Send us your comments

The comments published on this page reflect the balance of views we received. (September - December 2008)

Click here to e-mail us.

---

A good item on Click about hacking and some sensible advice for people wanting to protect themselves.

However, there is one other thing that people should do that never gets a mention - do not run your PC in 'full administrator' mode.

Running without 'root' access can significantly reduce the footprint for malware to get installed.

It is true though, that doing this can cause issues; many programmers don't understand security and design their software so that it requires full access to operate.

But there are ways around this and the benefits really outweigh the problem.
A Sutcliffe, Whitstone

People should think of the Internet as a marketplace. If you have some money, there are a lot of characters who have ways of taking it off you, ranging from an honest deal to downright criminality.

Out in the street, we know how to take care of ourselves. We are aware of the risks and keep a tight hold on our cards and cash and walk away from dodgy-looking characters.

The trouble with the Internet is that it feels like an extension of our own home. In reality it is quite the opposite. It is like opening the door and letting any passing stranger step inside - an exciting experience, but requiring constant vigilance and a degree of scepticism.

I would be the first to agree that cyber crime is a bad thing, but if you are a mug, you will get mugged. In the street, you might also get beaten-up or murdered. That has not happened yet on the Internet.
Mike Kearney, La-Haye-Pesnel, France

In response to the contactless card issues, why can't they just add a small push switch to them that only enables the card to be read when you hold it down? Surely that would be quite easy to include.
Will Proctor, Scunthorpe

The segment on homeworkers misses a crucial point. It is a waste of time and resources for employers to monitor most workers. Why does it matter if Tim the programmer takes an hour off?

He is paid per task, not per hour. As long as that task is completed to a high standard by the agreed deadline, it does not matter how long he spends on the job.

As a freelance homeworker, I would never work for a company that treated me like a naughty child.

The beauty of working from home is that you have the flexibility to do the work when and how you want, without the boss constantly looking over your shoulder.
RP, London

Israel appears to be the first country to actually make it illegal to send out unsolicited mass e-mails. Why don't all other countries follow suit?

British citizens who are being defrauded or even spammed have a right to be defended by the forces of law and order whose wages we pay through our taxes.
Josephine Bacon, London

When talking about identification, the discussion often focuses on the qualities of the technology performing the identification at "the front end".

In my opinion the bigger issue with security is the process of linking this unique identity to a database containing the rest of the personal data, which is often open to multiple parties at "the back end".

People can or could compile random identities by linking at will their own biometric ID to someone else's personal data.
Daniel Roos, Philippines

Regarding your segment about voice recognition banking - what's to stop somebody using some thinking like a vocoder to beat the system?

I've got nothing against the technology only that when you clone or copy anything digital you get exact copy of the original.
Scott, Bagshot

We, the public, are to blame for not putting more pressure on our ISPs, and the IT industry as a whole, to put decent spam filters in place.

I have moved my business domain from an ISP that did a poor job at filtering spam and will be taking similar action with my current one if the volume of spam messages I receive increases.

If we vote with our wallets, then the ISPs that have the best filters will win, and the ones that take our money but fail to invest will fall by the wayside.

It is going to be extremely difficult to remove all spam from the internet but the industry seems unwilling, unable or incapable of taking actions to prevent the large majority of messages from infected machines that should be blocked at the mail-gateways.
David Crook

I get loads of spam e-mails so my e-mail has won to date about a billion pounds. I delete them but they keep coming back.
Mr C Pikatsa, Margate Kent

Great to see the Woz on click. An inspiring geek purest. We are not worthy!
Kerry Langton, London

Hello Click folk, I watched your piece in which you asked for info on recycling video cassettes.

