Posts by VinceH

"You'd think after the success of the first phone they'd drop this crap and be in a position to supply on a larger scale by now."

Indeed. The whole "invitation" nonsense just puts me off. I see it as nothing more than a marketing ploy, to make people who get an invitation and are able to buy one somehow feel as though they are part of an exclusive/select group.

The phone looks like it could be a reasonable replacement for my current one, which is becoming increasingly battered, and for a reasonable price - but I won't be buying one while it's on this silly "invitation" basis (even if someone sends me an invitation). If and when they make it generally available, I'll consider it - IF I still have my current phone and IF their phone still looks reasonable for the price compared with other phones on the market at that point.

Microsoft should make everyone wear each new day's clothes on top of all previous layers.

Re: Firefox 'owns' HTML

They must have purchased HTML from Microsoft somewhere down the line then, because at some point in the dim and distant - I forget now which version of Windows that was - I noticed it was "Microsoft HTML Document" on a new computer.

Re: Maybe...

"Honestly, Sam, I was merely researching to find out just how easy it is to access. Now I know, I'm going to see what can be done about it!"

Re: Lock in....?

That's why I've taken to calling it DaaPR (Data as a Protection Racket)

Re: sounds like enough but...

""wtf do you do with all the icons!"

Scroll through very fast and yell "WEEEE!"

Better still, emulate three wheels, displayed edge-on with the icons on the outside. Have a launch button which, when clicked, spins all three at slightly different (random) speeds. Only launch an app if all three wheels stop with that app's icon displayed.

Re: Privatising the search for extraterrestrial life

6. Everyone on Earth profits because those particular lawyers will have to visit the alien homeworld in person, and won't be back in our (or their own) lifetime.

Re: It's broken...

"APM doesn't recognise you as a Prime subscriber if you have both a .co.uk and a .com account with Prime only on the .co.uk (as i suspect a lot of people have)."

That describes me - and prompted me to try it. I'm now listening to one of the their stock playlists via the web browser.

Could it be a cookie issue (Amazon's don't live beyond the session here)?

Re: My guess

It's the Pope doing the pooping.

Re: And the point of this article is?

My reading of it suggested the point was "I've bought into iOUT* lighting... and now I've realised that not only was there no problem for it to solve, but it's actually more of a problem to use."

I didn't pick up on that opening sentence - or I'd forgotten it by the time I'd reached the end, until reading the comments!

^{* iOUT: Internet of Useless (or Unwanted) Things.}

Re: I've never owned a console…

" I also had every single issue of Amiga Action, complete with cover discs, till my dear mama decided they were junk, and chucked 'em without even ASKING. No sense of nostalgia, my mother. She could've ASKED FIRST!"

I feel your pain. I have - repeated - first hand experience of a similar problem. With the first two I know what happened:

The first time: When I was a nipper, I bought comics - just things like Beano, Dandy, Whizzer and Chips, etc - and I didn't throw them out. I built up a nice little collection. We moved. On packing day, I brought all my comics down into the living room, intending to take them with us, then went out with my friends. When I came home, the comics were gone - and I discovered that mother dear had used them to wrap her ornaments. :(

I'd also built up a nice collection of toy cars. On this occasion, those did go with us, and the collection continued to grow over the next few years. I had some nice ones - and I'm sure some of them are now worth a nice few squids. At some point, however, I no longer had them, and it's only in recent years that mother dear told me what happened. She said that because I didn't play with them - I merely got them out of their boxes, looked them over, then put them back again - she decided to give the lot to my cousin (or was it cousins - I forget!).

Unexplained disappearances - which probably amount to things in the loft being thrown out with no notice taken of what they were - include Star Wars, Marvel and 2000AD comics.

Re: Moon?

So it's only dwarf-canon, then?

Re: My new car does something odd

'when I called the number it just said "Incoming calls not supported"'

Next time, bung the number into your search engine of choice. It might find the number listed on the relevant company's website, or maybe the search will lead you to one of the various sites dedicated to identifying the companies hiding behind non-geographic numbers (most especially those that make annoying sales calls).

Either way, there's a chance you'll be able to identify the company that owns the number, and from that work out how they got it. As gerdesj says, it might not be what you initially suspect.

Re: For its part, Disney said

“the impact of the Commission’s analysis is destructive of consumer value our profits and we will oppose the proposed action vigorously"

There. Fixed it for them.

Re: Password managers

Password managers don't have to be run 'in the cloud' - they can be standalone applications running on your computer, and which should therefore continue running long after the developers have gone.

(I wouldn't touch a cloudy one with someone else's highly secured bargepole.)

Re: The petrol station business model of the near future

2 and 3 are also possible attack vectors, of course.

Re: And what was the point of gTLDs again?

"Seriously, whats the point?"

Well, if I make a correction to this sentence from the article:

"Many companies have decided to give the expansion of internet endings a wide berth – leading to very disappointing sales figures for the companies that were hoping to cash in on the expansion brand protection racket."

Does that help make the point of the new gTLDs clear?

No, no. He's just resting.

Re: Thekla!

It has seen some renovation work. I don't think the Banksy (as pictured) is still there, though. ISTR reading that it was too deteriorated to preserve in situ. I think it's in one of Bristol's museums now, but I don't know which. I could ask our creepy friend Google, but I can't be arsed.

Obvious joke is obvious: No icon was necessary.

Re: Phishing

"Then there are all the idiots who send me a RE: mail. You fail automatically because I always put a subject in my mail. The ones with RE: and a word are not better off because the word they choose is never one I would choose"

Usefully, these can be defeated by a very easy filter, provided you know your message-ID format. Your filter checks if the subject begins "re:" (or variations) and if there is a References or In-Reply-To header that ends with a message-ID that matches your format. If you're worried about the possibility of false positives, drop the results in a spam folder for the occasional once over.

Re: @Fibbles - MS's Game Plan

"or cobbled ?"

I think you might have stumbled upon the ever mysterious step 2.

Re: This seems too obvious

"Nb. So, what, he uses Gmail because it's free?? My superior provider charges me ~£5 a year."

Gmail may not necessarily be free, depending on how Torvalds and/or the Foundation use it - for UK pricing, I'll they'll see your £5 per year and raise it to £3.30 or £6.60 per user per month.

I haven't checked those prices for myself - I've no intention of farming the email for any of my domains out to Google - but because of clients who seem to think Google's arse is the source of our sunshine.

Re: Sooooo many possibilities ...

"puppy.love - So many things you could put behind that"

Ewwwwww.... that's probably illegal in most parts of the world! ;)

hate.love - for those who like to tattoo their knuckles. (Though I think it should really be the other way around, like your Richard Curtis one).