Posts by Tony Paulazzo

Actually

My view on street view has changed. I was contacted by a company asserting I'd agreed to place an ad with them. After checking them out I got the impression they were a semi legit scam company. So I checked out their address in Street view to find a building that lets out offices on flexible and temporary arrangements, (sign in the window with a legible phone number). So that, along with advice from consumer direct and various forums, saved me £250.

If you want to opt out of Google:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/google_opt_out_feature_lets_users

Wow

That advert should be banned immediately on the principles it might engage the interest of a peado, and it's awful, just god-awful. PR execs get to live in big houses and drive nice cars coming up with this drivel? no wonder the world's fsck'd.

Also, I'm no expert, but if she's like any of my nieces the background music would be Christine or Pink or Justin - which is what their (gack!) iPods are filled with.

Saint Bill because MS are dying without him.

What Ballmer needs to do: Sack the advertising agency responsible for that, have an extra install page that stresses the importance of basic user accounts, slim down IE8, allow addins (just found adblock for IE8 which helps), ensure Media Player can synch happily with iPod, sell a family 3PC license in the UK for £99 for Win7, buy out AVG or Avast (pref Bitdefender or Eset) or someone and build it into the core OS (so that the first ms you see isn't that your system is under threat) and beef up their firewall, and finally, sell one version of the OS - if you need bitlocker you can buy it as DLC, but backups should be for every system.

IMHO of course.

So what you're saying

>A third update fixed four vulnerabilities in QuickTime, some of which allowed attackers to hijack a machine by tricking users into opening specially manipulated H.264 and MPEG-4 files.<

Is if I opened that video of a dog pooping on a baby in HiDef or quicktime (file ending in .mkv or .qt?), my system ends up being pwned? - where it just used to be .exe that could infect your machine, now videos (and mp3s, jpgs etc) can do it.

Or did I totally misunderstand that paragraph - it's possible, I feel myself getting stupider by the day.

Still, I guess it works for the copyright mafia, 'Don't download anything, it could be infected, flash adverts, p2p, dodgy web page scripts. B afrayed, b veri afrayed.'

but no feature creep

>...filter would only block illegal content such as "imagery of child sexual abuse, rape and bestiality<

Didn't it just start with child abuse, now it includes S&M and bestiality (I'm assuming rape over the internet means fake non consensual sex vids n pics - unless their internet is far more advanced than ours).

And dentists obviously - sick bastards. My last visit definitely included oral rape.

In America

I believe, each ATM has a working camera that by law has to record the transaction, something to do with being resposible for the customer using their ATM. No such requirement over here, so no working camera - years ago I used to do software upgrades on the new ATMs, an NCR engineer was telling us why the camera space was there.

Perhaps the EU should be urging the banks to tighten up their security if there are so many holes in it.

As for watching out for tampered with machines, sometimes you cannot tell, the fixture looks like part of the machine.

Funny, isn't it, after the near collapse of western civilasation when our masters had to give them a load more of our money, how nothing changed.

So

She's locked out of Facebook, but her husband isn't, couldn't he somehow warn Facebook to temporarily freeze her account and look into it. And how did an international criminal gang get her details whilst she was on holiday? (and by international criminal gang I mean bunch of kids watching her type her details in over her shoulder - going into her account and changing the password).

Maybe Facebook should have a big red button on their sign-in page, saying, 'help, cannot sign in, something is wrong with my account' which could alert them to any shady goings on.

And I'm pretty sure any legal entity in the UK, be it police or customs, wouldn't ask for money to be wired via Western Union, maybe if she was in Botswana or Australia or somewhere. /jk

I will buy one

when they cost £75 and can read any literary format, inc. lit, pdf, doc, cbr, htm etc...

Meh

Was going to comment earlier, but wanted to find out more about the story, it just seems utterly sad, and a waste of a young life - and whilst Lori Drew might be a manipulative conniving bitch, was she evil? her daughter and another girl (18) were also involved. It's easy to toss the word around...

Gotten from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier so face value really.

>From the third grade Megan had been under the care of a psychiatrist. She had been prescribed Citalopram, Methylphenidate and Ziprasidone.[15] She had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and depression and considered herself overweight.<

Basically, an antidepressant, Ritalin and an antipsychotic for four years (3rd to seventh grade? don't know American years) and possibly neighbours would be unaware of her emotional state, it's not really something you discuss over a BBQ.

>Jack Banas, the prosecuting attorney of St. Charles County, said that Lori Drew's 18-year-old temporary employee, Ashley Grills, wrote most of the messages addressed to Meier and that she wrote the final "Josh Evans" message addressed to Meier.<

Final message from a fictitious 16 year old boy she had never met or even spoken to...