You might already know about Freecycle website? Well I have been a member of my local Freecycle for over a year now and it's been great. Basically it's all about, as you'll have guessed from the name, recycling things for free.
Rebecca, Clitheroe

With reference what to do with old VHS tapes. All of the major charities, including the British Heart Foundation run retail shops raising needed funds. They will take in all unwanted VCR tapes and re-sell them, raising funds and recycling in a green manner.
Martin W Holt, Bridge of Weir

I have an idea of how to protect against people stealing details from contactless cards - just watch out for people waving strange devices near your bottom.
Ian Sherman, Southend-on-Sea, Essex

I am a keen watcher of technology programmes, but I have only just found out about 'Click'. Why has it been given so little exposure on the BBC? I am sure there are many other interested potential viewers out there who are unaware of the programme.
David Roberts, Nantwich

Hi there Spence... you are just too cool for words... but please stop wearing t-shirts under your open shirts, it is too American and 80s looking... and you are far too trendy for that.. Just stay with the open shirts that make you a trendy host and keep them open! Sorry I also luv Laptops and all the rest..
Grace Gudu, Johannesburg, South Africa

The offer to test biometrics on identical twins to prove how good they were at discriminating between individuals is a disingenuity and misdirection worthy of a stage-magician or The Real Hustle's proposition bets.

Biometric systems rely on variations in the measurements of physical features that are the consequence of minute perturbations in development and are not wholly or even mainly determined genetically. It is therefore very unlikely that any two pre-selected people, twins or not, should match biometrically even on the crudest systems.

Twins are a red herring since they are no more likely to be matched than unrelated individuals by a biometric, nor to be "closer" together. That two individuals known to be different are not matched is no illustration whatsoever of the likelihood of false positive or false negative in using the same system to identify individuals, where an unknown must be compared statistically with a very large number of profiles.
Guy Herbert, London

The safety of using biometric data is not fully established! Making people the key to encrypted data could lead to similar risks as if you were carrying a suitcase of diamonds handcuffed to your wrist! Should thieves be encouraged to steal your biologic matter to access valuable information. Business should be looking at alternatives to carrying data around in bags!
Mark, Canterbury, United Kingdom

Reading the article about 'walk recognition' brings a whole new meaning to Monty Python... will there be a new government department before long - a real 'Ministry of Silly Walks!'
Rob, Whitehaven, England

While watching today's (01/11/08) Click I noticed that Spencer's shirt had a somewhat twist to it, while doing the part with the digital pen his shirt pocket and design was on the right hand side (viewers' left) then at the end of the programme it had changed to his left hand side (viewers' right).

So which was the real Spencer and which was the MIRROR image? Also how many other viewers spotted this little mind game?
J, Scotland

Whilst the feature on biometrics was excellent, as ever with Click items, can I raise concerns, please. As a disabled adult, the larger the shift in access to measurement of 'normal gait' or 'normal response times' or 'finger tip swipe', the higher the barriers for disabled adults.

We do work, we do need to access secure areas, whether in the physical or e-environment, we do also need access to personal data within the e-environment, but measurement methods are increasingly disabling the already disabled.

Many conditions vary widely for disabled adults and there is no 'standard response', even where a sample is taken on a specific day. Which of these companies is questioning how disabled access can be securely measured and equitably measured, please?

Elspeth McPherson, Aylton, UK

Your guide on converting VHS to DVD is all well and good if you are extremely rich. By the time you have paid for software, cables and everything else you'll need to be able to do this, you might as well buy a new DVD. This may be cheaper and have a lot better quality.

However, I do agree with you, if the VHS you are trying to copy includes something you will never be able to get back like a wedding, christening etc.

Overall, I believe you have done a good job of explaining how to do this, if absolute necessary. Keep up the good work!
Reece Langham, Tamworth

I enjoyed the feature on converting VHS to digital, but how about a follow-up on recycling the old VHS tapes?

I have searched without success for a free (or even reasonably priced) service to take the couple of hundred I have off my hands. I really do not want to throw them into landfill.
Andy Gibson, UK

Just watched your article from Taiwan about 'crazy cases' for computers.

Well, I built my first one of these way back in 2005 and it appeared in a "PC Modding" magazine.

It is nice to know that a now 41 year old is "hip" when it comes to PC modding.

