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User: Geeky

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  1. Re:sailfish eats ice cream sandwich on Sailfish Can Officially Be Installed To Android Devices · · Score: 2

    Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock, Sailfish, Ice Cream Sandwich, KitKat, Ubuntu.

  2. Re:Cannot upgrade or repair? on Ask Slashdot: Best Laptops For Fans Of Pre-Retina MacBook Pro? · · Score: 1

    Happened to me but what's worse is it that the spark plugs had only ever been touched by the main dealer as part of a routine service (as required to maintain the service history). So even the "trained" junior mechanic managed to screw it up. Spark plugs actually popped out while driving, stripping the thread in the process.

    I wouldn't trust them to fix it, but the little local garage round the corner rebored and inserted a new helicoil and replaced the spark plugs, all for about £130. Next day, whereas the main dealer wanted to charge twice that and do it the following week...

  3. Re:Dear world on Why Scott Adams Wished Death On His Dad · · Score: 1

    With senility, in various forms, it's no longer you suffering. You are not you any more. The memories, thoughts, experiences are all gone. You are just an animal. An empty physical shell. Probably sitting in your own shit.

    No, I'd rather die. The trouble is I can only make that decision for myself while I'm still physically capable of implementing the decision, even though at that point I have some quality of life left.

  4. Re:Why not? on Why Scott Adams Wished Death On His Dad · · Score: 1

    Oh come on. Just. No. Suffering from which you recover, even partially, is one thing. Suffering of a largely senile old man? How can that be important?

    The cat has more dignity because it isn't made to suffer.

    I saw both my grandparents go through it, confused, in pain and - in their lucid moments - praying for the end to come.

  5. Re:Webmail is a goddamn disaster. on Only 25% of Yahoo Staff "Eat Their Own Dog Food" · · Score: 1

    Unless you want to run your own server, internet available, it's a way to have access from wherever you happen to be. Web interface, phone... whatever, wherever.

    I use gmail, download all of it to my PC inside Thunderbird for archiving, and get the best of both worlds. Permanent local copy, plus ready access to incoming mail on my phone when I'm out.

  6. Re:Wagging the dog. on Only 25% of Yahoo Staff "Eat Their Own Dog Food" · · Score: 1

    I'm using Wunderlist for tasks and Evernote for notes, but I'm happy to use separate applications for each. The gmail calendar is good enough for me as I don't get out much :)

  7. Re: They are still damn overpriced on Apple 27-inch iMac With Intel's Haswell Inside Tested · · Score: 1

    That's a good point, and one I had considered. I'd have preferred a separate screen, but the mini is underpowered and the pro is way over the top.

    I figure I won't be upgrading any time soon anyway. Hardware improvements have tailed off, and even my old PC was good enough for most of my needs. I got the Mac in part because I wanted the screen and in part because I wanted to switch.

  8. Re: They are still damn overpriced on Apple 27-inch iMac With Intel's Haswell Inside Tested · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's the best way to get a unix OS that can run commercial software. I need to use Lightroom and Photoshop. I prefer to use unix. I like a very high res screen. So the 27" iMac is perfect for my needs. YMMV.

  9. Re:The Internet on The Internet Archive Switches To HTTPS Connections By Default · · Score: 1

    Devil's advocate:

    Why?

    Most of the sites I visit don't require logins and so I can't see a reason to use https. Why would I need it in Wikipedia unless I'm editing it? Why would I need it on the internet archive unless I log in? Why would, say, the BBC News website need it at all?

    Yes, for anything where you actually log on and do anything under a user account, https is important. I can't see any real reason for static content served to users who aren't logged on to be encrypted if it's just a news website, personal blog or whatever.

    Encryption brings its own headaches to shared servers - name based virtual hosts being the obvious one. It's an overhead that isn't really required in most cases.

  10. Germany leading the way on MEPs Vote To Suspend Data Sharing With US · · Score: 1

    I see talk about trade sanctions and so on as a way for the EU to "punish" the US.

    Germany are leading the way in that regard. I work for a UK company with subsidiaries in Germany. We are looking at moving various services in the cloud (management's bright idea), including Office 365 and one of the cloud based authentication services to tie it all together.

    At the moment Germany are pretty much vetoing it. Nothing can be US hosted. That rules out Office 365 for email, anything running on AWS or Azure... unless it's hosted in the EU (or for some data, Germany itself) they tell us it's not compliant with their data protection laws.

  11. Re:Photoshop in Linux? on GNUstep Kickstarter Campaign Launched · · Score: 0

    I don't moderate, but that's worth a funny.

  12. Re:Photoshop in Linux? on GNUstep Kickstarter Campaign Launched · · Score: 2

    Unlikely, the market just isn't big enough.

    Photoshop and Lightroom would be nice. I use a Mac because I need the Adobe suite and prefer the unix underpinnings of OSX to Windows (to be honest, having used all three - Windows, OSX and Linux - for a number of reasons I'm now happy on OSX).

    Not so sure about Dreamweaver. I use it, since it's part of my Creative Cloud subscription and saved me searching out an alternative, but I'm sure there are plenty of better options.

  13. Re:Is this news, or just the general state of thin on Millions At Risk From Critical Vulnerabilities From WordPress Plugins · · Score: 1

    I had a look at Concrete, but to be honest it's the ubiquity of Wordpress that appeals to me. I avoid plugins wherever possible, and the ones I do use are mainly on the admin and content creation side rather than presentation of content.

    The popularity of it means that I can quickly find answers and code snippets when I want to do something, and I feel I have the experience to sort good suggestions from bad.

