* Posts by Khaptain

4022 publicly visible posts • joined 4 May 2008

UK's Get Safe Online? 'No one cares' - run the blockbuster ads instead

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Word of advice

"if they refrained from telling me how they were 'proudly' supporting some farcical football tournament"

Now you know why your interest rates are so low.

"I suppose they're hardly going to sponsor porn, though .."

Could be interesting:

The Royal Bank of Scotland proudly presents "Ana Lorgy", voted most promising Star for 2014. The jury was presided by Stephen Hester and Marc Dorcel.

Khaptain Silver badge
Meh

Word of advice

Dear Mr John Lyons,

It is my unfortunate task of having to inform you that it may be necasssary for you to change tactics. You have taken the approach that the majority possess at least some intelligence. Whilst this indeed is correct, I believe that you have misjudged the quantity of intelligence. It is far below that which you have aimed your campaign.

The internet for many people is a fun place; there is football, porn, fun little games and knitting patterns. There is also that tedious possibility of online banking which doesn't include any porn or fun things....

Online banking and such requires difficult to understand concepts about security, html, Cross Site Scripting , Java One Day exploits, script kiddies and a lot of other things that don't include porn or football etc...

The computer and the internet are like big mysterious black boxes that we can use to see more porn.... Everything else is difficult........

Cordially Yours

Apor Nuser.

Seriously though, most people do not have the slightest clue about IT in general, and especially not about the capacity for the hackers to infiltrate a PC.

The protection systems needs to be further increased in the OS, the applications and also the Banking Industry in general. People need to be protected from themselves.......

Linux does offer a lot of advantages but does not offer everything.....it’s a good start though. The banking industry should be "obliged" to provide 3 step authentication, RSA keys or keypass calculators etc. I presume that the bankers have done their stats though and it is financially beneficial to give people back their money rather than employ tellers at a counter....go figure

The internet needs a little shake up because people will inherently continue to be stupid..... The alternative is to forbid certain people from accessing the web, or at least the Banking part.

Fan whips out own pair of iPhone 32Cs, 'unlocks' mobe using breasticle

Khaptain Silver badge
Trollface

*holes

I wonder if they have tried using their arseholes yet, it would appear that there enough of them around.

There's ONE country that really likes the iPhone 5c as well as the 5s

Khaptain Silver badge

Chavistically

Statistically, doesn't Britain have more Chavs than any other country in the world. Unfortunately not all Chavs will have the wonga required for a 5S therefore they will adopt the 5C, especially if they can get a Burberry themed case.

In this respect the 5C will definately take over the 5S in sales terms.

The Mericans got tham there Rednecks.....

The Brits got Chavs, what......

Valve shows Linux love with SteamOS for gamers

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Who is ready to pay

@Fibbles

I completely understand your point of view but ultimately the decisions are not really based upon the programming language DirectX and OpenGL are both free.

Decision as to platform selection are made at a much higher level and it has nothing to do with IT or programmers or chief architects.

I believe that the decisions are made purely on a financial basis, where can we make money, who are our market, how much are they willing to spend, where do we have the largest market.

It can easilly take 10 of millions to produce the major games, the beancounters want to ensure that there is a solid ROI so they only play into the markets for which they are almost garaunteed to find paying customers. They know that the windows users have the money and will spend it.

Linux is free and therefore suffers from the stigma that linux users = freetards. The typical stigmatique Neckbeards who expect software for "free", that they can use and abuse as they see fit. It's not so easy to remove that stigma.

Steam also have a major setback in that they are not sponsored by the major software houses, if and when they do then the game will change ( pun intended). Up until then I do not possibly see how it will remain anything other than a niche market.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Who is ready to pay

"Have market studies shown Windows users will? Seem to remember quite a high level of piracy among Windows users."

I think you will find that Windows users have been paying, over the top, for quite a few years already. There's not much need to do market research on an already very successfull market. Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Microsoft ring a bell...

"Then you have not been having the right conversations."

Can you actually cite any real world examples of where the OS has been a hurdle in game development....DirectX is actually on par with OpenGL, the APIs are well documented and a lot of the larger companies don't have a problem using it.

"And the grapes are probably sour anyway.."