Cheers, it made my day.
Martyn Rigby, Crewe

I know very little about modern technology (being an old git) but I think Click is an absolutely brilliant programme, keep up the good, entertaining work!!!
Alan booker, Stockport

DRM is an excellent addition to the radio spectrum, especially for intra-Europe broadcasting. It is rather a pity then that you still cannot buy DRM radios over the counter from any UK retailers.
Tony Molloy, Bolton

A limitation of DRM, apart from requiring investment in new transmitters and receivers is that HF propagation varies over the day, the season and the sunspot cycle. This is why current HF/shortwave broadcasters have to transmit on several different frequencies simultaneously.
Peter Sommer, London

Regarding the Nikon D90: I am an avid photographer and tech lover, but when I heard of a new 'HD SLR', I was sceptical to say the least.

I cannot see the point of having such a huge pixel count when all you will hear is muffled voices and a repressed hurricane?
Joseph, Lincoln

Love you Spencer! I am a 60-something computer user, not very computer literate, and still with no broadband access! However, my little village in northern Italy should soon move into the 21st Century. Then I will be able to upload/download and do many of the things your programme suggests. Keep up the excellent work - and the humour - and I will watch you forever, or rather until I am six feet under.
Mary-Anne Laughton, Casale Litta Varese, Italy

Steve Burdon's Comments may not be as radical as have been made out. I read in Electronics Weekly that MIT have a process using sunlight on a photovoltaic cell and a catalyst to produce Hydrogen gas from water for fuel cells. Worth a look!
Paul W, Leicester

I have just seen your section about smart card security being cracked and I think I may possibly have a simple solution. Why not have a small button on the card so that the card can only be read while this button is being pressed?

I have a remote for a sound system and the buttons are like small bubbles of plastic and I am sure it could be adapted to work on a smartcard (unless it is not technically viable).
Greg Williams, Suffolk

The march of technology cannot and should not be stopped. Wasn't it Bill Gates who said that we wouldn't need more than 640K of memory (yes, K!) in PCs? And didn't IBM say in the 1950s that we wouldn't need more than five computers in the world? Personally, I'm fascinated to see where technology leads us to in 50 years time.
Jimbob, UK

Considering that we are on the precipice of an energy scarcity age, why doesn't the government seriously consider solar energy upon its own civil service buildings.

Not only would this help to reduce the cost of the civil service to the taxpayer, it could also help to pay for itself. Any excess energy could simply be put back into the national grid and therefore a financial return is gained.

From what I understand, wind farm costs far more to create and the returns are questionable especially when you consider they run well below capacity for the majority of time.

Aesthetically, solar panels are almost invisible at street level and only really visible to a member of the public through Google Earth.
Steven Smith, West Midlands

I just saw your video on "Could this be the future?" It's awesome. Just think what can be done in Japan, hopefully will one day filter to the UK. I just love all the technology has to offer.

I think mobiles are getting smarter, sat-nav is ace, and computer technology just gets my vote every time. But with all this upgrading and spending, we don't think of the other countries that are far behind.

I have an idea. Every time we buy and a new PC or mobile or TV, I think that store should ship it to somewhere to be re-conditioned. Then it should be sent abroad to under developed countries. That would be brill.

I would be only to happy to give my old 24" widescreen CRT tv to someone in Africa, or the like when i upgrade.
Mark P, North Wales

In answer to Tom in Brighton: water can be split into its component atoms without the use of electricity. It is possible to do it mechanically. Channel 4 put out a programme several years ago showing a man in the USA who had done just this.

He was running his own family car on pure water. He explained that he was splitting the water up in a specially designed plug or injector and then burning the gasses to produce the energy. This would not have been possible using electricity as it would not have produced enough gas to burn.

Water is abundant in the universe and will solve our fuel problems, but nothing will be done until the oil supply is exhausted. Until that time we have no good reason to attempt the research.
John Wilkinson, Southampton

Just saw your piece on Computer Aid and the issues surrounding accessibility and the serious need for the open source community to look at developing. I have a Mac and even with accessibility turned off on it, the zoom and text to speech facilities were immediately at my fingertips, and is already built into the OS.
Stewart, Winchester, United Kingdom

Online storage systems have come a long way, and are certainly a brilliant idea, but there still does not seem to be any market leader to rival traditional external hard drives.
Kirk , London, United Kingdom

