Posts by Robert Carnegie

Re: Plesase stop using the term 'Landfill' android

I think the implication, realistic or not, is that the cheapest devices won't be discounted if they don't sell, they'll be buried or recycled (recycle please!) because the manufacturer makes more money by selling you the cheap version of the next good thing. It's Android - or it may be - because you can put Android on a device for no licensing fee, although if you want your company to be friends with Google then it isn't that straightforward. But in China there are alternative Android infrastructures to Google.

And meanwhile the poor folk in Africa can probably use all the IT they can get, although I have an antique PC that I don't think they're going to thank me for. It's probably a real power hog, for a start, given how little actual work it does.

Re: biometric passcode

http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html from 1996 does consider the use of fingerprint and code scanners, but their idea is different from yours, and works.

Re: RT vs Pro

An x86 processor doesn't mean that a device will run Windows. The rest of the hardware needs to be PC as well. Samsung Tablet PCs are a lot more expensive - I know, I just bought one (arrives tomorrow). Their Ativ Pro is comparable to Surface Pro and about the same price, but you can store the pen inside the tablet. For some reason the 3G model was slightly cheaper than the non-3G one, so I got the 3G, I hope I didn't make a horrible mistake. I'm pretty sure that it isn't the non-Pro model, which would be a lot less satisfactory.

Re: Nothing that will convince a kid that's never worn glasses or a band to wear one.

XXX-ray vision? Creepy. But, in general, doesn't invisible porn sound like a killer app?

Re: British Phonographic Institute

I think that there is a misunderstanding here, but I can't tell exactly what. Probably "Phonographic",

As it happens, Wikipedia's page redirects to "British Phonographic Industry", and web site www.bpi.’co.uk apparently refers throughout to "BPI" or "BPI The British Recorded Music Industry" - does light dawn? I suspect a recent name change from "Institute" that people aren't aware of. Anyway, you can indeed join. http://www.bpi.co.uk/join-bpi.aspx explains benefits.

ALL banks

All banks are the product of a deranged imagination, including the one in [Dads Army].

@JDX "Windows Store App" means any Metro program.

Metro is now called Windows Store. If you buy an app,‘ too, it's a Windows Store App every time you run it. And the software that comes with Windows 8 is Windows Store Apps. And nobody likes -any- of it.

Re: another way to fix the contactless card?

Well, you probably want to keep the chip-and-PIN feature of the payment card, so, better not kill that chip. So the microwave is out. You can use a magnetic eraser on the brown strip, though. If that isn't there then it can't be stolen. And there's probably some other way besides mechanically abusing the card (which was described above) to kill the NFC component.

Perhaps you also can choose to have the NFC card always insist on a PIN for each transaction.

I suppose the idea is to be like the Queen of the United Kingdom, you don't carry money and when you want a thing, such as a newspaper, somebody just gives it to you. But really it's debited from your card.

Re: unique business process humiliation experience?

Read the small print. When you buy business software now, including Microsoft's, you're liable to be agreeing to a condition that you won't publish a benchmark, or anything that can be construed as a benchmark, without the software publisher's approval. That means every customer, although maybe not reviewers who get a loaner copy - you'd have to ask The Reg'. So, hypothetically, I could tell you that Xxxxxxx Xxx Xxxxxxxxxxxx is a stinker business software product that you shouldn't touch but I'd be breaching the licence terms. And that hypothetical licence cost us a hypothetical £xxxxxx, so I'm not about to do that. That's just how it hypothetically is. Would be. Whichever.

Re: The one basic attribute ...

The question apparently isn't whether a contractor over 40 - or whatever number you pick - can do the job and earn their pay, but whether the company that's paying, or the recruitment agent, will give them the opportunity. This seems to be a domain where discrimination on age, sex, race, whatever, isn't prohibited at all - as it would be in the case of employment - and if that means that you're unfairly rejected, it's just too bad. It also means that your decision to turn contractor has to include this issue: the money you can expect to get depends on your age, negatively, as well as your skills.

I don't think we established whether there are thousands of greying and bald burned-out contractors in the market who really should be ignored in the name of efficient selecting, and too bad for the small handful who actually are still worth seeing. It's fun to read about the dynamic, young, pretty, plausible, and useless contractors that you may meet in your career, or may have to clean up after.

Re: I'm confused

I think that in practice, release 7u40 would be, let's say, less guaranteed to be compatible with software written for 7u20. But I'm not fully informed on this. Another factor is that release 7u40 has an issue date planned well in advance - enterprise customers apparently like that - and, putting the two factors together, there's probably a beta release of 7u40 that you can try out ahead of the actual release, to test whether you're going to have problems with it and your software. Alternatively, you could just do that testing after 7u40 is released and before you install it on your live servers and desktops - but it's likely that 7u40 will be released as a security bug fix release, too, and so you won't want to delay installing it.

