Our local computer component seller Aria has an interesting idea for a laptop cover.

It's a fury laptop cover.

That's right... a raging inferno in the making. "We've tested it on several brands and models of laptops...." .. and so far our premises are still standing

It's true. My oldest has brought shame on our family.

OK. So I'm exaggerating to get the headlines. Sorry. The reality is that my eldest, who shall remain nameless, has worked out how to get more than her allotted number of Nintendogs. It's not exactly breaking into the Pentagon

But I can't help but smile and then ponder the consequences of her early hacking career. What's next! Extra items in Mario Kart? Auto pin-drops on Wii Bowling? One can only wonder and worry

Oh, her hack. Simple really. Want extra dogs, simply pop the ones you have into the doggy hotel and it allows you to buy another one. So long as you don't have more than three active dogs at a time, your fine. Quite why she'd want so many canines is beyond me. But there you go.

Mixed fortunes are abound in the mobile phone market as it was annonced this week that the total number of handsets shipped in the first quarter of 2007 (January to March) were 252 million handsets, up 12% from the year earlier.

At first glance this would strike you as being something of an achievement, not to mention a gigantic landfill waiting to happen. But according to the study group Strategy Analystics, this has been the first annual rate of growth in nearly two years to have fell below the 20% mark. In plain speak, 8 million handsets failed to attract new customers at the start of the year.

Furthermore Motorola's shipments fell 1.5%.

But not everybody is having a bad time of it. Sony Ericsson saw a 63% rise in its sales to 21.8 million, while Nokia had a 21% increase.

Motorola looks like it will need at least a year of recovery to gain back its lost sales while third place Sony Ericsson snaps around its heals with a seires of impressive new phones. Motorola by comparison seems content to make yet more umpteen flavours of its 'Razor' phone while licking it's wounds over the (not very) iTunes compatible Rocker. Having been kicked in the teeth by Apple as it brings out its own iPhone it must come as some solice to Motorola that Apple are entering the mobile/cellular phone market just as it takes a downturn. Especially when you consider that Global Insight predict the biggest growth in the mobile phone subscribers will be in China and India; a market not generally associated with purchasing the latest and greatest forms of technology and more included to sell the best and use last decades model until it falls apart at the seems. China on the other hand seems hell bent on pattern infringement and general lawlessness in the eyes of the west. Quite how do you expect copyright to be upheld in a country with no legal precident of ownership is anyones guess.

Which brings me to the idea that Apple is merely creating the iPhone not because it wants to innovate the industry (because it ain't) but more because it's totally ran out of ideas to do with the iPod and making a widescreen unit would look like a copy of Microsofts ever so crippled Zoon player. "Welcome to the social." (for 3 days tops).

Is it yet another case of Apple being later to the market yet again? One thing is for sure. After all the rhetoric, unless the iPhone is the best thing since bread got sliced there could be a lot more than egg on faces in Cupertino. Something I'm sure hasn't been missed on them.

Tags: apple

Just had a quick look on Digg.com and a story is making a rising star of itself in the Videos. It's from the old TechTV show 'The Screen Savers' and has Martin Sergeant and Leo Laporte pulling a site apart for it's totally false, misguided and insane 'How to tell if your son is a hacker' section.

The site the story is on is here.

Whilst the video of their mirth can be found here.

I particularly like the irony of the opening gambit of "As an enlightened, modern parent"; only to then go on to prove just how unenlightened and backwards the "T Reginald Gibbons" was (this article dates to December 2001).

Lets take a look at his list of indicators

1. Has your son asked you to change ISPs?

It would appear that instead of potentially suggesting changing ISP for better service or lower costs; this would be a clear indicator that you 'son' is trying to get away from AOL's 'child safety filter' and trying to get onto a 'hacker friendly ISP'. Because their are ISP that are responsible and trusted (if not easy to leave).

I think the very first hacking attack I warded off was from an AOL customer. But I digress. Clearly these are the words of an idiot. But lets continue.

