* Posts by Colin Morris

65 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Aug 2006

Page:

Lawyers of Mordor retreat from The Hobbit

Colin Morris

Sherlock Holmes pub?

Is the Sherlock Holmes pub near Charing Cross Tube station in London still going ? (I've been back in Manchester a few years now and haven't been for ages)

Is that in any danger from money-grabbing demonic lawyers, too? World's gone mad in a handcart.

Ryanair wins ihateryanair.co.uk because of £322 ad revenue

Colin Morris
Stop

How is this different..?

<quote>In the Expert's opinion commercial links have no place on a criticism website</quote>

How can Nominet make that argument? Aren't Foxnews.com and sun.co.uk mainly criticism websites thinly disguised as news websites?

One rule for one.......

Freeview reaches out to EPG-less DVR owners

Colin Morris
Stop

RE: Time to upgrade

Lets be fair to these 'early adopters' and refer to them with the kinder term of 'beta' testers, but essentially you are right.

I am amazed by the amount of idiots on certain AV related forums in the UK who boast about putting an order in for a Freeview HD PVR that's due to be released in a week or so's time. Do these people not learn? The current Philips/PACE PVR fiasco should be a lesson to everyone. Almost every HD PVR thats been released in the last few of months or so as had major problems.

I bought a Sony Bravia Freeview HD TV just before the world cup started but I am more than happy to stick with my 2005 Topfield 5800 PVR for now until it's guaranteed that Freeview HD PVR hardware such as the up coming HUMAX Fox T2 is at least relatively stable.

Martha Lane Fox to clone 10m copies of self

Colin Morris
Coat

MLF

MLF? Had she had kids yet? She does look strangely attractive, tbf!

Mozilla blocks Firefox Java plugin

Colin Morris

RE: untitled

From the tests I have done at work, disabling the erroneous plugin it doesn't actually stop Java Runtime from running. I really don't understand the need for all the java related plugins being installed in Firefox though. Maybe Sun can enlighten us as to why the need to secretly install so much 'junkware' add-ons in the browser.

'Racist' job ad sparks investigation

Colin Morris
Stop

@cdtplug : WTF

What sort of a Daily Mail 'commentard', border-line racist comment is this?

If the advert was for someone of white english origins then anyone with a brown face or with a white non-english face would be excluded. The only difference in this case is that anyone with a brown face that's not of indian origin or a white face of any nationality is excluded. In both cases nearly all of the same type of people are excluded.

Yet, surprisingly there still isn't any flag burning in the streets!

Quantum superclock will be accurate past end of life on Earth

Colin Morris
Stop

Human's will be gone long before 3.7 billion years

More than 99% of all species of animal ever to have lived on earth is now extinct. Human's are the only species of animal capable of stopping themselves from going extinct and yet are the only animal on the planet wilfully hastening their own demise. It is extremely unlikely that by the time the sun starts the process or achieving red giant status any humans will be around to care.

Most likely is that humans will be wiped out or continue wiping themselves out. Causing the earth to repair it's natural resources for a few million of years paving the way for new species of animal any of which may or may not become equally or more intelligent than the humans who lived in the ancient past to rule the earth. Rinse and repeat the cycle for a few billion years until the great red fireball in the sky finally burns the planet to a cinder.

..probably something like that anyway?

Large Hadron Collider scuttled by birdy baguette-bomber

Colin Morris
Terminator

Tweet1000

The bird in question may have been a 'terminator' bird sent from the future by the LHC itself if some crackpot theories are to be believed.

In fact, as the bird dropped it's payload it allegedly could be heard to squawk "Hasta la vista, Polly!"

Windows 7 - The Reg reader review redux

Colin Morris
Stop

First impressions are good, but......

I took delivery of Win 7 professional on Thursday and the clean installation was fairly painless once I had saved my profile migration settings and Firefox/Thunderbird profile from my laptops rubbish Vista Home Premium pre-installation.

Initial thoughts are that this is a definite improvement but I still see no need whatsoever for any company to rush this onto the user desktop in the workplace. XP does the job fine for basically all businesses. In fact, if my home laptop had XP professional on rather than Vista Home Premium I never would have bought Win 7 in the first place!

