* Posts by JohnFen

5648 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Feb 2015

Thunderbird is go: Mozilla's email client lands in a new nest

JohnFen

Re: "Around 0.5% of emails opened in the 'bird today, apparently"

> given the techie nature of Thunderbird's user base, I would guess that 0.5% is a severe under-representation.

This would be my guess as well. I've been using TB for a very, very long time -- but I never allow HTML to be rendered, JS to be executed, or external images to be resolved, so there's no way that my usage was counted.

Difficult season: Antivirus-flinger Avast decides to 'wind down' Jumpshot

JohnFen

Too late

Avast has already burnt that bridge.

US govt 'told Germany that Chinese spies bug' Huawei 5G kit. It also told the world Iraq had WMDs ready to deploy...

JohnFen

Who to trust?

> "Huawei cannot be trusted to tell the truth or protect the interests of others, and it should not be trusted with the vital security of 5G networks," the US State Department explains in document about 5G security titled

I don't know about Huawei, but I do know that this is absolutely true of the US government. Anything they assert is meaningless in the absence of evidence.

Brave, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla gather together to talk web privacy... and why we all shouldn't get too much of it

JohnFen

Re: Targeted ads are great and we need them to keep the internet great

You're ignoring the billions that have been provided in tax breaks to encourage internet development over the decades, as well as the various internet bodies that were operated and funded by the government until a decade or so ago. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that without government support, both through direct funding and supportive services, we would not have the internet at all. At best, we'd have something more like interactive cable (which is where the big players are trying hard to push the internet anyway).

JohnFen

Re: They do work, as much as it pains me to admit it

> something of interest is being put in front of you, with zero effort from you having to find the information.

If you aren't putting effort into finding the information yourself, you're just allowing people who don't have your best interest in mind to mislead you. Anything said in a marketing message must be viewed as inherently suspect.

JohnFen

Re: Targeted ads are great and we need them to keep the internet great

> Except from developing the basic networking protocols, it all came into existence, without burning a single tax dollar.

This is not true. Plenty of tax dollars went into it.

> Ads is the oil keeping the internet alive, without ads, over half of the internet would die

If tracking is required to support it, then I'm fine with over half of it dying. Much of it is already dead to me anyway.

> and users would be kept hostage by a handful of big companies and government controlled mainstream media outlets.

Absolutely not true. There are a large number of sites that are operated by normal people who don't run ads and don't charge money.

> Although it may feel creepy at times, targeted ads are actually a blessing.

I could not disagree more strenuously.

JohnFen

Re: Why it's absolutely necessary...targeted to individuals?

> they believe that this will mean only those who might be interested in buying a product or service will see an ad.

Then why do they fight so hard to subvert those of us who protect ourselves against their spying? It seems to me that they're spending a ton of time and money trying hard to ensure that people who are energetically and emphatically declaring their disinterest.

JohnFen

Re: "Microsoft Loves the Web"

> with just one proviso - you look at (well, at least load) the advert that is incorporated into it

If that were the one proviso, I'd have no problem with it. But it's not. The other proviso is that you are subjected to being spied on. I will never stop protecting myself from that, and I see no reason to feel any shame about it. It's the spies that should feel ashamed.

JohnFen

Screw them

> That said, Microsoft is not far from Google in advocating not biting the hand that feeds the web ecosystem – advertising.

Screw them. The marketing industry has been actively malicious and anti-user for years, and have achieved a great deal of success by abusing us all. Now they're arguing that we need to just bend over to them because they're successful.

I reject that utterly. They have given up any and all credibility to talk about these things. If forcing them to behave at least halfway decently means the loss of some free web sites, so be it. I'll shed no tears for any of them.

What are those Windows 10 PCs running? Several flavours from 2019, by the looks of things

JohnFen

Re: I recently noticed

> when I upgraded my graphics card I found that I couldn't install the required drivers from nVidia because my Windows was too old.

That sucks. That's not a problem I'll encounter, though, as I won't be upgrading any hardware on the machine that runs Win 10.