2. Are you finding programs on your computer that you don't remember installing?

Clearly a would be hacker would require to install the necessary root-kit / virus / phishing development kit in order to carry out their illegal activity.

But no. According to this genius the following pieces of software are (and I quote exactly) "Popular hacker software.."

Comet Cursor was a program that allowed you to change your cursor in Windows. It has it's own story covered better here.
Bonzi Buddy was a little application that helped you search the internet. Again, it has its own controversy. But it's not a hacker toolkit!
Flash - Yes, you read that right. Macromedia Flash. That favourite development tool for hackers. Quite why Macromedia didn't sue this guy is a mystery to me. But as this is getting light on Digg... you can only hope.

3. Has your child asked for new hardware?

He writes "Computer hackers are often limited by conventional computer hardware. They may request "faster" video cards, and larger hard drives, or even more memory."

Because hackers find it often necessary to have the latest 3D card in order to launch a DOS attack. Worse still....

"If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips. They use child labor extensively in their third world sweatshops, and they deliberately disable the security features that American processor makers, such as Intel, use to prevent hacking. AMD chips are never sold in stores, and you will most likely be told that you have to order them from internet sites. Do not buy this chip! This is one request that you must refuse your son, if you are to have any hope of raising him well."

Now clearly this guy has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT. Firstly, AMD ISN'T a third-world company and it's processors should not be considered 'knock-off' copies. Even in 2001 was totally false and it's not changed today.

There are NO disabled security features in AMD chips over Intel because there are NO enabled security features TOO disable.

I've passed this page onto AMD. I hope they take this guy to the cleaners.

4. Has your child been reading hacker manuals?
And perhaps hanging around 'hacker coffee shops'. Now in case you think that he's hit on something. Lets check out the titles.

"Snow Crash" and "Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson; both are works of fiction. They therefore contain little or nothing of any use... and are perhaps not even good reads.

"Neuromancer" by William Gibson; Is a complete work of fiction in which the main character Henry Dorsett Case is 'jacked' right into cyberspace in order to hack. So if you find your son with the mouse stuffed into his ear.....

"Programming with Perl" by Timothy O'Reilly; Because ALL hackers use Perl right? What a muppet.

The list goes on and none of it would prove effective.

5. How much time does your child spend using the computer each day?

If your child spends more than 30 minutes a day... they might be hacking. Or doing their homework, or listening to music, or playing a game. My favourite part of this is that he thinks DOSing a site involves gaining a command prompt access to other peoples website. Where of course DOS in this sense means Denial Of Service in which a site is washed out by communication traffic from bogus zombie machines; this making the site unable to response to true users.

6. Does your son use Quake?

Now this totally blows my mind. It would appear that 'Quake' is a "virtual reality used by hackers". Has this guy actually ever SEEN a computer? According to our genius; its a training ground for hackers. Personally, I thought it was first person shooter. But then robo-brain comes up with.... "If your son is using Quake, you should make hime understand that this is not acceptable to you. You should ensure all the firearms in your house are carefully locked away, and have trigger locks installed. You should also bring your concerns to the attention of his school." - WTF!

7. Is your son becoming argumentative and surly in his social behaviour?

And lets fact it, if your dad was this insane... you would be!

8. Is your son obsessed with "Lunix"?

Yes, you read it right. Lunix. Which he then goes on to describe as an illegal hacker operating system written by a Soviet computer hacker during the cold war. It was stolen from Microsoft who wrote Xenix for the US Goverment. It can also be used to break into peoples computer systems to steal credit card numbers and into peoples stereos to steal their music using MP3 program.

It's at this point that I think the author is either
a) Having a joke.
b) Insane.
c) Never even SEEN a computer and one of those people who writes messages on walls using their own excrement.

He, your son, might install it without you noticing (seems VERY unlikely). But you should keep an eye out for LILO during windows startup.

9. Has your son radically changed his appearance?

Watch out for glow sticks. Or perhaps he's just trying to avoid being recognised as your son mate!

