Posts by Humph

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"... while Microsoft looks 10 years ahead"

Like they were doing when that Internet thing caught them wrong-footed a few years ago?

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Title: K[i]lling ID [C]ards and the NIR - the Tory and LibDem [P]lans

Page 2, Para. 1: "... as it was when my [R]ight [H]on. friend was shadow Home Secretary ..."

wtf?

"That prior to today, the previous Microsoft school agreement required every computer, whether it is a Mac or running Linux - still required a Windows license?"

And BECTArd just handed over the money?

The public sector, it seems, has much to learn about basic economics and/or haggling skills. One still wonders how it is possible to determine that giving a company money is in any way cheaper than not giving a company money.

Why on earth are we conditioning our children to a single vendor's proprietary systems, rather than exposing them to multiple systems? To whine about lack of qualified/trained staff is simply to reinforce the same problem. Why not train the kiddies this generation so they are in a position to capitalize on their knowledge when they enter the job market?

Oh silly me.

Clearly someone is either incredibly dumb, or being given an annual backhander the size of Wales. Can't imagine which one is more likely.

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"Consumers need firewall protection, Web protection, antispam and identity safeguards - these are among the essentials when it comes to security, and you can only get them through a full Internet security suite provided by security experts. "

I've been called round to look at people's machines after they've been "protected" with a paid-for McAfee or Symantec product, and nine times out of ten the punter just wants their computer working faster, not necessarily safer. All they want to be able to do is read emails from their kids and grandkids in something less than geological time. Install AVG Free and they're happy bunnies.

So based on my admittedly small-scale empirical evidence I'd opine most home Windows users would prefer a not-so-intrusive level of protection, rather than all-out fingers-in-every-pie protection.

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Okay, I may be missing something here, but:

Para. 2: "Microsoft's Public License (MS-PL) is used by 1.3 per cent of open-source projects"

Para. 3: "MS-PL is tenth in a list of licenses used by the community with [Mozilla Public License] coming ninth and used by 1.25 per cent of projects"

Like I say, I'm probably missing something, but surely 1.3 is not less than 1.25?

Typical Microsoft really

You use Outlook and its icon gets dumped into quick start bar whether you want it to or not. Outlook overwrites Thunderbird as default mail client whether you want it to or not. Someone other than Microsoft perform a similar "enhancement" and Microsoft cry foul?

This is my caring face. Looks remarkably like my couldn't give a damn face.

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Para. 12: ...define "Ubuntu" [a]s an African concept of "humanity towards others".

I was rather surprised

That Bing managed to return results for "Your arse both hands", as frankly I wasn't expecting it to be able to achieve that.

I wasn't so sure about the articles on anal insertion, prostate massage, fisting and so forth that really had nothing to do with the intent of my query. But at least the first two results were relevant.

In the interests of unpartizan opinionating I tried the same search using Google which returned four relevant results.

Which I guess "proves" either that Google is 100% better than Bing or that Bing is 50% crapper than Google.

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Para. 11: ... search box that likes to the search engine on the site itself.

Think that should say links not likes!

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I'm not sure these folks have understood what malware/spyware is designed to achieve. Quite how they expect to shut down criminal gangs in other jurisdictions is a mystery to me. Perhaps their master plan involves purchasing multitudinous copies of AntiVirus2009 in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of naive users?

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Personally I would prefer our educational establishments focus on teaching English, Mathematics and Science to the exclusion of "soft" subjects such as Media Studies. I remember examinations being *hard*, and having to apply knowledge I'd gained to work out the answer, not just pick an option from multiple choice. I certainly don't recall being trained for months on end to pass an ultimately artificial and meaningless test simply to satisfy some governmental concept of "quality control".

There was a time when teenagers were capable of stringing sentences together in order to express themselves coherently. These days, it seems, children are taught to "express themselves" vaguely using cliches, "like" and "you know", forcing the onus of comprehension onto the listener, rather than articulating their thoughts and feelings clearly and succinctly to the benefit of all enjoying a conversation.

