* Posts by DZ-Jay

938 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2007

Apple slices iPhone and iPad ad rates 'by 70%'

DZ-Jay

Re: Demand and Supply 2

I think he meant demand from developers and supply from advertisers. It is known that developers tend to depend less on the ad-supported model in the iOS App Store than in other platforms. Therefore, it stands to reason that there may be less ad impressions on iOS than the advertisers would want, and thus they are cutting back on their campaigns or reassessing their focus.

-dZ.

Google: Go public on Profiles or we'll delete you

DZ-Jay

Re: What exactly the point of a private profile anyway?

You are right, there is no point to a private profile. The problem is that some people created accounts to use GMail privately, not necessarily to access a social network; and then Google decided that all accounts are "profiles," and therefore need to be public in the social network.

-dZ.

Apple App Store passes 15bn download mark

DZ-Jay

no title

>> "though it should be borne in mind that many "apps" are no more than web portals to specific destinations such as news services, or similarly lightweight stuff."

Actually, it should be borne in mind that the most popular downloads are games, which are not web portals or "similarly lightweight stuff."

The 75B number refers to *downloads*, not available stuff in the App Stuff, which admittedly, contains much lightweight stuff.

-dZ.

HP TouchPad 9.7in WebOS tablet

DZ-Jay

"WebOS"

You know, in Spanish, when pronounced as spelt, it sounds very close to "huevos," which is the word for "eggs" (or b*llocks, if you must).

I'm just saying...

-dZ.

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

DZ-Jay

By the way...

Ms. Bee, I forgot to say, thanks for the good times, and good luck in your next enterprise.

It's a bit sad that you're leaving El Reg; you made the commentards' pontificating, whinging, and snarking a bit more palatable. You shall be sorely missed.

And again, good bye and GTFO!

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

"Get Stuffed"?

Or should it say, "Oh, GTFO!"

-dZ.

Google field tests (yet another) Facebook rival

DZ-Jay

"Get Stuffed"?

Or should it say... "Oh, GTFO!"

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

Re: Oh really?

Dude, mixing coffee shop with pub? That's disgusting!

-dZ.

Lego lover builds big Barad-dûr replica

DZ-Jay

Well I'll be...

Lego building distilled to a discipline of engineering. I'm very impressed.

-dZ.

Woman dies of heart attack at own funeral

DZ-Jay

Re: Always be careful

Or before the hunger for brains and human flesh overcomes them.

-dZ.

Mac OS X 10.6.8 hails from Paleolithic era

DZ-Jay

What problems?

Seriously, I keep reading about all the problems downloading upgrades, yet for the past 7 years that I've owned Macs, I've never encountered one. I've had a Mac Pro, a couple of iMacs, and a Mac Mini, and all have been updated always using the System Update application.

I'm not denying there are problems, but I'm curious to know if they are typically on a specific model or class of computer, say, notebooks?

-dZ.

Sony teases tablet fans with bizarre 'mousetrap' vid

DZ-Jay

Would someone please describe it?

Would someone please describe the video? YouTube is banned at the office and I can't figure out what's wrong with the advert just by reading the comments.

dZ.

Google: Our rapid load won't give you anything nasty

DZ-Jay

How to disable it

Block JavaScript execution on Google's site, and Bob's your uncle.

Das ist alles.

-dZ.

LucasArts Day of the Tentacle

DZ-Jay

Re: aye

As far as I know, CTRL+C cannot be remap, since it hooks to a lower level interrupt routine.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

WARNING!

Make sure not to try that in DOSBOX!! In order to exit it the Maniac Mansion in-game game, you must press CTRL+C, which the DOSBOX simulation passes directly to its virtual kernel, causing you to exit the DOTT game and all back to the DOS prompt.

This is a known issue with some games in DOSBOX. Make sure to save your DOTT game before playing the Maniac Mansion one.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

DoTT!!! Yay!

Indeed, Day of The Tentacle is one of my most favorite games of all time. I remember playing it back in ye olde BBS days of yore and being absolutely impressed by the graphics, voices, and of course, the incredibly amusing storyline and puzzles.

I replayed it just last year using DOSBOX, and I must say it has not lost of any of its charms. Wonderful game, a true classic.

-dZ.

EA: early Battlefield 3 buyers will gain no advantage

DZ-Jay

What? Will they or will they not?

>> "EA: early Battlefield 3 buyers will gain no advantage"

So, no advantage.

>> "EA has denied claims that gamers who pre-order Battlefield 3 will not gain an advantage in play over those who don't."

Wait, they *denied* that they players will not gain an advantage? So, they *will* get an advantage after all.