Why sour grapes, I have both systems, I have never felt the need or requirement to use Linux as a gaming platform and I personally do not see any future in it. And yes I have a steam account, so I am well aware of what is available on Linux...

The developers are not interested in Linux for the simple reason that they need to be sure about earning real dollars before they will take the risk. For the moment that market sector is still very, very unsure..

Khaptain Silver badge

Who is ready to pay

Steam is not FOSS, have market studies shown that Linux users will actually be willing to pay for the games.

Steam is not a charity and unnecassary for many games, so why bother with it in the first place.. I don't remember many conversations where the OS was the major hurdle.

Personally I don't see this as changing very much at all other than the fact that Steam are trying to capitalise in a niche market.

HTC staring down the barrel of a US sales ban after Nokia's patent coup

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Lost strategy

Thats kinda strange, looking over the last 5 years stock market figures Nokia are not looking like a great company to invest in. From a high of $18.65 to todays $3.9.

Making a profit over 1 quarter is not exactly inspiring

Khaptain Silver badge

Lost strategy

Ok, Nokia are in the shit and they decide to use Apples strategy ( or is that Microsofts, Goolges, Motorolas, Samsungs strategy) of suing your opponents into final submission....

What happend to invent, create, design, astound, NEW.........Nowadays it's all legalese.....

If any one you know the French TV satire known as the "Les Guignols" I am sure that you will recognize that we are definately heading towards the rule of the "World Company."

Info : "Les Guignols", they are a bit like Spitting Image but far more satirical and scathing. I think the British have an world class sense of humour, but the French really know how to bite, especially concerning politics.

Fandroids at pranksters' mercy: Android remote password reset now live

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: NSA angle

Yes but they wont use the password wipe feature, they prefer to keep knowing what your up to.

Circling the RIM: BB10 becomes chamber of horrors for BlackBerry

Khaptain Silver badge
Coat

Re: Campaign for real English words...

This is El Reg after all, not the Financial Times ( although they probably have their fair share of buzzwords too).

The pigistes here are highly skilled agents in buzzword bingo, hell, when the left their marketing department caves to become world renowned El Reg hacks they also dragged along the buzzword pasttime.

Personally I am not a great "buzzword bingo" player but I must admit in having a little penchant for the rather clever titles and headlines that appear from time to time.

This article for example "Circling the RIM". I wondered if it not really a El Reg hack spoonerism for "Rimming the circle"..

Ole El Reg.... ------->>>> The icon represents a toreador...........think outside of the box

F-16 fighter converted to drone

Khaptain Silver badge
Gimp

Re: By the time kids today are old enough to be pilots

LarsG, you appear to be forgetting the most important factor - Pilots in the sky can only lose once........

LinkedIn fires back against 'hack-and-spam' US class-action sue bomb

Khaptain Silver badge
Linux

Social Media Websites et al

I am endlessly amazed at our culture, feeding on social media websites which eventually arrive at a point of critical mass and once reached "you are pwned".

We have seen this time and time and time again and yet the unwashed masses continue to feed.......

Why the penguin -------->

It is the only icon that looks vaguely like a lemming.

Greece ends extra hols for civil servants forced to use hated computers

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Bankrupt - No wonder

I used the term Island in a more esoteric form, as in the are cut off, at least finacially, from the rest of Europe.

They appear to behave , think , cheat and steal as though they were com,peltely independant from the rest of Europe. They have obligations, like all the rest of Europe but instead they chose to lie about economy and we as a European nation have to bail them out.

For every extra day that one of the Greeks are lying in the sun, having a computer day off, you get the right to pay more taxes, the reaper has to be paid at some point in time.

Khaptain Silver badge

Bankrupt - No wonder

Did anyone actually work or pay taxes on that damned island ?

I listened to a radio article last night that explained the only reason that the Germans are accepting to bail out the greeks is due to the fact that a lot of the German population have their savings invested down there.

How ironic.

Chaos Computer Club: iPhone 5S finger-sniffer COMPROMISED

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Pinky?

" I think most thieves will choose the latter since it would be a much shorter sentence if you're caught."

