It’s Friday, which means time for another Techradar opinion column. Today’s offering: why Apple and Microsoft’s keynotes sucked.
I love my job.
Category: Technology
Shiny gadgets and clever computers
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Why Police snooping powers are a step too far
The nice people at Techradar.com have kindly given me a regular blab slot to talk about tech, and the first one is up: it’s about the powers that will enable the police to install keyloggers and other spyware on people’s PCs without a warrant.
Imagine if the Home Office decided that the best way to fight terrorism was to ban curtains.
“Hang on!” we’d say. “That means Creepy Dave across the road will be able to see me in my underpants!”
The Home Office would nod sagely. “That’s true, but you know who else has curtains? Terrorists! Terrorists and gangsters! So it’s curtains for curtains!”
The Home Office hasn’t banned curtains just yet, but it’s getting closer.
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WordPress 2.7: “Free software doesn’t get much better than this”
I’ve been playing with WordPress 2.7 for a wee while now, and my first impressions are up on Techradar:
Moving from 2.6 to 2.7 is no mere point upgrade: it’s more like moving from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. For beginners, it’s easier than before; for existing WordPress users it’s more flexible and considerably less annoying.
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Mobile Flickr brings video to the iPhone
Flickr has updated the excellent m.flickr.com, and you can now view video on your iPhone or iPod Touch. The quality’s superb – the clips play as stand-alone videos, presumably via Quicktime – but for now the changes only apply to videos uploaded in the last day or so. Previously uploaded videos will be “supported at a later date”, Flickr says.
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From the archives: The Seven Deadly Sins of Apple Ownership
Another old MacFormat one – this one predates not just Leopard, but Vista too – but I’m amused by the intro, which is a load of old bollocks. Fun bollocks, I hope.
Mac ownership is often described in religious terms, but the link between Macs and the heavens goes back further than you might think. In the Garden of Eden, Eve took an Apple from the Tree of Knowledge (pedants say it was an Apricot, but what do they know? They’d probably argue that the serpent was a Dragon 32) – and of course her partner was the proud owner of Adam’s Apple. The links continue to this very day: every time you buy a Mac an angel gets its wings – but whenever a Mac runs Windows, an angel is twanged into a tree.
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From the archives: Has Privacy Croaked?
[Originally published in PC Plus. Some of the privacy options mentioned in this article, particularly for Facebook, have changed since this piece was originally published – Gary]
Never mind ID cards: social networking sites are creating a data mine governments would kill for. As Gary Marshall discovers, the devil’s in the details.
In July, US security services’ plans to harvest massive amounts of information about air travellers caused an outcry. “That’s terrible,” everybody cried, before handing over their most sensitive personal data to a plastic frog.
The frog was on Facebook, the social networking site where more than 30 million people share all kinds of information from their educational and career histories to their sexual orientation. As security firm Sophos discovered, while many of us worry about ID cards, government databases and anti-terror watch lists, 41% of Facebook users will happily share their secrets with Freddi the Frog – and thanks to social search engines and database diggers, privacy is increasingly looking like a thing of the past. (more…)
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Opera 10 (alpha) now available for download
Title says it all, really. Features list promises standards support, better performance, SVG…
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From the archives: how to write an angry email
We’ve all experienced it: someone says something really annoying or offensive, you search for a witty comeback and your mind goes blank. Three days later, in the wee small hours, the words come to you – “Yeah! But your wife looks like a horse!” but it’s too late, because the moment’s gone. Online, though, things are different. Time is on your side.
Writing angry emails can be an entertaining and rewarding hobby, but it’s important to know the rules. The most important rule of all is: never write an angry email when you’re actually angry.
It’s tempting, we know, but it’s a recipe for disaster. BANG! You hammer the keyboard with your meaty fists. SMACK! You stab the Send button with all your might. HAH! You sit back in triumph. ARSE! You’ve accidentally sent the message to your boss. We’ve read lots of business books, and we’re pretty sure that “OMG UR WIEF LOOKS LIEK A HORSE!!!!” won’t get you a pay rise.
The trick to angry emails is to stay cool. If your tormentor thinks they’ve got under your skin, they’ve won – but if you seem unconcerned, that’ll really annoy them. Never respond to their digs at you; instead, identify their weak points – everybody’s sensitive about something – and then exploit them elegantly. We’ve had good results with phrases such as “I’m sure that you are aware”, “I am surprised that you didn’t”, “If you really understood the subject” and “I’ve got your children in my cellar.”
[Originally published in Official Windows Vista magazine. The last bit didn’t make it into the printed version]
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From the archives: Everything you need to know about Internet TV
Until recently internet TV tended to involve cameras pointed at cheese or happy slapping clips on YouTube, but the telly times are changing. Internet TV is coming!
It’s incredible how far we’ve come. In the bad old days you’d spend £200 on a TV set, another £100 on a video recorder and you’d get your programmes for free. Today, though, technology has made everything better. All you need for internet TV is a £1,000 PC, a £20 per month broadband connection and a portal into a parallel universe where instead of throwing slippers at the screen when the broadcaster shows repeats, you reach for your credit card instead.
We’ve seen technology do some amazing things, but we never thought it could get people to pay for repeats. But that’s exactly what’s happened: by calling their old tat “archive material” or “premium content”, internet TV services are successfully persuading people to pay 99p for old episodes. Presumably the broadcasters could paint lipstick on a pig, tell everyone it’s Madonna and get the same people to shell out £100 on tickets to see it dance to disco music.
According to technology evangelists internet TV is just the beginning. They say that everything we currently get over the air – such as TV broadcasts – will eventually be piped into our homes, and they also say that the reverse is happening, so everything we currently get via pipes will come through the air. Which means that somewhere, someone is trying to transmit water over Wi-Fi.
[Originally published in Official Windows Vista magazine]
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From the archives: Everything you need to know about online auctions
When boffins invent teleportation we’ll be able to travel around the world in seconds, but for now online auctions offer the next best thing: with a click of the mouse you can send all of your money or all of your possessions to Nigeria.
When you advertise your dog-eared 2006 Official Girls Aloud calendar on an online auction you’ll immediately receive seven hundred emails offering two and a half million pounds for it. You now have two choices: you can stop the auction early and get ripped off now, or you can wait until the auction ends and get ripped off then. It really doesn’t matter: whether you post it today or a week today, the calendar’s going to Nigeria – and the payment’s from a cloned credit card, so it’ll be yanked by your bank within three seconds of posting your package. That means not only will you lose your money, but you’ll no longer have a picture of Kimberley to cheer yourself up.
If you’re a buyer, things are even more fun: when you win an auction and make your payment, one of three exciting things will happen. One, the package will arrive and you’ll discover that you’ve bought a photo of the thing instead of the thing itself; two, the package will arrive and you’ll discover that you’ve bought a box for the thing instead of the thing itself; or three, no package will arrive and you’ll receive a postcard from your money instead. “Wish you were here,” it says. “In Nigeria!”
[Originally published in Official Windows Vista magazine]