Posts by happygeek

Becuase PHP is mostly used in web development, so it makes more sense for it to be in the web development category?

Welcome Glen.

Welcome to Anna and, erm, Anna.

Welcome Mattster, I'm sure you won't be disappointed now you've joined us :)

I'd forgotten about Atomic on the iPad, it's been ages since I looked at that. Might be worth a quick re-download and taking another look then for those times I only have the pad with me when I need to do DaniWeb stuff.

Some might argue that there are already quite enough different versions of Angry Birds to last a lifetime, or at least a lifetime of minutes to waste on a mobile gaming platform such as a smartphone or tablet. There is some merit to this, and personally I would be quite happy if Rovio just kept adding new levels and new birds with new attack capabilities to the original game. I wouldn't even mind if they charged me a small fee for these new additions by way of in-game purchases, as the game would still represent excellent value for money. We are only talking about pocket change here after all, Angry Birds is not in the same spending league as the Call of Duty or Halo franchises after all.

But that's not the way that Rovio has chosen to play it, instead it has released a steady flow of new Angry Birds titles over the last couple of years, and like the vast majority of Angry Birds fans (yes, I declare an interest here: Angry Birds is one of the most played games on my iPad and was on my iPhone before my eyesight got too bad to be able to play it that small) I have purchased and played every one of them.

Perhaps I am leaving myself open to being shot down, or plunged into the darkside, by my next admission: I'm not a Star Wars fan. I have found all the films, yes …

According to security experts at data governance outfit Varonis, 2013 will be the year of the salami attack. On the plus side, they also predict that the world will not come to an end on December 21st 2012.

It's not just salami that your business needs to worry about in terms of tech though. Varonis also points towards challenges such as the growing gap between people in a company who know how to find information and those who do not (the importance of intelligent internal search, retention and data archiving), the growing gap between how people use technology at work and at home (who owns the IP of a document created on a personal device, for example?) and the closing collaborative gap (business needs to collaborate with third parties in the same efficient way they do with internal partners).

But that's all by the by, anyone reading this is probably wondering just what the heck a salami attack is and conjuring up images of a masked man hitting the servers with a spicy sausage. Thankfully, Varonis co-founder Yaki Faitelson can clarify: "A bit like a sandwich is pieced together one ingredient a time, we believe that the vast expanse of information about employees and business partners poses a new and very real threat to organisations. All the individual scraps of information about an individual online can be researched and pieced together to create a complete picture – who they are, where they work, what school their children attend. It’s all …

There is no such thing as a truly inspirational Hollywood movie, it's an oxymoron. Inspirational movies tend to come from small independants IMHO.

Or how about you don't, and instead keep all the help and queries here on DaniWeb instead...

Different bits of the UI don't work on different mobile device platforms, not least as there is no dedicated 'mobile DaniWeb' interface. So, for example, anything Flash powered doesn't work on an iOS device.

If you take one look at the deadmau5 portable speakers from KitSound and immediately think that they have been inspired, somewhat badly, by Mickey Mouse then I'm afraid you are showing your age and lack of cool. If, on the other hand, you are some hip young thing then you will instantly recognise the hand, or should I say the head, of deadmau5.

The Canadian DJ and producer known as deadmau5, real name Joel Thomas Zimmerman, might be based in Toronto but he has earned a global reputation in the music business, not least courtesy of his habit of performing while wearing a giant mouse head. The mau5head, as deadmau5 refers to it, comes in many different guises and is pretty much a trademark for the man and his music.

You don't have to be a fan of either to warm to the deadmau5 portable speaker, although to be honest it probably does help. If you are firmly in the 'never heard of him' camp then this might possibly remain filed in the 'bit too pricey for a novelty' drawer. Which would be a shame as it's not actually too expensive if you shop around (I found an Amazon marketplace dealer in the UK selling brand new ones at £12.99 which is about $20 or half the rrp) nor is it just a novelty. These speakers actually work well enough to be listenable to.

OK, so the audio quality isn't the greatest on …

How about:

WAI = Where Am I?
I93YK = I'm 93 You Know
TTMD = Turn That Music Down

You can probably add: NTPA = Need To Pee Again :)

What about it?

Microsoft has been slowly moving away from the desktop PC software market for many years now, and with the recent launches of Windows 8 and the Surface tablets, along with the latest Windows Phone devices, the whole mobile and touch arena has taken quite a bit of the consumer-oriented focus. It really should come as no surprise, then, to see Microsoft strategically positioning itself in the device integration space: the Xbox SmartGlass app is a prime example of this.

Available initially for Windows 8 devices and those powered by the Windows Phone OS, and then for Android devices, Xbox SmartGlass has now arrived on the iOS platform for both the iPhone and iPad. What Microsoft has done by taking this step is announce itself as determined to connect the dots between the various platforms and markets it plays in, quite literally in fact. SmartGlass is more than just a remote control for the Xbox 360 games console, as the name suggests it's much, much more than that. Or rather, it has the potential to be much more.