I am not convinced that thiefs bring the length of the sentence into the equation when they are stealing things. If they did they would not steal things .....as often..

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Pinky?

The biggest problem with any of the fingers is the fact that, where necessary, they can be easilly removed..... Think small knife and Yakuza.

Office 365 goes to work on an Android

Khaptain Silver badge

Apples and oranges

"Android is sneaking up on five years of general availability and it still doesn't even have a word processor that can compete with Microsoft Word 2.0 running on Windows 3.1."

Android in the majority runs on Tablets and Smartphones which are not particulary propice platforms for generating complex office documents, some small editing I can understand though. Comparing that to windows/MS Office which runs in majority on full blown PCS is not really a very fair comparison.

SmartPhone and/or tablets are just not very suitable platforms for complex document creation. No physical keyboard or mouse, forget it.

PEAK APP: After 2013, you'll NEVER again install as many – Gartner

Khaptain Silver badge

"The peak is 4.9 downloads a month for iPhone owners, and 6.2 for those packing an Android handset"

Are these the figures for someone that has just bought a new smartphone and does it includes "updates. "

After the fad has worn off and you have made your little collection of usefull things, I think the majority would then be downloading about 3 or 4 per year..... Unless were talking about the under 16 year old group.

Fanbois shun 'crappy plastic' iPhone 5C

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: It's not a phone...

"A few minutes before launch they ran out into the mall, whooping ecstatically as they tore past the queue in a two-abreast formation"

"Next, a staffer assembled the staff into a gauntlet and exhorted them to chant something that aounded like a corporate mantra explaining how Apple goes about its business."

Apple Dogma...

TPG flashes cheeky 'down under' CAPTCHA

Khaptain Silver badge

Reg Reader -meeeehhhhh

Can some please explain, in a rational manner, how someone might feel offended or upset by seeing a word that does nothing more than describe a part of the body. Is it because the "children" might actually ask the adult what they mean and that the adult doesn't feel mature enough to respond correctly to the child...

Are there some people on this planet that do not possess rectums, penis, vaginas, breasts, testicles etc...

(There I hust have really offended someone now after using all of those Biological Terms) .....

[What is the plural of Penis ?]

Windows Phone overtakes Apple's market share ... in India

Khaptain Silver badge
Coat

Re: Listening to the radio the other day.

"That's the thing about India and China. There's loads of them."

I think you will find that there is only one of each....

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: "Does anyone really beleive ..."

Ok lets be pedantic

Does anyone really beleive that a $600 Iphone has any chance of making a MAJOR impact in a country like India where the annual average wage is something in the order of $1200

Khaptain Silver badge

Does anyone really beleive that a $600 Iphone has any chance of making any impact in a country like India where the annual average wage is something in the order of $1200........

So MS + Nokia manage to bring out a $150 dollar phone and want to make a Front Page spread about how well they are doing.....

Very long and very slow clap for MS and friends, they are becoming more amazing by the day.... ( Ballmer just retire, please for the sake of humanity retire).

IT bloke denies trying to shag sheep outside football ground

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Do you know which IT firm Lovell works for? Email me and spill the beans. ®

It might be Ewelet Packard

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: IT bloke

it's just another of those ewephemisms.

Korean stealth-scraper plans will turn 450 metre tower INVISIBLE

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: I might have to....

They did at least manage to get the Asia bit right....That's already a big step for a Merican. For the average Merican here are only two continents

America and Not America...

BlackBerry Messenger to launch on Android, iOS this weekend

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Something for the kiddies

Unfortunately, our company policy locks down our BBs and we can't add other email accounts after we have connected successfully to our BES server ( which connects to an Exchange server).

I have never even considered that it was even possible to connect directly to an Exchange server from a BB terminal..

Khaptain Silver badge

Something for the kiddies

BBM is just another bloody txting/sms/chat app thing. The kids might like it.

BB Email on the other hand would really make my day, it's the "app" that the anyone/everyone in the corporate world would like to see on Android. Especially if it meant that there would no longer be any requirement for those damned expensive Corporate BB Subscriptions that are an extra on top of the mobile phone bill.......

I honestly don't care for any of the programs on my BB except for the Email....It's the one program in which BB excels.