JohnFen

I recently noticed

I recently noticed that something has gone wrong with my Win 10 forced update system -- I haven't received any updates in over a year, so I'm contributing to that statistic!

I like that. I think I'll make sure it never gets fixed.

You spoke, we didn't listen: Ubiquiti says UniFi routers will beam performance data back to mothership automatically

JohnFen

Of course I do

> In other words, you ain't got no choice.

Sure I do. I can choose to avoid the crap that Ubiquiti produces and use a router that's actually fit for purpose.

Ever wondered what Microsoft really thought about the iPad? Ex-Windows boss spills beans

JohnFen

Re: 10 years!

> Think again young padawan

No need. I was talking about my personal observations, which are necessarily limited to the companies that I have worked for. I was not making a general, global claim.

JohnFen

Whether or not something is in active development is independent of whether or not it is popular. Particularly with a utility like Classic Shell, which continues to work great and so requires no further development.

JohnFen

Re: Let me fix it for you

We on the other side of the pond understand "full stop". In fact, it's been a part of our use of the language for longer than my lifetime. We just tend to use it only in the exact way you used it yourself -- to add emphasis to a declaration!

JohnFen

Re: 10 years!

> That said, I used to see a lot of iPad's in corporate environment. Mostly for email and note taking. Now it's all Surface Pro and skinny laptops (mostly Apple oddly).

I always marvel when I see statements like this. I don't doubt them at all, but they are at extreme odds with my personal experience in corporate environments. My experience is that iPads, iPhones, Surfaces, and Apple laptops are rare and mostly limited to use by executives.

I suspect that how prevalent they are is more dependent on local culture than on actual utility.

JohnFen

I could not agree more. The ribbon actively makes applications harder to use and makes it more difficult to find the controls I need.

JohnFen

I've still got a whole box of Newtons (I ran a company developing Newton software in the day). Despite its many flaws, it remains one of my favorite platforms to develop for.

Looking for a Valentine's bargain? Samsung's next pholdable tipped for 14 Feb release at a trifling $1,400

JohnFen

I just can't imagine

I just can't imagine any phone being so awesome that it is worth four figures.

Use our stuff for free and sell your application? That's Qt. Time to give something back

JohnFen

> If I were to acquire a commercial licence I have to get the source; that's the GPL.

> If I then sell an application built with that code I have to provide my customers with the source and a copy of the GPL. That's also part of the GPL

Just to clarify, Qt dual-licenses this code. There is a license for commercial use, and an OSS license. The OSS license in play is LGPLv3 (except for certain tools which are GPL). They have a FAQ about this: https://www.qt.io/faq/

If you're choosing the commercial license, then there is no requirement to provide source.

> In that case I fail to see how anyone who wants a copy of the supposedly commercial-only LTS version can't get a copy,legally, from a customer of a commercial licensee

As near as I can tell, there is no special "commercial" code as such. Anyone can get a copy of the source directly from Qt. The commercial license gives you additional tools and support as well as LTS binary releases.

Because Qt is using a mix of different licenses for different parts, the licensing situation is quite confusing and I may have some details wrong. If you're intending to use Qt in a commercial product, it would probably be a good idea to get an actual legal opinion.

JohnFen

> If not are there external contributions under GPL or LGPL?

They are, but Qt continues to honor those licenses. Their account requirement is only for the binaries. You can still download and build the source yourself just as you've always been able to.

The LTS thing doesn't break the license in either spirit or letter either.

> They can't apply a non-GPL licence to those contributions which means that any end user has to be able to receive the source.

True, and they're not doing that.

JohnFen

Time to fork

Requiring an account? No good.

> Similarly, restricting the LTS version to commercial users means that those relying on open-source licences will need to upgrade frequently, encouraging participation.

...but this is even worse. Requiring frequent upgrades increases the risk to the project, increases the amount of work required, and means that you're building an application on a bed of sand.

