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As much as I dislike 123-reg, they weren't the only ones who did the 'auto-registration' thing. I don't feel like dropping my registrar in it but they did the same (only it was at the end of the .uk reservation period - I gained 2 domain names, both of which ought to belong to clients of mine). I haven't ever checked if they set them to auto-renew in fairness, my account settings are to NEVER auto-renew so I suspect they followed that.


I had a Toshiba MSX (in the UK) as my first computer. My parents bought me that, convinced by the salesman's hype, when everyone else was buying Spectrums and Commodores. At the time it was a pain because not all the good games came out on MSX, but I loved that thing. It taught me BASIC, got me interested in computer-based music (BASIC programmes with endless PLAY statements) and got me into computing rather than just using a computer. I'll always have a soft spot for MSX.


Pretty much same story here. I got Spectravideo SVI-738 with integrated disk drive. Being able to run CP/M on it didn’t really do much when everyone else were having C64s and playing Pirates. :)


Same but having grown up in Brazil I had a Gradiente Expert [1].

It was a really nice computer console with 2 cartridge slots which were most of the time occupied by a 5"1/4 floppy drive and sometimes a Data-corder [2][3] (to load software - games - off cassette tapes). It was fun to start loading the tape, then going to play in the garden for 30min-1h as it read the tape, just to come back and see that it had failed and then try again - and play more in the garden.

I also learned BASIC, some assembly which was required to add cheats to games before they loaded, and even used to do simple animations from basic geometric shapes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradiente_Expert [2] https://youtu.be/SZtkQp1mbQg?t=41 [3] http://files.datassette.org/tech/data_corder_dr1.pdf


I was in branch the other week and they were doing exactly that... from Windows XP. Staff member told me they were upgrading to Windows 10 soon and they couldn’t wait.


I know, I'm just waiting for the day they announce the shutdown of FeedBurner. That's going to create a LOT of broken feeds if they do...


Where do tools like the Automatic adapter [1] fit in to this? I don't own one but it connects to OBD-II and my understanding is can be used to do things such as clear warnings etc.

[1] https://www.automatic.com/home/


They have less and less access to vehicle systems. The current top comment talks about it:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11427018


This. It might seem odd to some to combine BASIC and assembler but a programmer friend of mine used that ability to start playing with assembler (which he'd never done before) and experimented with replacing some BASIC routines in his games with assembler. As a relative newbie his socks were blown off at the speed-up he could achieve, I feel sure that it spurred him on in his programming career. (Ironically he is now a contract programmer writing corporate software in Java, but there you go...!)


I remember being taught never to use "Click here" (which has the same issues) about 15 years ago. It staggers me that in this day and age of responsive design and tableless layouts, we've still got the same old problems...


Wasn't Click Here proven to be effective in testing? I swear I read that at some point.

I always go with something like _Download the annual report (380KB PDF)_ rather than the client-suggested _Click here_ to download the annual report. But I think a combination was proven to be effective.


I remember reading that putting "click here" in banner adverts produced better click-through rates, as sad as it may sound. I can well believe that the same is true of links, though it ruins the page for screen readers (I went on some training for this once, which advocated link text exactly like your former example, and was told that its common practise for experienced people with visual disabilities to simply listen through the list of links to more quickly navigate to the information they need).


I guess an element of that would be down to the fact that a banner and (or image, in general) doesn't necessarily look clickable without "click here". Text links should always be able to avoid that problem, though.


Why is that sad? It's a very clear call to action, and is very unambiguous.

(I realize that it's probably less so when you start talking about accessibility, but I don't know much about that. :/)


We read and studied "Guards! Guards!" at school, and we were fortunate enough that he visited and spoke to a group of us, answering questions. I seem to recall that I asked a fairly dumb question... This was about 25 years ago, but I'm honoured to have met him and will always remember his enthusiasm and charisma.


I had the same experience while on a trip out near Uluru some years ago. Camping out in the middle of nowhere, looked up and.... wow. Never seen anything like it, and at this point in my life I conceivably won't again.


That isn't the point, if they can send it in plaintext then they have it in a recoverable form. They shouldn't be storing your password at all. They should be storing a hash of your password.

And on top of all that, sending it plaintext via email, itself a largely open format, means they've broadcast it to all kinds of other potentially bad actors.

Plus it indicates (to me) a questionable grasp of security, not a great sign for a VPN provider.

Its just wrong.


It could very well just mean that the email is sent before any hashing occurs (as part of the registration controller, in other words) - but yeah, you're right, considering that email's physical equivalent is a postcard, it shows a tremendous lack of respect for the user. Kiss of death for a supposedly privacy focused operation like a VPN provider.


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