This post is both in the state of being the first and not the first post until I hit the submit button and decide the outcome by refreshing the page. That's quantum computing.
The only way someone could truly guarantee the validity of any results coming from a voting machine is if the machine used analogue electronics or was hard-wired to the voting program. As long as general-purpose computers are in use in this environment, no matter how difficult they are to open or how resilient the OS is, rigging an election by tampering with the voting machines will be possible. In my opinion, security should not be sacrificed for the convenience of being able to change the program.
While Steve Jobs has a legitimate interest in the legal download industry (via iTunes and his shares in Disney), I thought he was the one who spoke up for more rights for those who paid their 79p for the music. True, his idea is that piracy 'gives you bad karma', but AFAIK he's the one who has pleaded with the music industry and the RIAA to remove DRM on legal downloads. This makes sense - it gives less incentive to people to download illegally.
I doubt this is true - but nevertheless Jobs has surprised us before. Let's hope we won't be getting a nasty surprise.
Why did no-one think of the Flash Player option sooner? True, while it's not open source, it is multiplatform, which is more than can be said for Kintoki...
Why was so much attention paid to the eye candy on the iPlayer, which made it slow, clunky, not very usable, and in the end caused the death of my PC?
If the service was not compatible with Macs, iWould seriously like to know why the iPrefix was given to the iPlayer's name. iAm confused by this, as are several readers of the Radio Times.
Nevertheless, iThink the software design of iPlayer 1 was lousy, mainly due to the dreadful Kintoki system. But the bottom line is that as long as content providers will demand DRM, the BBC will have to apply it. Someone in the TV industry has to see sense.
Only 20000 Linux users filled out the survey - and, TBH, that would most likely exclude the technophobic average Joes who have Ubuntu installed on their box after a their local technopath installed it, and
I myself think that it's not important what distro anyone's using - what's important is that UNIX still hasn't got a foothold on the desktop market. In fact, it would be wise to educate people that instead of the 'crippled/expensive' balance to strike with Windows, there's bound to be a Linux distro or UNIX variant to suit their needs.
Unless Linux and other UNIXes are seriously simplified for new computer users, their market share will never really rise. Even us nerds have headaches trying to get simple hardware working, and most people I know had never even heard of Linux or any other UNIX variant (apart from, occasionally, Mac OS X) until I brought up the subject in conversation. There needs to be a serious publicity campaign around this issue.
As far as I'm aware, it's almost certainly illegal to send the information by such an insecure channel. I can't be bothered to look in to it right now as I have other things on my mind, but you're right in saying that using the word 'stupid' to describe such an act is like going to the North Pole dressed in a postage stamp.
in this case, is it not the fault of the imbecile who burned it onto a CD and posted it, instead of just sending it down the line to the National Audit Office?
In my opinion, it's not the Government's fault at all. Neither is it the fault of the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (although he did the honourable thing in resigning). It's the fault of the small-minded twit who sent it in the post rather than electronically (or even delivering it by hand).
I thought iPods already had Ebook functionality? Or I might be confusing it with audiobooks and another device.
However, to be honest, which would you rather have: something that costs $49 a month and looks good, fits in your pocket, doesn't need a stylus and also functions as a music player, web browser, phone, IM client, stock ticker, barometer, and a portable video player, or something that costs $1.99 a month, has a B/W display, looks like something you'd find in a government office, and needs a trolley to carry around?
While an iPhone or iPod Touch are both currently out of my reach financially, I could do what this Kindle does with something that costs £50 from a local supermarket, fits in my pocket, functions as a phone, and, while it doesn't have the best user interface ever, won't tie me into a contract where I have to pay Amazon every month to get unlimited access to the library of books.