What is WebAssembly? And can you really compile C/C++ to it? And it'll run in browsers? Allow us to explain in this gentle introduction

JohnFen

Re: Seems familiar

> In a browser that means exactly the same access to the outside world as JavaScript - the DOM, canvas, web audio etc. with all the same cross origin & security model checks.

That doesn't give any comfort. I consider JS to be too risky to allow.

JohnFen

Re: Becasue they're better

Yes. I was talking about usability and performance, not "write once, run everywhere". As both a user and a developer, I think that the facilities to "write once, run everywhere" are highly insufficient and lead to poor programs.

JohnFen

Becasue they're better

> And why wouldn’t you – if you’re a company developing a new application, why make it native?

Because properly programmed native apps are always far better than properly programmed web apps.

Virtual reality is a bonkers fad that no one takes seriously but anyway, here's someone to tell us to worry about hackers

JohnFen

Re: 3D TVs

> 3D TV died for lack of content as much as anything else

That didn't help, but I think 3D TV died mostly for other reasons: it didn't provide a compelling enough experience, and you had to wear something on your face (or be seated in a particular place).

JohnFen
FAIL

Re: A fad?

Yes, the white-hot light of success that the Kinect produced burned so brightly that it utterly destroyed the Kinect as a product.

JohnFen

Re: A fad?

The sort of gaming that you're talking about is itself a niche market. Even if 100% of such gmaers adopted VR, that still wouldn't count as being "mainstream".

VR has a few obvious areas where I expect it to be rather popular. Games is one of them. Various industrial applications are another. It's hard to see how the gear would achieve wide adoption outside of those areas, though.

JohnFen

Re: "Augmented reality"

As an old ad guy once told me (in reference to ads of the "leaves dishes virtually spotless" sort), we shouldn't forget what "virtual" means. He advocates mentally replacing any instance of the word with the phrase "not in fact".

I/O, I/O, new Android soon on show: What's coming up at Google's dev conference

JohnFen

Re: That's some catching up...

> Who uses tethered headphones still?

I do. I prefer them by a large margin.

Electron devs bond at Covalence conference: We speak to those mastering the cross-platform tech behind Slack, Visual Studio Code, etc

JohnFen

Re: Its the same arguments on every Electron story

> The simple fact is that HTML+Js is such a vast ecosystem it allows you to build amazing UI in a fraction of the time it'd take with any other tech.

Take "amazing" out of that, and I'd agree with you.

But HTML+JS simply cannot make applications that are as good as native apps are. They are necessarily full of compromises to the user experience, not to mention being bloated and wasteful.

> Like it o not, Electron is here to stay.

That's likely true (if not Electron specifically, then something like it), but because of economics, not because it's a great way to create applications. In any case, I won't be using them, personally.

JohnFen

Then where are they?

> "We know that building good apps with Electron as possible," said Rieseberg in an interview with The Register.

If that's true, then where are these good Electron apps? I haven't seen them. The best ones that I've seen are only mediocre.

Microsoft: 14 January patch was the last for Windows 7. Also Microsoft: Actually...

JohnFen

Re: Klingons

> Believe me, it's all curable

It's not, though. I've applied all of the "cures" I could, but there's still plenty about Win 10 that irritates me multiple times daily. I feel like I'm always having to wrestle with Win 10 to make it do what I want and keep it out of my way.

Little grouse on the prairie: IBM's AI facial-recognition training dataset gets it in trouble... in Illinois

JohnFen

Re: You need data if you want understand it

I don't think your post made IBM out to be the good guy. It made IBM out to be as bad as the other actors in this space, in the end.

AI 'more profound than fire', Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai tells rich folks' talking shop

JohnFen

Re: AI impact greater than fire

With great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately, we humans as a whole aren't exactly good at "responsibility".

Free Software Foundation suggests Microsoft 'upcycles' Windows 7... as open source

JohnFen

> It could be that I'm too stupid too type "OSS" (why would I need an F if I'm not virtue signalling)

The F is there to include free software as well as OSS software in the grouping. It's about accuracy, not virtue signaling.