Equally it seems, children get better marks in examinations for "having a go" than for providing clear, reasoned answers. Presumably taking part, and becoming at one with the herd, is far more important for children these days than striving to improve themselves as individuals.

Perhaps the responsibility for falling educational standards does lie directly at our beloved government's feet. After all, if our children were taught to reason rationally and logically, and taught to express themselves clearly we could be in the devastating position of having a generation of adults who would no longer believe the pseudo-scientific claims made in advertisements for so-called beauty products, who could see the vacuous television programming endemic in our country for the content-free drivel that it truly was, who would no longer accept the spin and disingenuous pronouncements of a corrupt administration, and would possess the necessary vocabulary and language skills needed to express their displeasure clearly and coherently.

What a terrible prospect that would be.

So scratch that. We need more pointless tests and more soft subjects. The less education our children receive during their time at school the better. Perhaps we should broaden History lessons to cover such important topics as Eastenders the early years?

Let's hope Acer

counter-sues these idiots for being, well, idiots.

You seem to be able to sue anyone for anything in the US, so surely such a case would have more merit than most lawsuits?

"Prof pooh-poohed in pig-v-whale hippo genealogy brouhaha"

Best. Title. Evar!

Thank you for some much needed Friday lunchtime amusement, Mr Page!

Go TomTom!

I sure hope they win.

I wish them the best of British and/or Dutch luck.

/agree

Munters in see-through apparel is something the average rail traveller can do without.

One shudders at the thought.

However, if the female staff are pleasing to the eye then we should mount a campaign to ensure they receive more than adequate financial compensation from their employer for opting to show off their lovely norks.

*shudders deliciously at that thought*

Surely One would be better?

Why MS can't provide ONE version of their OS'es, with all the bells and whistles as optional components, I'll never know.

Providing six or seven versions of a product really only serves to confuse their customers. The poor sods are then effectively coerced into buying the most expensive version of a product just to ensure they get what they need.

Classic

Title says it all.

"...maybe even to save the Council some money..."

That the council could have used a free, open source product such as TrueCrypt.

It is more likely that whoever created the memory stick couldn't be arsed with protecting personal information.

Certainly think we should get in some penalties for £$%^ing up like this. How about a £5000 fine and a year in jail for a first offense, followed by sterilization, branding and enslavement for a second offense? Too harsh?

Ha!

I was asked to look at someone's computer because they discovered that their internet connection wasn't working on returning from an extended holiday. After trying the basics I spent two hours on the phone with Pipex/Tiscali only to be told that my client's account had been closed several weeks earlier, despite the client having bank statements indicating that money was still being debited from their account at a point after the supposed cancellation.

The nice lady in India, who was surprisingly helpful, was at a loss as to how this situation arose, and in fact no-one seemed able or willing to hypothesise, but one can't help thinking that it was something to do with the migration from Pipex to Tiscali.

Reinstating the service apparently takes longer than it would for a new broadband connection to be provided. A new connection can be made in 10 days, reactivating an existing paid for account takes 16 days.

This email balls-up sounds like yet more of the same uselessness. As I said to the client after explaining to them that despite them paying for a service, their provider had taken it into their heads to kill their service and keep taking the money, this kind of incompetence requires years of practice.

Splendid Idea!

Yet another well thought through idea from our beloved government.

Surely no-one would be so underhand as to use a fake ID card/passport when purchasing a new handset would they?

So we would have a massive database containing the details of every law-abiding inhabitant of this country, but not one of those pesky baddies would be on there as they don't play the game the way government think they should.

I'm still struggling to comprehend how the set of all law abiding persons is going to magically contain the set of all non-law abiding persons.

Obviously I don't understand set theory as well as our beloved leaders.

"They were lied to and they're pissed"

Now Microsoft know how the rest of us feel.

Guess this explains ...

... why HM Gov are so keen to avoid prosecuting BT and Phorm for doing the same thing. After all, if it's found to be illegal for business, surely it couldn't possibly, even remotely be illegal for our beloved government to do the same, now, could it?

Once again ...

... Microsoft making a big hoo-ha about adding features to their second-rate browser that have been available in the competition for years, whilst trying to make it sound like they're "innovating".

