Posts by Fred Flintstone

Love it ..

.. thanks, I missed that rather startling irony, grin. I need more coffee, obviously :-)

Yeah, sure..

I'll carry a whole display with me when I travel so I can plug in my small backup disk. The idea of a laptop is mobility (on the topic - I still miss the ability to stick a SIM chip somewhere).

You know gravity is a myth..

.. the Earth just sucks.

Someone had to say it before the conversation descended into real science.. What? Oh, too late..

However..

.. you too shall eventually succumb to the "teh" problem as your word processor (be it MS Office, OpenOffice or now even the Apple autocorrect in Lion and anything iOS) is busy ramming that into your muscle memory with unrelenting force. You can thank Microsoft for that.

Eats, shoots, and leaves.

I'm in the "fail Adobe" camp..

.. but mainly because the installation of Adobe products on my Mac immediately returned the Windows problem of at-least-one-patch-a-day-because-we-can't -be-arsed-to-write-decent-software. Normally, weekly updating on a Mac is more than enough, but Adobe couldn't possible integrate with Apple's updater, so instead they have this uncontrollable* process that checks without even asking. All you need is Adobe Reader or Adobe Air and the problem starts.

(*) that is, until I revoked its network access through a HandsOff security rule - silence returned. Must ask them if there is a way I set up a timed rule..

Thanks for that - found one last gotcha..

Good to know Andrew, thanks for the update. I discovered only one major oopsie: I have Office 2008 installed, aka "the last one unspoileth by thee evil ribbon". That works fine (as far as MS Office "works"), but I have just read that it won't re-install as the installer itself needs Rosetta which is no longer in Lion. So I guess I best nuke the box, re-install 10.6.7, let it update to 10.6.8, install Office, and then run the installer from a USB stick.

Not that I need MS Office for myself, but unfortunately I have clients that have fallen for the file format and the "it doesn't look 100% the same" trick MS pulls on recalcitrant users. I use OpenOffice - fidelity on any platform..

Anyway, for me, the new partition level security and the fact that it is shared across Time Machine was a MEGA MAJOR argument to upgrade forthwith. It means I can tell clients to run Time Machine without worrying what they do with the backup disk..

No, Heathrow's RFID systems have another flaw..

.. some *idiot* designed them so that every time someone new logs on (i.e. when a shift changes) the whole shooting match must reboot from the ground up - and that takes a good 10..15 minutes. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to make a well educated guess of which Operating System they must be using..

OK, details please..

I've had for 2 years the idea that slowly accumulating WiFi energy would be a good way to reverse the normal trend of an emergency torch to STOP working after a while (the classic "a torch is a case with which to carry dead batteries" symptom). As LEDs use a lot less power there ought to be enough there to drive at least one simple HiBri LED..

Having said that, Maplin does a fun baby LED keyring with a crank. It's got a capacitor inside, and a few secs of cranking gives you all the light you need. You just need to change the chain - it sucks. In addition, I have this habit of bolting an emergency light near where the fuse box is - the best light is one that is there where you need it :-).

The problem is..

.. that nobody can take the chance of being wrong on this one. Imagine stating "oh, it's OK guv, they're not venomous" and then finding a clothed pool of jelly with a d*ck sticking out of it later.

That would really not look good on the CV.

Yes, correct

I had that initial confusion too, but yes, that's the correct meaning in this context. It's got nothing to do with the Server Message Block/CIFS protocol MS + planet uses for connectivity.

As an aside - it's that risky for Yell? AFAIK anything that MS touches tanks like a lead balloon under double gravity..

It's not that easy..

The problem is that you are asking a bank or credit provider to ask as judge and jury, with all the resultant liabilities. The argument that "they make money anyway" is actually not valid for the company providing the credit line as a refund process costs a lot more than an actual transaction brings in revenue.

There is also another problem: those who *are* in the position to do something about fraud centrally are exactly the ones who will not do so - the card network (VISA; Mastercard; AMEX et al). Because here you are right: they make a profit on every transaction, fraudulent or not. They don't suffer the cost of fraud - they just elevate transaction costs to offset the loss.. That's the main reason why I will never go even close to any RFID (NFC) based payment service - they don't care that you can read that chip from a good 30m if you have a decent transceiver and aerial..

You can set an alarm..

.. which may not work when the battery is down already :-)

"simple" mistake?

Yeah, surely shome mishtake.

You have mobile code that picks up data, and you have a fully functional backend that handles file locking and other fun stuff to file away GBs worth of data. That's a lot of manhours for a "mistake"..

Actually, no - EU law prohibits implied consent

"I suspect we'll end up with the latter - effectively putting the onus on the consumer to object"

I do cross-border privacy for a living. EU laws do not permit implied permission (i.e. embedded in the small print of some contract), data protection permissions must always be given explicitly (i.e. separately described and authorised) - that's also why a default opt-in is actually somewhere between frowned upon practice to downright illegal depending on the specific nation's implementation of EU laws.

The problem isn't the laws - it's the abuse thereof. Especially the US seems to be hell bent on abusing privileges or even simply breaking agreements when it suits them. The results is a problem that pervades business there to the point of companies involved in serious Intellectual Property development now actively avoiding the US as a place of business until development is complete. It's ridiculous that a nation who alleges to be the land of freedom has acquired a reputation for being less safe than China or Russia, but that's the reality of today: Safe Harbour very definitely isn't.

Your primary problem with SaaS is where the data resides, because that's where legal access will first be attempted. This is the situation with legal firms in the UK who outsource their IT as well: their data may be backdoored due to a warrant served on the provider, and the intercept laws (in the UK that's RIPA 1998) do not permit to inform the data owner of the backdoor).

We advise people and companies on these issues, and generally exploit cross border differences to improve security and privacy protection - cross border abuse of privacy laws leaves an audit and paper trail exposure that abusers don't like as it provides court admissible evidence of abuse.

By the way, this has little to do with "conspiracy theories", but with offsetting liabilities. Unless you can point the finger elsewhere, a leak or breach means your company ends up with the liability. If you're a major law firm handling a shipping claim you're talking about *VERY* large numbers..

Weird..

.. I never had this problem, but then again, I haven't had to call them for a long time. The only thing that sucked 7 ways to Sunday was their basic webhosting - from Europe it was nigh unreachabe..

Actually, I'm actually wondering that.

I've looked at Lion server, but I don't have the budget yet to spring for a server, so I was wondering if I could set up a Linux VM on a spare PC and install Lion on it so I had something to test the server.

If they have fixed the (rather depressingly large amount of) problems with the previous version it may just be the thing to break the Exchange/Outlook lock for offices. Would make migration a lot easier, and a shared WiKi and Groupware setup is a cool idea for SME size setups, especially with a VPN handler. Must check..