Re: Not a "reboot"
Perhaps call it a graceful restart?
Posts by deains
71 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Apr 2011
Ten top stories from New Who
Loathed wiggly-word CAPTCHAs morph into 'fun' click-'n'-drag games
Wednesday 16th October 2013 09:17 GMT 
If Adblock doesn't kill it, corporate firewalls certainly will.
Also violates the KISS principle. Games are bloated and off-putting, you can work with something much simpler (e.g. a slider) and get exactly the same effect. No need to distract the user from what they originally wanted to do - i.e. engage with your website.
Nintendo is FLATLY UNHINGED: New 2DS is a handful of game
Amazon DISAPPEARS from internet
Indian military pondered attack on Venus and Jupiter
Friday 26th July 2013 07:07 GMT
Agreed -- given that I have never worked a telescope in my life, if I were to try and categorise objects in the sky (which are likely only going to be bright dots) into "Venus" and "not Venus", chances are it'd be a dismal failure, and western China would even now be an irradiated crater. So it's not really fair to laugh at their mistake.
Ubuntuforums.org cracker promises no password release
Tuesday 23rd July 2013 07:20 GMT 
Speaking from experience
vBulletin is really really crap at security. The password hashing algorithm is really only the tip of the iceberg. The thing is, once you get control of AdminCP, the server is essentially yours (up to permissions of the SuExec user). You can upload and execute files, run queries, likely even send emails if that's on the same machine as Apache. And what's protecting this tresure trove, you ask? A password prompt and nothing else. No SSL, no guessing usernames (admins are listed on the site), that one text field is literally all that stands between a hacker and complete control of your box.
Not to mention cookies of course. which in vB sometimes don't even get marked as HttpOnly. Yes, that means a bit of XSS could comprimise the entire machine. Starting to see the whole iceberg?
First, the bad news: EA bags Star Wars games rights
Another MYSTERY evacuation: Google UK empties swanky offices
Thursday 21st March 2013 10:19 GMT
Re: Most likely...
You need to show "willing intent" to be visible on the photos. I was told that apparently, if you print out a photo of yourself and stick it to your face, Google won't blur it out for this reason. Or at least, they'll consider not blurring it out, presumably based on how stupid the photo looks.
One in 10 Brit smartphone owners 'can't afford' to pay for apps
Certain people rejoice! AC/DC finally available on iTunes
Lord to sue Twitter users who falsely accused him of abuse
Thursday 15th November 2012 12:55 GMT
Re: Added annoyance
"With technology", to quote the article, so Lord only knows (literally).
Given that Twitter are based outside the UK, I think he'd have troubles even finding out those emails to begin with. The only people he's going to be able to sue are those who have their real name listed on their profile, and who live in the UK. Probably not a huge number, but I guess this is more about proving his political clout than collecting any actual damages.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review
Wednesday 14th November 2012 13:56 GMT
Re: Still no buttons
So wait, your solution to my problem is to buy reading gloves? Thanks, but no thanks -- I have a nice pair of soft, warm gloves I'd rather not swap for a crappy capacitive pair every time I fancy a bit of reading.
Also it doesn't address the waterproof bag situation mentioned above.
Apple iPad Mini 8in tablet review
Monday 5th November 2012 13:35 GMT
Re: Reviews vs other iPads and not Android tablets?
On the other hand, if you're an Apple user who has no interest in the rubbish that passes for an Android tablet these days, and simply want to know if it's worth moving from an iPad 2 to the iPad Mini or similar, this review does the job nicely. Not everyone has the same perspective as you, I'm afraid.
Here we go again: Critical flaw found in just-patched Java
Oooh-la-la! 'iPhone 5' bares all, strokes tiny nano-SIM in pics
Rampant fake Facebook ad clicks riddle hits dead end
Monday 6th August 2012 13:23 GMT
Re: Disputed figure: 1 or 2 % disable javascript
I believe Limited Run themselves expounded on the problems with detecting JavaScript usage. The main issue is that most analytics programs require JS to be enabled, so NoScript users will always fly under the radar. Apparently to overcome this they wrote their own analytics program, and it's from that they got the 1-2% figure. Other studies (and there's not been many of them) seem to confirm this.