Microsoft sees SmartGlass as being an experience enhancer, one that moves the kind of rich and interactive content you expect from your home entertainment console these days onto the tablet or smartphone in your hand. Sure, you can play games on your iPad and iPhone already, but that's not really what SmartGlass is all about; it's all about extending the experience, enhancing the entertainment, controlling your console and …

Why has it taken six years for someone to take a contract out on my life? Or, more accurately, for a scammer to send me an email demanding payment of a bribe in order for him to cancel a supposed contract. The first hitman scam was spotted almost exactly six years ago in December 2006, and transported from email to the world of SMS mobile phone texting a couple of years later. Then it all went quiet for a couple of years, as far as I can tell, but the hitman scam is back and I got one.

Here's the threatening email in full:

Subject: READ THIS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD...

body: This is the only way I could contact you for now,I want you to be very careful about this and keep this secret with you until I make out space for us to see. You have no need of knowing who I am or where I am from.I know this may sound very surprising to you but it's the situation.I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer.It's someone I believe you call a friend, I have followed you closely for a while now and have seen that you are innocent of the accusations he leveled against you.Do not contact the police or try to send a copy of this to them,because if you do, I will know,and I might …

I'm not trying to put you off posting, you are a valued member of DaniWeb. I'm just trying to point out that posting for the sake of it, when many of those posts are what could be filed under 'just a bit pointless' is not the way forward. Forget the 'activity points league table' nonsense and go back to helping people out with good advice. That's all :)

Bumping threads with nothing meaningful isn't really that cool. Try calming down with the 'I HAVE TO POST A COMMENT IN EVERY THREAD' attitude and concentrate on posting quality comments which add value rather than quantity of postings which invariably do not. Please, and thanks :)

Tonygcyprus is correct, Rugby Football is the right name and many Rugby Union clubs have 'RFC' following the name which stands for Rugby Football Club.

Not sure where cricket and rugby come from as national sports for England though. I would have thought, sadly, that first and foremost it is football (soccer) followed by drinking way too much on a Friday night and causing trouble in the high street.

There are only three sports that interest me: Rugby Union (I have been a Leicester Tigers supporter for many years), boxing (although less so since I stopped actually boxing myself) and mixed martial arts (would have loved to have done some UFC-style fighting had I been younger).

Erm, it's not a competition you know...

You can, if people use a photo of themselves as their avatar.

<=== See

You appear to be quite tired if those dark rings around your eyes are anything to go by... ;-)

S'OK, <MICHAEL>, I wasn't talking about you :)

What do you mean by "a bit quieter" and "have nothing else to do" exactly? I've not come across these phrases in my working life...

Quality and consistency of contributions does it every single time over qauntity. Or put another way, it's not who can yell the loudest in order to get noticed but those we notice are quietly getting on with helping others that tend to get the nod for a mod job.

Someone whose name is unknown to me, be that a new member or one that has just started posting actively, and all of a sudden has gained enough activity points to be on the radar is generally: getting help with a difficult problem, or spamming. The top stats activity points list helps flag such accounts for further investigation.

It's helpful to trap the occasional spammer when a newly created, or newly active, account appears in the activity points top twenty list. A quick check of that member reveals if the activity is genuine or spammy.

Like this one ronnelie which is also a Matt Mohwinkel, posting from not only the same physical location but with the same IP? Nah, must be a coincidence...

As for Wales beating either Australia or the All Blacks, frankly that's looking very unlikely indeed. They might get close with Australia if the aussies bring their French game with them, rather than the much better one they played against a rather ragged looking England yesterday, but the All Blacks would currently be very difficult to beat even if Wales were playing at their World Cup best.

Rugby Union. I really don't like the League variation at all, for oh so many reasons but try the uncontested scrums and the lack of any real physicality for starters.

That, and the weekend before...

With a billion members, active social circles and more than it's fair share of relative newbies to the world of online security, it should come as no surprise that Facebook continues to be the focus of much attention from those who would do you, your data and your bank balance harm. The latest scam to grab my attention, and unfortunately also lots of those with much less IT security know-how, promises to Facebook profile pages black rather than the default blue.

The distribution channel for this scam is the commonly used one of combining event invitations from Facebook friends who have already fallen for it, along with newsfeed images showing the newly blackened Facebook pages. Graham Cluley, the senior technology consultant at security outfit Sophos investigated the scam from a secure test account. I've known Graham for close on twenty years now, and would suggest when he warns to 'think twice' before clicking these links that you heed that warning lest you want to help the scammers further spread the thing and make plenty of money in the process.

Rather typically for this kind of scam, Graham quickly found himself bounced across web redirects after clicking the make my profile black link on Facebook, eventually arriving on a 'change Facebook color' page that pops up a box insisting the user must take a survey before continuing or being able to turn their Facebook profile black.