Re: police database in France. Another issue not considered is that if citizens feel that the State is intruding too much into their private affairs, they will simply stop co-operating with the police and other authorities. Since we don't have the manpower to station a policeman on every corner or every street, this will eventually mean that less criminal and anti-social behaviour is uncovered. Refer to shooting oneself in one's own foot.
David Critchley

In response to Robb: clearly the solution is not to voluntarily walk backwards into the murky oblivion of a second dark age, but instead to find a better way of creating clean abundant energy (like say cold fusion, not that far off). Your barely muted disdain betrays a general hatred for the modern consumptive system, a darkly regressive agenda that I find repugnant. Where did we ever get standing still?
Tom, Brighton

Steve Burdon's contribution saying that "energy conservation is not required" as water will be split mechanically is totally wrong. Water cannot be split by this method, and anyway, if water is transformed into its constituent elements (usually by electrolysis) much more energy than that generated by their recombination, is needed.
Tony Royston, High Shincliffe, Durham

I consider energy efficiency to be the highest concern. Furthermore, the embodied energy in each device should be considered.

A device that becomes "obsolete" in two or three years, no matter how energy efficient, is unethical in that it is an inherently wasteful design - something we can no longer afford.

The electronics industry needs to face up to the fact that as a society ostensibly dealing with human induced climate change we can no longer support the upgrade spiral.

The vast intelligence and resource base of the hi-tech industry needs to refocus its energies on software that can work on platforms that don't need replacing more often than every 10 years.

The hardware companies should focus on 100% recyclable and upgradeable platforms to extend the life of each machine. In addition, each manufacturer should take responsibility to recycle all of their products at the plants that produce them.
Robb

What about the carbon footprint of manufacturing gadgets? There's little point in selling us a small saving in our power consumption if the manufacturer has already consumed more energy than his products will ever save.
Eric Lougheed

With regards to energy consumption, when buying anything now I think:

Do I really have a use for the item?

Where will I find somewhere to keep it?

What will happen when I no longer have a use for it?

It is now easier to make something than to dispose of it. On the subject of televisions, the Panasonic which we bought when an insurance of my wife's matured about 13 years ago is still working well. I see not enough advantage looking at the power consumption of the latest offerings. It is something I always now consider. It should be a legal requirement to display the power consumption under all normal operational modes.
J Richard Halliday

Energy conservation is not required. In the not too distant future it will be revealed that water can be split (mechanically) to provide huge amounts of hydrogen and oxygen for fuel purposes.

Most internal combustion processes will use just water.
Steve Burdon

The IFA electronics expo show is really awesome. Thanks to the BBC for showing its viewers about the latest trends in electronics. There are always two things we shall expect out of electronics industry: miniaturization and cheap prices.
Selvaraaju Murugesan, Melbourne, Australia

Fantastic and informative site, well done. :)
Pauline Haworth, Southport

Well nowadays with lots of things on the net I get stuck on what to do other than check my e-mail. I switch on my computer and never know where to start or go on the net, but thanks to Click which is an excellent show for pros or beginners, it gives you a kick start and opens up doors. Webscape makes the net fun, and many of the sites shown in it actually are interesting and helpful. Thank you all for the lovely show. Keeps us clicking away and make the rainy summer days sunny again.
Abdul, Manchester

Regarding the comment by Jacky Thorning of Redruth, Cornwall. The governing factor surrounding the provision of broadband internet service to rural communities is the use of copper wire in the local telecommunications infrastructure. The creeping conversion from copper to fibre-optic cable is taking place, but no single telecommunications firm is willing to shoulder the financial burden of upgrading the entire national telecoms network. A recent industry estimate placed the total cost of an upgrade at £15 billion - approximately that of a rail line currently being laid across northern London.
Baldrick, Cardiff

Regarding EEEPCs, I would agree if you are a game playing geek who is impressed by processor cycles they aren't ideal. However for email, net browsing, photo-processing, software development, writing documents, manipulating spreadsheets etc they are just fine. And will fit in a large pocket, only weighting 1kg, and in the real world will run for four hours on the battery. How do I know this? Because I'm typing this on one.
Patrick, Biddulph, Stoke-on-Trent

With regards to the comments made by Pete Jardine. I wonder if Mr Jardine has ever heard of Moore's Law, postulated in 1965, quite a few years before any possible "hardware and software cartel" would have been formed.

