Posts by Lotaresco

Re: So you didn't fix root cause

"Lotus Notes? Still got it where I work. God, I hate it. God, I hate it."

I escaped from it last year. There are many government offices and financial institutions that have invested so much in Notes that they can't disentangle themselves. I also hate it with a passion. As someone said to me once, "It's not that it's bad in the sense of massively bad in a way that makes one unable to use it. It's like a series of tiny insults to one's person, like being slapped in the face with a sardine. Once or twice is not pleasant but you'll live. However Notes is like being flicked in the face with a rank sardine every five minutes. It gets old quickly."

Re: Nightmare!

Was it a question of "Is all apple crumble vegetarian" - answer "no" - or "Is this apple crumble vegetarian?"

Apple crumble can be vegetarian if the crumble topping is made with margarine or butter. It can be vegan if the fats are entirely vegetable in origin. But it can also be neither if it is made with lard.

Re: Not just the users though

"Lotaresco, if you havent even seen the bounce message I'd say theres a 99% chance your customer has got the address wrong."

Well you can say it, but you would not be correct. The ISP in question does not send bounce messages to the recipient, only to the sender. The problem isn't PBUK. It's down to the ISP blacklisting blocks of IP addresses, sweeping up the innocent with the guilty.

Re: Not me, but a colleague ..

"So I guess that one went on the "sun-over-the-yardarm" list, i.e. customers you only visit in the morning because they'll be drunk, rude and unreasonable after a liquid lunch ?"

That one went on the "Send someone else, I refuse to attend this location." list. Fortunately I could and still can cherry-pick work so it was no loss.

Another one I turned down was a private school that complained that the children knew more about computers than the staff and it was becoming impossible to teach any subject that involved the useo f a computer because the kids kept changing security settings and deleting files from teachers' workstations.

I showed them a system that was designed for another school that used Citrix for the kids giving them a sandboxed environment where it didn't matter what they deleted/changed because next time they used it, it would be restored from the template. The design ensured that kids could not access the staff systems. The school refused on the grounds that this was some sort of evil magic. I refused to go along and tinker with their malware-infested, thoroughly compromised network any more.

Re: I generally now won't help any family members or friends with any IT problems

A lawyer friend and I joke that we are people who walk backwards on social occasions. Once people find out what they do they tend to advance with demands about wills, disputes with neighbours, problems with getting DSL routers to work, Windows questions etc. We find ourselves taking a step backwards to try to re-establish our personal space at which point the parasites will take a step forward. I had one person have a bit of a fit at me when he was pushing for advice on how to secure his computer to keep the police away from it (yes, I wondered about that). When I asked him what he did for a living he said he valeted cars. So I told him I'd answer his question if he would clean my car for free. He didn't like that.

Re: Not me, but a colleague ..

"Working for a small software house that inevitably picked up tech support issues from the tightwad* estate agents we made software for."

Oh please don't remind me. I once did some freelance work for an Apple VAR in the 1980s. They had hit on the idea of using Apple's 24bit colour displays, Colour printers, Director and some early digital cameras (Probably Sony Mavica IIRC) to speed up production of house particulars and to provide animated displays in shop windows. These were ahead of the game at the time since the PC competition was limited to 16 colour EGA and was a bitch to program compared to the ease of using Director.

I installed a system at a Surrey estate agents, having to deal with their Jaeger and pearl wearing office manager. I reminded her that the letter they received had explained that someone should be trained to use the system and either I could do that at the time or send someone at a more convenient time.

"What do you mean, training?" She said. "I expect someone from your company to attend and do this for me. I don't do this sort of work, none of us does." I explained that they hadn't ordered a fully serviced solution, just a turnkey system (big price differential). She then spent four hours arguing with me that this wasn't "OK, yah, not at all." Towards the end of the day she got a huge wine box out from a filing cabinet and laid into it with vigour. As I was leaving she was very drunk and loudly telling everyone in the room that because the cleaner had not laid her clothes out on the bed that morning that she had been forced to come to work with no knickers.

This was a big name in estate agency in Surrey at the time. I was fairly horrified at the combination of laziness, stupidity, arrogance and wilful ignorance not to mention the alcoholism.

Re: I generally now won't help any family members or friends with any IT problems

It depends on the iPhone, doesn't it? I have a lot of pending updates on my iPhone 4. No point in applying them.

Re: wrong turn

"seriously?"

