In the UK, "digital terrestrial broadcasting" still requires the use of an antenna, which is usually mounted somewhere on the roof. Although it's called "Freeview", you still have to pay an annual TV license (and almost all non-BBC channels have adverts). You get a selection of HD channels and even more SD channels, but if it's even more free channels you're after, something like a sat dish is probably the way to go in the UK.
Popular Android phones/tablets usually have custom ROMs available for them - wait for your warranty to run out (or official updates to stop) if you're concerned about that, then root/install recovery/install ROM and you're good to go with usually the latest Android release. I've got an ageing Nexus 10 tablet from 2012 that's running Android 7.1.2 from 2017 (via LineageOS 14), so you can breathe life into old phones/tablets with Android, unlike with iOS.
I suspect the only way to get widespread patching of security issues is to have Windows have a sliding scale of how long you can delay a security patch for (e.g. 1 week for critical, 4 weeks for medium and, say, 13 weeks for low - and let the user set them lower than that if they want), but ultimately insist that security updates *must* be auto-applied by the end of the delay period (with pre-update warnings if an update is due to be applied in the next day or two). Microsoft would still be criticised for "forcing" security patches on people, but some forcing is necessary because some people will turn off all automatic updates and never update (or update very rarely).
Of course, with Windows 10, Microsoft seem to have gone some way towards this, but without enough granularity - there's no distinction between security and non-security patches and no way for the user to fine-grain control the delay period for security-only patches like I mentioned. The same idea of a sliding scale needs to be added to Windows 7 updates as well of course.
The only two current subscriptions I have that are Net-based are a VPS with ChicagoVPS (decently spec'ed CentOS for $30 a year) and Eurosport Player (was on offer for 19.99 pounds - $25 - for a year). I'm impressed with Eurosport Player for that price - you get news videos, catchup videos and live multi-video coverage of major events: it's *way* better than watching Eurosport on TV via an expensively-bundled Sky package. Another thing I like is that you often get the "raw" feed as well as the TV broadcast version - the former has extended coverage, no ads, no Eurosport logo and (usually) no commentary - often a lot better than the TV version! I'm not sure whether I'd pay 60 pounds ($75) a year for it though which is apparently its normal price.
If you leave early on Friday afternoon, this surely means that you've worked less than the expected X hours per week? Most office-based firms probably have some sort of clock in/out system, so this shortage of working hours will be recorded. So is anyone expected to make up the shortfall later (and if they don't, do they get docked pay?) - the article didn't make this clear.
One practice I don't particularly like is being allowed to leave at lunchtime on Christmas Eve (which is often the last working day of the year for UK companies that have closed days between Xmas and New Year) with no need to make up the half a day of lost time later on. It's unfair because I (and others) always take Christmas Eve off and don't get that extra 0.5 days holiday that people who come into work on Christmas Eve get. Tough luck for those freeloaders this year though - Dec 24 is on a Sunday:-)
The IT Crowd started off well (and spawned the classic "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" catchphrase), but there seemed to be less and less IT as the seasons progressed and my enjoyment similarly declined because of that. By the same they did a one-off "last ever episode" special, there were virtually no laughs to be had:-(
Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has kept up the quality in all 4 of its seasons so far, so in my mind it's overtaken The IT Crowd by some margin. I just wish there was more than 5 hours per year of it! Anyone else noticed that now that Game of Thrones doesn't immediately precede Season 4 of Silicon Valley in the HBO schedules, the viewing figures have fallen off a cliff?:-( Just goes to show many lazy GoT viewers couldn't be bothered changing the channel when Silicon Valley came on...
I guess there's still hope for FileZilla Server to eventually get SFTP support before I die. It's quite astonishing that this "obvious" feature of file transfer server software hasn't been implemented yet (despite the FileZilla Client having had SFTP support for years). I mean, it's "only" been 13 years since the feature was originally requested - easily beating the master password encryption feature request by a full 3 years. And, yep, someone recently suggested closing the SFTP feature request because Tim Kosse has done nothing about it for well over a decade:-(
I doubt it will happen now considering that Thunderbird has been in a no-new-features mode for years, but it's a shame they never got around to creating Thunderbird on Android. They've had Firefox on Android for ages and it does share some of the core code with Thunderbird (on the desktop version at least), so they wouldn't be starting from scratch on Android.