10. Is your son struggling academically?

Either because he's a hacker or he's the son of somebody who wholeheartedly believes the world was created 25 years ago by a goat.

Apparently over-exposure to computer radiation can cause schizophrenia and I can only assume that T Reginald Gibbons must have spent his formative years locked in a computer lab.

Bored again.

Here are my Top Five Mis-Facts

Number One - The speed of light is a constant

It's a double whammy. Not only is the speed of light NOT a constant, but it nearly never achieves its top whack pace of 299,792,458 metres per second.

Why? Because light is affected by everything it passes through or is reflected off and it's such an obvious statement that it beggars belief that people hold onto the idea that it's speed is both constant and a universal standard.

Top speed of light through super-cooled sodium? About 17 metres a second. Slower than sound in fact.

Check out this NY Times article on the subject.

From Everything You Know Is A Lie.

Number Two - Sugar rots your teeth

Oddly not; despite being told show many, many times. The fact is that sugar does not rot your death. What rots your teeth is plaque that feeds on the sugar and excretes (yes, I DO mean that) plaque acid aka lactic acid, that breaks down the enamel on your teeth. Without plaque bacteria you could eat sugar until the cows come home and still have nice teeth.

Number Three - Human Beings (Homo Sapiens) are decended from apes

Sorry to sound all scientific but Homo Sapiens are a member of the 'super-family' of Hominoids.

This consists of two families of hominoids:
1. The family Hylobatidae consists of 4 genera and 12 species of gibbons, including the Lar and the Siamang, collectively known as the "lesser apes";

2. The family Hominidae consisting of gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans, collectively known for reference as the "great apes"

However, if you imagine the Hominidae as being a tree truck, then apes and humans are on two different branches. Essentially they and we have a much older common ancestor who you will now groan when you realise that THIS is the 'missing link'. Therefore, we are not ancestors of gorillas or orangutans; they are our cousins, once removed.

Number Four - There are more people alive today than have ever lived

In the 1970's it was popular to highlight the issues of an ever increasing global population. Films like 'Soylent Green' show a world over populated, over heating and starving. Part of this rhetoric included the phrase that more people are alive today than have ever lived.

Of course this is complete drivel. Even starting just 50,000 years ago (ignoring evidence of earlier examples of modern man) gives an estimated total of around 106 Billion. Todays world population is around 6.2 Billion, for those without adequate math skills. that's quite a bit lower.

Number Five - Sushi means 'raw fish'.

Popular culture would have us believe that the famous Japanese delicacy of Sushi is created from raw fish. This is described in films, television programs, books and magazines; you name it.

In Japan the word sushi refers to a broad range of food prepared with sumeshi or sushi meshi, which is vinegared rice.

Outside Japan, sushi is often taken to mean raw fish. But this is totally erroneous and has been confused with sashimi.

Sashimi ("pierced body") is a Japanese delicacy primarily consisting of very fresh seafoods, thinly sliced and served with only a dipping sauce (for example soy sauce or ponzu sauce), and a simple garnish like shiso and shredded daikon radish.

Some sashimi ingredients, like octopus, are served cooked, but most fish, like tuna, are served raw. Less common but not unusual sashimi ingredients are vegetarian items such as yuba and raw red meats such as beef or horse.

The name sashimi may have come from the practice of sticking the tail of the fish on the slices, to let it be known which fish one was eating.

One last thought. For all those people who think the idea of 'raw fish' is terrible. Ponder on the production of 'Palma Ham' and 'Smoked Salmon' neither of which are cooked.

All these facts and more can be found at Everything You Know Is A Lie.

Bill O'Reilly has something of a reputation in the states. He's the sort of man who likes to say that the Klu Klux Klan have a point just to get people so enraged they watch his show, to shout at it. Only problem is, there's a huge amount of his viewers who share such opinions.

I caught his show this evening on Sky channel something or other; where he described 'illegal aliens' (you can read that as economic refugees, people who run the gauntlet from Mexico to find a better life for themselves)
"those people",
"that type of character",
"criminals of the highest order" and my personal favourite
"vermin".