Welsh yobs clobbered by cross-dressing cage fighters

Colin Morris
Thumb Down

@Carl 4

This article is in the Odds&Sods/bootnotes section, Carl4.

You may have stumbled across this on an RSS feed or something but may I suggest you find another 'technology' website and in doing so see your doctor so that you can join the NHS waiting list for a 'humour bypass'...

France Telecom blamed for another worker suicide

Colin Morris

National Suicide Rate?

From what I read last week, France Telecom have thousands upon thousands of staff and their suicide rate isn't that much different from the French rate as a whole (which is admittedly worse than many other European countries)

What is the suicide rate for french people as a whole in full time employment? If that rate is not much different from France Telecom's rate then I fail to see what the story is here. The story regarding suicides would then become a National problem, as it should be anyway...

Microsoft releases Windows 7 to MSDN, TechNet today

Colin Morris

RE : @ContentsMayVary

Yes, still on XP in work. That will not change for a while

Vista was pre-installed on my home laptop. I rather it wasn't but disabling UAC, Windows Defender and other unnecessary programs and services has helped massively.

Just wish Linux was more user friendly to the general public. I'm sure Windows 7 will turn out ok but it's time for a new direction I think!.....

Colin Morris
Go

Good luck!

To all those who will be among the first to obtain a copy of the full release of Windows 7 I say, "Good luck, 'Beta testers'. You'll need it! Hope to join you in about a years time at around the release of the first service pack!"

US Congress probes accidental top secret file sharing

Colin Morris
Stop

Needs admin rights to install? Maybe not

My experience of users is that they will try to install anything.. whether they have admin rights or not.

Unfortunately users not having admin rights on a Windows machine is not enough because apps such as Google Chrome/Earth and Skype install themselves in the users application data profile folder which of course unsurprisingly has full access rights for the user. I know nothing of p2p software but I suspect this type of software does the same. All we can do as sysadmins in these cases is add a 'software restriction policy' to Domain group policy when we discover a breach like this.

Who's fault is it? Microsoft's? The software creators? The users?

Can someone from Microsoft tell me what good reason there is for allowing a corporate user without administration rights to be able to install un-sanctioned software to the %appdata% folder and also can a programmer from Google or Skype tell me why they think it's a good idea to create an installer that exploits this security hole and installs files to the %appdata% folder if the user (for valid reasons) doesn't have admin rights?

Firefox 4.0 flashes lusty leg at Windows lovers

Colin Morris
WTF?

Eye off the ball?

Come Mozilla, You've taken your eye off the ball, here!... Fcuk Microsoft style visuals. Concentrate on making your browser lighter and more streamlined.

As a Systems Admin, the only Microsoft related improvement I'd like to see is an official .msi installation with easily configurable .adm templates. Mozilla have lost out big time on market share in the corporate environment because of this continued omission.

On reflection, though articles like this probably highlight that it's a good thing that Firefox hasn't got bigger market share if they are gonna fcuk their product up this much....

Jupiter takes a serious knock

Colin Morris
Pirate

@Colin 4

<quote>A timely reminder that we need to address the issue of planetary defense from space impacts. </quote>

As far as the authorities are concerned we do have a 'planetary defence system'. It's called ..er.. Jupiter!

Jupiter is probably the only reason why allegedly intelligent life evolved on the earth in the first place. History, of course reveals that even Jupiter couldn't save animals such as the dinosaurs. Only a matter of time, then.......

Digital Spy fights second malware attack

Colin Morris
Thumb Down

Theres a bit more to it than that...

<quote>Digital Spy is a high-traffic website frequented by surfers gorging on information about celebrity shenanigans and reality TV programmes.</quote>

I've been a member since 2003 and I can safely say there is a bit more to Digital Spy's forums in particular than the 'colourful' description above. For a start there a very good 'The Wire - BBC2 pace' thread on the 'Cult' forums and even 'Politics', 'Broadband Intenet' and 'Computing and Networks' forums.

Hope that makes things clearer.

Chrome OS: Windows killer?