I've got a couple of Zgemma Linux-based satellite TV set-top boxes and they use a MIPS chip, so it's not just used in ancient game consoles. The boxes are very nice to tinker with (Web interface, ssh, loads of pre-built plugins) and I'll put in a good word for Wooshbuild - a firmware image that makes the box interface look like S*y HD or S*y Q.
WordPress, Joomla and pretty well every CMS out there have a login page for at least the site administrator (if not for other non-admin users that have been created) - at least that login page needs to be in https otherwise the creds go across the network in the clear. If you've installed an https cert just for the login page, you may as well extend it to the entire site for no real extra effort.
Pizza flavoured crisps sound interesting to me - bring them on to combine two of my favourite junk foods! Pizza's no more weird than pickled onion, worcester sauce or prawn cocktail flavoured crisps - which are my current top 3 flavours...
With the increased bandwidth (and presumably the Wi-fi listening on a new, second channel?), would this increase the electricity usage of the router? It might only be pennies a day, but still the customer has to pay more to support someone else's Wi-fi connection as well as their own...
They're locally lighting up the water and attaching electrodes to the taster's tongue - neither of which requires the internet at all (just a local machine to control things). Yes, the internet can store the light/electrode "recipes" so there's a central repository, but I fail to see how the internet is an important part of it (after all, I suspect all the possible drink/light/electrode combinations would fit on a small USB stick).
I don't use my ISP mail account at all because if I switched ISPs, I'd have tell loads of people my new e-mail address (which is why most people bring along their mobile number when they switch mobile providers). The only e-mail I use is either my work e-mail or Gmail, which is why these e-mail-only notifications - presumably to your ISP mail account - probably won't be read by a lot of people. Also, these warnings seem to be toothless - no legal action is taken even after receiving many warnings.
It's interesting that they only mention P2P, whereas streaming and file download sites are becoming increasing popular. BTW, the FAQ linked to spelled computer programs as "programmes", which is incorrect, even in the UK. It's sneaky how they say "an IP address is similar to a street address or telephone number in that it is used to uniquely identify an entity" - most people might think this means it identifies an individual, but all it does is identify a location (and with wi-fi possibly involved that might be a radius around the location).
WP auto-updating does have its risks of course - we've seen WP 4.7 introduce this big vulnerability for example (though I believe you can hold back these "major" updates and do them manually). Plus a lot of admins would prefer a scheduled time/day to update - it seems that by default auto-updating is fairly random w.r.t to its scheduling. Plus you'd want to update dev/UAT first before live in case there is breakage. Also, as far I know, WP auto-updating by default doesn't backup the Web tree/DB first and has no easy way to roll back a failed auto-update because of that (so off to tape backups you go whilst the site can often be down).
Still, WP updating whether its manual, scripted or automatic is still a million light years ahead of Umbraco's updating (which usually can't be upgraded between major releases, so many Umbraco sites get stuck on a particular major release for a very long time, even after support has ended).
Don't rely on/readme.html to show you the exact version any more for a recent WP install. They seem to have knocked off the third field, so versions 4.7, 4.7.1 and 4.7.2 all now say "4.7", which might scare someone into thinking they're still on the vulnerable 4.7.
Of course, you can log into your WP admin interface and find the exact version there, plus it's also present as the $wp_version variable in/wp-includes/version.php if you have access to the Web tree filestore.
I actually prefer Firefox on Android to other browsers on that platform, but its "weakness" is that Chrome comes pre-installed with virtually every Android device now, so - like Linux vs. Windows on the desktop - Mozilla is fighting a lost cause really. It's quite shocking that after all these years, Android Chrome *still* doesn't have extensions, whereas Android Firefox has had them for a very long time now. Apart from the obvious ad blocker extensions, I like "Phony" to force all sites to their desktop version - handy on a tablet where I *never ever* want to see a mobile site.