>"Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you." Meier responded with a message reading “You’re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.”<

And I've seen messages on this very board opining that certain people should go die (usually between Macs and Wintards comments), so, before you throw the first stone etc etc etc...

William S. Burroughs

said it best...

'Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. '

'How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity. '

and the truest one...

'Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside. '

As for the article, who's buying what? Who is the money (if there is any), going to? Since the Swedish courts have pretty much deemed TPB illegal (prison sentence and large fines to the four -owners? founders?), wouldn't any money be seized by the state (that entity that always knows best), and given to the entertainment industry who have lost so much </heavy irony>?

One more Burroughs: Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. (junk: heroin, or the homogenised crap they package and resell over and over and over again).

Fascinating!

>...Microsoft said pricing, upgrades, and the planned Family Pack would all be made available in EU countries...

...customers in the UK ... can place pre-orders... in June of £79.99.<

Yet the family pack will be selling in USA for $149, no idea of exchange rates, but say, £110? so for £30 you can get another two upgrade installs of Win7 Home Premium. Some people scored the preorder for £45 off Amazon (strictly number limited offer of course).

From ZDNet: The standard retail pricing for Windows 7 will be £149.99 for Home Premium, £219.99 for Professional and £229.99 for Ultimate.

These numbers strike me as being plucked from thin air. Instead of taking them to task for having a stupid browser in their OS (exactly like Ubuntu and Mac does), perhaps the EU should have gouged them for price fixing.

And that extra £80 for the ultimate edition will give you:

Recover your data easily with automatic backup, BitLocker and Multilingual User Interface, seamlessly jumping among 35 supported languages.

Or, you know, Truecrypt and any number of freely available backup utilities out there - and why is backing up not a necessity for home users? Inquiring minds want to know.

So,

how do you know if you're addicted? I've not robbed a granny to maintain my habit, but I do have broadband at home and the office, and the 'net has become my secondary nature - for research, fun and shopping. I don't do online gaming, am on Facebook (been to the site twice this last couple of months), don't Twitter, don't internet thru my phone.

Whilst round at friends houses I don't whip out my laptop and logon to their wireless (unless for a pressing reason - waiting for email, win on Ebay, comment on El Reg, etc), but... when the 'net goes down, I do feel a sense of loss.

But maybe there is a silver lining, as the 'net gets twisted and bent into a global shopping mecca, with constant tracking and spying and attempts at cashifying, something smaller and more cliquey will appear that I can get into, where the acquisition of easy money isn't the driving force.

Sorry, don't know what that's got to do with internet addiction, but what the hey...

If I get this right

you're saying that pirates are saving the planet? Wonder if that would work in a court of law?

@ VoodooTrucker

Cheers for the info. Synchronicity being what it is, maybe the thing just died when I switched over. I'm pretty sure it was just out of warranty. This place really needs a forum, 'cause half the time I'm more focussed on the comments.

Really

no public sex ed for the kids. How will they learn about sexting? The Australian government are making the English government look fucking progressive, not repressive - national firewall, three strikes and out policy, no mention of real world drugs in computer games (no 18 cert for games at all). God speed to ASP, get the word out. It's time for the proles to rise up...

Only instant, merciless violence can save humanity

Great paper, utterly wrong. Assuming it's a viral outbreak, we dispatch all the zombies (see how I survived there), the few survivors living in a crapped out world, most completely insane, and when you die, you have to be dispatched to stop the outbreak reoccurring. Assuming total success rate, how many people are going to be giving birth - if the baby does go to full term, new zombie outbreak.

Final result, death of humanity within a couple of decades.

Assuming no crossover to the animal population.

@ Ty somewhat & Apple fans in general

>People like you exist so that Scientologists can be better than you.<

Fixed!

So Apple fans, can you tell us mere mortals, when Xenu comes from the fifth parralel will he rid the Earth of all M$ (did you see what I did there?) tards, lying politicians and other annoying (ie, poor) people?

Yea, I know, sometimes you just gotta poke that hornets nest :-)

@ Eddie Johnson

Yea, stupid 16 year old, lied to and seduced by men 30 years his senior into signing a contract that promised the earth but simply filled their grade A cocaine bowls. As in, 'Sign here if you want your message to be heard. Yes of course this twenty five page, finely printed contract is fair, and no, no lawyer (which you couldn't afford anyway at £60 an hour), can read it. Here have a line that'll make things so much clearer - of course the one after will cost you dear.'

/irony

What now?

I think senility may have taken over but this is what I read:

Google have finally almost created the singularity AI with its distributed net node of PC atoms, a force of will to bend it to their requirements, a hollowed out asteroid in parking orbit above the Earth is where they house this thing and if we piss off Google or their master (the MCP natch?), they'll start flinging rocks at Earths surface.