Remember the fanfare when they wheeled out tabbed browsing like it was the Second Coming?

And this was reported on because?

This is hardly news.

If Orange Poland had paid for actors, and been exposed for doing so by a third party, then it would be news. But as things stand:

"Nothing to see here. Move along, folks."

If Only ...

... there was a Linux option.

I really can't see Vistard running (or should that be stumbling?) at anything approaching a usable speed, which can only negatively impact Asus's sales.

Not a promising start

I get:

" Oops... the leaves fell off and we're temporarily unable to load that page.

If you go back a page and try again it may work just fine. If not, check out our support site for more information. "

If I try to click on anything picturey.

You might have thought a bit of testing may have been performed before being given over to the public. Not that they ever seem to bother testing their OSes so not sure why I expected to view a working/usable product.

Re: Post Office?

"Suggestion for the Post Office... why not set up a rival to e-bay with minimal fees and transfer payment to the seller automatically on delivery? They already have a network of pick-up/drop-off points, and seem to need more business..."

But wouldn't that mean they'd have to actually do some work?

@ Scott Jones

Hey, no offense to you or any of the other reasonable 'Merkins!

Rip-Off BT once again

So I can pay BT £5 per month for the rest of my life to back up 50GB of data (say another 40 years = £2395.20), or I could pay a one-off cost of £50 for a 500GB external USB disk to backup to and maintain control of my data independant of ISPs, broadband network failures, etc., etc. and not have my data being held to ransom.

For the life of me I can't fathom out which of the two options would be more cost-effective.

Needless to say I chose not to sign-up to the Digital Vault bollocks when it was first touted.

Re: An experiment

> The rate they keep aborting female foetuses, India will end up with too many men.

There was a radio programme earlier in the year (it might even have been last year) that told of a poor man who was pretty much forced to share his wife with a local rich man. Neither male seemed to be particularly happy with the arrangement. I'm not sure either of them sought the woman's opinion.

Also I recall seeing a programme on TV about women who were married and then murdered for their dowries. Sadly these crimes never seem to get investigated properly. Especially if those alleged to have committed the crimes are rich and/or powerful.

Seems to me the situation will only get worse.

Re: MS?

> Not knowing what Tom was talking about, I checked to see if you needed something unusual to view their site. Having been there, I still don't know what Tom was talking about, but I have gained a headache.

Blimey that website's a tad on the loud side!

Seems to work fine in Linux, although I didn't try booking anything as a) I don't want to buy a flight b) I'm not sure I could prevent my eyes from bleeding.

They do seem to have the wrong attitude towards their customers though. One would have thought they would be pleased to get as much business as they could.

I've been with 1&1 ...

For 6 years or so. Back then we were so impressed with them that we started using them for all our client's webspace, email, etc.

I concede that their "support" has deteriorated quite badly over recent years. When I first signed up with them they had a team based in the UK who were both knowledgeable and helpful.

These days "talking" with the outsourced providers is an exercise in futility, as they seemingly have no comprehension of basic English, and (this is not really their fault!) I sometimes have severe difficulty understanding them over the incredibly bad VOIP line.

That said, *my* website(s), email, PHP and databases have been available without noticable interruption for that whole 6+ year period. Sadly one or two of our customers have not been quite so lucky.

Confused

I installed SP3 on my laptop.

Windows starts as normal, and allows me to open various programs.

In fact my computer works just as it did before I installed SP3.

Obviously this Service Pack is bugged.

Anyone else ...

think this looks like an on/off switch?

And seriously, £100k for a 3 circles and a splash of colour? Gonna be kinda hard convincing the locals that that's money well spent, I suspect.

Re: One time pads now practical

"...before reusing the sequence"

Just to nit-pick, isn't the idea of a one-time pad that it is used only once?

And what about...

Us poor folk who don't have anti virus / malware protection on our Linux systems?

How exactly would The Banks attempt to enforce this anyway? How would they prove that a customer had not taken reasonable care? Or would they just opine that said customer was incompetent and treat that as proof?