Yes, seriously it's another case of the law being an ass. Every seed variety offered for sale is supposed to be tested and registered. the cost is about £3k for the registration which is why people growing the seed would like some money back. At the moment, as you suggest, you can get around it by distributing for free but "they" want to make that illegal also.

It just seems like madness. The rules are clearly set up to give big growers an advantage over small and amateur growers and are particularly biased to having a monoculture with little variation. That means that, as with bananas, a disease that affects one plant can probably infect all of them.

Down, down deeper and down...

"If you go around humiliating people by challenging their comments using facts and logic, don't be surprised if they retaliate; not with counter arguments, but by going through your comment history and downvoting all your recent posts."

It's just a tiny bit pathetic isn't it though that they don't even attempt to refute the argument or even to explain where they got their "facts" from? They just downvote and run away.

Re: @Andrew Jones 2

" the gun was a home-made or adapted from a replica in the manner described in the books."

That is supposition. The police have never published the evidence to support the claim, all that is known is that he used a gun of some sort. The most likely explanation is that it was a sawn-off shotgun. No one needs a book to tell them to saw the barrels and stock off a gun. All they need to do is watch a Guy Ritchie film.

Re: Journalism?

"You have read the byline haven't you?"

And the name of the author.

"You already can't buy a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide from Boots."

Dang, you're right. I had forgotten that. After I had some dental work done a couple of years ago my dentist told me that I should use H2O2 as a mouthwash for a week "You can use perborate or you can buy diluted H2O2 with flavouring from Colgate but it's easier and cheaper to buy a small bottle of peroxide and dilute it to use as a mouthwash." I visited Boots, they refused to sell it to me, even though I made it quite obvious to the pharmacist that I have a chemistry degree and knew how to handle high test peroxide, let alone the diluted stuff sold in pharmacists.

On a separate occasion they refused to sell me boric acid to be used to kill ants and also for use as an antiseptic. That seems to have more to do with wanting to sell expensive commercial ant killer and antiseptic solutions.

Re: Growing your own food can

"has food barter not been proclaimed "illegal" already somewhere? Was it US, recently?"

Probably. It's certainly true that the USA bans people trying to live "off grid" by misusing sanitation laws and by claiming that anyone who saves the rainwater from their own roof is "stealing" water that belongs to a private company. We can't have people living responsibly by sourcing their own water, disposing of sewage via a private water treatment system and generating their own off-grid electricity - that could hurt profits.

Re: Why?

"There's still a nice selection of billhooks on ebay."

Thanks for the tip. I notice most of them are marked "vintage" which is a bit sad if the major source of these is now "found lying at the back of granddad's shed. I looked up machetes and they are all marked "fancy dress" and "prop" as far as I can see. A few years ago they were just tools and easily available.

Re: @Andrew Jones 2

"Would you actually need a book to work out how to 'shoot and stab' anyone or would you just watch Rambo, Die Hard or any other Hollywood "blockbuster" produced since 1950?"

And that is someone putting their finger firmly on one of the root causes of the problem, Mr Hat. But it's not just the block busters. The entertainment industry teaches children from an early age that violence is the solution to all problems. Starting with children's cartoons and shows such as "Power Rangers", children are exposed to the message that violence has no adverse consequences and that violence is the first response to anything that you don't like.

The worst in this respect from my era was "The A Team" which showed every week that you can fire guns at people, throw hand grenades and explode bombs without any danger of killing someone or doing more than slightly singing their hair.

Re: wrong turn

"Growing your own food can easily be turned into a charge of interfering with commercial or government interests."

We already have that for gardening. It is already forbidden to use traditional techniques using household chemicals or substances derived from plants for pest control and as fertilisers. There was a commonly available book in the 80s which documented how to make pesticides from rhubarb leaves, tobacco leaves, soap etc. Removed from sale because it "advocated the use of unregulated pesticides". It's not permitted to sell seed other than via large commercial seed businesses that support agri-business and don't have much interest in the domestic gardener. Old, but tasty, varieties of plants are under threat because it's not permitted to sell the seed within gardening clubs.

Re: @HausWolf

It's unfair to say that Trump and his voters don't know the difference between various parts of the world. The President Elect has produced his very own map to explain to his electorate where all the important things are.

Re: Why?

"Pretty much every set of ear bud style headphones sound crap "

Etymotic earphones don't, which is why they are a favourite with musicians. They are also good at providing noise isolation so that you can listen to your music at a comfortable volume without hearing the jet engines on the aircraft or the incessant nagging about needing to go outside and mow the lawn. They have had a good relationship with Apple over the years so it's possible that they may produce a Lightning version at some point.

Re: Why?

"Read an article many years ago where they tested high end copper speaker wire vs a wire coat hanger. No discernible difference."

Isn't the absence of insulation a bit of a discernible difference? I do recall a blind test where the wires and speakers were hidden by an acoustic curtain. The reviewers were unanimous that one wire sounded better than the others. That wire being 2.5mm mains cable. When they were told which wire they preferred the reviewers changed their minds, declared that the curtain must have muffled the sound (etc). The truth being that most HiFi "journalists" are paid in freebies and cash for their "opinion".

Re: Why?

"FFS. What next... auditioning MK mains sockets and consumer units?"

Oh believe me you haven't even scratched the surface of the insanity of the "golden ears" brigade. I had a Denon salesman try to sell me their Denon Link AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable which was "essential" for the best quality audio because "Digital is very demanding and poor quality cable degrades the sound quality". I pointed out that digital is much less reliant on cable quality than analogue and he snorted at me. What would I know about digital? I'm only some computer nerd, right? It's worth looking at the comments linked above. The cable was being sold for £1000 and it's just a short length of CAT5 with RJ45s at each end.

Even that pales into insignificance compared to the products offered by Peter Belt who will sell you a paper clip that has been exposed to magic smoke and blessed with woo to make it improve your listening experience (£20 each).

Re: Why?

"The Philips Fidelio M2L headphones use Lightening."

"Lightning" because lightening means "to make paler and more insipid". Oh, hang on, as you were...

It may be prejudice on my part but years of hearing claims about how, this time, Philips has improved its quality, followed by crushing disappointment makes me sceptical. The reviews I can see of the Fidelios say "bass heavy" and the fact that they are over-the-ear puts me off.

"first reports suggest that letting the headphones use their own DAC (thus shortening the analogue path) only makes them sound even better."

First reports from whom? A reference would be useful, otherwise it's a bit hand-wavy to make the claim. All of the reviews of Lightning headphones that I have seen so far complain about the obvious hiss and the poor sound quality which bears out the assumption that any bump-in-the-wire DAC is likely to be of poor quality.

There is a way around the problem - buy an Oppo HA-2 - but the price of that + headphones will be close to the price of an iPhone 7.

Digital by default my ****

"The received wisdom amongst those currently running any customer facing business using call centres is that the customers want to engage digitally by default."

Which would be fine if you could. However they don't offer all their services digitally. I wanted to transfer a phone number from one handset to another. This should be a piece of cake, right? After all it's not much more than a minor administrative detail.

But it's not possible on-line. They insist that you must call them. You are then on hold for at least 20 minutes before someone tells you that you can't do that. Then when you say "Fine, I'll just take my business elsewhere then" miraculously it becomes possible. Then they try and sell you something which was the whole point of getting you to phone them in the first place.

Hoist

"Then you have people who buy on or the other based on a need to belong or avoid a group"

It's a rule that anyone who complains about spelling will have at least one typo in their complaint. Your post honours that rule.

" they are the technical equivalent of religious zealots, with associated room temperature IQ"

I've been using Apple kit since the 70s. It tends to be well made, long lived, easy to use and since OSX has been especially useful for UNIX geeks because it's possible to open the terminal and use OSX from within a bash (or whatever) shell at which point all is nicely familiar and all the usual UNIX tools are either there already or easy to find/install. The GUI is pleasant to use. It's not perfect, nothing is, but it's better than the alternatives.

As to the "room temperature IQ", I spend a lot of time engaging with scientists and engineers from top rank universities and research institutions. The most popular laptop in this cohort appears to be a MacBook Pro.

Re: Courriel

"Good luck with that, Mr Dabbs."

Indeed. I made my escape to Italy a couple of decades ago. I deliberately chose an area with no English residents. That lasted until the budget airlines started to bring in people on £15 tickets. Now there's a huge English population, mostly from Essex taking flights out of Stansted.

Even so we were doing well avoiding them, but recently the zombie hordes have been beating a path to our door because they've heard of us and they want someone who speaks English to help them with their taxes/house purchase etc. They often look puzzled when I say that my wife and I made sure that we learned Italian so that we could do those things for ourselves.

Mr Dabbs does have an implicit point in his article. As a native English speaker in a European mainland country your skills are in demand. I've had several TV appearances now as "the English computer expert" and I can't shake the feeling that the only reason this happens is because as an Anglo/Italian IT specialist I'm in a very small pool of people to choose from.