That said, I do agree that, for the most part, consumers may be buying, or being sold, computers that are more powerful than they necessarily need.

Being a gamer, I need to have the near latest graphics card, etc. but for those just doing "office" work or web surfing, any old PC will do the job nicely.
Carl Waring, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

I simply cannot agree with the idea of cheap laptops being given away, gratis. The production costs of a laptop, cheap or otherwise, will always out strip that of a calculator. For the obvious reasons of component cost and complexity. Comparing a laptop to a calculator is like comparing the production of a matchstick to that of a gas cooker.
Robert Stammers, Bradford, England

After watching an episode of Click I strongly disagree with the advice that PCs were better than laptops because they can be upgraded.

I strongly disagree from personal experience that this is the case. To provide examples from my own life, I brought a desktop with a very good AGP card and liked the idea I could upgrade it later. However, within a few months the industry moved to PCI-Express so the only way to improve my system is to replace the motherboard and processor prior to replacing the graphics card.

Most computers comes with room for extra memory (RAM) but even if you brought a desktop a year ago with DDR2, the newer DDR3 RAM is faster and means that £400 off the shelf laptops can still outperform your older desktop unless again, you're willing to replace to motherboard.

Whilst it isn't impossible to upgrade a PC, most benefits come from replacing the motherboard - at which point you have to wonder if it really is the same machine. The complexity of the task means it can't really be done by non-IT people and since you can buy a nice new laptop for £400 - people don't see the cost of the labour and parts justified.

My advice would be to buy a machine with a clear idea of what you want it to do, how long you want to do it for, and accept that machines have an expiry date. Not a real expiry date, just a date when you just convince yourself you deserve a new one as most non IT people eventually do. Then get used to spending £400 every three years.
Phillip Taylor, Lincoln, England

Just wanted to say that the recommendation for watching The Guild on blip.tv was awesome. I'm a gamer myself, and loved the theme of the show. Also of further note concerning your discussions of laptops vs desktops, I own both, and they both have their uses. Desktops are my preference, due to their upgradability, however if I never leave the house without my laptop. I need to be able to surf the net on demand.
Steve

I must admit that I find the use of the name "netbook" for the range of new, cheapish, low-power laptops slightly ironic, as I have been using the original netbook for several years. By this, I mean the Psion netbook. This is a laptop having a superb keyboard, a VGA colour screen, no moving parts, wi-fi capability via a PCMCIA adapter etc. It weighs less than 1kg and runs for up to eight hours on a single charge; not bad for something that's now eight or nine years old. Of course, it is horribly outdated in some respects - no built-in wi-fi, no bluetooth, no USB, dodgy screen cable etc. But as a package, it was unrivalled until the EEE PC came along.

I have felt for a long time that a more powerful version of the Psion netbook would be more than adequate for many users' need, a fact which is borne out by the sales figures for these new "netbooks". Perhaps you would be so good as to give Psion some of the credit for having pioneered the use of low-power laptops, as well as having originally come up with the name "netbook" to describe such devices.
Ian Chapple, The Hague, The Netherlands

Regarding the digital pen that scans your hand writing. Digital pen and paper technology is here now! I work for a software development company and we use the digital pen and paper as a method of inputting data directly to our database products.
Bruce Skinner, Aberdeen, Scotland

Cheap laptops will, in my opinion, change the world forever, just like calculators are now given away with petrol, I expect the same to eventually be true for laptops. All of us will use them in our normal everyday lives. In education, every student will log on to the schools local network and off we go. I believe that this will be a massive leap forward in the technical evolution of mankind.
Vernon Collis, Derby

Every time I turn on the television there is an advert for broadband, superfast broadband, megabroadband. I live in a village four miles from the capital city of Cornwall and we cannot receive broadband. We have tried a number of firms and have spoken numerous times to BT. We are not the only ones and the Parish council have contacted Broadband Open Reach and has been told they do not feel it is financially viable to provide us with broadband. I would like to know what is the coverage of broadband across the country and what will happen in the future as all websites make their pages more digitally sophisticated. This could potentially lead to a second class system.
Jacky Thorning, Redruth, Corwnall

