An interesting note from IT Week readers Tom Parsons and Mike Walsh crossed Sneak's desk today. They note the uncanny resemblance between IT Week columnist Alan Stevens and former Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. What do you think?

March 30, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is a fan of the helpful TinyURL service, which takes a long and unwieldy URL like, say, the following somewhat verbose example of the art of URL composition from Cisco: www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns339/ networking_solutions_small_medium_sized_business_home.html and turns it into something much handier, like tinyurl.com/4r3e7, which is absolutely vital for print publication.
The slight problem with TinyURL's approach is that it's a bit of a lucky dip from the end user perspective. You can't tell by looking that tinyurl.com/4r3e7 takes you to Cisco: it might just as easily take you to Phishing Attacks R US or Madame Sin's House of Hurt.
So there is a corresponding need for a rival service that offers some warning of the final destination. Which is just what the MakeAShorterLink service offers, displaying the target URL for a few seconds to give you the chance to opt out. The only problem? URLs like http://makeashorterlink.com/?A2FC535CA. Somewhere along the way, MakeAShorterLink seems to have forgotten that it would help - a lot - if its URLs were actually short.

March 29, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a bit early for April Fools jokes, so this straight-faced but clearly bonkers press release from Microsoft must be meant in earnest.

"New academic research has revealed that a simple mathematical formula may provide the key to perfect business partnerships. A London Metropolitan University survey, carried out on behalf of Microsoft, has found that a precise play of variables is at work in business. Followed in the right ratio, they should help guarantee success. The formula (S=0.77T+0.51R+0.17P-0.37C-0.2I+4.4) represents the combination of trust, respect, passion, communication and intelligence required to form a successful relationship. The figures before each abbreviated word identify how much is required of that particular factor to form a successful relationship. 4.4 is the formulae constant."

OK. So, to make use of this formula and, say, form a perfect relationship with Microsoft, Sneak must up his trust level to 0.77 from, well, zero; increase respect to exactly 0.51 from, er, zero again; find some passion about the vendor's products from somewhere; do a bit of communication (but not too much); and - crucially it seems - suppress 80 percent of his intelligence. And then add 4.4. Yes, it really does appear to be a bunch of total hogwash.

March 24, 2005 Top tips | Permalink | Comments (1)

Apparently you will soon be able to control your Apple machine by shaking it - an action that Sneak got quite used to under the old Mac OS and its tendency to go belly-up. Now you don't have to be frustrated by the sight of a sizzling bomb to seize your PowerBook and fling it around, however. The accelerometer fitted to new laptops, designed to safely park the hard-drive heads if an unscheduled visit to the deck is detected, can now be co-opted under Mac OS X to do some nifty things. Like controlling on-screen elements, according to New Scientist. "Using the technique it is possible to manoeuvre open windows by shaking or shimmying the machine. Using another program [created by developer Amit Singh], called the Orientation Visualizer, it is even possible to display a 3D image that appears to hang in space as the PowerBook is moved around it." It's a neat idea, albeit one that may run foul of patents no doubt filed as a result of the Itsy project at Digital (since passed on to HP by way of Compaq). Itsy is, or was, an experimental PDA designed to rely on movement for navigation. It used a neat system called Rock 'n' Scroll. Sneak, for one, hopes the intellectual property issues won't be a barrier to widespread adoption. Finally, it will be possible to have an on-screen pinball table with a proper "tilt" function.

March 22, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

What to make of the shocking rumour that Apple will shortly offer its first ever two-button mouse for Macs? Not much, except that Sneak is unlikely to want one. No doubt it will put aesthetics over efficiency in the way that Apple so often does, particularly since its May 1998 reinvention - with the debut of the iMac - as a supplier of consumer products modelled on half-sucked boiled sweets. No doubt the double-button mouse will be as slippery and sweat-inducing as the current Murray-Mint-shaped standard Mac mouse, although it's doubtful that even Apple will ever trump the original iMac's circular, mint imperial mouse for sheer, wilful disregard for basic usability. Probably, the new mouse will be shaped like a Werther's Original, and will have its second button hidden under a little slide-away flap cut in the shape of a half-eaten fruit, handily positioned on the underside of the mouse.