Colin Morris
Gates Horns

Pirated Windows

<quote>What of emerging economies? The word is that while use of open source is growing, software piracy is growing faster and (like many major vendors) Microsoft has largely given up fighting it for now.</quote>

Yes, would Microsoft prefer to take legal action to stop large numbers of people in places like China and India, etc using pirated Windows.... and in doing so drive 1/3 of the world's population into the arms of free linux OS's?

I don't think so. Why? Well if most of China and India start using Linux then M$ are in serious trouble!......

Google uncloaks Chrome OS hardware pals

Colin Morris
Thumb Up

Yes but....

This so called 'google chrome os' is all very well but can you install the usual linux version of firefox on it using an update manager/command line?

If so, I'm in!

Microsoft enlists WSUS, ex-Superman, and puke in IE8 push

Colin Morris
FAIL

Browser Fail

Sorry for the annoying You Tube-esq, teenage US college boy-esq title of this comment but why are MS pushing IE8 when it fails the ACID3 test miserably with a score nearer to zero than 100?

Swedish couple demand right to name baby 'Q'

Colin Morris
Stop

James Bond, my rrrsss.

... Any IT Sci-fI geek with half a brain knows the parents are innocently naming their little-un after the mysterious 'Q'. Possibly the greatest Star Trek TNG 'villain' of all time....

Thnk of the omnipotent beings for christs sakes....

Mozilla update quashes nine bugs

Colin Morris
Stop

@First!

Where is everyone? .... I was trying to fix our departments printer/copier.... you know... like ... doing actual work?........

... and now I have to go and extract another version of Firefox 3.0.x and install it via sms 2003 on all our machines.... after testing it of course..... you know... surfing web sites such as el Reg and the BBC etc... you know, to make sure this version works before rolling it out... before the next update gets released in two weeks time or so... etc....

'Vista Capable' judge tosses class-action status - again

Colin Morris
Stop

1000 versions of Vista

Since Microsoft released 1000's of versions of Vista (including Vista Home Basic Garbage... whatever its called) The machines WERE Vista capable. It may be hard to accept to the many of us who think Microsoft are abusing their position but it's a fact.

Microsoft have been typically sneaky barstewards here but I agree that they don't really have a case to answer in this case unfortunately.....

Firefox 3.0 ekes ahead of Internet Explorer 7 in Europe

Colin Morris

@ IE6... shameful

Like at a lot of companies around the world I could roll out IE7/IE8 to our departments users but the official central IT policy for our organisation is to use IE6.

This means that if our finance team can't use their web based financial applications for whatever reason we wouldn't get any support because their only certified for IE6.

This is the main reason why the ridiculous IE6 still exists with significant market share. Besides, a fair few of our more savvy users who don't need those critical apps use firefox 3.x anyway and don't touch IE6 icon on their desktops with a barge-pole, so it's not all bad news.

Homosexuality does for UK blue duck population

Colin Morris
Go

This is the sort of news story...

.......that should be shown to all the religous nuts who think that homosexuality is a godless sin rather than a naturally occuring sexual preference in the animal world.

Of course, religious nutjobs think that they and they only are right about this sort of thing despite having no proof of their position whatsoever!...

Vladimir Putin denies penchant for Abba

Colin Morris
Black Helicopters

Style of music that they are used to, possibly?

<quote>

The Times notes that last year's Russian victor - Believe by Dima Bilan - "received a maximum 12 points from six neighbouring countries: Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine".

</quote>

I don't blame former Soviet countries for giving maximum points to a style of music that they enjoy the most, as was probably the case when voting for the Russian (as in 'former Soviet') entry.

Admittedly, the El Reg implication that gas supplies in the colder months may be 'reduced' depending on appropriate favours not being forthcoming may not be a million miles away from the truth, unfortunately.

Beeb names new Doctor Who

Colin Morris
Stop

@ Aristotles

"PS - re Merlin... I am aware that the BBC has some politically correct ideal to shoehorn an ethnic minority, a spaz, or some other demographical minority into every possible show... but what historical basis is there for assuming that Guinevere was a coloured lass?"

.. yeah... and on what historical basis did fire-breathing dragons and mythical monsters really exist??