Now correct me if I'm wrong. But isn't America a country build on immigration? Just because they no longer come from Germany, Italy or in Bill's case Ireland doesn't mean they have any less of a right to a better life than he does.

Two questions.

1. Does Bill O'Reilly benefit from the cheap labour provided by such immigration? Either directly or indirectly.
2. Is he aware of his own family history?

I also caught reference to this little encounter with Geraldo Rivera. Where he actually asks Geraldo if he would 'want' a person to sneak across the border, get drunk and run over his daughters. I was waiting for "And I suppose you'd bring back Hitler" or "I guess Communism is YOUR better alternative.". That's the sort of argument you can expect from a man whose personal life is less that squeaky clean and his opinions are based more upon getting the headlines than making meaningful contributions to the world.

This is a man who openly says his thinks torture is a good thing and that a kidnap victim was 'better off with is captor than his ageing parents'.

Extraordinarily he suggested that US soldiers carried out the Malmedy massacre during World War Two when in fact THEY WERE THE VICTIMS! Quite how O'Reilly kept his job after this outrageously offensive mistake is beyond me. But then I'm biased, because I believe that Bill O'Reilly is nothing more than a racist bigot... and I'm not alone.

But should Bill O'Reilly be not allowed to broadcast his Nuremberg style rants? Absolutely; while dressed in an orange uniform, in a small cage and in some place near Cuba.

Inspired by a recent "Room 101" on UKTV Gold I've decided to knock up a really quite top five of things I hate (and why).

Number Five

The 'I could have got it cheaper' friend
Which is the person who fails to let you know when discussed prior to purchase the best place to get an item; only to them say they could have 'got it cheaper' after you buy it.

Number Four

"Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree"
I have nothing against Tony Orlando (or 'Dawn') but there is just something truly awful about this 1973 hit. It's just so horribly sickly sentimental I just hear a screaming voice in the my head every single time I hear it. I realise this is probably just me. But there you go.

Number Three

Talking parts at the start of soul songs
OK. When I grew up in the 1970's my Mum was really into Soul music. Barry White.. and half a dozen other artists. All of which seemed to start each .. every lasting (and accompanied by my Mother) song with a least two minutes of 'You know, you know I really love you babe' and so forth. I would be inflicted with this truly awful barrage almost every single night. The very second I could get a radio of my own I dashed upstairs to listen to local Piccadilly Radio and away from Barry and his many gravely pre-song diatribes.

Number Two

Cold Baked Beans
When I was a kid I was made baked beans and toast. I messed around before eating it so much that it went cold. But my mother wasn't accepting that and made me eat the beans cold, sticking to the plate. I was violently sick and the whole cold beans means vomit has stuck ever since.

However, it's beans.... so I'm not going to have therapy over it. Besides, I can eat beans....... so long as they are so hot they melt the steal cutlery.

Number One!

People who use "literally" incorrectly
As petty as this sounds, this is my total pet hate.

Having a quick glance at the Cambridge online dictionally tells us that "Literally" is an adverb 'having the real or original meaning of a word or phrase'. And gives the following examples:
They were responsible for literally millions of deaths.
We live literally just round the corner from her.

But even today I heard on a reality TV show that the next round would have the contestants "literally fighting for survival".
WHAT?! So they would die if their singing wasn't up to scratch!? Something of an exaggeration surely.

During the course of my career I've heard if used instead of either simply nothing or the word actually.
"I was late for the bus and I literally had to run for it!".
"I've literally just put it in the post to you."

What's literal about that?

Well, I can't sit here and blog. I literally have to work around the clock to meet a tight deadline.

Speaking of blasts from the past. A name from my past made a sudden return to the high street last year; albeit in Hull. But let me give you the background.....

(Flashback - Feel free to wiggle the screen suitably).