Or.. you know, I need more sleep. I'm with the Man from Mars on this one.

@ AC

>You are correct...in a way...<

The sex offenders registry has become an abomination. The only people on it should be those found guilty in a court of law who sexually force themselves on another human being (and where children are concerned, coercion / temptation can be seen as force).

Peeing in public, consensual underage sex (where the recipients are within a couple of years age of each other - and hopefully above 14 or so or I'd say they have deeper issues), sexual pestering etc (which might be annoying, but can be ignored), should not.

Unfortunately, the powers that be, whoever created this culture of fear, need hot button topics to continue the control, fear of dark terrorists, fear of shadowy predators, fear of the hooded gangs hanging around the bustop...

Alternatives: a culture of learning (no more Big Brother (as in Channel 4 tv show) and dumbing down of the national curriculum), communities, openness (which means from the top politicians, bankers, all the way down), open dialogue and sharing resources globally...

Sorry, rambling now - Alien as maybe Xenu can show us the way /joke

@ Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”

Wow, might have to check that out - also: Franz Kafka - The Trial, totally worth reading

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial

PPP (Proud Privacy Pirate).

Too

little, too late, too expensive. Can you buy blockbusters on video now? no - DVD killed video, superior playback almost instant search, no stretched tape etc, but DVD's aren't going anywhere, unless BD becomes cheaper than DVD.

Most of my friends with HDTVs are still plugging in via scart rather than the C M Yk(?) cables 'cause it's easier, and tho they received 5.1 speakers they're either not plugged in, or placed really badly and never turned on, and only one has any HiDef TV via Sky, and she's not impressed with the offering. One mate, with a x360 and HDTV (both with HDMI), plugs it in via scart because Curries had their HDMI cables (in fancy packaging it must be admitted) for £27.99 (vacuum packed and gold plated natch), and whilst I told him to get one of Ebay he just can't be bothered.

And if you bought an HDReady TV (like me, 32in), it's only 720p, 1080i, so you won't get the very best that Bluray can offer anyway, 1080p.

First

There was nothing - then it exploded... paraphrased Pratchet.

@ John Square

No, I'm not saying the Tocco is an iPhone beater, just that the iPhone forced the other mobiles to follow suit and offer touch screen phones, even if it's not as good, they will get better, it does everything I want a mobile phone to do (I don't need to zoom in on pictures on a 3in screen or edit documents on the go). As for my preference (I love my Tocco), that's simply because I wouldn't buy an Apple product (religious wars yea, logic out the window).

If the iPad (or whatever), becomes popular, then the market should follow suit, offering Win7 (+ software I'm comfortable using, ie not iTunes or slowtime) versions at lower prices - will they be better than the Apple version? IMHO yes, because they're not made by Apple (see religious wars above).

So, if I was trolling... yay, my first troll on t'internet.

Can't wait...

Alien - great

Aliens - great

Alien3 - not so great but the alternative version was better

Alien R - I don't get the hate, the hybrid was awful awful awful and should never have been written in, but I loved the characters, not one hero in the entire movie (wow movie is not in the Firefox dictionary - wtf!), but sigourney as part alien (why doesn't the acid blood burn thru her skin?), that shoplifter actress as a robot with a heart, Hellboy as ugly guy with heart, guy in wheelchair with speech impediment as guy in wheelchair with speech impediment with a heart, heartless scientist guy who gets his comeuppance in the end by annoying citizen with alien baby - probably with a heart... yea ok, maybe I get it, but the CGI aliens were awesome! (can you tell I'm bored at work?).

AVP - black chick who climbs mountain gets a free pass from me, and at least they tried to tell a story, even if it was popcorn bad.

AVPR - bad actors, no story, cheap looking and awful lighting (awesomely awful - it's been a while, but do you ever get a clear view of the predalien?). Surely, when you go to movie making school this must be held up as how not to create a film.

Having said all that, I own all 5 DVDs, will watch AVP3 and the new Ridley movie, what can I say, I love me some aliens.

Simple solution

Childrens camps. They can be looked after by properly vetted professionals, they wouldn't need phones or (personal) computers. A healthy lifestyle of excercise, lessons and living with their peers 24/7, and at 16 they would come out perfect little citizens with RFID tags placed in their brains - just in case.

The upshot for us adults, no undesirable groups of hooded teens hanging around bus stations, no worries about inadvertently looking at a child in the wrong way, and no censorship of the internet.

It's win win.

US centric news

Because, of course, here in the UK, the family pack has been delayed to...whenever (because it's the full E version, natch), with no price point set, whilst, on Amazon at least, the cheap pre order price has risen to £69.93.