>> "reports surfaced that buyers who pre-order the game will gain unfair advantage [...] EA today dismissed the claims"

Hum, no advantage, then.

>> "Owning these items will give you a more varied arsenal, but it will not give you a significant advantage on the battlefield.

Wait, now they *will* get an advantage, just not a significant one?

So, Mr. Cox, which is it, advantage or no advantage?

-dZ.

iCloud: Big step for content management, but not for the cloud

DZ-Jay

@scarshapedstar

You missed the point. "Cloud + cache" is not the same as "Cloud + local copy." The former abstracts the content completely, at the cost of removing direct access to it and adding full dependency on the remote service. The latter is an add-on service to content produced and stored locally, where the user gets to manipulate it directly in any of his supported devices.

Google's approach is designed to exact a monthly rent of the service, be it in cash or ad impressions. Apple's approach allows users to keep their documents, and offers the *optional* additional service of automatic synchronization.

-dZ.

Has Steve Jobs killed the consumer hard disk industry?

DZ-Jay

@Eponymous Cowherd

>> "The problems with the "cloud" are manifold. Speed is a big issue. Even if you have a 20MB broadband service (that actually delivers that speed), then placing and retrieving files from the cloud is several orders of magnitude slower than doing the same from a local HD (particularly if its an SSD). Then there's the availability of a connection. It may work fine on your home broadband, but what about on the train?"

The problems with the "cloud" may indeed be manifold, but it is not fair to attribute them to iCloud, for it does not really follow the conventional "cloud" service others have been touting.

For instance, iCloud is going to *sync* your devices, not necessarily store your stuff for you. As per your example, presumably you'll have little reason to sync while on the train. When you are unable to connect to the network, your devices will still work with whatever local content was sync'ed before.

Nothing has changed in that regard, only the way to sync has been moved from a tethered connection to a PC to a wireless background process with the iCloud back-end.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

@Marvin the Martian

The back-ups must be be in RAM also. Tape is dead, remember?

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

@Is it me?

Then you'll be very happy to know that the iCloud service is not only *optional*, but is only there to *sync* up your devices--not necessarily to store your stuff. Therefore, it is mostly a conduit for those who want that service.

Feel free to use over-the-air, peer-to-peer syncing using Wi-Fi, which is another feature announced for the next version of iOS and Mac OS X.

I don't think it's appropriate to judge Apple's strategy in the same light as Google's or Amazon's. The vision of the latter two is to store all information and grant streaming or on-demand access to users through web interfaces.

Really, you guys should pay a bit more attention at what's actually been announced.

-dZ.

Facebook: 'We should've been more clear' on face-scanning tech

DZ-Jay

Not a mistake

As others have said, this was not a mistake. Even if users feel it's creepy and disable the feature in their Privacy Settings, it will probably not delete the data gathered. What the spokesperson mentioned was that people can opt-out of having their names show up as recommendations, not to actually prevent their pictures from being scanned or to have the already scanned data removed.

So, what have Facebook learned from their past "mistakes"? That they can extract the data by stealth from their users, issue an apology if it becomes a public concern, and--most importantly--keep the data.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

@as2003

As far as I can tell, the Google Street View fiasco ended up in an international controversy that has culminated in the project being stopped from gathering Wi-Fi hot-spot data, and governments the world over opening up a critical eye towards Google's business practices where they once took them at face value.

-dZ.

Google pits C++ against Java, Scala, and Go

DZ-Jay

Title

>> C++ "also requires more extensive "tuning efforts, many of which were done at a level of sophistication that would not be available to the average programmer"

But the question is, did tuning programs in the other languages improved them over the stock C++ version? If not, then it doesn't really matters that C++ is hard to optimize, when you get the speed virtually for free.

dZ.

US Supremes add 'willful blindness' to patent law

DZ-Jay

@jake

>> Unless you mean "sold lots of units, [...] but at least made the company a profit"

That's exactly how you measure commercial success.

-dZ.

Google Wallet teams with Citi, MasterCard

DZ-Jay

Uh-oh... time start that petition again!

With Google and Citi-group teaming together, the weight of their collective back-end data collection and mining engines may create a rip in the fabric of time-space, enough to suck the entire universe through it!

It's looking like the end of the world is really coming up fast on the third quarter!

-dZ.

Student books Vegas trip with Twitter mood detection app

DZ-Jay

It's broken!