The year was 1982 and I was eleven years old. Much to the surprise and financial horror to my Mum, I'd done well in my eleven plus and had therefore won (it WAS a bet) ownership to my very own, first computer. It was best to shop around and look at what was available in order to make as good a guess as possible. 1982 saw a HUGE number of totally incompatible machines, with wide ranging specifications and prices. Even an eleven year old could see that the future would see a lot of machines become very obsolete and certain computer companies being dead before they got off the ground*1.

It snowed nearly all that winter. So when we did make our trek into pre-Christmas Manchester, it was a magical. Or so it appeared to me, age eleven.

After several false starts with insistent Dixon's staff pushing ZX81's at me (only to have them pushed FIRMLY back at them) and Tandy (AKA Radio Shack attempting to sell me a TRS-80 Color Computer; where I upset the salesman by suggesting it had a calculator keyboard we eventually made it to what was then (probably only for the briefest of times) computer nirvana. Laskys.

I have absolutely no idea where in Manchester it was situated. All I remember is walking down an attractive but secluded and snow covered street and being totally phased by the luminous purple slotted capital letters LASKYS sign that seemed to glow against everything. I may be over egging it a little here. But seeing all the computer kit of a young geek. It was amazing.

Inside was no less so. The staff revelled in the expressions of young kids coming in to see the latest computers and had no problem in letting them have a go at playing on them.

What was there... well, let me see.

BBC Model B - But at £399 for the base unit it then required a monitor, at another £200 at least, then a cassette recorder (£40 or so) plus somewhat at £10 a pop. Making a grand total of £700 or so. Expensive, VERY expensive at the time.

Next to it was the Apple II+ (the E wasn't out until 1983). It looked the business and everybody just seemed to be staring at it. Then there was the price. From what I remember it was a ridiculous £800 for the unit, then another £500 for the monitor (or something as crazy as that), £50 for a decent enough cassette recorder.. by you added up all the must haves it came to around £2000. To put this into context, my Mum bought a NEW Mini Metro that same year and it cost £2500. So the Apple was a none starter. Given what Apple did in 1984... it's just as well I didn't sink all the money into an Apple II+. But I digress.

The Atari 800XL and 1200XL were also on good display and I could see they had a lot of offer. Not least of which was there superior processing power and impressive graphics. Anyone remember Rescue on Fractalus. Anyway, UK support for early Ataris mainly centred around games systems and as a result the 800XL and 1200XL were being firmly pitched as games machines that you could learn on. One more point, the 800XL had 64KB or RAM. Which was pretty impressive back in the day. However, it wasn't cheap. I think it ran at around £250 plus tape deck and software was in pretty much short supply.

I could go on. But what DID catch my eye was a compact (relatively speaking) system that I thought might do well. It was cheaper than most at £199 (plus £30 for the unique tape deck) and offered up 65KB of RAM. It also sported impressive graphics, hardware graphic sprites excellent sound and the relatively fast 6510 processors. What's more, it used standard TV for display and had the option to add floppy disk and printer later on. What was it? Why it was the Commodore 64. Except mine was SO early that it was actually labelled on the case Commodore VIC 64 without the rainbow. I suspect this was a European import of some description; although it had UK keyboard (if there was such a thing).

They used to say that the Commodore 64 was a very reliable machine... so long as you got one that worked and sure enough my first one died shortly after arrival. It's replacement sported rainbow logo and NO VIC. I think it lasted 10 years before I moved on and it was still going strong then. I miss the old war horse. But should I start getting a little TOO over emotional. I'll remember how I had to type Load "$",8 (return) and then List (Return) in order to read the sodding directory on a floppy disk! Somebody was clearly not into 'ease of use' in Commodore. Want the change the background colour? No problem Poke 53281, {colour as a integer 0-15}. Crazy? Naaaaa

3 years later and the Macintosh was launched in the UK (US nearly a year earlier). The rules changed. But it was amazingly expensive. As a respite I used a lovely little OS called GOES on the Commodore 64, via floppy. You used a mouse just like the Mac; only GEOS was pretty cheap (or at least it was when I bought it). It also offered all the Mac had to offer, only on my now ageing Commodore hardware. Take a look at the screenshots on Wikipedia, I'm sure you'll be impressed. Berkeley Softworks did an outstanding job.