And of course, no favours to those burned on Vista.

I really don't understand their war with Apple, or even linux. The market shares are tiny and aimed at different segments; Linux for the problem solvers who love writing web pages on how to get sound working thru' Ubuntu, and Apple for the upwardly mobile who favour style over... heh, not going there, who just want to get their job done (or, you know, play Sims3).

MS sell to the hardware, PCWorld and Walmart crowd with 90%(?) market share. Yea, they maybe lost to the iPod thing, but they got the X360 crowd.

RSS feeds

I get an RSS feed from the guardian daily to my Outlook and would be more than happy to pay a (reasonable) monthly fee, for this, plus maybe some kind of privileged access to their website - a comments section only for members say, or a forum. Make it voluntary and I think more people would pay than you expect (the royal you, not specifically aimed at anyone).

I'm sometimes a freetard, but I always support those I deem worthy - The Guardian, El Reg, Tech Dirt etc. I fully agree that those who create stuff, either creatively or as part of their job need to eat etc, but I also think, the DRM/rights police have gone too far into the draconian sphere to be healthy.

Three installs of a game you paid £40 for to kill the second hand market (nothing to do with pirates that one), Ebooks that can be remotely deleted on a whim (I know it's more complicated than that, but these books were - by any meaningful interpretation of the law, out of copyright), putting your news business on the web, then complaining because the web works thru links and copy pasting (like it was designed to)...

Title 23

>hackers may be able to change the ECID, which in turn can enable phone calls to be made anonymously (this would be desirable to drug dealers<

and, you know, those damn pesky privacy pirates.

lhc

>I wish these guys would just get on with destroying the earth. All these delays are becoming tedious.<

Brilliant!

>My list of 'first against wall when revolution comes' is getting large. Might need a bigger wall.<

Might I suggest the LHC, the wall is 17 miles long, apparently.

Warning, Discovery channel level science, so a few 'facts' might not be. Is any one else worried that these brain boxes who are going to be smashing particles at each other at the speed of light (or whatever), couldn't even design the 'gun' correctly?

@ Norfolk Enchants Paris

Google are always watching!

1984 vs 2009

Constant war with Eurasia (afghanistan, Iraq), check.

Invasive surveillance of its citizens, check

two way TV to watch you in your home, deep packet inspection via internet (the new TV), check

Newspeak txtspk lolcats bbq!1 wat u doing? chck

Revision of history, chocolate rations increased, not quite there yet, but with the temporary reality that the 'net gives us, not too far away now

Getting children to report their parents for aberrant behaviour - fearing children, check

Proles (proletariat), unable to effect any part of their lives, check

Fear and anxiety and distrust over police state, double plus good - check

Illegal to fall in love and a big brother figurehead is the only thing wrong in this prophetic warning

@ anon from mars

>that the writer's rights were successfully protected thanks to technology<

This particular writer has been dead since Jan 1950, so I doubt he cares, also, the copyright had finished, so, if anything, Amazon should of let its customers have those titles for free, not charge them - as you can do so here, legally...

http://www.planetebook.com/1984.asp

except, of course, you can't read PDFs on the Kindle, it is totally proprietary.

Epic Fail!

@ Ben Bradley

Thanks for the Foxit pointer. Installed and running by the time it took to finish the comments. Word to the wise, manual install, unless you want Ebay links, a new toolbar and quick launch / desktop icons. Why (oh why) can't programs just install themselves anymore?

I've now got quicktime alt and realvideo alt for the extremely rare times they are required. In fact, like all Apple software, I would've sacked Adobe software, but I grew up with Dreamweaver.

A virtual beer for you :-)

What a good idea

Also, only be able to deliver things to payees address. laser etched photo and signature on each card issued, record IP addresses whenever transactions occur (none are infallible I know, but every little helps).

And customer tell their banks if they're going overseas, when and where, so if money is withdrawn outside of the UK, the banks will know if it's legitimate.

Also, if the bank is suspicious of a transaction, they phone or text the customer to query it (who hasn't got a mobile?), and wait for confirmation. These services could be opt in with promises that identity theft and money loss would be swallowed by the bank if you do so.

As to the cost to the bank, well sorry, but they seem to be swimming in billions, they can afford it.

Does this mean

a million lemmings can't be wrong?

Backups?

From Google:

The files are in a standard format (mobipocket with the extension changed to azw). They do have Amazon DRM on them, but you can still back them up over the USB connection.

You can of course also break the DRM; the program to do that is here: REMOVED

Mantra to my customers, 'backup, backup, backup!'

But yea, thanks to this story, I'm no longer waiting for the Kindle to arrive in the UK.