The luxury gift people complaining about eBay is like people complaining to the owners of shopping centres about being short-changed at the coffee bar. Ebay are just providing the market place. They are not the sellers, they just provide the marketplace, the same as the councils do in most towns and cities. These are policed by trading standards against the trader, not the marketplace providers.
Martin, Sleaford, Lincolnshire

I think people, especially we males of the species, are missing the point about the home laptop sale revolution. Combined with the wi-fi revolution, it is about lifestyle and de-cluttering the home, cost is a distant second. Men will put up with power cables and connection cables linking boxes together, looking through the chaos to the technology. Most females just see the mess. With a "wireless" laptop, apart from when it is on charge (and even then only one cable), what you have is a neat discrete piece of equipment that can even be put away in a draw when not in use.

There are more and more women buying computers for their own personal use and most have a huge say in the family's finances when it comes to buying a computers for the home or the kids.
Steve Williams, Cheshire

Why does the word "online" appear in the dictionary but not in auto-suggest dictionaries? And it's the only word I know of which is so. Anyway, great show by the way.. watching every week.
David Peterson, Edinburgh, Scotland

In response to Nev, you certainly can. Just check your router to see the incoming and outgoing traffic to give you an idea. If you have an open source router, firmware like Tomato can be really useful in monitoring bandwidth usage, providing a really detailed graphical interface.
Geoff, UK

I just wanted to add my backing to eBay as I have been selling and buying on eBay for the last 2/3 years and haven't had one single problem.

I think as far as eBay are concerned they do give warnings to sellers when they list an item about selling fake goods and as a buyer if you aren't sure then don't bid or buy.
Jason Coleman, Middlesbrough

It's really not that surprising that the low cost "netbook" computers are becoming so popular. I believe there to be two main factors behind this popularity:

Firstly, many models use Linux, and consequently include a useful 'Office' type software suite and are able to do all of the basic functions that a home PC has historically been used for.

Secondly, the cartel of PC hardware manufacturers and software vendors have for years been in collusion to force minimum hardware specs endlessly upwards in order to maintain the upgrade spiral, such that a computer that could have controlled an entire moon landing a few years ago now isn't capable of collecting a few e-mails.

These basic but perfectly usable netbooks offer a low cost escape from this situation.
Pete Jardine, Woking, Surrey

I have recently started to receive "fair use policy warning" e-mails from my ISP, because of my excessive downloads. But I say the product I bought was, and still is, advertised as "unlimited". It's all very stressful and I feel I have been conned. I did not buy the cheapest service and paid extra for the unlimited service as I wanted to make full use of the recent increase of video downloads, such as the BBC's iPlayer, but now I find if I do, I will have my 8Mbps max download speed cut to 128K as I use too much bandwidth. My ISP don't even provide a download monitor so I have no way of knowing if I have 2Kb or 20Gb of download left. As the household has two PCs, two laptops and several games consoles all using bandwidth there is no way I can monitor usage from my end.
Nev Young, Norfolk

I have just watched your video on the future of the internet and sending 100Gbs signals down a single fibre. I am telecommunications engineer for a major company in the UK and we have had 40Gbs backhaul circuits in place for at least the past five years. The equipment we use is made by Nortel amongst others. I was sent on a training course two years ago for a transmission system capable of sending 800Gbs down a single pair of fibres. The technology is not new, it's called DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) and involves taking the 10Gbs channels you refer to and modulating them onto different carriers at different frequencies of light and then blending them together before launching down the fibre.
Russell Sage, Dunstable

Cheap laptops certainly make you think. What they make me think is, how do phone manufacturers justify charging more for a phone than the price of a notebook with an expensive Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 1GB fast RAM, big screen, hard disk, etc?
Ray Daniels, Thailand

Read an earlier page of comments (March - July 2008)

Read an earlier page of comments (January - February 2008)

Use this form to send your comments or questions to Click: