* Posts by Zippy's Sausage Factory

766 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Mar 2008

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Top Ten Retro PC Games

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Happy

Dungeon Keeper?

My partner is still playing it, even after 10 years... I've even learned how to write new levels and have constructed 75 (so far) for her to play. And no matter how hard I make them, she's never defeated! (Just don't play her at multiplayer, she ALWAYS wins!)

Microsoft secretly yanks TechNet product keys

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Gates Horns

Can you spell "class action"?

Surely if the product keys were part of the conditions of the Technet licence when it was purchased, changing the number of keys means changing the product. Since the sale constitutes a contract, surely anyone who has already paid can sue M$ for breach of contract?

This sounds to me like a move that was - at best - ill thought out, and at worst, disastrously brain-damaged, if not actually criminal in many legislations.

Silly, silly Microsoft. This is one that they might be likely to end up regretting...

Karmic Koala RC drops into the wild

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Thumb Up

Karmic's great

Not so sure it's such an order of magnitude of improvement over Jaunty, but it does improve quite a few things greatly. The lack of a kde-based grub editor was a a bit of a shock, however, and the change to grub 2 is scary, especially as the configuration files have changed.

On the up side, my webcam now works, even if the microphone doesn't (Skype is, therefore, still text only for me unless I reboot into XP).

I started with the beta and have just been using the distribution upgrade, something I've had trouble with in the past... it's been working fine every time I've used it since a reinstall.

I still keep XP about for some apps I can't run under Linux yet, but I find that for general usage - Internet, word processing, games, more or less everything really - that I tend to boot into kubuntu because of its speed. I re-ghosted back to XP because Vista felt so slow, even with 4GB of RAM installed... and even the Windows 7 release candidate feels sluggish and bloated compared to karmic.

Google Native Client challenges Microsoft and Adobe RIAs

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Dead Vulture

I don't like Flash or Silverblight

So the thought of a Google competitor just annoys me even more...

That said this looks more intelligent and better thought out than either.

The Reg-sponsored gravestone goes to Flash and Silverblight. RIP. You won't be missed.

Exam board to hear appeal over format cockup

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Linux

So...

...under current government policy schools have been required to use OpenDocument formats since 2005, yet EdExcel still accepts MS Office? Deep fail, me thinks...

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20051026195537674

Entire class fails IT exam by submitting in Word format

Zippy's Sausage Factory

UK schools required to use ODT

Since 2005: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20051026195537674

(Sorry, forgot to post this on my previous comment)

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Linux

UK schools have been required to use OpenDocument since 2007

It was a requirement from BECTA in 2007 - they're not even allowed to buy Office anymore. OGC will probably be coming down on that school like a ton of bricks, methings...

Who's got more cash? Apple or Microsoft?

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Jobs Horns

Didn't....

...MS have a $55bn cash reserve not so long ago? Umm...

Stick health warnings on gays, says Stock Exchange chaplain

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Joke

Seems like he's missed the point of satire...

If what he's against is the "militant preaching of homosexuality", then why not try and satirise that instead of just being generally insulting? Of course, what I have against him is his militant preaching of Christianity, but that's another matter...... ;-)

Ballmer on banking crisis: No one is safe

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Unhappy

Including Microsoft?

I suspect this is likely to gear us up to expect an MS profit warning... no doubt the poor sales of VIsta will be blamed on the slowing economy in a Damascene moment: "Oh sorry, it wasn't because everybody hated it and nobody bought it, it's just the global financial meltdown. So that's all right then, isn't it?"

German developers forge Iron from Chrome

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Pirate

Market share? Maybe more than you think

Iron seems to be all over teh Intarweb already. Download Squad, Incomplete News - hell even I've blogged about it already and my blog is more or less only updated when there's a blue moon!

Skull and crossbones to cheer myself up for missing Talk Like A Pirate Day :-)

Brits happy to hand over password details for £5 gift voucher

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Paris Hilton

But how many passwords actually worked?

Honestly, it's completely worthless Symantec PR. Even Paris would no doubt give them a fake password, and surely they must realise that. What's actually strange is that 40% of people didn't bite and tell them a phony password. Here they can have my password - it's IJustMadeThisUpAndItWon'tWorkOnAnyOfMyAccountsOrFiles. Can I have my £5 M&S voucher then please?

Microsoft Silverlight: 10 reasons to love it, 10 reasons to hate it

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Pirate

That looks to me like

10 good reasons not to use Silverlight, and 10 flimsy ones to use it. 4mb download? Flash is half that...

My favourite reason applies to both: Flash is horrid and should die. Same is true of Silverblight.

Microsoft and HP tackle SQL-injection scourge

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Paris Hilton

As usual MS

are entirely blaming ASP and saying "everyone should switch to ASP.Net", though even they must realise that exactly the same thing can happen with any web technology.

It's fairly easy to check. If there's a semicolon somewhere in the query string, even encoded with a % sign, stop the request and send out a big "you are a hacker go away" message.

Problem is that most of the sites that are getting attacked were written before these SQL injection attacks were around - so naturally those sites aren't protected against it. Most people are clued up now, and the fact that ASP.Net appears more secure is simply that the coding practice is now well known and new sites are built with SQL injection in mind - nothing to do with ASP.Net being "better" or "more secure". Surely even Paris Hilton could see that?

Maven and Eclipse strive for Visual Studio 'power'

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Dead Vulture

Cold Fusion Studio

Anyone remember it? Adobe killed it when they bought Macromedia because it competed with their (inferior, IMO) DreamWeaver. Personally I have switched to using Visual Studio since then. It's not as good as CF Studio, but the price is right. CF Studio never interfered with your code, it had a reasonable interface, good syntax highlighting (which was extensible), and it was fast. Unlike the .Net bloatware that is VS 2005. VS 2008 doesn't even support classic ASP any more - even though classic ASP is still set for another 5 years of life thanks to support in Windows 7. But apparently they'll put the support back in service pack 1, so that's all right then isn't it? (Eejits...)

Why I downgraded from Vista to XP

Zippy's Sausage Factory
Dead Vulture

Fine with Vista on a lower spec than that

But then I suppose it's because I don't really use so much bloatware. OK, so I use Visual Studio 2005, but I don't use Office 2007 (I still keep Access 97 around) but I stick to OpenOffice.org. I don't use Photoshop, I use GIMP.

In fact, the only problem I have is the change in DirectX which means I can't run Carmageddon 2 any more. Which of course means I do more productive things like commenting on stories on The Register. Or playing Unreal Tournament instead.

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