.... why complain about a few 'brown faces' with all the other 'unlikely' stuff that went on in the series?

Ofcom confirms three Freeview HD channels 'by end of next year'

Colin Morris
Flame

Yah boo sucks, Cockneys....

<juvenileRant>

Wayhay.... Us Mancs and Scousers, etc. are getting HD first.. Unlucky Cockneys and the rest!.... Looks like you'll have to wait for millions of years to get what were getting. Boo hoo.... I'm in tears for your plight...

</juvenileRant

ps.. Just thought that I'd be one of the first to fire up the 'twat-o-tron' on a Friday..... :)

Martin Sheen backs Paris for president

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Republican's have missed a trick here

Firstly isn't Paris looking hotter than ever in that video?

Also, surely the 'publicans have missed a trick, havent they? Admittedly it's only good old Paris but she seems to have ten times the brain cells of Palin the gun nut wildlife killer! She'd make a far more suitable running mate for McCain (although of course anyone else with at least a brain cell would too!)

Paris because... oh yeah... sorry.......

'Podestrian' risk rising for drivers, warns insurer

Colin Morris
Stop

Is this really a 'problem' only now?

I am one of the many who has been walking down the road whilst listening to my personal stereo [as in cassette player initially of course] since the late eighties. Not much has changed really....

Ok, Noise cancelling 'in-ear' style headphones are a fairly new phenomenon more due to the increased bass response as much as anything else but I find when walking down the road wearing these type of headphones that I am much more aware of whats going on visually. In fact I will look around before crossing the road much more than usual if I am listening to music with noise cancelling style earphones on.

Normal mobile phone use (whilst walking along as well as when driving) is MUCH MORE dangerous in that since you are listening more intently and speaking whilst walking along you are far more likely to be a danger to road users.

'I can see dinosaurs from my back porch'

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

@MORE LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS SLANDER FOR THE DEMS!

Typical Webster Phreaky.... The typical 'shout loudest' voice of modern republican politics.

Going off the point at bit, the scariest thing is that the republicans might win the election despite being still completely incompetent on most matters! Did anyone see the BBC News 24 debate on the credit crisis last night? It was scary for one reason only. They had a Democrat Senator on who said he and his fellow democrats were going to vote for the $700 blank cheque bailout because... get this... "They are scaring us into voting for it". In the last eight years the democrats still haven't grown a backbone! They let Bush illegally win the 2000 election and now they are still not standing up for themselves through fear of republicans and the republican media such as Fox News shouting about how if they don't get $700 billion to keep their Wall Street mates in silk suits then it will be all the democrats fault if the US completely implodes. It's the same as when George Bush said that there were WMD's in Iraq prior to the war they have wasted billions (or nearly trillions?) on in that country. Nobody stood up to him. The democrats were more scared of being un-patriotic in the eyes of the US press than 'patriotically' trying to stop Bush and his hawk cronies wasting US taxpayers money on an illegal war.

Now of course we find that the $700 million blank cheque bail out has been stopped... mainly by republicans who have more backbone to stand up to their own republican president and his financially incompetent cronies. This means that McCain can ride in to save the day (is that really why the republican senators have helped stop the bailout in it's present form?) whilst the Democrats stand idly by being too scared to do anything. Is it any wonder that Americans vote for the republicans at elections en masse? Even though they are criminally negligent and incompetent at least they are CONVINCING about it! I think the worlds needs a president Obama right now. But if the democrats don't 'grow a set' fast I see at least another eight years in the wilderness unfortunately for right-minded Americans and the rest of the world.

The Hotel Heiress... because she could come up with a better financial bailout strategy.... oh yeah... the main point of this article... and she probably has no time for creationalists either!

Firefox update fixes critical bug brace

Colin Morris
Unhappy

Breaks add-ons.

Just tested this with a view to rolling it out to client computers at a future date....

3.0.0.2 seems to break an installation with the 'Wizz RSS lite' add-on! Basically Wizz RSS lite just will not run but there is no warning about it being incompatible.

Can anyone else confirm this? Admittedly I've only tried it on one test computer.