JohnFen

Re: Do they know an open source Windows would be the death of Linux?

More than a few of us Linuxheads don't actually care about Linux to becoming a serious player in the desktop for the ordinary user (and some of us actively don't want that to happen).

JohnFen

Re: I'd like a pony with that one, please

Yes, Microsoft wants everyone to use Azure, but...

> Microsoft do not give a shit, any longer, what you run on your device

They do give a shit about this (or they should) because the only people who would use Azure are those that need to use the cloud anyway and those who are using Microsoft operating systems. And that latter group is the larger set.

JohnFen

I think that the FSF knows perfectly well that this won't happen. They're just having a bit of fun poking the bear.

JohnFen

Re: Do they know an open source Windows would be the death of Linux?

I can't speak towards most Linux users generally, as I haven't seen any actual studies on that. But I personally know a lot of Linux users, and neither of the reasons you cite are significant factors in why they use Linux.

JohnFen

Re: Do they know an open source Windows would be the death of Linux?

It certainly wouldn't mean the death of Linux. Most Linux users I know use Linux because they find it superior to the alternatives. They aren't itching to change to a different OS. Win 7 becoming open source wouldn't get many Linux users to change.

JohnFen

Never gonna happen

Microsoft needs people to use Win 10. They're never going to do anything that might let up the pressure on people to do that.

Well, well, well. Internet-of-Things speaker biz Sonos to continue some software support for legacy kit after all

JohnFen

Re: Strange

I was wondering about this myself. Where I work, we produce networked products that are much more complex than anything that Sonos has going on, and we always able to retain backward compatibility and correct operation in mixed-version environments. It requires effort and engineering, of course, but it's an essential aspect of such things.

Even protocol changes can be done in a backwards-compatible way, although it does mean that older installations won't be able to respond to newer protocol features.

The most charitable explanation I can think of is that the original protocols that Sonos implemented were not engineered with any of this in mind, and they got burned by it. Or it could be what it appears on the surface to be -- planned obsolescence in an effort to soak their customers to the greatest degree possible.

JohnFen

> Most of their customers are younger than your amp so they probably can't fall back on such things.

Amps like that are readily available on the used gear market. You don't have to be old to enjoy such things.

JohnFen

Re: It's easy to lose customers.

That wasn't what Sonos was doing, though. Sonos was rendering the old gear into instant e-waste. If they were to disable the old gear in a way that made it possible for subsequent owners to reenable and reuse it (they could even do the refurbishing and reselling themselves for a little extra income), everything would have been fine.

JohnFen

Re: Drop support, make it open source

I do think that their bricking policy is extremely ill-advised and certainly environmentally unwelcome. I think less of Sonos because of it.

JohnFen

Re: Drop support, make it open source

> They won't be able to remote-brick "obsolete" gear

As much as it pains me to defend Sonos (and it does), they weren't remote-bricking anybody's gear without permission. They were offering a discount on replacement gear in exchange for users voluntarily bricking the old gear.

This episode of Black Mirror sucks: London cops boast that facial-recog creepycams will be on the streets this year

JohnFen

I was planning on a visit to London this summer

I was planning on a visit to London this summer, but now I'll have to give those plans a serious rethink.

If you never thought you'd hear a Microsoftie tell you to stop using Internet Explorer, lap it up: 'I beg you, let it retire to great bitbucket in the sky'

JohnFen

Re: Needed for SharePoint

If it makes you feel any better, I have to use SharePoint at work, and I think it's terrible.

JohnFen

Re: At Andy re: Win10 useability.

> The legacy-style Control Panel is there to maintain all the controls that Windows always has had, but a bit 'hidden' as these are deemed much lower usage.

Which is weird, because it's the legacy control panel that I need to use 99% of the time. I don't remember the last time I used the new one.

> please consider Classic Shell for Windows 10

I agree. I consider this to be mandatory, personally.