How scalable is that? I get an error when I click any ofnthe trending entries:

object(RuntimeException)#45 (7) { ["message":protected]=> string(26) "Response Code Not Expected" ["string":"Exception":private]=> string(0) "" ["code":protected]=> int(0) ["file":protected]=> string(99) "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\tse-client\SentimentEngineClient\SentimentEngineClient\library\TSESDK\TSESDK.php" ["line":protected]=> int(265) ["trace":"Exception":private]=> array(8) { [0]=> array(6) { ["file"]=> string(99) "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\tse-client\SentimentEngineClient\SentimentEngineClient\library\TSESDK\TSESDK.php" ["line"]=> int(211) ["function"]=> string(14) "handleResponse" ["class"]=> string(6) "TSESDK" ["type"]=> string(2) "->" ["args"]=> array(2) { [0]=> object(Zend_Http_Response)#46 (5) { ["version":protected]=> string(3) "1.1" ["code":protected]=> int(500) ["message":protected]=> string(21) "Internal Server Error" ["headers":protected]=> array(7) { ["Cache-control"]=> string(7) "private" ["Content-type"]=> string(24) "text/html; charset=utf-8" ["Server"]=> string(17) "Microsoft-IIS/7.0" ["X-powered-by"]=> array(2) { [0]=> string(9) "PHP/5.3.5" [1]=> string(7) "ASP.NET" } ["Date"]=> string(29) "Wed, 25 May 2011 00:06:32 GMT" ["Connection"]=> string(5) "close" ["Content-length"]=> string(4) "6295" } ["body":protected]=> string(6295) "

Rapture postponed as world inexplicably fails to end

DZ-Jay

Yay for the Internet!

It seems my petition to Postpone Day of The Rapture worked--again!

http://www.petitiononline.com/dotr2011/

It's exhausting keeping up with this. Someone else should keep watch for the next prediction. I can't be expected to keep saving the world every single time.

-dZ.

How to choose the right screen size

DZ-Jay

@face

I didn't count the toes each hand has 5 fingers.

DZ-Jay

@face

Oh I see, I meant to type two sets of 4 fingers, not 8.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

Re: Colour range

The newscaster never had green skin, silly. It was deep, bright pink. His hair was green.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

@Robert Long 1

Actually, we have two sets of 8 fingers with an extra pair to serve as "carry" and "sign" flags. We should be measuring everything in Hexadecimal--the only number system designed for humans.

-dZ.

Google euthanizes newspaper archive scan plan

DZ-Jay

fix

>> No newspapers, but surely their' indexing Twitter and Facebook, it's all good, innit?

That's supposed to be,

No newspapers, but surely they're indexing Twitter and Facebook, so it's all good, innit?

DZ-Jay

Organize the world's information

>> Officially, Google is still on a mission to "organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful". But at the moment, this information does not include newspaper archives.

No newspapers, but surely their' indexing Twitter and Facebook, it's all good, innit?

-dZ.

El Reg iPhone app rated a flaccid 12+

DZ-Jay

Nice!

I like the look and function of it. I only have a few comments so far: There's no scroll thingy. How am I supposed to know how much more do I have to reach the bottom? It just seems to scroll forever... until it stops.

Then, can you allow customization of the button bar? I don't generally read "Hardware" (except for when I do), and I rather have "Sods and Ends" or "Bootnotes" in there.

And finally, what, no comments? What's the point, then? :)

Cheers, and... Yay, Friday!

-dZ.

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

DZ-Jay

Re: Security by Obscurity?

It is not a matter of "security by obscurity," it is a matter of "infection by stupidity." The user needs to download the app, (the installer may or may not run automatically, based on the browser's settings), and enter their admin password to install it, then click a button to proceed with the installation.

This is not a "virus" or a "worm" or an "exploit," it is merely a malicious program that does bad things, which the user naively invited into his computer and allowed--nay, actively engaged--to execute in their computers.

Even if this were the most secure operating system in the universe, *nothing* can stop a user clicking "Yes, please do bad things to me."

-dZ.

US admiral reveals safety plan for Zombie Apocalypse

DZ-Jay

Postpone Day Of The Rapture (DoTR)

Saturday too inconvenient? Sign the online petition to postpone DoTR to at least one full day after the week-end.

http://www.petitiononline.com/dotr2011/

-dZ.

LinkedIn goes ballistic following IPO

DZ-Jay

So,

If it went "ballistic," are we to expect an eventual crash back to the ground?

-dZ.

Playboy sneaks NAKED LADIES onto iPad

DZ-Jay

Rent?

Wait, if I pay the subscription, do I *own* the back copies, or do I just *rent* access to the catalog? If the former, then it seems worth it. If the latter, then it's stupid.

-dZ.

Apple App Store apps are often old, vulnerable versions

DZ-Jay

Re: I see your point...