  14. Re:In case you were wondering... on Millions At Risk From Critical Vulnerabilities From WordPress Plugins · · Score: 1

    Do these unqualified people know how to use line break tag?

  15. Re:The issue that I've noticed is with small busi. on Millions At Risk From Critical Vulnerabilities From WordPress Plugins · · Score: 1

    No, they're probably not serious about making money with the internet. They want to make money doing their core business and feel they need an internet presence to market it. I'd agree if selling online is a priority, Wordpress is not the way to go, but for a mostly brochure style site with a blog, it's fine.

    I know someone who makes good money building Wordpress sites for small customers, and I've used it for a couple of personal sites and a small business site for a friend. It's not ideal, but it's relatively easy to hack (in the good sense of getting up to speed on customising it).

  16. Re:Post-mortem copyrights are supposed to... on Birthday Song's Copyright Leads To a Lawsuit For the Ages · · Score: 1

    Or is it possible that due to his condition, his wife is providing substantial assistance enough to warrant a share in the copyright?

  17. Re:Why do I need an aggregator? on Slashdot Asks: How Will You Replace Google Reader? · · Score: 2

    OK. So what does that? Genuinely curious, not found an option I like yet.

  18. Re:I've been trying feedly on Slashdot Asks: How Will You Replace Google Reader? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The thing that put me off feedly was the requirement for a browser extension. Why on earth would you need a browser extension for what ought to be a simple website?

  19. Off - but not to Linux on What Keeps You On (or Off) Windows in 2013? · · Score: 1

    I need colour management and Photoshop. They were the things that drove me back to Windows when I got seriously into digital photography, after years of using Linux.

    I then used Windows as my main OS for years (having been Linux from about 1999 to 2006, Windows before that). I'd always had an itch to try OSX though, and finally jumped ship this year. Sorry to sound like a fan boy, but I'm a convert. All the command line goodness I had with Linux, and all the tools I need for photography. I'm happy.

  20. Re:Obnoxiously... It's for business, duh. on Apple Releases Basic iPod Touch, Possibly Foreshadowing iPhone Strategy · · Score: 1

    But why not just have an iPhone, and get the phone functionality? Your business user will want a smartphone anyway, I don't see where an iPod fits in.

    The cameras are both useful in business - I've used mine to take snaps of the content of whiteboards, flip charts etc to save copying them down, and the other camera is potentially useful for videoconferencing.

  21. Using from work on Facebook To Introduce Video Ads · · Score: 1

    I see lots of people logging on to check FB from work, which is tolerated in my office as long as it's not excessive. Video ads would kill that. It's the same as email - gmail presents a nice discreet screen, the ads are unobtrusive and it looks enough like work. I'm happy using that, but say Yahoo email? No. Loads of flashing animated ads lighting up the page? Ridiculous, and not subtle.

  22. The concept is OK on Adobe's Creative Cloud Illustrates How the Cloud Costs You More · · Score: 1

    I think the concept is OK, it's just the pricing that's wrong.

    The old boxed software model forced companies like Adobe and Microsoft to bring out upgrades every year to 18 months. That meant coming up with enough new features to convince people to upgrade, leading to bloat. The subscription model could work, if it meant vendors could concentrate instead on patching, bug fixes, quality support and adding relevant features rather than unnecessary bells and whistles.

    OK, it probably won't work like that in practice, but the potential is there.

    It's the pricing that seems a bit off. I think it does need to come down, and be more flexible in terms of mixing and matching products. I did sign up when it was discounted in the UK, and it's led me to play with indesign and illustrator, but I can't see me using them much. They could break it down into categories:

    • Photographers - Lightroom and Photoshop
    • Designers - InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat
    • Videographers - Premiere and the other video tools.
    • Developers - Dreamweaver, Flash builder

    Allow users to pick any package for, say £10/month, any 2 for £20 or all of them for £25. I've deliberately picked a top price point about half the current level as well - it should be a price point that is no more than the old total cost (initial licence + upgrades) over a minimum of four years.

  23. Re:No technical solutions for social problems on No Porn From Public WiFi Hotspots In the UK Proposed · · Score: 3, Informative

    And nobody in his right mind would surf from a public hotspot without a VPN or at least an SSL/TLS encrpyted session.

    Yeah, when I'm reading the BBC news website in Starbucks it's vital that it's over a VPN or SSL. Not.

    Public wi-fi should be fine to use. Most email now uses encrypted connections, and beyond that just teach people the rule of thumb that if you don't know what you're doing (i.e. can't confirm it's secure), it's best to avoid using sites that you log on to when using public wi-fi.

    And no, you can't stop it, but that's because it's impossible to identify. Do you block google image search? Only have whitelisted sites? Other than that, it's impossible to block, but can be made hard enough that most people won't bother.

  24. Re:Hm. on Dropcam CEO's Beef With Brogramming and Free Dinners · · Score: 2

    Coming late to this, but drinks are one thing. Food at the desk is messy, and potentially smelly. I don't want to sit next to someone having a microwave curry, or some fish abomination, and stinking the office out. Not allowing you to eat at your desk isn't micromanaging you - it's putting a rule in place to stop inconsiderate bastards pissing off their colleagues (and sometimes nauseating them). Rather than say "no smelly food" and leave it open to argument and accusations, it's easier and fairer to just provide a separate area to eat.

  25. Photo magazines on Ask Slashdot: What Magazines Do You Still Read? · · Score: 1

    I still buy physical copies of photographic magazines. The better ones, such as Black and White Photography here in the UK, have concentrated on pretty decent quality reproductions, and I'd rather have a print magazine to flip through over breakfast before I inflict a day in front of a computer screen on my eyes.