Posts by John Tserkezis

You mean "john76543" is already taken? But I want it!

Dunno. Only places I've read that claim mobile kit is inheretly insecure are anti-virus outfits.

Presumably so you can buy *their* particular brand of crapware.

It's the Cue:Cat all over again...

For the benefit those who haven't heard of it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuecat , it was a PC-attached barcode scanner who's entire purpose in life was for users to scan their packet of chips, and have it direct you to a website that had more information on said chips. And now that it knows you like those chips, direct you (proabably though non-direct means) to websites or stores where you can buy more chips.

Released in 1999, they gave them away for free at Radio Shack (the scanners, not the chips).

By 2005, a liquidator was desperately getting rid of 2 million of the things for 30c each. They still appear to this day on eBay for $25 each, though they're probably still worth free.

If google glass does the same, and charge what they do, you too can expect to buy a google glass in 10 years on eBay for about $4000. For historic reasons only you understand, and it can't even read barcodes.

I'm rich. Send me $1 for an info pack that let's you into my secret of wealth.

Send them a short note saying you ask for a buck for a short note in return. Pocket the buck.

You don't get rich by giving money away, occasionally, you need to step on toes, and if those toes happen belong to a highly skilled "intern" with no pay, then so be it.

As long as nobody finds out, that is.

DON'T PANIC!!

Things are not as bad as they appear: Rude, crude, costly and obtrusive advertising will continue to be delivered reliably to your children. And adults. And the eldery (if there are any using iPhones).

When the coppers come knocking asking to see your meth lab....

Forgive them if they appear a little dissapointed...

Manufacturers might conceivably decide to do something similar to prevent 3D printers from being used to manufacture ATM skimmer parts.

Shortsighted of an ElReg reporter to say this, after all, once you get through all the things you can't do, what's left that you can do?

Holy Crap (TM), I have to give my 2c worth here.

Firstly, I hear the shock and horror that Vista, Win7 and Win8 combined nearly don't hold a candle to the number of malware cleans on XP. What everyone appears to forget, is that XP has had a 12 year headstart.

Twelve Fucking Years

Remember that, considering XP users have been stringing it along while paying nothing. Especially when you look at the upgrade path: More money for an upgrade, training, IT support changes, possibly software upgrades/changes, for essentially, a new fangled OS that is merely a life support system for their software. - don't care about the addons, the increased capability, increased security perhaps-especially when they get their regular free Tuesday fixes on time. Paying a bucketload more money to "keep getting what we had before" is particularly unattractive.

However, Microsoft DOES care about mounting costs supplying "free" updates. Someone has to pay for those remember? And as long as it's not the ever-valued end user, who gives a crap right?

Well, after Twelve Fucking Years, and and a blunder inbetween (even if it was a sales/marketing blunder that counts and I'll never see Vista as a valid contender), being left with Win7 as their main revenue stream, they're theatening to stop updates, and release current known vulns to "encourage" the stragglers to update.

The morality or fairness of that aside, just in case you forgot: Twelve Fucking Years. In the past decades, you couldn't count how many other corporations have gone bust within the 7 year mandated support life cycle (?? at least here in OZ), let alone actually, properly supported their old products without forcing an upgrade within that time (well, making the lives of their clients difficult) - yet Microsoft is still supporting XP.

The jig is up boys and girs, seriously, suck it up and upgrade, you've had an exceptionally good run, scratch a notch on your keyboard and be done with it. Time to move on. Sheeze.

So Microsoft can't get HTML5 to work (though everyone else appears OK with it)?

Hardly a surprise, MS has been battling to get HTML to work properly, at least before their more recent browsers and web editors. Or they just don't care for HTML in general, which smells more likely.

"Honey, the lights don't work again"

No problem, ask the guy parked outside our house downloading porn to turn them back on again.

All the up and down votes are the same.

Hey! I smell something funny going on here!.

(sniff, sniff) Oops sorry, that was me.

As you were.

Windows Phone platform online app creator tool now has "Farting App".

Just in case you thought you were missing out.

I lost my job to India and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/09/ny_times_in_my_job/

Not the first time this has happened, and unfortunately, I don't think it's anywhere near the last.

I used to download copious quantities of porn from work computers back when doing that sort of thing was fashionable.

I never had black SUVs front up at our place though.

Perhaps they *should* have, I wouldn't have turned into the deviant I am today.

However, I never downloaded music or movies though - that's just plain wrong and would have the men in black on my doorstep instantly. (cough, cough).

Thank you RIAA and MMPA, you've made porn socially acceptable - too bad for backpacks and cookers...

Now you know why I don't use SSDs for storage.

But it is particularly galling that popular journalism likes to play on outdated childhood conceptions about China’s manufacturing past while completely ignoring the fact that practically all the sexiest, highest quality and most expensive computing devices we use here are manufactured there. And they do it because we can’t.

I would argue that no-one equated "made in china" with crap.

It's all a question on who asks what to be manufactured - if shortcuts are warranted and allowed for by the designer, then shortcuts WILL be taken.

A case in point, pick ANY no-name cheap chinese external hard drive that comes with it's own power supply and an IEC power cord. Prove to me that power cord contains a regulation amount of copper, then YOU plug it into an appliance that is rated at the current STAMPED on the cord.

YOU tell me if it doesn't light up like a christmas tree - in a bad way.

"Outdated childhood conceptions" my arse.

Ahh, the memories.

I started with Netware v2, loved v3, especially the "side installing" feature where you could install Netware from another existing Netware server on the network. I booted off a specially coded batch file on a single floppy, pressed a few keys along the way, and after twenty minutes of arse-scratching, I had a fully functional Netware 3 server ready to be deployed.