I was not suggesting that Apple was artificially introducing a delay in the approval process. I meant that the delay is germane to the process itself. If they are overwhelmed, this is a legitimate concern, and it will be sorted out eventually. Keep in mind that this is a different and fairly novel model, and it has only been running for about three years and is growing exponentially, which may make it harder to scale.

The scenario you mentioned is very valid, and I would imagine in such situations that Apple would be receptive to the developer and perhaps expedite the process.

However, in any case, I'm sure they will assess the risk themselves and make the determination on their own terms. It serves nobody to automatically and blindly react to the developers claims. After all, I am sure that every developer thinks *their* patch is more critical the others'.

-dZ.

DZ-Jay

Wrong

>> "However, it does introduce a delay that means Apple is falling short of its promise to "keep track of your apps and tell you when an update is available"."

It is not falling short on that promise; the apps nor not available yet in the App Store. Are you suggesting that Apple notify its users every time a developer submits an update for review?

I personally think that the fact that developers can't rely on patching constantly will entice them to test more thoroughly before deploying. Furthermore, I don't think that bug fixes and other patches should have any special privileges that shortcut the approval process. What if said bug fix or patch was implemented in reactionary haste an introduces more issues, or affect customers in any other way?

-dZ.

Facebook simulated entire data center prior to launch

DZ-Jay

Typical

I'm sure they are so proud of themselves, but let's see what they have achieved: They were not confident enough that their code base was developed properly for scalability, and so instead of building a simulation in a controlled test environment, they just tested in production.

They could have just switched on the third data center. What was the point of the simulation? If it failed, since it was handling real traffic, their production would have been impacted just the same, no?

Seems typical for Facebook, and perhaps for computer programmers fresh from college, with enough money and iron to do what they want without fear of consequences.

-dZ.

An introduction to static code analysis

DZ-Jay

Don't be dense

The article does not say that a program can be proved to be "bug free," it says that mathematical proofs can confirm the absence of bugs. That is, some very specific (and common) bugs can be proved to not exist. The absence of all bugs was never suggested.

The types of bugs that can static analysis can prove to not exist are memory leaks, null pointers, and other common errors as such. Violation of business rules can never be generalized to all applications.

-dZ.

Google Chromebook: Will the revolution be subscribed?

DZ-Jay

@DrXym

Let's try an exercise. The answers are at the bottom for the lazy of mind, but try not to cheat.

1. Think about how Google makes money. Got it?

2. OK, now think about how Google could make money from Android, when they give it away for free.

3. Now consider again your stated main advantages of Android over ChromeOS.

4. With me so far? Now put it all together...

5. And finally, take a look at Chrome.

-dZ.

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

Answers:

1. Web advertisement.

2. There aren't many ways, other than promoting people to use their own apps or push them to the Web through a browser where advertisement is ripe.

3. Android's local storage and large amount of specialized apps mean that people will need and use the Web less, at least directly through their browser.

4. It is in the best interest of Google to push users into a Web browser and accustom them to using Web Apps instead of locally installed specialized apps. This is because the most common business model that has so far survived in the Web is that of providing services supported by advertisement; and Google provides, owns, and monetizes the platform for such advertisements.

5. ChromeOS is a Web browser, only a Web browser, and nothing but a Web browser. Simples.

DZ-Jay

Web printing, are you kidding me?

I work for a financial institution. The IT department at my company has gone through considerable lengths to set up a secure corporate network infrastructure. Now, suppose a user is given a Chromebook (most of our apps are web-apps), and they are connecting through a secure Wi-Fi access point.

What if the user has to print a document containing sensitive client credit information? The network area needs to be expanded to include the Internet in order to print, seriously? And this is not counting the anachronistic absurdity of expending a round-trip through the void just to make a copy on the machine 10 feet away.

I can imagine others arguing that our institution is not the target audience, but then who is? Any sort of organization has private or sensitive information that it must protect from the rest of the world.

This is all going to flop rather hard.

-dZ.

Easier cookie deleting comes to Adobe Flash

DZ-Jay

Allow flash to install in my Control Panel...

Are you serious??

-dZ.

Sergey Brin mum on $500m DoJ settlement stash

DZ-Jay

Am I the only one...

Am I the only one to read the headline as Sergey's mother got a wad of cash from an anti-trust settlement?

Google opens Chrome Web Store to world+dog

DZ-Jay

Wtf?

What the heck do you need an "app store" to purchase a URL to a web site?

-dZ.

Shuttle mission: SPAWNING of the SPACE KRAKEN

DZ-Jay

Yay Friday!

Oh... wait!

MIRACULOUS new AIRSHIP set to fly by 2013

DZ-Jay

@oldcodger

Thank you for that, I was going to post a rather similar comment on the nature of the Hindenburg fire.

-dZ.