Comments for trivia

Comment on disappointing satnav by Mick

Mick — Sat, 19 May 2012 20:25:02 +0000

Peter

Thanks. I think I picked the worst week imaginable to tour Scotland by bike. Permanent rain and temperatures close to zero. Every place I stopped, they said “you should have been here in March.”

Nice roads though.

Comment on disappointing satnav by Peter

Peter — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:44:21 +0000

Mine is both more and less proprietary – I use a TomTom app on an iPhone. It’s more proprietary as you have to buy into the Apple platform, but less because you do not need any other device to access the application store or map updates (although you need to be near a fat WiFi link for a full update as the included maps make it *massive*.

What I like about TomTom is the smaller map corrections and live traffic stuff – the latter is fairly sparse in its use of Internet access you you don’t get a massive roaming bill when traveling. What I dislike is the TomTom GUI. I am certain the people who designed this must only walk everywhere, it demands FAR too much interaction. But hey, it works.

Good luck with the bike :).

Comment on no you can’t have my mobile number by Mick

Mick — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:16:42 +0000

Mike (and yes, I know that is not your real name)

Whilst I might agree with your sentiments, I do not agree with your analysis, nor do I approve of you hijacking someone else’s wifi (if that is actually what you are doing – your IP address is part of a block owned by Opal Telecom’s DSL Network – probably used by TalkTalk).

I can see why facebook might want my mobile number, but they aren’t getting it. My real point here was that I cannot now delete the account without first giving them what they want.

Mick

Comment on no you can’t have my mobile number by mike hunt

mike hunt — Wed, 09 May 2012 12:54:13 +0000

They want your number because mainly cellphone numbers are directly linked to you via bank details etc. As you can see my email is totally ficticious, my phone is payg, the web dongle is vodafone payg also but I am at this time sitting in the greenhouse on my allotment tapping into someone elses wifi. Google can go suck my rusty spade if it thinks Im going to give up my privacy. Signed the right dishonorable reverend [artificial-and-offensive-name-deleted-in-the interests-of-decency]

Comment on battle for the internet by Mick

Mick — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:35:20 +0000

It would seem that Brin believes he may have been misrepresented (or has since been misinterpreted) in the guardian piece on monday. El Reg today points to a google+ posting by Brin (which, my not being a google+ reader I would not otherwise have discovered) in which Brin "clarifies" what he really meant. El Reg concludes that "what this really means is that Brin, just like Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, is pissed off with the competition." Getaway. (Note: Commenting on my own post is probably poor practice, but it saves me creating a new post on much the same topic.)

Comment on android mail client is broken by Mick

Mick — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:48:50 +0000

Yes Peter, but as I said in my email, nq.com are selling a product which “protects” against the malware they are discussing. Classic AV company behaviour (they all do it) – talk about a threat, then offer a cure. And this company is based in an interesting part of the world too.

Comment on android mail client is broken by Peter

Peter — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:41:05 +0000

You may find this link interesting: http://research.nq.com/?p=402

They have found (yet another) bit of Android malware, but this one is SMS controlled. It appears to have quite a feature set..

I have an Android phone somewhere in a cupboard. It only comes out when I go to London and need a mobile access point (pay as you go SIMs are *very* handy :). The rest of the phone is not used *at all*..

Regards, Peter

Comment on tor on a vps by Peter

Peter — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:18:47 +0000

I actually route all the interesting stuff through a VPN – as the tail of that VPN is someone who nukes logfiles, and as he has plenty of other customers my stuff drowns in the noise, provided I browse in private mode with changed OS and browser identity, and stop browser LSOs.

Having said that, it is starting to *seriously* annoy me that I have to fight so hard to keep my privacy – something that is so basic you find it defined in the Human Rights (#13, to be exact).

Comment on android mail client is broken by Mick

Mick — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:37:51 +0000

Update.

I’ve now found a free, off-line, android navigation app called Navfree. This app uses no data connection once the maps have been downloaded. Further, it uses openstreetmap maps and not google’s maps. So I /can/ now use my old HTC as a satnav.

Comment on very, very, slow electrons by Mick

Mick — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:37:02 +0000

Peter

I don’t use skype. Ever heard of SIP? :-)

Mick

(I’ve sent Chris your email address.)