While we all say that 'the BBC should do an open platform', remember that they need the time and money to invest in these things. And with the BBC's budget considerably lower than it should be, and some utter cretins in management sending most of the money to the stars of certain late-night chat shows (who normally don't even ask for it or want it), the fact that the content creators, being the greedy gits they are, will demand ludicrously high prices if DRM isn't applied, and the Daily Mail's 'scrap the license fee!' brigade out, there's no way the BBC could have spent the money on an open platform. For the most part, it's not its fault (the small part whose fault it is lies in the corridors of power).
Nevertheless, as a Mac user (thanks to my old PC blowing up - and another one I brought in to aid it suffering the same fate) I will be incredibly happy to see the iPlayer use Flash. Mainly because it beats WMP any day, and due to the fact that Adobe has spent a bit of money making it UNIX-compatible, it will work on that ~5% of machines.
Whenever I upgrade an OS, be it Windows, Mac OS, Linux or anything else, I will always clone the boot partition, reinstall from scratch and then import the data afterwards. True, my G3 iMac isn't compatible with Leopard, so I don't know how difficult it is to upgrade, but it's a general rule that I follow - back up the boot partition and use the Migration Assistant to bring across the data. Simple as.
And before anyone starts complaining about DRM stopping them copying anything across - deauthorise the old partition in iTunes, and get rid of the M$ junk on the disk - it's unjustified, especially with the fabulousness of iWork 08 and OxygenOffice.
It's great that Apple's finally seen sense. Because, if you think about it, when iTunes Plus songs cost more, you're actually paying more for something that has less attached to it. It would have got to the point where someone with no computer at all walks past an Apple Store and gets handed a bill for a billion pounds.
It's amateurish, the people there seem not to get the concept of using a computer (you switch it on) and even if you take something in because the paint's peeled off, they'll install their 'performance measuring application' (bloatware) on your machine and drop a few PC World adverts on the desktop.
And they seem to think that 80gB is 'massive' by today's standards.
They're trying to block Fx yet they haven't taken into account these simple facts:
IE sucks
Adblock is not compulsory with Fx
Firefox is capitalised with one large F, not two
Checking whois can tell us that the registered owner of the domain is one Danny Carlton, who after a quick Googling turns out to be a web designer also responsible for the Wikipedia is Trash campaign, and claims that God called him to Seminary. Now in my opinion, this means that he is trying to use a twisted version of Christianity to push his Conservative, capitalist, and quite honestly completely unfounded attempt at spreading FUD about Fx.
But if it had broken the speed of light, it should have arrived BEFORE it left. Unless Einstein just happens to be wrong...
but who knows. Atoms are weird. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that when they travel at the speed of light they generate dancing-banana particles which can be explained by a peice of paper and a crayon.
Apple's UK website hasn't updated to show the new iMacs yet (either because there'll be a few-week delay in getting it over here or because the webmaster had already packed up and gone home).
But isn't the new machine just gorgeous?
The problem I have with propietary lock-ins is when they're badly made (think Vista). I really can't fault Macs in anything but the price, and that's why they're such an attractive option - they're functional and decorative, which is something Micro$oft seems not to have grasped the concept with yet (at least with Windows and certain horribly-designed personal music players).
And TBH, Macs will run quite a lot of stuff. They'll run most UNIX apps, they can dual-boot with Windows if you want and triple boot with Windows and Linux if you want. They automatically recognise and install most hardware without fail. They'll link up with your WiFi network, talk to Windows (even if Windows isn't in the mood to talk to it) and I fully expect that Leopard will be compatible with the upcoming iToaster element2.
Now, if I can find £900 to spare, as soon as Leopard appears I'll be scooting off to Southampton to buy one.
1. The file system is recursive and quite confusing at times.
2. There are very few bits of hardware that support the OS out of the box.
3. Everything is stored in a seperate configuration file for each program, unlike Windows which provides a pre-made registry and nice GUIs for changing them.
4. Some desktop distros are nigh on impossible to use without Internet access - mainly due to the fact that there's no way when downloading a package from Debian's site to download all the dependent packages too.
