Posts by VinceH

Re: TalkTalk blocked my site

"Can every wordpress user check their site"

I've checked my three WordPress sites, and none are blocked.

Re: We've found it ! . . .

"the Earth is scheduled for a climate meltdown to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial express route."

FTFY!

Re: Aloha1

That's just silly. Make it Aloha99 - then it would take at least 99 attempts before they guess it correctly, and new research that I haven't just made up on the spot (honestly) shows your average nefarious person gives up after 43 attempts.

"But you don't operate a radio while driving. You turn it on when you get into the car and turn if off when you get out."

Sadly, while that should be the way things are (and it certainly works for me), the reality is probably that people don't like this song, so tune to another radio station, or don't want to listen to this CD again, so fumble around ejecting that one and finding another - all while driving.

(Yes, a CD player is not a radio, but Mr Average Joe may very well call that thing in his car a radio even if he doesn't use the radio function - although stereo is more likely).

Re: 2nd Level

"Now do you see the light???"

Can I have some of your tablets? Mine are crap compared to yours.

Re: hmmm

"Fantastic choice for senior citizens who might not be too computer savvy"

Exactly that.

When my step dad needed a new computer, about six or so months back, I pointed him in the direction of Chromebooks. His requirements are very simple so it's ideal for him - and it's meant I have to deal with less problems (so far, none at all).

"I used to get this sort of junk."

I get them occasionally from Domain Registry of America - one of those listed - and a number of my clients get them as well (thankfully, rather than just fall for it, each who has received one has had the good sense to ask me if it's real).

This sort of business doesn't stop at domain names, though. I'm in the process of registering a trademark, and I've already had a letter (which looks more or less like an invoice for 970euros, but states it isn't in the small print, probably enough to keep it just about legal) from "International Patent and Trademark Service" to register the trademark in their database. Again from the small print: "The registration in our database has not any connection with an official government organization".

Fecking chancers. I'm sure I can look forward to more of these over the life of the trademark.

Re: Steve would say...

Not - because he'd probably use 'leverage' rather than 'lever'. (Ugh!)

Re: innocent or guilty

It doesn't matter which one it is, because if too many people say no then at some point it will change from "Cops are allowed to keep photographs for five years before deleting them, as long as the subject agrees" to "Cops keep all photographs, forever" because there will be a new 'emergency' bill passed to protect us from the paedorists.

Re: Hypocrites

On the upside, under the proposed plans the companies will also protect your content with religious zeal - because what's yours is theirs.

Re: Unique Passwords

"And having got back through the tracks to eBay, it refused to allow my new password on the grounds that certain non-alpha characters, with which it had been perfectly happy before, were no longer allowed..."

But did their system tell you that beforehand and/or behave consistently? I had fun with Ryanair's website on this subject back in January.

Re: Are you sure

Yes, but they said it with their forefingers hooked into the sides of their mouths.

Re: you mean movie makers still have not realised

" If you think crap movies don't make money, I refer you to the Transformers franchise."

Depressing, isn't it?

I was found the first one disappointing, so I decided against going to see the second. I eventually watched it when it didn't cost me any extra, and found it disappointing. I didn't even consider the third when it came out.

There's a cinema I use most often - I go there because it's reasonably cheap (old-style fleapit) and it's on my route home from work most days, so if there's a film on that I want to see at near enough after the time I'd go past, I'll go then. That usually means a 4:30-5:00pm start - and often has the benefit of not many other people in the screening to spoil it.

This week, the most convenient film for my times? The new Transformers film.

I spotted at the weekend that Netflix had number three, so because I wouldn't be paying any extra to see it (other than giving up my time) I thought I'd give it a chance, and if I enjoyed it I'd consider going to see number four. Either I'd forgotten just how bad the first two were, or number three is even worse than they were, because that was a truly awful experience.

Needless to say, I won't be bothering with the cinema this week.

Re: Cheat

"Yeah, please re-invent^H^H^H^H^H^Himplement the start menu, put dialog menus back (you know the things you removed since Vista), and you will be all set."

Yeah, but... "mobile-first" probably means more stupid UI changes that just don't sit right on the desktop.

Re: Fit inside double glazing windows

"As I walk around where I live there are houses where the TVs are so enormously mahoosive, I don't know if the inhabitants are breaching some kind of pubic broadcast law."

That might depend how old the pr0n is that they are watching.

Re: "Providers have no reason to retain the data"

"So by extension, *we* must bear all the cost of allowing our glorious leaders to poke their noses in where it's not required or warranted."