PS : I hate the word "App", it's either an Application or a Program.. Why does anyone over the age of 13 feel the need to call it an "App".

Open source Android fork Cyanogen becomes $7m company

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Khaptain: Mixed Emotions

Those other Dragons are small and becoming smaller...... Google is now the really ugly, bad breathed, big boy of the dragons world.... On top of that Google "kind of" owns the code, it's not really OpenSource n'est- ce pas.....

I digress though, even the small dragons can still be a pain....

Cyanogen have been great, let's hope they don't sell out to the corporate world... although I doubt it, if someone started flashing me some millions I presume that I too would follow the carrot.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Mixed Emotions

"Tread carefully CyanogenMod, for there be dragons ahead."

And that dragon is called Google..........

Official crackdown on Apple fanboi 'shanty town' ahead of London iPhone launch

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: no queues on-line

And most importantly, Toilet Paper.....( and somewhere private in which it can be used)

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Jesus Christ

Yes, but do the Carphone warehouse boys give you High Fives and go Whoop whoop whoop whoop as you leave the store...

Study finds fraudsters foist one-third of all Tor traffic

Khaptain Silver badge

The Spooks (Ok the military) invented TOR , kinda stands to reason.

Khaptain Silver badge

Killing the messenger

Why don't these "studies" ever seem to focus on the real cause of problems.

If people want to use porn : Ask yourself WHY.

If people want to use drugs : Ask yourself WHY.

If people want to buy guns : Ask yourself WHY.

Maybe just maybe, there are a lot of very unhappy people on this planet. Seriously ask yourself why and then go about finding solutions to help the poor buggers. Telling them that Bill gates now has 72 Billion in the bank, oe that Abramovich has the worlds 3 largest yachts is not a solution.

THE TRUTH about beaver arse milk in your cakes: There's nothing vanilla about vanilla

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Clue's in the name, isn't it?

"Why a woman would want to smell like the rear-end of a giant rat is beyond me."

When you see that state of some of the women that have had "Aesthetic Surgery" , it is understandable. They already look like the rear-end of giant rats. The skin pulled back, the exploding cheeks, the pouting lips ....all that's missing is the smell.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Anal Ooze

That must have be the kind of camping outing where the scouts are still too young to understand that "Eating some beaver" doesn't actualy involve a small furry rodent.

Khaptain Silver badge

Anal Ooze

Does this mean that at some point, someone caught a beaver, pulling various bits and pieces off , including the analy situated scent glands, squeezed them, waited for some ooze and actually though that it might be a good idea to eat.

And then decided it might be a good replacement for Vanilla.

Redmond cash splash follows mobile hash

Khaptain Silver badge

I wouldn't be expecting too much of that in the immediate future. Windows 9 better be written by the hand of [Deity] if the want to see figures rise.

Microsoft puts something hard and sensitive in your pocket

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Surely-

"Corrected, I stand"

Khaptain Silver badge

Spin doctor spin

The spindoctors are trying to spin as hard and as fast as they can but they still can't drum up any interest.

For an American company to be talking about security is kinda ironic at the moment.

It must be a beancounters nightmare, spend 1 Billion in marketing, recover 10 million in sales.......As Yoda might say, "Bringing success to our company, this will not make.."

NSA spooks tooled up with zero-day PC security exploits from the FRENCH

Khaptain Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Wrong animal

It was actually an American that invented the phrase.....

The Simpsons - Season 6 Ep 22..... ( Wikipedia is my friend)

Khaptain Silver badge

Crock of shit

"There are times when US special forces use AK47s, even though they have superior guns available."

That's similar to saying I own a old Jeep and a Ferrari but the Ferrari is far superior. It might be on the racetrack but it wouldn't be worth shit when you head out on a wild boar hunt.

Good on the French, by selling the yanks this kind of solution they have probably created their own PRISM Key which opens a special little backdoor into the NSA.

By the way : Are the NSA actually accountable to the American population or do they simply have complete freedom to do and say as they please ?... Wouldn't this kind of group not normally been known as Subversive Anarchists.

Peak Apple: Has ANYONE at all ordered a new iPhone 5c?