These problems don't stop Linux from being a great OS, but the reason I'm typing this on Windows (albeit using Firefox) is because I can't find a single WLAN adapter for sale in the UK that I can be dead sure will support Linux. Distros should offer more 'click and forget about it' methods of installation. And perhaps a registry (one of the only pros to using Windows).
And TBH, using C:/Program Files is easier and less confusing than having to search for the bin or sbin directory that new app you installed got saved in.
In my experience, a people-ready business is a business that's finally seen sense and thrown away its computers, and is now using a pen and paper. Alternatively it could be a business using Linux. Or Macs. Either way, it's something other than Windows.
So there. Bill, I take cheque, cash, and all major credit cards.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe the connection is encrypted, along with the connections for tools like Back To My Mac which could potentially carry private data.
Nevertheless, it's a stupid flaw and someone should have spotted it sooner.
This post is both in the state of being the first and not the first post until I hit the submit button and decide the outcome by refreshing the page. That's quantum computing.
The only way someone could truly guarantee the validity of any results coming from a voting machine is if the machine used analogue electronics or was hard-wired to the voting program. As long as general-purpose computers are in use in this environment, no matter how difficult they are to open or how resilient the OS is, rigging an election by tampering with the voting machines will be possible. In my opinion, security should not be sacrificed for the convenience of being able to change the program.
While Steve Jobs has a legitimate interest in the legal download industry (via iTunes and his shares in Disney), I thought he was the one who spoke up for more rights for those who paid their 79p for the music. True, his idea is that piracy 'gives you bad karma', but AFAIK he's the one who has pleaded with the music industry and the RIAA to remove DRM on legal downloads. This makes sense - it gives less incentive to people to download illegally.
I doubt this is true - but nevertheless Jobs has surprised us before. Let's hope we won't be getting a nasty surprise.
Not content with buying up all the banner ad space, they're now spamming Slashdot articles. Honestly, they'll be claiming patents on Linux next.
Unless Linux and other UNIXes are seriously simplified for new computer users, their market share will never really rise. Even us nerds have headaches trying to get simple hardware working, and most people I know had never even heard of Linux or any other UNIX variant (apart from, occasionally, Mac OS X) until I brought up the subject in conversation. There needs to be a serious publicity campaign around this issue.
As far as I'm aware, it's almost certainly illegal to send the information by such an insecure channel. I can't be bothered to look in to it right now as I have other things on my mind, but you're right in saying that using the word 'stupid' to describe such an act is like going to the North Pole dressed in a postage stamp.
in this case, is it not the fault of the imbecile who burned it onto a CD and posted it, instead of just sending it down the line to the National Audit Office?
In my opinion, it's not the Government's fault at all. Neither is it the fault of the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (although he did the honourable thing in resigning). It's the fault of the small-minded twit who sent it in the post rather than electronically (or even delivering it by hand).
I thought iPods already had Ebook functionality? Or I might be confusing it with audiobooks and another device.
However, to be honest, which would you rather have: something that costs $49 a month and looks good, fits in your pocket, doesn't need a stylus and also functions as a music player, web browser, phone, IM client, stock ticker, barometer, and a portable video player, or something that costs $1.99 a month, has a B/W display, looks like something you'd find in a government office, and needs a trolley to carry around?
While an iPhone or iPod Touch are both currently out of my reach financially, I could do what this Kindle does with something that costs £50 from a local supermarket, fits in my pocket, functions as a phone, and, while it doesn't have the best user interface ever, won't tie me into a contract where I have to pay Amazon every month to get unlimited access to the library of books.
While we all say that 'the BBC should do an open platform', remember that they need the time and money to invest in these things. And with the BBC's budget considerably lower than it should be, and some utter cretins in management sending most of the money to the stars of certain late-night chat shows (who normally don't even ask for it or want it), the fact that the content creators, being the greedy gits they are, will demand ludicrously high prices if DRM isn't applied, and the Daily Mail's 'scrap the license fee!' brigade out, there's no way the BBC could have spent the money on an open platform. For the most part, it's not its fault (the small part whose fault it is lies in the corridors of power).
