Did the name of this software possibly rhyme with DMeaner? I'd be interested to know
Posts by ColonelClaw
436 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Apr 2010
Tired techie 'fixed' a server, blamed Microsoft, and got away with it
Sorry Pat, but it's looking like Arm PCs are inevitable
Apple's iPhone 12 woes spread as Belgium, Germany, Netherlands weigh in
Twitter name and blue bird logo to be 'blowtorched' off company branding
Metaverses are flopping – hard – says Gartner
Singapore tells its people: Go forth and block those ads
Question
It's been a long time since I last looked into which Ad blocker is the best. Many years ago I installed UBlock Origin on my Firefox, and I've been using it ever since. Is it still any good? Is there a better alternative that people here can recommend?
I'd also be interested to know if there are any decent Ad Blockers for iOS and iPadOS. Didn't Apple do something to reduce their effectiveness a while back?
Intel kills $700M liquid cooling lab amid chip slump
Palantir's Covid-era UK health contract extended without competition
What did Unix fans learn from the end of Unix workstations?
UK bans Chinese CCTV cameras on 'sensitive' government sites
Devil's Advocate
Putting aside politics, what do people here think are the chances that Chinese-made CCTV cameras have a built-in government-mandated backdoor? I'm asking from a purely technical point of view.
Personally I think it's obviously possible, but I suspect keeping it from being discovered would be extremely hard. Given enough time, I feel it would be found, sooner or later. And then there's the human point of view i.e. you have to keep everyone involved sworn to silence for the rest of their lives. It's a tough ask.
As for exploiting the security of the absolutly shite software they tend to ship with (I have plenty of painful experience as an end-user here), I would say that would be by far the easiest attack vector for any government to exploit. So why bother with a backdoor at all? If it was discovered the ramifications would be enourmous.
Only iPhone 15 Pro models will have higher data transfer speeds on USB-C – analyst
Logitech, that canary in PC coal mine, just fell off its perch
At the height of the Covid lockdown I purchased one of their web cams for 90 quid. It was the only one available pretty much anywhere. You can now buy the exact same model for 30 quid, along with about a million other different web cams. You'll forgive me if I don't shed a tear for their current predicament.
FreeBSD 13.1 is out for everything from PowerPC to x86-64
OpenShell has been working on a classic replacement for Windows 11's Start menu
Meg Whitman – former HP and eBay CEO – nominated as US ambassador to Kenya
Having travelled, and even lived, in Western, Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, if I'm being honest, I'm not sure that Kenya would be top of my list of places to live on this incredible continent. Mind-you I'm probably slightly prejudiced, having been robbed on two occasions within the space of three weeks there!
On second thoughts, this is Meg Whitman we're talking about...
Project Union: Microsoft releases Windows App SDK 1.0, developers try to puzzle it out
Microsoft's problem child, Windows 11, is here. Will you run it? Can you run it? Do you even WANT to run it?
NASA's Perseverance rover nabs two Martian rock samples for scientists on Earth to study one day
Microsoft releases Windows 11 Insider Preview, attempts to defend labyrinth of hardware requirements
So, if Win11 doesn't support PCs older than 2015 (or whatever the year is, I have no idea), then does that mean that MS has taken the opportunity to strip out all of the old legacy code and drivers, thus slimming the OS down to a lean and mean athlete? That would be an actual positive!
I'm not holding my breath...
Hubble Space Telescope may now depend on a computer that hasn't booted since 2009
The 40-Year-Old Version: ZX81's sleek plastic case shows no sign of middle-aged spread
Ah, the memories. The ZX-81 was also my first encounter with a computer, my grandfather bought one soon after they first came out. He was a former codebreaker for the Admiralty during WW2, and university professor at Manchester where they had a machine he described as being as large as a room. I still feel particularly sad that he never got to see how modern computing turned out, as he died in 1987.
The one thing that sticks in my mind with the ZX-81 was typing in and running the code for something called "Life", which generated some really interesting (blocky) patterns that evolved over time. It left a huge impression on me, and helped make me into the geek I am today!
Microsoft tells Biden administration to adopt Australia’s pay-for-news plan
Intel CEO Bob Swan is stepping down to be replaced by VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger
Back to the Fuchsia, part IV: Google's in-development OS now open to community contributions
Microsoft to charge $200 for 32 GPU cores, sliver of CPU clockspeed, 6GB RAM, 512GB SSD... and a Blu-Ray player
Apple to Epic: Sue me? No, sue you, pal!
Intel couldn't shrink to 7nm on time – but it was able to reduce one thing: Its chief engineer's employment
Incredible artifact – or vital component after civilization ends? Rare Nazi Enigma M4 box sells for £350,000
Document? Library? A new kind of component? Microsoft had a hard time explaining what its Fluid Framework is
International space station connects 100Mbps symmetric space laser ethernet using Sony optical disc tech
SE's baaaack: Apple flings out iPhone SE 2020, priced at £419
NASA reveals the new wavy Martian wheels it thinks can crush the red planet
I don't know if it's important, but as well as all the points mentioned here already, I notice that Mars is much larger than the Moon, and must therefore have considerably more gravity. Add to that the 899kg weight of the rover itself (nuclear-powered craft can't be lightweight) vs the lightweight 209kg moon rover, and we're dealing with quite a different proposition.
NSO Group: Facebook tried to license our spyware to snoop on its own addicts – the same spyware it's suing us over
Microsoft Teams gets off to a wobbly start as the world and its cat starts working from home
Adobe and Slack report buoyant revenues, but is that a COVID-19 iceberg ahead?
It's calculated Apple leak time: Cheaper iPhone, laptops with proper keyboards, and, oh, a Tile competitor
It's a billion-ton, 14-million-mile long mysterious alien formation – and Earth is heading right into it
MacOS 'Catalina' 10.15 comes packed with exclusive security fixes – gee, thanks, Apple
Lucas Pope: Indie games visionary makes pen-pushing feel like an exciting career choice
Switch about to get real: Openreach bod on the challenge of shuttering UK's copper phone lines
Adobe results show it is still creaming those subscriptions but its share price fell – why?
Pedant Alert
Sorry to be a pedantic git, but as someone who uses Photoshop and After Effects for a living, I thought I'd point out "And what would you use instead of After Effects?" is actually incorrect; it's the one part of the CC suite that actually has decent professional competition. Key rivals are Nuke and Fusion, two packages that are highly regarded by their user base.
But yes, in the case of Photoshop, for how I use it at least, there's nothing that comes even close. Alas.
Eggheads have found a positive link between the number of racist tweets and the number of racist hate crimes in US cities
How do you like dem Windows, Apple? July opening for Microsoft's first store in Blighty
'Evolution of the PC ecosystem'? Microsoft's 'modern' OS reminds us of the Windows RT days
When two tribes go to war... Intel, AMD tease new chips at Computex: Your spin-free summary
Cocaine, psychedelics, DMT? They sure knew how to party 1,000 years ago: Archaeologists make startling discovery
iPhone price cuts are coming, teases Apple CEO. *Bring-bring* Hello, Apple UK? It's El Reg. You free to chat?
Are you a Windows 1 in 10 (1809)? Or a mighty 80 percenter (1803)?
If you ever felt like you needed to carry 4TB of data around, Toshiba's got you covered
Re: This has been available for a while
I think what you all have in common is the randomness of, er, randomness.
I've bought about 15 MyPassports, and 2 or maybe 3 have failed, so I guess you can add that to the sample.
If you want to talk about proper fail, ALL 8 of the 2TB hard drives in my SAS RAID enclosure for video editing have failed over the years! But then again, they do get properly pounded 24/7