Comments on: Why is technology news not news?

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:57:05 +0000

I remember when I used to use the family computer. It’s an XP machine and since Service Pack 2 was installed it has never been the same since!

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:38:00 +0000

I’ve found that patching Windows causes a lot more problems than it solves, unless they’ve done the testing associated with a Service Pack. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the one time I tried to download a patch for Windows XP, it crashed the computer and required a re-install just to get it to its pre-updated state.

I saw the DNS patch story near the top of the Teletext news, but it didn’t get a huge amount of coverage on the programmes themselves. Strange, given the importance of the issue.

By: Angry Steve

Angry Steve — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:27:10 +0000

I saw a cracking quote from Paul Vixie (The guy who wrote BIND, the Berkeley Internet Name Daemon) -

“Please do the following. First, take the advisory seriously—we’re not just a bunch of n00b alarmists, if we tell you your DNS house is on fire, and we hand you a fire hose, take it.”

In my professional, and less angry opinion, this is a really fucking serious issue, and I am patching my own DNS server at home.

By: Scottish Roundup » Blog Archive » The Battle For Baillieston (oh, and rest of Glasgow East as well)

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:22:33 +0000

[...] of The Herald, and wonders if it’s wise to leave the paper leaderless during the By-Election. Duncan, meanwhile, wonders why technology news doesn’t get much coverage, even when it’s [...]

By: Bruce

Bruce — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:04:34 +0000

Agree with Francois. I would suggest people people who work in an office environment (myself included) do most of their surfing at work, where they have no control over which browser they use.

Your point about today’s youngster not understanding computers happens with a lot of technologies. As the the technology matures, the designers build better/simpler interfaces that hide the complexity.

But computer technology is at an intermediate stage, and has not yet reached the level of maturity where security can be handled by the computer itself. But it is getting there.

By: Vicky

Vicky — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:36:24 +0000

My small office was abuzz with tales of woe relating to this DNS problem today. I got the impression that most people hit a brick wall when they called their ISP in a panic; many of which didn’t know what was going on, and were repeating their usual scripted troubleshooting loops ad infinitum.

At the end of the day, it’s really down to Microsoft, Cisco and Sun to test their patches before they are released – even if they are critical security updates. They should really know better.

/smug Mac user

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:17:48 +0000

I think it’s a bit generous to say that people read the license agreement. I don’t think I’ve ever read a license agreement in my life… Perhaps I should be more diligent!

By: francois

francois — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:14:40 +0000

IE6 is still installed on a lot of corporate machines , I know the PCs at my local library still use it and also at school.When I asked the admins why they didn’t patch I got the impression they were worried people would not be able to cope with the tabbed interface etc.

I completely agree with you that it’s staggering the amount of ignorance the general public demonstrate about computers and other technical things.It’s not surprising when you think about it with the amount of preinstallation done on a PC you buy from the shop.People just switch the box on , read an licence agreement and go straight to the desktop rather than have to boot from the operating system CD , format and partition their hard drives , install the hardware drivers so Windows can utilise the hardware to it’s capabilities et al before use.

When you have these people not encrypting data before burning them to a CD which is to be mailed out it gets rather worrying indeed.That kind of thing should be made illegal quite frankly.

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:01:19 +0000

Wow, thanks for the info. I thought “MYSPACE” was what teenagers used to organise trashing parties. I’d better keep my eye out for this “FACESBOOK”.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:53:30 +0000

Ah, but you’re out of touch! I can tell, because you forgot this new site called “FACEBOOK” wot the media iz obsessed with, like. It’s where teenagers organise parties to wreck their parent’s mansion, if you’re wondering.

I approximately a year, I’m going to send out a press release championing a new site I just discovered, called “TWITTER”. It’s where teenagers organise knife crime parties, so it’s a bit underground at the moment.