I was on a Stagecoach bus recently in the UK and they had a USB charging port placed fairly low between each set of two seats (plus ports on the side below the window for the front sets of seats). I believe their fleet refit in late 2016 added them in. Apart from nicer (faux?) leather seats, the new bus also had *much* better onboard free wi-fi than their previous generation of buses too. A shame no-one but me ever seems to use the free wi-fi on the bus though!
I picked up a Casio Pro Trek PRW 2500 a while back at a cheap price (under 110 pounds = $134 inc. tax) and really like it. It's radio-controlled, solar, water resistant to 200 metres, altimeter/barometer/compass and has a cute power saving feature (display goes blank if it's dark for an hour and then re-appears if you tilt the watch towards you or press a button). Only complaint is that you can't flip the "wrong" US date format (MMDD) back to the "correct" format (DDMM).
Yes, Casio have a smartwatch which looks really nice, but is hellishly expensive and even in its monochrome power saving mode, it still needs to be charged at least weekly, whereas my Pro Trek never needs a charge and the battery will probably last 10+ years.
If you look at the graph shown in the article link, it turns out only online scripted shows have increased in the last year. The other 3 media (broadcast, paid cable and basic cable) all actually fell in 2016. Considering online scripted show 2016 quantities only sit half way between paid cable and broadcast quantities, then really all the article should had said is that there's a trend towards more online scripted shows.
Er, no, Adode didn't release Flash 24 for Linux on 19th Dec, it was actually 6 days earlier than that. Heck, I even picked it up on my CentOS 7 system on 15th Dec via their convenient repo. I guess after 4.5 years of version stagnation, being almost a week late with the story might be expected...
It doesn't help that the last flagship tablet releases by Samsung (the Tab S2) and Google (Nexus 9) were not only expensive, but disappointingly 4:3 aspect ratio, making them poor for games and videos. I think Samsung's Tab S 8.4" and 10.5" tablets were the pinnacle w.r.t. the display on an Android tablet and there's been nothing since then worth buying. Heck, Google completely ignored tablets at their last launch, instead flogging clearly overpriced phones. If a Samsung Tab S3 came out with a 16:10 display like the Tab S, but with more RAM/faster CPU/GPU, then I'd probably first in line to buy it.
It's sad that my venerable Nexus 10 is still pressganged into service (with CyanogenMod on it of course, like all my tablets) - it was the last decent large tablet Google sold. It's no wonder tablets are dropping in sales - the Android tablet manufacturers in particular have almost given up making an effort to create a decent tablet. Yes, I know about the Yoga Book, but the price is a little steep considering the specs aren't fantastic and you can't detach the display and use it as a standalone tablet.
Providing a national DNS service with nanny filtering sounds too easy to workaround (just point to Google's DNS, OpenDNS etc. instead - just any non-UK reliable DNS service would do). Wouldn't they also have to have the ISPs blocking those other DNS services as well?
Like all these blocking services, they'll never publish the full list of what they block, hiding behind the claim that it's either proprietary or will give people clues as where the dodgy sites are. Problem is, this means they can block all sort of sites incorrectly and it's hard to know they've done it until someone has to go and kick up a fuss about it in the media.
Yes, it's a bit weird that someone posted up "we need an LTS with 10 years of fixes" when there's been a very prominent one (Red Hat and its derivatives) available for quite some time. RHEL isn't targeted at embedded systems admittedly and they've only just introduced a preview of an ARM variant with version 7. The oldest supported RHEL kernel is the creaking 2.6.18 - with a ton of backports - found in RHEL 5, but beware that support for that ends in 6 months...
ARM was a shining light of the the UK tech industry - its clever strategy of licensing its designs without manufacturing them made it a stellar company. Now it's been sold off to a Japanese company-swallowing mega-corporation, so is there a UK-owned equivalent to ARM left in the tech industry? It's a sad say, even if Softbank overpaid somewhat.