Yes folks, it's that old 'complete a survey, …

New research from ISACA suggests that US consumers with 'work-supplied' computing devices intend, on average, to spend nine hours shopping for gifts on them during the forthcoming holiday season. When it comes to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) brigade, those who use personal mobile devices for work, that average goes up to 12 hours.

According to ISACA’s 2012 IT Risk/Reward Barometer, those who mix their time between work-supplied computers and their own mobile devices will happily reveal email addresses (58%) and mother's maiden name (15%) in order to garner a 50% discount on a $100 item. This behavior leaves them open to targeted fraud and social engineering attack, and exposes their employers to a greater risk surface for good measure.

And they know it, or at least the majority would appear to as 53% agreed that they felt sharing information online had become much riskier over the last 12 months. Not that you would realise it from their actions when the research also reveals that 65% don't bother to verify the security settings of online shopping sites; 36% have link-clicked from social media sites using their work devices; 19% use work email addresses for personal activities such as online shopping; 12% store work passwords on personal devices and 11% use cloud-based services to store work-related documents without their company’s knowledge or consent.

What's more, half of the IT professionals questioned reckon that the risk of BYOD outweighs the benefits. "Companies that embrace …

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What has happened to Welsh rugby? It all looked so promising last year.

Welcome

Welcome :)

Welcome. Again! This is your second 'I am new here' post in 4 days. I also replied to the first one with a welcome :)

Welcome

Also, as I've mentioned elsewhere, buying fans/followers is in breach of Facebook/Twitter terms and conditions and can lead to the closing of your account. There are plenty of ways to spot the fakes, and you can be sure that the social networks are getting on top of this, so it makes no sense at all to buy them. Just grow your following organically if you want long term success. It has taken me many years to grow my Twitter following to just 2500, but they are are decent followers who are interested in what I have to say rather than disinterested/disengaged folk and bots.

You do know that buying fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter is, in both examples, against the terms and conditions of membership of those social networks and can lead to termination of the accounts in question. Perhaps that's something you should be telling potential customers?

The only long term, sensible, legal way to build a following is to do it the organic way. Buying followers is just so lame...

Your web browser provides a window onto the Internet, but unless you are timely in updating the client you use then, say researchers with security vendor Kaspersky Lab,that window may be cracked and allow a draft of insecurity to blow through into your network, your computer and your data.

With the majority of online threats coming from the direction of the web, vulnerabilities in web browser clients are increasingly being used in order to infect networks and compromise data integrity. It's why the so called 'zero-day' exploits are so valuable within the cybercriminal community. While zero-days are hard, if not impossible, to defend against the unfortunate truth of the matter is far more people are leaving themselves exposed to attack simply by not keeping their browser clients updated.

Although full version upgrades tend to add a host of new features and improve the functionality of the browser, and as such grab the attention of what you might call the 'lazy updater', the same is not true of minor point upgrades. Yet these minor upgrades are, more often than not, far more important in the overall scheme of things and certainly when it comes to keeping your systems secure. It's the point upgrades that address plug the vulnerability gaps that are uncovered, that provide the enhanced security measures required to keep your data safe.

Using data on browser usage trends from a staggering 10 million randomly selected Kaspersky Security Network customers from various regions across the …

Happy birthday Dani. If I could, I would buy you a slice of cake from that coffee shop we visited in Little Italy last year :)

Welcome Josh.

As Michael says, it's not all about 'amazing features' it's all about getting answers to questions and being part of a caring community. On the whole, I'd say, DaniWeb gets it right on both these counts. Certainly, for sure, 100% and with no doubt, the old vBulletin based system that underpinned DaniWeb before the overhaul was utter and complete pants. With knobs on. As one of the people who spent many hours, every single day and often through the night as well, fighting the multiple spam attacks that DaniWeb suffered I can assure you that the new system is better for one very important reason above all others: it means that DaniWeb is still here. Without it I imagine we would have drowned in that sea of spam by now...

Welcome to DaniWeb, Sandeep.

Actually, @ypgisaiprasanna, how about you help him solve the problem right here on DaniWeb in this forum, in this thread? You know, that's kind of what this support community is all about - the clue is in the words 'support' and 'community'. Providing help here means others can also benefit in the future if they have a similar problem.

Welcome one and all to the global tech family that is DaniWeb :)

eBay is your friend if you want to make a (very) few pounds/dollars whatever, just don't except to get rich with this item. If money isn't an issue then try your local Freecycle. Both have to be better than adding to the growing global unrecyclable crap mountain.

British here.

Looks like one of any number of generic videogame consoles of the time. I used to have dozens of them, all with different names but all very similar in design. They make very little on eBay, as in the postage will probably work out to more than the value of the thing.