Nevertheless, as a Mac user (thanks to my old PC blowing up - and another one I brought in to aid it suffering the same fate) I will be incredibly happy to see the iPlayer use Flash. Mainly because it beats WMP any day, and due to the fact that Adobe has spent a bit of money making it UNIX-compatible, it will work on that ~5% of machines.
Whenever I upgrade an OS, be it Windows, Mac OS, Linux or anything else, I will always clone the boot partition, reinstall from scratch and then import the data afterwards. True, my G3 iMac isn't compatible with Leopard, so I don't know how difficult it is to upgrade, but it's a general rule that I follow - back up the boot partition and use the Migration Assistant to bring across the data. Simple as.
And before anyone starts complaining about DRM stopping them copying anything across - deauthorise the old partition in iTunes, and get rid of the M$ junk on the disk - it's unjustified, especially with the fabulousness of iWork 08 and OxygenOffice.
It's great that Apple's finally seen sense. Because, if you think about it, when iTunes Plus songs cost more, you're actually paying more for something that has less attached to it. It would have got to the point where someone with no computer at all walks past an Apple Store and gets handed a bill for a billion pounds.
It's amateurish, the people there seem not to get the concept of using a computer (you switch it on) and even if you take something in because the paint's peeled off, they'll install their 'performance measuring application' (bloatware) on your machine and drop a few PC World adverts on the desktop.
And they seem to think that 80gB is 'massive' by today's standards.
It's meant to be, but it's not been confirmed yet. According to certain people, O2 is currently rolling out EDGE (I can't vouch for this though).
But if it had broken the speed of light, it should have arrived BEFORE it left. Unless Einstein just happens to be wrong...
but who knows. Atoms are weird. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that when they travel at the speed of light they generate dancing-banana particles which can be explained by a peice of paper and a crayon.
We can expect calm CPU usage, 24 to 36% for the next three hours, but I can assure you that there is not going to be a hurricane in Wales.
Ordinary internet posts could be replaced, either on the client or the server, by BUY BOB'S BUNS! in-between word advertising.
Apple's UK website hasn't updated to show the new iMacs yet (either because there'll be a few-week delay in getting it over here or because the webmaster had already packed up and gone home).
But isn't the new machine just gorgeous?
The problem I have with propietary lock-ins is when they're badly made (think Vista). I really can't fault Macs in anything but the price, and that's why they're such an attractive option - they're functional and decorative, which is something Micro$oft seems not to have grasped the concept with yet (at least with Windows and certain horribly-designed personal music players).
And TBH, Macs will run quite a lot of stuff. They'll run most UNIX apps, they can dual-boot with Windows if you want and triple boot with Windows and Linux if you want. They automatically recognise and install most hardware without fail. They'll link up with your WiFi network, talk to Windows (even if Windows isn't in the mood to talk to it) and I fully expect that Leopard will be compatible with the upcoming iToaster element2.
Now, if I can find £900 to spare, as soon as Leopard appears I'll be scooting off to Southampton to buy one.
1. The file system is recursive and quite confusing at times.
2. There are very few bits of hardware that support the OS out of the box.
3. Everything is stored in a seperate configuration file for each program, unlike Windows which provides a pre-made registry and nice GUIs for changing them.
4. Some desktop distros are nigh on impossible to use without Internet access - mainly due to the fact that there's no way when downloading a package from Debian's site to download all the dependent packages too.
These problems don't stop Linux from being a great OS, but the reason I'm typing this on Windows (albeit using Firefox) is because I can't find a single WLAN adapter for sale in the UK that I can be dead sure will support Linux. Distros should offer more 'click and forget about it' methods of installation. And perhaps a registry (one of the only pros to using Windows).
And TBH, using C:/Program Files is easier and less confusing than having to search for the bin or sbin directory that new app you installed got saved in.