Geos, it turns out, also ran on early Apple II hardware.

By 1985 the world was going 16bit and Commodore blew everybody away with their latest product... the Commodore Amiga. For while the Atari ST was faster and in some case slightly cheaper... it lacked the WOW factor the Amiga had. Commodore really had an understanding of its target audience back then and the bouncing ball and picture of King Tut was just amazing. So much so that every computer magazine in the UK seemed to sport a copy of it. It just looked sexy. The reality was less important. Very much like Apple.

But Commodore were their own worse enemy. They introduced a new model the Commodore Plus/4 which was technically brilliant. But it should have come to the market with 128KB of RAM and not 64KB and should have been £199 not £250. Furthermore the comedy built in software was terrible. It would have been smarter to provide GOES on chip and run from their. Another what could have been if somebody had thought about it. It was software incompatible with the Commodore 64... their 30 million unit seller. Oooops.

Bored. So decided to make a list of places that really ought to consider a name change.

10. Bell End, Worcestershire, UK is a sleepy village in the heart of rural England.

9. Hooker, Oklahoma, USA just makes you want to sing.

8. Turda, Romania sounds less than appealing.

7. Vagina, Krasnoyarskiy, Russia ... I can't think of anything to write at this point. Well... I can but..

6. Tittybong, Victoria, Australia... sounds fun.

5. Pukë, Albania. DON'T EAT THE FOOD!

4. Cockermouth, Cumbria, UK ... sounds like a .. No, I'll resist the pun-tastic comment.

3. Climax, Colorado, USA.. it's such great pleasure getting there. Sorry... about that.

2. Balls Cross, West Sussex, UK... especially when you cross your legs to quick.

And the winner is..

1. Bader Walk, Castle Vale, UK - Why? Take a look at the roads around it. Hawker Drive, Concorde Drive, Sopwith Croft all relate to planes. Bader Walk is named after Douglas Bader. That would be famous World War II fighter pilot Douglas Bader.. the one who lots both legs but learned to fly again to fight again. Bader Walk.... Was somebody having a laugh that day. I think so

Two of the original names (and it IS just the names we are talk about) in home computing from the 80's are back.

First up we have Acorn. Back in the day Acorn was a byword for quality, innovation and high prices. Their team up with the BBC produced one of the best specced but highly priced machines available in the 80's. The Model B was a legend in the UK. It was a proper computer for series people, schools or the well off. But it was low on memory and Acorn was slow to up the ante against companies like Commodore with it's 64 or Sinclair's Spectrum. Much to late in the game they introduced a range of ARM RISC based machines. Extraordinarily powerful by the standards of the day, but the price was much too high and when they did return to the home market with an Amiga beating machine... the Amiga was already a high runaway success and it was desperate mistake.

But on a recent reading of CTO (Computer Trade Only) I was shocked to see that the Acorn name is back. No ARM RISC based machines; instead its straight forward PC in a box. Laptop or iMac style desktop unit. But it's nice to see the old baby oak logo again. Ahhh the memories.

Then low and behold. What do I hear from Leo Laporte on This Week In Tech? Commodore.. the company that spent itself to death by having five private jets and head quarters in the Bahamas. They are now back as a high end gaming company. Complete with the old Commodore C= logo and some pretty wild spec. machines (and presumably prices).

Top spec. Commodore GX sports Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad Core 2.66 GHz QX6700 processor, 4GB Corsair memory, 2x 150GB 10k SATA Raid 0 and 1x 500GB 7.2k SAT and 2 x NVidia 8800 GTX SLI with 768mb each! All in a very lovely black case.

If you really looking for a blast from the bast then why not look at the real old stuff at
The Old Computer website or perhaps the
Obsolete Computer Museum or perhaps the Californian based
DigiBarn. If you get the time, then do give Bruce Damer a call and drop in to see his barn full of relics.