Daily Mail hacks get emergency bird flu jabs

Colin Morris
Stop

.. from a Daily Mail comment section near you....

Typikal... all these flu pandemiks comin over here takin our jobs... and our lives.

Vis bird flu is turning vis country into Britain-istan.

I blame scottish NuLabor.

I cant wait to emigrate to Spain... and not learn the lingo or mix wiv the locals! Dis county is going to the dogs!!!!

Noel Edmonds defies BBC's jackbooted enforcers

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Re: Note to commentards

<quote>Here you go, cut and paste this: "There is no IT angle to this story. What is it doing here? I am removing The Register from my bookmarks. Please cancel my subscription. I am also dissatisfied with today's weather. Please make the weather the way I like it. Goodbye."</quote>

Don't let the commentBastards get you down, Lester.

There's no IT angle, theres no hotel heiress angle... oh yeah, it's Friday.

... and besides... it's in the 'Entertainment' section of the website for fcuks sake!

<rantFlame>I can never understand the morons who complain about their being no IT angle. to a story! If anyone doesn't like it then don't read the bloody article!</rantFlame>

Hotel heiress because.. [see above]

Reg readers rage at comment icon outrage

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Paris is back!!!!.....

..Paris, because she no longer looks like a "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" reject like she did briefly earlier today...

... not now I've cleared my Firefox cache a couple of times, anyway......

Ubuntu zoo preps for new arrival

Colin Morris
Stop

Jackass?

Were they stuck for animals beginning with 'J' or something? Why make up a (as far as we are aware) mythical creature?

Why not 'Jaunty Jackass'? Does that make the jokes a bit too easy if the release goes 'tits up'? Or maybe it would put people off installing it in the first place for probably obvious reasons?!

Chinese boffins crack invisible-shed window problem

Colin Morris
Go

Where's a Klingon when you need one?

... or even a Romulan.

They got this 'can't see in, can see out' invisibility cloak nonsense down to a tee...

What do you mean these alien races don't really exist?.......

A third of Vista PCs downgraded to XP

Colin Morris
Thumb Down

Downgraded / upgraded

Downgraded ?....... or upgraded? hmmm......

A have a laptop with vista pre-loaded. Hate the way that when you press the power button to suspend/hibernate it sometimes cannot find the wireless network point (hidden ESSID - WPA security) when you press the power button again!

Does this happen with XP? If not then maybe I should 'upgrade' to XP! Am I allowed to use my 'un-used' 5 year-old OEM XP licence with a new laptop?

Rogue reporters kicked out of conference for network snooping

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

3 days?

I like the idea of OpenVPN, especially as a possible replacement for the proprietary Cisco VPN Client especially on Linux....

... But three days to configure? I hope it took so long because some tecchie at the Reg was being a buffoon....

Paris would get the VPN config done in less than three days, surely?

Home wireless without the power trip

Colin Morris
Stop

Is line of sight really that big a problem?

Is it not true these days that with many IR remote controls (such as the remote controller of the old Amstrad DRX400 Sky TV box) you can point the remote almost completely behind you away from the television and it will still change channels/work as intended?

I'm sure IR remotes aren't going to disappear any time soon....

Black hats attack gaping DNS hole

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

OK!

Yep, Zen Internet seem to know what time it is!

Paris, cos she's safe too...

Ubuntu man challenges open source to out-pretty Apple

Colin Morris
Stop

installation and WPA wireless

I have a Samsung R700 laptop witn a Vista/Ubuntu 8.04.1 dual boot configuration and I really, really want to start using Ubuntu more if for no other reason than to stick two fingers up at Ballmer and is money-grabbing cronies.

Unfortunately, even for a sys admin like me (windows admin, of course) installation of files on linux/ubuntu can be a right pain in the rear. Until the 'user in the street' can double-click an installation file to install a program (like in Windows) or simply just drag a program folder to the hard-disk and run a program (like an apple user said earlier) Linux/Ubuntu will never properly take off.

<rant>

.... oh, and why the fcuk is it that despite jumping through a million hoops and visiting the ubuntu forum a thousand times can I not get WPA wireless working when in windows you can just enter you hidden ESSID and password and be up and running in seconds?