Ahh, the memories... I miss those days.

Then again, the "cheapo" hardware of the day meant seriously unreliable hardware - even with pre-testing - meant I had the boss on my arse for sending out faulty equipment every so often. I tried to give the "crap in, crap out" argument, but he didn't buy that, he only cared about the bottom line.

Ahh, the memories... I hate those days.

Isn't this akin to "hiring" 100 people to do a calculation, but only paying the one who completes it first?

And then, expecting the remaining 99 who don't get paid to also not screw you over.

Yeah, perfectly valid security model there.

Should be real soon now.

18 Billion kilometres and still no sign of god. Perhaps if I hold my breath a little longer...

Bah, don't worry me none, I junked it before this.

As it turns out, the straw that broke the camel's back for me was the recent barrage of forced and obtrusive advertising. I had this version installed for some time, but the constant _forced_ upgrades (no way to turn them off even though they have a "pretend" button for it), and the ads that came in quick succession, pretty much did it for me.

Still looking for a suitable alternative though, till then, at least no bastard will bother me. :-)

Before you read on, see if you can guess how the new stuff will be used

I say Penis Enlargement.

Along the lines of Idiocracy, it's more likely that technology is going to be used for that, rather than something actually useful.

Re: Had the bog-standard phone scammer just last night

I play along as the dumb user and string them along as long as I can.

Then I ask them stupid questions (where's the "any" key) till they get the shits and hang up themselves.

I do the same with the religious nuts at the local shopping mall, if they see me again (they're there every sunday) they actively avoid me, knowing either they're not getting any money out of me, or I'm crazy - I'm OK with either. :-)

To reach out to a stolen phone it has to be identifiable, beyond the easily-changed mobile number. All (GSM) phones have an International Mobile Equipment Identifier (IMEI - press *#06# to see it) number, and the majority of mobile networks subscribe to a system which blocks stolen IMEI numbers from their networks.

I've already verified this is NOT the case with australian carriers. Regardless of the fact they claim it is. At one stage there was talk of a stolen IMEI database that was accessable to all carriers - so a stolen phone could not be used on any carrier - yeah well, like I say, talk is cheap, actually doing something about it is another matter entirely.

There is no incentive for the carriers to do anything, because they don't lose anything through a stolen phone. New "owner" buys a brand spanking new SIM card (legally), and as long as they pay their bills, the carriers don't care one squat.

If, and only if, the carriers see a downshift in subscribers due to being pissed off and going to another carrier that's reputed to be more "secure", THEN we might see them actually doing anything about it.

Till then, don't lose your phone.

Cue the doomsayers.

The new machine is significantly more powerful than the hoary European Large Hadron Collider and is likely to be sited in Japan

Can't put it there because at the next quake, it'll create a black hole that'll swallow the earth....

Sigh.

But wait - Apple will patent 'rounded corners' on the display.

No wait, that's already in prototype stage, ok, they'll patent their 'retina' display, no wait, that's been done too.

Oh well, may as well claim it as their own like they've done before anyway...

It's been called Technophobia.

Aside from what you'd expect from the term, a sheer feer of technology, society has beaten women into roles that are "acceptable", because society (and I'm poining fingers at parents here) doesn't understand and actively fears technology.

All that "be what you want to be" mantra has been mostly thrown by the wayside by the parents (mothers?) of the girls who grow up not having any interest in technology to start with - because they've been taught that way.

I'm not buying the "brains are wired that way" argument, because at least in this instance, it doesn't factor, or in some cases, is a benefit over men's wiring.

I've worked with very few women over my career, and on average, their performance wasn't always stellar - but then again, I've worked with some blokes in my time too - and I've seen some fecking monumental morons there...

On the upside, at least from my casual observation, girls (the younger ones) are much more tech savvy and interested than the ones that were brought up with a 50's mindset - that said, again just from my casual observation - parentage has a LOT to do with it too.

So if you're going to blame anyone, blame the parents.

Probably spotted by the same crowd who sees jesus in everything: That oil stain on my garage floor looks like jesus, that burnt toast, that shadow.

Proabaly not as embarrasing as the naked guy who took a picture of his highly reflective chrome kettle...

Hollywood would never let "lies" or even "truth bending" get in the way of a good film?

Never!

My 11 year old neice told me earlier today that macs don't get viruses.

The fact they do isn't of a real concern, everyone is going to get got sooner or later.

My concern is that younger users are being fed lies making them complacent in a world they won't be ready for.

This gives a whole new meaning to "Pull my finger"

And you don't even have to be near it when it deploys!

All so you can download porn faster.

Well, not really, no-one cares anymore, it's just about numbers now.

Itchy and Scratchy money is like real money, but more fun.

(Not accepted everywhere).

I am not going to be held to randsom on my handwriting (or lack thereof).

My handwriting has always been awful - not through lack of trying, my early schooling promoted it and actively tried improving it, but then again, super-expensive typewriters were all the rage in those days.

Today, my handwriting is even worse than it used to be - and I don't miss it. Everybody has a PC and printer (or has access to them) and school/college/university reports are expected in printed form, and explicitely state IF they are handwritten, they must be neat. So in my case, I either print the thing out, or I fail. I am being actively penalised for writing it out.

That part is fine with me, I can type faster than I can write, and "my" printed word is a million times more readable and clear than my handwriting, so why not print?

It stopped becoming a case of should or shouldn't about handwriting a long time ago - society has moved in the direction of printed material, and so should the few scragglers. So there.