But

Does landing unexpectedly in downtown New York count as having your life saved? It's scary there. You could stray into Wall Street and lose every penny you've got.

Re: Militarization

Stargate SG-1 repeats are running currently. The Goa'uld get first pick from the dressing-up box, yes, but sometimes they pick real good. And the heroes from Earth are usually in camouflage wear, but once in a while they put Amanda Tapping in a nice frock, and God saw that it was good. Currently it"s the episodes where Daniel Jackson is transcended and keeps showing up in a white woolen sweater and without his spectacles, which is probably making somebody happy.

Re: Bravo!

I download the small downloader-installer and then make a copy of it, and run the copy. So far, it isn't smart enough to find and delete both copies of itself.

I g et prompted each time with a dialog to control Flash's auto-update behaviour that always changes my previous choice of "Never" back to "Annoying". Oh, so now you -want- to update Flash after all, Robert? Well, here's how you -should- do it. I -think- it doesn't auto-set to silent download at any time, which would be "Outrageous". Anyway, it didn't really seem to work before, it only popped up a "Download the new Flash" dialog box when I rebooted - by which time I'd probably already done it.

On most of my own PCs, I install Flash for Internet Explorer (ActiveX), then mostly never use Internet Explorer.

Smiley noted...

We can't all live by scavenging - and we can't all wear second-hand clothes; there won't be second-hand clothes if no one's buying new.

And we can't all supplement our income by doing next door's washing - as probably somebody famous described most serious or partly serious attempts to devise a real economic utopia on paper.

Re: 3.3% AFTER this price rise

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10612209

says (at the moment) that the RPI inflation annual figure was 3.2% for February and 3.3% for March.

The complaint, as I understand it, is that at the time of the price rise announcement, the latest RPI figure was 3.2%, the February figure.

I can see an argument that if the price increased by 3.3% is announced but not actually charged until the RPI is out at 3.3% then T-Mobile haven't breached these contracts.

I wouldn't have done it that way, though.

It was different when technological advances meant that telecommunications services were actually getting cheaper and cheaper. But that isn't the business model any more. Now, the basic business of moving data around from place to place, including across the planet, is too cheap to meter for individual customers - with the obvious exception of wholesale video piracy enthusiasts, and I'd say a slightly less obvious exception of people watching BBC TV online (including HD admittedly) who are not necessarily asked to pay, but the BBC has been. I think they said "no".

Nope, you're paying for a telephone call packaged into a handset, or for a text message likewise, not for the volume of data - just the packaging.

You can use Skype to talk internationally pretty much for free though - and so these contracts either disallow Skype, or charge for it.

So it's not going to get cheaper any more.

Re: @LilCricket

I'm earning good money, but I don't have time to play any games.

I wonder if anyone's tried releasing software without DRM lockout but with a moderately well protected notice that says "This software is licensed to Mr Robert Carnegie from Boston" or whoever has bought it. Then people aren't actually stopped from playing copies - and pirates don't make any money from it themselves - but you are pricked into buying the legitimate edition.

I suppose that the enthusiast cracker would still want to take the licensed owner name off it or change it, without thinking about the pointless wrongness of doing so.

It occurs to me also that the Netscape Navigator web browser was released as evaluation software with an unlimited period of use before paying for it, so hardly anybody did. This seems to have been really regarded as a joke, although you'd hope that some people really would feel that once they'd satisfied themselves that the software worked satisfactorily, they would pay. As it turned out: not many.

Re: Automatic tills?

I'm not sure, but I had trouble using them at first, depending on the store - they all do basically the same thing, but differently and not as well. I think the early Sainsbury model in particular defeated me when I tried to use the "Brought my own shopping bag" routine. I also didn't understand - as I believe I now do - that the thing is basically a big weighing scale. I suppose they maybe consider that to be an important secret.

I hadn't thought before, but probably the best re-useable bag would be one that holds itself open while you pack. Are there any such on the market? (My own ideas deleted in case I get to make my fortune by inventing one.)

It would probably be simpler if they just forced you to use the shop carrier bags that are provided on the special mounting thing, even if you have your own bags. Is that a man idea or a woman idea? I'm a man, so I suppose that's the answer.

I also have a man solution to the problem of ironing clothes. It is difficult or impossible for a robot to iron a shirt in the ordinary way, and it's tiresome to do it yourself. My secret solution is that I don't iron the shirt at all. It saves so much time and nobody cares.