March 17, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sneak is not too worried by news of so-called BlueSniper attacks: in which a suitable high-gain antenna gives evil-doers access to your Bluetooth device from a half a mile away. After all, if you're vulnerable to such an attack, you've probably also been vulnerable to attacks from less inventive but suitably inconspicuous people standing next to you at the train station, in the queue at the paper shop, or following you down the street. No, Sneak will be worried when this attack is combined with the similar scare story of three years ago, in which it was shown that a simple Pringles crisp packet could bring a wireless LAN to its knees, or the one where it was shown that executives will tell a clipboard-wielding researcher their password in return for a pen. If the underworld can work out how to learn Sneak’s secrets armed only with pens and Pringles from half a mile away, then Sneak will start worrying.

March 14, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak is pleased to hear that Microsoft has launched a proper English version of the Voice Command system for its Pocket PC platform. To date, when using the system Sneak has been forced to adopt the lazy consonants, flat vowels and nasal inflections common to our colonial cousins. Now the company has got around to a UK version, Sneak does wonder what accent he will now be forced to adopt. According to the firm it supports 13 UK dialects including Glaswegian, but Sneak bets it will work best when using two dialects in particular. One, the Dick van Dyke mockney-cockney seen only in US movies: "Gor blimey I wooden arf like ta cawl Marry bloomin Poppins"; or, two, the accent used only by the Queen and Brian Sewell - where the opposite of "no" is a ponderously-delivered "ears"?

March 8, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak can't resist teasing Microsoft executives about Microsoft's much-whispered-about, not-much-talked-about plans for the upcoming Longhorn version of Windows. To be precise, Sneak wonders whether Longhorn will be built to support Linux applications. This unlikely-sounding feat could be achieved using existing virtual machine tools to run Linux alongside Windows, but that would simply produce two separate OSs, neither of which knew much about the other. In order to make something bigger than the sum of these parts, Microsoft's existing Services For Unix add-on could be given a more prominent role, becoming a standard part of the system. This would enable Linux applications to more fully integrate with Windows, gaining access to Microsoft's Active Directory, for example.
Clearly the anti-monopoly brigade might have a say in the matter if Microsoft were to follow such a path, but that aside, Sneak can think of no reason why Microsoft would not want to do this. While still searching for confirmation from Microsoft, Sneak must continue to interpret the nervous laughs and sudden subject changes of Microsoft executives. When Sneak quizzed Microsoft's UK MD the other day, he bet Sneak a not very generous £100 that there would be no movement on this front within five years. On reflection, Sneak wonders whether he was really betting that SFU will not go into Windows within five years, or simply that in five years, Longhorn will still not have shipped...

March 7, 2005 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (13)

Sneak is not sure what all the fuss is about with the BBC and its exhorbitant licence fee. After all, speed cameras rake in millions a year and next to none of it is spent on road safety, parking tickets accounted for a billion quid last year that mostly didn't go on new car parks, the Treasury rakes in billions from tax discs and fuel duty and certainly doesn't spend it on transport infrastructure, so why should the BBC be forced to spend its £2.8bn on creating quality programming? Why not throw it all at media-studies cretins to squander on gardening programmes, DIY shows, reality drivel and Anne Robinson? At least they don't make Sneak's road rage any worse.
Having said all that, the other day the BBC did serve up a very informative programme about computers in its Look Around You series, albeit one that was a little out of date. Those that missed it can visit the web site and try the quiz. Sample question: “Name 22 words that rhyme with 'computer'.” Answer: “booter, looter, rooter, gomputer, lomputer, shooter, tutor, scooter, fomputer, empressidorvuter, fempressidorvuter, recruiter, commuter, salputer, nogunarfuter, insputer, desputer, suiter, suitor, suter, sooter, homputer, quomputer, binnibarbuter, strompto-cilioputer, carcamphognaliantistuter.”

March 3, 2005 Television | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sneak has just been watching BBC TV news coverage of today’s big tech event: no not the dual-core chips on show at the Intel Developer Forum, but Bill Gates grabbing an honorary knighthood from the queen. Caught by reporters outside Buckingham Palace, Gates answered a few questions before attempting to show off his new gong - a silver KBE medallion ensconced in an oblong black box - for the benefit of the cameras. Gates scrabbled at the box to no avail, turning it this way and that and attempting to prise it apart with his fingers before giving up and handing it to an aide. If only Gates's software were so secure...

March 2, 2005 Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0)