Slashdot Mirror
In the UK, "digital terrestrial broadcasting" still requires the use of an antenna, which is usually mounted somewhere on the roof. Although it's called "Freeview", you still have to pay an annual TV license (and almost all non-BBC channels have adverts). You get a selection of HD channels and even more SD channels, but if it's even more free channels you're after, something like a sat dish is probably the way to go in the UK.
Popular Android phones/tablets usually have custom ROMs available for them - wait for your warranty to run out (or official updates to stop) if you're concerned about that, then root/install recovery/install ROM and you're good to go with usually the latest Android release. I've got an ageing Nexus 10 tablet from 2012 that's running Android 7.1.2 from 2017 (via LineageOS 14), so you can breathe life into old phones/tablets with Android, unlike with iOS.
I suspect the only way to get widespread patching of security issues is to have Windows have a sliding scale of how long you can delay a security patch for (e.g. 1 week for critical, 4 weeks for medium and, say, 13 weeks for low - and let the user set them lower than that if they want), but ultimately insist that security updates *must* be auto-applied by the end of the delay period (with pre-update warnings if an update is due to be applied in the next day or two). Microsoft would still be criticised for "forcing" security patches on people, but some forcing is necessary because some people will turn off all automatic updates and never update (or update very rarely).
Of course, with Windows 10, Microsoft seem to have gone some way towards this, but without enough granularity - there's no distinction between security and non-security patches and no way for the user to fine-grain control the delay period for security-only patches like I mentioned. The same idea of a sliding scale needs to be added to Windows 7 updates as well of course.
The only two current subscriptions I have that are Net-based are a VPS with ChicagoVPS (decently spec'ed CentOS for $30 a year) and Eurosport Player (was on offer for 19.99 pounds - $25 - for a year). I'm impressed with Eurosport Player for that price - you get news videos, catchup videos and live multi-video coverage of major events: it's *way* better than watching Eurosport on TV via an expensively-bundled Sky package. Another thing I like is that you often get the "raw" feed as well as the TV broadcast version - the former has extended coverage, no ads, no Eurosport logo and (usually) no commentary - often a lot better than the TV version! I'm not sure whether I'd pay 60 pounds ($75) a year for it though which is apparently its normal price.
If you leave early on Friday afternoon, this surely means that you've worked less than the expected X hours per week? Most office-based firms probably have some sort of clock in/out system, so this shortage of working hours will be recorded. So is anyone expected to make up the shortfall later (and if they don't, do they get docked pay?) - the article didn't make this clear.
One practice I don't particularly like is being allowed to leave at lunchtime on Christmas Eve (which is often the last working day of the year for UK companies that have closed days between Xmas and New Year) with no need to make up the half a day of lost time later on. It's unfair because I (and others) always take Christmas Eve off and don't get that extra 0.5 days holiday that people who come into work on Christmas Eve get. Tough luck for those freeloaders this year though - Dec 24 is on a Sunday :-)
The IT Crowd started off well (and spawned the classic "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" catchphrase), but there seemed to be less and less IT as the seasons progressed and my enjoyment similarly declined because of that. By the same they did a one-off "last ever episode" special, there were virtually no laughs to be had :-(
Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has kept up the quality in all 4 of its seasons so far, so in my mind it's overtaken The IT Crowd by some margin. I just wish there was more than 5 hours per year of it! Anyone else noticed that now that Game of Thrones doesn't immediately precede Season 4 of Silicon Valley in the HBO schedules, the viewing figures have fallen off a cliff? :-( Just goes to show many lazy GoT viewers couldn't be bothered changing the channel when Silicon Valley came on...
I guess there's still hope for FileZilla Server to eventually get SFTP support before I die. It's quite astonishing that this "obvious" feature of file transfer server software hasn't been implemented yet (despite the FileZilla Client having had SFTP support for years). I mean, it's "only" been 13 years since the feature was originally requested - easily beating the master password encryption feature request by a full 3 years. And, yep, someone recently suggested closing the SFTP feature request because Tim Kosse has done nothing about it for well over a decade :-(
I doubt it will happen now considering that Thunderbird has been in a no-new-features mode for years, but it's a shame they never got around to creating Thunderbird on Android. They've had Firefox on Android for ages and it does share some of the core code with Thunderbird (on the desktop version at least), so they wouldn't be starting from scratch on Android.
