Posts by JimmyPage

I think they're trying to paint

a picture where you've bought a new PC (coz sales of them are rocketing) and when you turn it on for the first time, it's have a massive prompt saying "Are there children in the house ?" with a "YES" and "NO" button underneath it.

The silence from Microsoft and Apple (as Mac suppliers) speaks volumes. Where is this mysterious config screen going to go ? Where will the onus lie for providing it ? The retailer ? The OS supplier ? The hardware supplier ? The ISP ? How can an ISP put software on a clients machine ? Especially if that PC is running something which isn't Windows ?

Tablets ?

Smartphones ?

Smart TVs ?

Oh well, at least the government gives us a good laugh when it tries to grapple with technical issues. They treat engineers with contempt and ignore them, and quite rightly get ridiculed when they try to live without them.

On a serious note, this could be an early indication of Camerons impending demise. Politicians usually have bullet-catchers who stop this sort of foot in mouth gaffe. Their mysterious absence, leaving their masters in the line of fire is a sure sign they've read the runes. Remember Jacqui "we'll force paedophiles to register their email" Smith ?

Government IT never ceases to underwhelm me ....

Back in 1986, I applied to the CCTA (as it was then) for a position for my sandwich year. Got the interview. Was faced by 5 people, 4 of whom wouldn't have known a computer if it had been paraded through on a carnival float. The fifth was clearly the "staff", and was current up to about 1970 - when I explained I'd studied Pascal, FORTRAN, ADA and Modula-2, he asked about my COBOL.

When they offered me the job, it was £1,000 a year less than had been advertised at. When I queried this, I was told that they paid salary by age band, and I was a year younger than the age band they'd advertised for.

Seems like nothing has changed in 26 years.

Fascinating ...

Making cheese is not a walk in the park ... to discover our ancestors were up to it so long ago is incredible. The implications are astounding, since cheese making is analogous to beer (and bread) making.

The ability to adapt out environment to suit our needs is a unique trait to human species.

Windows mobile - a real showstopper

I've whinged about the dearth of apps for Windows Mobile since getting my (work) phone 2 years ago. And it's almost a given that when I do some smart alec will comment "what apps can't you get ?" and then proceed to heap scorn on me when I list them claiming they're either "not worth it" or "you don't need that anyway".

Well today, for various reasons I needed to use Barclays PingIt. But is there a Windows Mobile version ? Is there bogroll. So there is a real crunch point. My company has dumped Windows Mobile, and has no plans to look at Windows 8. If I weren't so damned honest, I'd "lose" the phone.

Meanwhile, the Mrs sails on with her Android HTC.

No pardon ...

as others have pointed out, let his conviction stand, to remind us of the nasty, bigoted, spiteful nature of those that rule us. Don't let them airbrush that out of history.

I consider it a public duty

to waste as much of these scammers time as possible, when I encounter them. My missis has become particularly adept, after a little basic coaching, and can happily keep them on the phone for half an hour. I wish there was a way we could have calls sent to us from the public to deal with.

I keep meaning to write a small program to deal with all the phishing attempts we receive, and just reply to them with thousands of random username/password combinations. Maybe with the dark evenings, I'll actually get round to it. I was thinking of a monitored email address which takes the URL and then loads the page and submits it again and again. In fact I'm going to go and check and see if LastPass has an API ....

The golden rule of passwords is to assume that they can be seen by anybody ...

until we have an ISO approved standard for database and system design for holding and authenticating user details.

Personally, I can't big up LastPass enough (not just because it's free). It's password generator means a unique complex password for every site I use. The only way it could be improved (and for all I know this feature exists in the paid for version) would be to expire passwords every <x> days and nudge you to change it on the relevant site.

Playing devils advocate ...

How can you change the system ?

If we're not careful, we're going to end up with a system where companies will be expected to pay the tax HMRC *thinks* they should pay, rather than the tax they should pay, based on a set of codified rules.

A lot of these tax wheezes were set up by governments in which successive ministers left to take up highly paid directorships with firms who are taking advantage of said wheezes.

Do they ?

"But the four broadcasters also punt these catch-up services to rivals Sky and Virgin Media, who bundle the services into their broadband packages. "

really ?

Because of a snafu'd TiVo series link (it failed to realise that "Part 2" of Derren Brown followed "Part 1") I was forced to try and watch if THE DAY AFTER on catch-up. Nowhere to be seen. So obviously I downloaded it. A call to VMs customer service revealed that it's the broadcaster, not VM who decide what appears on the VM catch up.