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Apple forgot why they are popular

"People buy Apple phones because they look expensive"

I think what you mean is that some for some people they are expensive and therefore they consider them as being luxury items, when in fact they have very little intrinsic value. It's more of a wishfull thinking phenomena than anything else.

Hence the existance of fanbois...

City of Munich throws Ubuntu lifeline to Windows XP holdouts

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: How does this help?

There are a couple of guys in this thread that really need to shake your heads a little. My comments were an "example" of what a newbie might just have to go through when installing [insert favorite distro here].

One or two of your answers were exactlly the kind of "I'm an expert let me show you how to do that properly" neck beard kind of answers which genuinely do not help newbies or anyone else for that matter.

It is an unfortunate fact that there are relatively few *nix users on forums that actually know what pedagogy actually means. I can see that you are happy keeping up the tradition.

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: How does this help?

It's not FUD it's fact.

Here is an example of an answer on how to change the resolution of the video card. And this is an easy question ( a lot of people are confronted with this problem that is the reason I Cherry Picked this one).

I have been running Linux on and off for the last 20 years or so, so I undersand mostly why each of these lines are important and also their general prupose. BUT, this sort of answers frightens the shit out of Joe User..... I would very much doubt that most would even manage to open a terminal.......

Reponse starts here.........................................................................

Uvesafb replaces vesafb in Ubuntu, in case you are wondering.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Fix/Workaround]

* uvesafb required v86d package to be installed. Hwinfo package is required for the next step as well.

sudo apt-get install v86d hwinfo

* Find out the supported resolution by using hwinfo.

sudo hwinfo --framebuffer

Sample output :

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer

[Created at bios.464]

...

Hardware Class: framebuffer

Model: "(C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc. M92"

Vendor: "(C) 1988-2005, ATI Technologies Inc. "

Device: "M92"

SubVendor: "ATI ATOMBIOS"

...

Mode 0x0321: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits

Mode 0x0322: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits

Mode 0x0323: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits

Mode 0x03ee: 1366x768 (+1408), 8 bits

Mode 0x03ef: 1366x768 (+2752), 16 bits

Mode 0x03f0: 1366x768 (+5504), 24 bits

Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

* Edit /etc/default/grub to make sure we boot with uvesafb framebuffer. For the mode_option parameter change to your native screen resolution you see from running the above comment (if not just set to 1024×768-24 which is safest. Oh, Netbook user – please exercise some common-sense here) Non relevant lines are omitted for clarity.

...

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1366x768-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap"

...

GRUB_GFXMODE=1366x768

* Edit /etc/initramfs-tools/modules to include uvesafb by adding the following line.

uvesafb mode_option=1366x768-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap

* Force the use of framebuffer:

echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash

* Update and we are done :)

sudo update-grub2

sudo update-initramfs -u

* Now reboot and enjoy the high resolution sensation :) (my first reboot hangs, but 2nd time onward it works flawlessly). If it works correctly, you should be able to have moving dots with the splash screen; lesser time of blank screen and much more time with splash screen.

And this is only "one" of the variations that were found on the forum. There were also far more "exotic" responses....

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: How does this help?

I pity the poor fool that heads on down to a Linux forum and asks a noob question.... There is nothing worse than some next beard explaining that you need to write a little script in python which pipe outs to a second bash script that makes reference to various regex expressions, grep and awk and a fistfull of parameters.

That is not the way to gain support.....

RTFM , no problem but which manual....... There are million of them and "man" is a f****ing mightmare for anyone less than a Stephen Hawkings groupie... ( With MAN you actually have to read the MAN page on how to use MAN)

Bother! Breakdown busts bloke's bold boffin-blasted briny boat balloon bid

Khaptain Silver badge

Congrats for the title

Fool floated far from fixed footing, finally fell.

It's official: The iPhone 5S bling-mobe IS chavvy. OR, Burberry isn't

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: Crap clothes + crap cameras = crap photos

They don't want to lose the Chavness

Torvalds: 'We're not doing Linux95 … for a few years, at least'

Khaptain Silver badge

Re: "Suicidal squirrel”

LOL, I wonder how many El Reg readers even know what the Tufty club is, that's made my day...