NoScript (the extension) is very uncommon, by the way. Have a look at the Firefox page for it and you'll see it has 2 million users. It is probably safe to assume the number of people who have disabled JS through other means also number around 2 million.
For comparison, Google gets around two (US) billion visitors per month. 4 mil is a drop in the water as far as total Internet users is concerned. This is very wooly stats of course, but it's fair to say that the influence of non-JS users is microscopic.
Developers still need graceful degredation for non-JS though. 1% may be very little, but in that category we have almost every single search engine bot. Catering to them is kind of essential, at least as far as finding information and links is concerned.
Smutty books strip Harry Potter of Amazon crown
'Young people don't want to become like us', say IT pros
Wealthy Kensington & Chelsea residents reject BT fibre cabinets
Steve Jobs action figure kicks the bucket
Chrome beta promises super-fast URL loads
Acer unveils 'world's thinnest' Ultrabook
Monday 9th January 2012 13:39 GMT 
I wonder how long it'll take for Apple's legal team to get their smelly claws on this. It looks practically identical to a MacBook Air (albeit with a can of black spray paint applied), even down to small details like the webcam/screen bezel and the dimple at the front of the case.
If Apple can successfully sue the crap out of Samsung for the Galaxy, they should be able to take Acer to the cleaners for this. That's assuming the legal system is 100% balanced and fair, of course. Paris knows it's true.
Brits got Kindles for Christmas
Wednesday 4th January 2012 21:28 GMT
The low-hanging fruit
I called my MP3 player an iPod for years, despite the fact it had nothing to do with Apple or their products. But two syllables are easier to pronounce than five. Similarly, it's a lot easier to just say "Kindle", a well-known brand, than "e-Reader", which, to be perfectly frank, is a pretty stupid name to begin with.
1,000 Chinese workers strike at Apple and IBM supplier
Ubuntu savaged by rivals infected with fondleslab fever
Apple requires Mac App Store candidates to be sandboxed
Man builds smartphone dock into arm
BT gets 14 days to block Newzbin2
RIM hopes to distract punters with free pretties
Dell opens new data centre in Slough
Android apps now playable on Windows PCs
Facebook scammers exploit Steve Jobs' death
iPhone 5: Apple 4S, pundits 0
What's not in the iPhone 4S ... and why
Apple outs iPhone micro USB adaptor
Wednesday 5th October 2011 13:22 GMT
You can do everything with USB? No!
The dock connector supports way more than just a USB connection, that's why it's so huge. To name just a few, it has:
- Line out
- Line in
- Composite video
- Component video
- Some kind of serial (other than USB, for low-level comms with accessories)
- USB itself
- 12V charging
Ever tried sending component video down USB? Yeah, good luck with that. And if you want to have music on your hi-fi (direct line out) whilst charging via USB, the dock connector will let you do that too. USB can't.
If all the iPods had was a USB connector, they'd lose a massive amount of functionality. That means reducing convenience and flexibility for the end user, the very thing you claim the dock connector prevents. Whoops.
Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5
Tuesday 4th October 2011 18:59 GMT
Re: *
"There is nothing inconvenient about swapping a battery."
Steps to swap a battery:
1. Power off phone
2. Take old battery out
3. Swap new battery in
4. Power on phone
Steps to plug in external battery:
1. Plug in external battery
Yeah, clearly I'm doing the wrong thing here. Shucks.
"..when you got home you had... oh that's right, two batteries to charge sequentially to get back to square one"
In parallel, actually. And having two phone batteries would land you in the exact same situation, so no gain there.
"Desperate to find fualt much?"
I find fault with crap information, yeah. Agree with a few of the other points in the article though!
Tuesday 4th October 2011 14:56 GMT 
Battery an issue? Er, no.
If I tried to count the number of times I've run out of iPhone battery on my fingers, well, I'd fail to do so, as the current count is zero. It's never happened. I put it on to charge every night, and it runs perfectly well all day.
If I anticipate needing longer than a day's worth of battery, I bring an external charger pack and plug it in at the opportune moment. This is far more convenient than trying to faff about swapping a battery.
Also, it's a bit rich to critique battery life, it being an area that Android devices suffer greatly in, so I've been told.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
