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User: ucblockhead

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  1. Re:Sounds like iTunes on Windows on UnBox Calls Home, A Lot · · Score: 1

    Have you noticed that if you terminate that process, you lose no functionality? Given this it's pretty obvious that the only reason for it to sit around is performance.

    All devices have vendor and device ids available to Windows and allow you to provide an application handler for any given vendor/device id combo.

  2. Re:Sounds like iTunes on Windows on UnBox Calls Home, A Lot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let me be more clear: Using the correct registry entries, you can make any application run when your particular device is connected, regardless of whether or not it is a "mass storage device". I know this, because I have done this for devices my company makes. It's not a "workaround". It's the Windows mechanism for detecting and dealing with devices. Sitting in memory all the time to do the same thing is the hackish workaround.

    The issue isn't that a particular program takes "just a little" memory. It's that every goddamn application vendor takes "just a little memory" and "only one tray icon", etc, etc. It's a tragedy of the commons scenario that files up everyone's machine. Still, if you at least give the user control, that's not so bad. When, like unbox, you don't allow the user to say "no, I don't want you to run every time I boot", it sucks.

  3. He's lucky on UnBox Calls Home, A Lot · · Score: 1

    I tried to uninstall the damn thing repeatedly and it always hung "checking for a valid installation" or somesuch. I eventually had to manually kill all the services, manually delete all the files and manually delete all the Amazon references in the registry.

    Though a broken uninstall is a pretty typical 1.0 bug. But not allowing it to be removed from the startup list (the reason I was trying to uninstall in the first place) is unforgivable.

  4. Re:Sounds like iTunes on Windows on UnBox Calls Home, A Lot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Be aware that the Windows OS provides hooks to run programs when devices are attached, so there's no reason for a device vendor to have a program always running in memory waiting for the device to be attached.

    The reason they put "iTunesHelper" in memory at all times is merely to make their program appear to load faster.

  5. Re:Children.... on Continued Opposition To Laptops in Schools · · Score: 1

    Oh bullshit. Lots of us grew up at a time when they didn't even have fucking word processors.

  6. Jeez on Heinlein's Last Novel Coming in September · · Score: 1

    And people wonder why authors have their papers burned when they die.

  7. Re:ZoneAlarm + broadband router = happiness on Personal Firewalls Mostly Useless, Says Mail & Guardian · · Score: 1
    For example, every time I play a media file in Windows Media Player, it tries to connect to the Internet not once but twice - once when Media Player fires up and once again after it's fnished!

    Most likely: At the start of the song, it's grabbing song metadata from a server, and reporting back that you played the song (probably with the "you" just being a "private" id, not anything user identifiable. (Whether that's truly private is an open question.) When the song finishes, it's probably reporting whether you listened to the complete song or not. They likely do this because play information is valuable for building a recommendation engine, and for selling to the record companies as marketting information.

    Most music players do this, but they usually ask permission on install and there's usually a setting to turn it off.

  8. Re:Sad state of GUI development on GUIs From 1984 to the Present · · Score: 2, Funny

    You're so right! You want to know what else pisses me off? Cars. Cars still use the dated "Steering wheel/Accelerator/Brake" paradigm. Where's the originality!?

  9. Too narrow on GUIs From 1984 to the Present · · Score: 2, Informative

    Where's Amiga? Where's Atari? Where's OS/2? Where's Gnome? Where's BeOS?

  10. Don't do it, man! on Robosapien V2 Review - with Video · · Score: 1

    My three-year-old can't bowl for shit.

  11. Re:Project Orion? on Project Orion to Bring U.S. Back to the Moon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Project Orion didn't use nukes to "lift" the ship. It was an interstellar craft that would have used nukes for propulsion once well away from Earth.

    Using nukes to "lift" anything would be utterly insane.

  12. Re:Tax payer money at work on Virtual Reality Gaming System Tests for Telepathy · · Score: 1

    Given the massive amount of work in radio technology over the decades, if anyone were generating radiowaves with their brains, those waves would have been detected long ago.

  13. Re:Why is spyware not illegal? on A Day in the Life of a Spyware Company · · Score: 1

    So you are essentially saying that if an OS bug lets someone remotely install a rootkit on your PC, it's your own fault for running the OS?

  14. Re:YRO? on Lawsuits Fly Over Google Founders' Party Plane · · Score: 1

    Obviously because YOUR RIGHT to have your private jet reconfigured the way you wish is being TRAMPLED by THE MAN!

  15. Re:And the FBI agreed to this? on FBI Password Database Compromised by Consultant · · Score: 1

    They are probably on Fantasy Island, cavorting with Santa Claus, unicorns and honest lawyers.

  16. Re:10 really good reasons plus a new one on DVD Format War Already Over? · · Score: 1

    This is likely why Sony is so determined to get blue-ray in the PS3. It pushes the format out there regardless of its success as a movie delivery format.

  17. Re:Well, duh. I could have told you that on DVD Format War Already Over? · · Score: 1

    The added feature that really made DVDs take off were the "bonus features", something that the random access nature of the format made easy. For most people, it was that that sold DVDs, not the better fidelity.

  18. Re:Diversification works for funding agencies too on Billions Donated to Charity · · Score: 1

    To be blunt...Buffet is 75...by choosing someone younger that he trusts (and Gates and Buffet are personal friends) he makes it more likely his choices will be made for a longer time. Life expectancy says Buffet has ten years where Gates has thirty.

  19. Re:No free rides on Billions Donated to Charity · · Score: 1

    We'll see. Even if Gates gives away 99% of his fortune, his children will still be massively wealthy.

    Yes, bravo, but essentially his children will get a "free ride" compared to most regardless. At least we can presume they won't be spoil brats like the Hiltons.

  20. Re:youth culture killed my dog on Immaturity Level Rising in Adults · · Score: 1

    True maturity is discarding the "evil little prick" part while retaining the "wide eyes of wonder" part. Unfortunately, too many think the two are tied together and end up dull and unhappy.

  21. Re:if only it were blurred in a different directio on Blurring the Line Between Laptops and Desktops · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I want a MacMini too!

  22. Re:For the 10000th time, on 10th Annual RoboCup · · Score: 1

    Here's a hint, brainiac: different dialects often have different words for the same thing. Or do you go around yelling at Americans for talking about "apartments" or "cookies"?

  23. Re:Message for Captain Obvious on Boot Camp For Suckers? · · Score: 1
    For me, one word: Games.


    It's the only reason I don't dump Windows entirely.

  24. Re:Not really SELF-aggrandizing... on McNealy Created Millions of Jobs? · · Score: 1

    The thing is, when McNealy was pushing it, it was a bad idea because bandwidth wasn't there to support it. Now that the bandwidth is here to support it (at least for the 30% or so of Internet users that have it), it is a good idea, and people are moving in quickly to support it. (AJAX etc.) This is happening not because anyone was "visionary" but because it's a good idea that now works. If McNealy had never opened his mouth, we'd still have network-centric applications like Google Calendar popping up everywhere.

    But you are underestimating how much is now on the server. Websites are rapidly becoming "fatter", with more and more functionality. Though in this case, it isn't really the "thin-client" case that McNealy was talking about. It's using things like AJAX to allow a server to run more and more code on a client.

  25. Re:how will sony defend against these charges? on Rockers Sue Sony Over Download Royalties · · Score: 1

    There's a difference?

    About $450/hr.