Re: Agreed

Oh - and I seem to have misunderstood about the Linux situation, sorry. Probably the only thing worse than having Windows to support on a relative's PC is not having Windows to support. So how about a family round-robin letter explaining that support for a Linux system is a specialist skill, and is how Linux suppliers make their money since the software's free. In fact, Linux can be okay for non-technical users, particularly if they treat the machine as an appliance. After all, Android works. But if they want Windows or want to use Windows apps, then they'd better have that. Or have system restore backup discs, anyway. Or dual-boot, but then it's getting too complicated for casual computer users.

Re: Deities

It's widely reported online that ancient Egyptians worshipped cabbages. I think their judgment differs from ours. Then again, cabbage also is said to be a powerful aphrodisiac, so maybe they knew what they were doing after all.

Re: Hypocrites

I take it you're referring to the Chrome Frame "plug-in" for Internet Explorer, from around 2009, that in 2011 came out in a version that you could install on your PC without being administrator... if non-administrators are allowed to install any software, that is. Then you would see selected web sites presented using Webkit instead of IE's rather unsatisfactory internal mechanism for representing web sites.

http://mcpmag.com/articles/2011/06/23/bypass-ie-and-admins.aspx

I don't know if this is still around. I don't suppose that it can really have been installed on PCs where users weren't allowed to install their own software. If there was such a loophole, wouldn't that be Microsoft's own fault?

I heard the "burned down the paediatrician's surgery" version very recently in a TV or radio broadcast. Or maybe it was burned down their home, or just that they burned down a paediatrician, I'm not sure. That's good enough anyway, isn't it?

By the way, I must make an appointment with the pederast to see to my ingrowing toenail. Joke.

Press is "the fourth estate", part of the national establishment, and should have definite constitutional limits and a constitutional relationship with other parts of the state to prevent it from exercising excessive power over them and over members of the public.

For instance, I would have liked to see Prince Harry respond to the indecent photographs of his sister-in-law by sttrafing the magazine offices from his helicopter gunship. I would have helped to load the ammunition for him, but I'm not trained. I'd love to watch the video of the terrified magazine staff leaping out of the windows and mostly falling to their deaths. Including the astrologer. Especially the astrologer, even thouh he probably had nothing to do with the photo thing. I'm pretty sure that the Prince has diplomatic immunity, and it would give the mother-murdering bastards something to think about before they do it again.

I'm not saying that this is how every case of press misbehaviour should be dealt with, but the press are filth.

Re: Are Google just storing up their own patents and not using them?

Motorola has the patent, which isn't quite the same as Google having it. By the way, I don't understand exactly what the patented thing does; it's something to do with an infra-red emitter and sensor that specifically detects an obstruction in front of the phone, but I don't exactly get how. Practical and obviously different alternatives are a camera that recognises an ear coming towards the phone (or vice versa) and disables the touch facility, and a switch on the side of the phone that you apply to lock it. I think my old Samsung Q1 tablet computer had a switch to disable the touchscreen.

Re: Re - They should be shot

I assume that the rule still applies that cyclists and other road users on wheels must give way to pedestrians, both on the road and on the sidewalk... perhaps I've misunderstood? :-) I cycle fairly briskly but not furiously, and I don't sneak past stationary traffic, either, unless there's a lane provided. Cyclists in London are most likely to be wiped out by a lorry turning, apparently, and I suspect it's because they're doing that. The other optional cycle accessory that I consider essential (besides a bell, which is compulsory) is a gently convex rear view mirror, which lets me see whether I've got the road to myself, or whether there's traffic behind that I can accommodate, if I feel like being considerate - which I usually do - by steering close to the gutter - or alternatively by blasting through a bottleneck obstruction at my best speed and -then- steering out of their way. It's also pretty good for changing lanes. But I can't get on with a flat mirror; above 10 miles per hour, it shakes too much to see anything.

Anyway, phones... yes, on this evidence, drivers and riders had better sit in grim silence throughout their journey, or have the radio on. It isn't fun, but having an accident isn't fun, either.

KB2813347 is a Microsoft security update released this month that comes in a Windows XP version. These updates stop coming at end-of-life, but newly discovered ways to break into your computer do not stop coming.

Re: Java 6

I think the Java 6 update costs extra, or something? If you really can't use Java 7... mind you, the guy at work who knows about Java doesn't like 7, at least not when we discussed it last.

Whatever the purpose is, it's going to be nasty. But they may not have done anything yet, waiting until they pwn one million blogs or something, then they strike.

http://www.thecheck.co.uk/ ...... maybe??

I don't know if the car history data service described there is valid or not. Presumably it does what it says and it may be something that you want to know and they don't misuse the data, but I don't know if it's a reasonable offer. For one thing, I'm a cyclist... Note that where it says "Try it now!", I assume that it's not free, that it costs you £3 "plus standard network rate" straight away. But to me it isn't obviously and exclusively bad.