... oh, and why the fcuk is it that when I load Ubuntu on my laptop the screen is so dim even though the laptop is connected to the power supply? Why can't anyone on the ubuntu forums give me a straight answer and a straight solution to this? Why can't you adjust the power settings easily like in windows? How the bloody hell is a normal user supposed to stand a chance if I can't do this?

</rant>

Apple swipes £121 for 'free' MobileMe trial

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Re: The arrogance!

<quote>Wow! And he can't even spell 'cheque' correctly!</quote>

.. I believe that is how they spell cheque in the good 'ol U,S of A.

Poor old Paris was probably laughed at in school because she spelt it 'cheque'.....

Spain dodges Zapatero kiss of death

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

@AdamFoxton

<quote>but where's the IT/tech/science angle on this? Was it some sort of crazy digital voodoo?</quote>

This is in 'Odds and Sods - Bootnotes'.... Like, where you WOULDN'T expect to find news on why Windows 2012 will need 32GB of RAM and 1 Terabyte of hard-disk space as a minimum requirement, etc.. etc....

Paris, wouldn't be bothered about an IT angle either....

Web browsers face crisis of security confidence

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Why do I never get viruses....

... I'm a Systems Administrator who runs computers at home and at work with full admin rights.. (I know, not best practice) I use Firefox with noScript most of the time but when I have to, I use Internet Explorer for certain sites. Why then have I not had a virus or even malware infect any of the computers I use in at least the last three years or so? Probably the same type of reason that I have never in my life been hit by a fast moving vehicle.

Come on.... even the grand Miss Hilton could work out what I am trying to say here...

CERN declares Large Hadron Collider perfectly safe

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Why does it matter anyway?

Surely if the collider opens up a black hole, then we will all be dead in micro-seconds so we won't have anything to worry about. I also have no idea how CERN can be completely sure that they won't create a black hole. a lot of theories regarding the universe are just 'learned' speculation, anyway.....

I say start spending your life-savings on beer and women.... or men.... etc. Were all doomed...

Paris isn't losing too much sleep about this either....

Microsoft proposes gadget feature disabling tech

Colin Morris
Stop

It's a Quiet zone for a reason

<rant>

er... it's called the Quiet Zone for a reason....

if you want to use your mobile phone, then why are you in the fcuking quiet zone!!!!

.. I don't care what fcuking 'Digital Wrongs Management' technology Microsoft might be bringing out to stop you, sit somewhere else you inconsiderate b'stard....

</rant>

// ... to be heard at a Virgin West coast mainline service near you....

BSA dubs Manchester second worst for piracy

Colin Morris
Gates Horns

line Microsoft’s pockets

The crossed out line in the article of 'line Microsoft's pockets' should actually read 'line Microsoft's pockets FURTHER'.

I agree that software piracy should be illegal but anyone who thinks that Microsoft do not benefit indirectly from software piracy is living in cloud cuckoo land. If people in developing countries or people elsewhere in the world who can't afford M$'s high prices switched to free alternatives then Microsofts market share of operating systems and Office productivity software would be in serious decline.

... and don't get me started on anyone who believes that M$'s prices are high because of software piracy. The Balmer/Gates cartel charge what they like due to having historically non-exisitant competition. Now if international goverments and organisations could just be brave enough to switch to open source en masse.....

Boris Johnson bans boozing on London transport

Colin Morris
Stop

Tube travel cost to distance ratio...

<quote>

Try tackling the "serious crime" of charging long-suffering passengers three quid to travel 200 yards packed like veal calves en route to a French slaughterhouse

</quote>

I haven't lived in London for five years now but I presume you are talking about the rather pointless 'Leicester Square - Covent Garden' journey?

... It is time I think, to sort out the fact that a valid trip of one or two stops can cost as much as a much longer trip across the same zone particularly in zone one.

El Reg celebrates 10th birthday

Colin Morris
Paris Hilton

Was this why.....

.. Register figurehead, Paris was in London this week?

Don't tell me she's gone camera-shy too! Bet she can sink a pint or two, though... do tell!

Very happy birthday, anyway :)

Page: