battery these days? I'm sure some people do, but I can't believe it's more than a handful.
USB external battery chargers are ten a penny, and much more convenient as they can be charged directly and don't require fiddling.
Again, I'll repeat my comment about music streaming services. They've moved on *massively* in the last year or two. If you think you need a lot of storage for all "your" music, try a trial subscription to one of the streaming services. Apple Music or Spotify or whatever. You'll be shocked at how far the state of the art has come.
It is a bad thing, in a sense. Until Google realise that non-techie ease of use is a worthy goal, Apple will rule the profitability roost.
Let's face it, most Android buyers (not the tech-savvy Reg-reading bunch) are buying an Android because they can't afford an iPhone. Like it or not, that's the truth of the situation as it is now.
I love the way guys like that try to get back "at Natwest" for an error made by an employee. It's as if they think Natwest is an actual person with feelings which can be offended. It's not. It's a company, and a big one at that.
His actions simply gave some Natwest branch employees a day of excitement to remember. They all still got paid.
The whole episode is probably recorded somewhere in a Natwest profit and loss ledger under "incidental expenses", and that's the extent of the effect of his protest.
My office at a large corporation a few years back was invaded by protesters. We all just thought it was funny and a light diversion from the day's work.
It's a virtualisation platform. Different.
Windows hasn't needed to run on an emulator on a Mac since Apple switched to Intel CPUs.
An emulator reproduces a computer architecture in software, virtualisation provides an isolated address space and resource management for an operating system running natively on the hardware.
Linux on the desktop has a market share that basically renders it irrelevant. And despite Microsoft's best efforts to mess everything up, that continues. It's partly because - whatever you say - the experience is too damned fiddly.
Linux on the desktop would be better if it just came out and admitted that it's by geeks, for geeks, and didn't try to be all things to all people. It's not like that's a bad thing.
Not everyone - Reg readers aside, obviously - is interested in computers. Most people use them when they have to, but don't care about them, don't understand them, and don't want to spend any more time than they have to with them.
For those people, the start menu change is a real pain and an application which restores it is a good idea. As long as that application is installed by their techie friend or family member, obviously. They'd never do it themselves.
Subtle Linux trolling? Maybe some people have software that won't run on Linux. Like most large enterprises, for instance.
Maybe some other people realise that putting most genuinely non-technical users in front of Linux is a recipe for pain, misery, tears and hours - hours - on the phone trying to sort them out. For what? Geek props?
The Apple watch does have a microphone and a speaker. It also has a jog wheel on the side specifically for choosing things without obscuring the screen. And, while not "waterproof" (what does that actually mean?), it is resistant to IPX7. So you can wear it in the rain, while washing your hands, etc., with no problem.
Battery life on something like that is always going to be measured in days with current battery technology and the drain would be too much for a self-winding mechanism, but at least it's reasonably easy to charge.
(I don't have one. Can't see the point for me - I don't like wearing watches much, would lose it, and am already probably too well connected as it is)
Maybe they're just running their data centre warm? After all, 40 degrees Celsius is uncomfortable for a human but fine for electronics.
As long as they're dumping excess heat from the place as fast as they're producing it and keeping the temperature steady, it doesn't matter too much if that steady temperature is a little high. The challenge is that warm air doesn't have the cooling ability of cold air, so they'd have to pump more of it through and would have to be very careful about making sure the cooling was even.
It's great news that Facebook are effectively part funding a new wind farm. That's a whole load of good publicity for renewable energy at a time when it's weirdly trendy to deny global warming, at least among non-scientists.
But on a pedantic, nit-picking and trivial level, I don't see how they can say the data centre is powered by renewable energy. Electricity is fungible and they are connected to a grid containing other producers and consumers.
I've spent my entire (reasonably long) technology career in the financial sector and have yet to see an application being ported to *nix due to an expired Windows support lifecycle. The costs of porting or re-writing most enterprise applications are enormous and aren't undertaken lightly.
When an application reaches its natural end-of-life and is no longer fit for purpose its replacement might well be built on *nix (but then again, it might not).
But porting an application to a new architecture without a business justification? It may happen, but I haven't seen it. In every case, the solution has been to shift the application onto a more recent Windows platform.
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