I've got a couple of Zgemma Linux-based satellite TV set-top boxes and they use a MIPS chip, so it's not just used in ancient game consoles. The boxes are very nice to tinker with (Web interface, ssh, loads of pre-built plugins) and I'll put in a good word for Wooshbuild - a firmware image that makes the box interface look like S*y HD or S*y Q.
WordPress, Joomla and pretty well every CMS out there have a login page for at least the site administrator (if not for other non-admin users that have been created) - at least that login page needs to be in https otherwise the creds go across the network in the clear. If you've installed an https cert just for the login page, you may as well extend it to the entire site for no real extra effort.
Pizza flavoured crisps sound interesting to me - bring them on to combine two of my favourite junk foods! Pizza's no more weird than pickled onion, worcester sauce or prawn cocktail flavoured crisps - which are my current top 3 flavours...
With the increased bandwidth (and presumably the Wi-fi listening on a new, second channel?), would this increase the electricity usage of the router? It might only be pennies a day, but still the customer has to pay more to support someone else's Wi-fi connection as well as their own...
They're locally lighting up the water and attaching electrodes to the taster's tongue - neither of which requires the internet at all (just a local machine to control things). Yes, the internet can store the light/electrode "recipes" so there's a central repository, but I fail to see how the internet is an important part of it (after all, I suspect all the possible drink/light/electrode combinations would fit on a small USB stick).
I don't use my ISP mail account at all because if I switched ISPs, I'd have tell loads of people my new e-mail address (which is why most people bring along their mobile number when they switch mobile providers). The only e-mail I use is either my work e-mail or Gmail, which is why these e-mail-only notifications - presumably to your ISP mail account - probably won't be read by a lot of people. Also, these warnings seem to be toothless - no legal action is taken even after receiving many warnings.
It's interesting that they only mention P2P, whereas streaming and file download sites are becoming increasing popular. BTW, the FAQ linked to spelled computer programs as "programmes", which is incorrect, even in the UK. It's sneaky how they say "an IP address is similar to a street address or telephone number in that it is used to uniquely identify an entity" - most people might think this means it identifies an individual, but all it does is identify a location (and with wi-fi possibly involved that might be a radius around the location).
WP auto-updating does have its risks of course - we've seen WP 4.7 introduce this big vulnerability for example (though I believe you can hold back these "major" updates and do them manually). Plus a lot of admins would prefer a scheduled time/day to update - it seems that by default auto-updating is fairly random w.r.t to its scheduling. Plus you'd want to update dev/UAT first before live in case there is breakage. Also, as far I know, WP auto-updating by default doesn't backup the Web tree/DB first and has no easy way to roll back a failed auto-update because of that (so off to tape backups you go whilst the site can often be down).
Still, WP updating whether its manual, scripted or automatic is still a million light years ahead of Umbraco's updating (which usually can't be upgraded between major releases, so many Umbraco sites get stuck on a particular major release for a very long time, even after support has ended).
Don't rely on /readme.html to show you the exact version any more for a recent WP install. They seem to have knocked off the third field, so versions 4.7, 4.7.1 and 4.7.2 all now say "4.7", which might scare someone into thinking they're still on the vulnerable 4.7.
Of course, you can log into your WP admin interface and find the exact version there, plus it's also present as the $wp_version variable in /wp-includes/version.php if you have access to the Web tree filestore.
I actually prefer Firefox on Android to other browsers on that platform, but its "weakness" is that Chrome comes pre-installed with virtually every Android device now, so - like Linux vs. Windows on the desktop - Mozilla is fighting a lost cause really. It's quite shocking that after all these years, Android Chrome *still* doesn't have extensions, whereas Android Firefox has had them for a very long time now. Apart from the obvious ad blocker extensions, I like "Phony" to force all sites to their desktop version - handy on a tablet where I *never ever* want to see a mobile site.