That's how it'll be anyway if UK Gov gets its way.

If *they* have to pay for it, you and I will actually be paying for it through increased taxation somewhere.

If they don't, and the ISPs have to cover the costs, you and I will actually be paying for it through increased subscriptions.

Heads, they win. Tails, we lose.

Re: But, but, but...

"Are you telling me that one of these houses is Tony Blairs?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.514108,-0.164101,3a,75y,321.39h,89.87t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1skhtQfxZBDilvPVxXIxUJjg!2e0"

Now, if only there was a way to work out exactly which house it is. Hmm... :/

Re: It's all a plot

"And every bomb will have to have a cell phone glued to it so you can get it through security. Even more sales there."

There's a potential silly OTT comedy sketch, there. Guy going through security, security spot that there's a phone in his hand luggage. They ask him to take it out and switch it on. Out it comes, attached to some sticks of dynamite. He switches it on. Security guy looks at it and says "Okay, go on through."

Ah, okay. I'll take a good long look for it tonight.

I've not long had the TiVo - I had a V+ box until about a year ago when it broke. Rather than get it fixed I just took the TV out of the equation (and my bill), but when I upgraded my broadband they offered me prices that meant I'd be paying less with the TiVo than without.

Until the contract term runs out, at which point the discount will disappear - and I'll probably cancel the TV again.

Re: @auburnman

Ta very much - though I'll make it a cider. ;)

Re: Well...

""but with a blog post or newspaper article, these only ever show the headline and first paragraph. The commenter can't logically have been the complainant."

Not necessarily. If you look at the actual BBC blog post in question, some of the commenters have real names displayed. The top one is Peter Dragomer. A Google search for this guy links to the blog post, shows the blog post's title, but then shows part of his comment in the snippet"

Exactly - one of the comments I was going to make was that the snippet is usually contextual based on the search term.

Another was that the search term suggested by the Guardian bloke demonstrates a lack of understanding of how to search on Google anyway.

His suggested search term: "Dougle McDonald Guardian" - which now shows a number of links on this subject.

A slightly better search term: "Dougie McDonald" +site:guardian.co.uk - which shows the three 'missing' results from his original search term, right there at the top.

I take Andew's point that Google may be re-linking such articles¹, but I note their little caveat that some things may have been removed is still present.

This is all getting silly.

^{1. We won't really know until we hit on a search that definitely has links missing, and not just assumed to be missing, which then magically reappear for the search term later. In the meantime, knickers are not for twisting.}

Re: Mr Ne'erdowell

"Yes, all he has to do is [...]"

Well, excuse me for just giving a single hypothetical example and not devoting the rest of my life to considering every possible scenario, ever, to find the one plausible enough for you.

Re: and so, ad infinitum

"So could someone google every name mentioned in the comments until the "some results have been removed" message comes up... ?"

Probably not. As I pointed out in the comments on another article on this subject, that message comes up if I search for myself - even using my full, exact name, which is probably unique - and I haven't asked Google to forget anything about me. I therefore infer that the message doesn't come up to effectively say "This person's asked us to de-index something about him" but instead is (eventually) going to come up more generally when searching for a name.

What you'd have to do, therefore, is search for every name in the comments, and then go through all the results for all those names trying to see if the article in question is there. When you find a name for whom that article isn't listed, you've found the person.

Re: Fail.

Dagnammit! That was going to be my line!

Re: Autocomplete of e-mail adresses

Quite - I'm seeing a good example of its stupidity this morning: I'm being CC'd in on an argument between two companies that has absolutely nothing to do with me whatsoever. The first couple of emails were¹ entertaining reading, but it soon became tedious.

The reason I'm seeing it is almost certainly because whoever sent the first emailed intended for someone else to see it, but my address was filled in by autocomplete, and they didn't notice.

^{1. I've set a filter now to bin anything pertaining to that discussion. I was tempted to send an email to (politely) say I don't want to see any of this shit, but I suspect the blood pressures are high enough on both sides that bringing the error to their attention would probably spark another aspect to the argument ("WTF did you CC a third party..?" or something).}

Re: Easy access?

"The level at which FTC does not have a point is that all Amazon purchases result in an immediate email report in the account holder inbox and are clearly visible on his device."

That immediate email report is still after the fact - the purchase has been made.

The immediacy of it is also rendered irrelevant by the fact that the parent may not see that email 'immediately' if they don't happen to be using or be able to access their device for any number of reasons. They will see the emails eventually not immediately - and between the time of that purchase and eventually arriving, any number of additional purchases can be made.