I was on a Stagecoach bus recently in the UK and they had a USB charging port placed fairly low between each set of two seats (plus ports on the side below the window for the front sets of seats). I believe their fleet refit in late 2016 added them in. Apart from nicer (faux?) leather seats, the new bus also had *much* better onboard free wi-fi than their previous generation of buses too. A shame no-one but me ever seems to use the free wi-fi on the bus though!
I picked up a Casio Pro Trek PRW 2500 a while back at a cheap price (under 110 pounds = $134 inc. tax) and really like it. It's radio-controlled, solar, water resistant to 200 metres, altimeter/barometer/compass and has a cute power saving feature (display goes blank if it's dark for an hour and then re-appears if you tilt the watch towards you or press a button). Only complaint is that you can't flip the "wrong" US date format (MMDD) back to the "correct" format (DDMM).
Yes, Casio have a smartwatch which looks really nice, but is hellishly expensive and even in its monochrome power saving mode, it still needs to be charged at least weekly, whereas my Pro Trek never needs a charge and the battery will probably last 10+ years.
If you look at the graph shown in the article link, it turns out only online scripted shows have increased in the last year. The other 3 media (broadcast, paid cable and basic cable) all actually fell in 2016. Considering online scripted show 2016 quantities only sit half way between paid cable and broadcast quantities, then really all the article should had said is that there's a trend towards more online scripted shows.
Er, no, Adode didn't release Flash 24 for Linux on 19th Dec, it was actually 6 days earlier than that. Heck, I even picked it up on my CentOS 7 system on 15th Dec via their convenient repo. I guess after 4.5 years of version stagnation, being almost a week late with the story might be expected...
It doesn't help that the last flagship tablet releases by Samsung (the Tab S2) and Google (Nexus 9) were not only expensive, but disappointingly 4:3 aspect ratio, making them poor for games and videos. I think Samsung's Tab S 8.4" and 10.5" tablets were the pinnacle w.r.t. the display on an Android tablet and there's been nothing since then worth buying. Heck, Google completely ignored tablets at their last launch, instead flogging clearly overpriced phones. If a Samsung Tab S3 came out with a 16:10 display like the Tab S, but with more RAM/faster CPU/GPU, then I'd probably first in line to buy it.
It's sad that my venerable Nexus 10 is still pressganged into service (with CyanogenMod on it of course, like all my tablets) - it was the last decent large tablet Google sold. It's no wonder tablets are dropping in sales - the Android tablet manufacturers in particular have almost given up making an effort to create a decent tablet. Yes, I know about the Yoga Book, but the price is a little steep considering the specs aren't fantastic and you can't detach the display and use it as a standalone tablet.
Providing a national DNS service with nanny filtering sounds too easy to workaround (just point to Google's DNS, OpenDNS etc. instead - just any non-UK reliable DNS service would do). Wouldn't they also have to have the ISPs blocking those other DNS services as well?
Like all these blocking services, they'll never publish the full list of what they block, hiding behind the claim that it's either proprietary or will give people clues as where the dodgy sites are. Problem is, this means they can block all sort of sites incorrectly and it's hard to know they've done it until someone has to go and kick up a fuss about it in the media.
Yes, it's a bit weird that someone posted up "we need an LTS with 10 years of fixes" when there's been a very prominent one (Red Hat and its derivatives) available for quite some time. RHEL isn't targeted at embedded systems admittedly and they've only just introduced a preview of an ARM variant with version 7. The oldest supported RHEL kernel is the creaking 2.6.18 - with a ton of backports - found in RHEL 5, but beware that support for that ends in 6 months...
ARM was a shining light of the the UK tech industry - its clever strategy of licensing its designs without manufacturing them made it a stellar company. Now it's been sold off to a Japanese company-swallowing mega-corporation, so is there a UK-owned equivalent to ARM left in the tech industry? It's a sad say, even if Softbank overpaid somewhat.