Posts by Adrian Challinor

This sounds familiar

I remember working with a different storage vendor on different hardware. We had a crash (caused when their hardware engineer accidentally knocked the main power switch off when doing an inventory of the drives) and found that the backup procedures, put in place by the storage vendor, didn't backup all the data we needed. A crucial bit of the database didn't get saved. It said it was, and if you were prepared to wipe out the DB and restore to a cold backup taken at the weekend it would work, but the roll forward would always fail.

As it was their hardware, with their software and their backup procedure we made it there problem. It took them four weeks, but they did come up with a solution.

It was a change to the manual that said that data of the type we had was not covered in the backup process. We can't fix your data so we will accept it was a documentation failure.

Strangely that vendors hardware was scrapped at the next upgrade and they forfeited the right to bid for that contract.

re: Boycott the UK ??

There was a boycott Austria campaign? When? I must have slept through that.

On the other hand, I guess that's why there are so few Vienese Waltzes these days. Well, there you go, that made them think didn't it.

</irony>

@sam.C

Priceless - thank you !

seven deadly sims

That was classic!

Yes - lets find this leaker...

Then we can nominate them for a citizens knighthood.

Paris - because she knows all about leaks.

Re: No, it's not ready to lick Micrososft's .

>What Microsoft did took guts because of the whines of those who fear change, but it was

>absolutely the right thing to do simply because it really does allow people to be more productive.

No no no no no

What MS did took stupidity. We have lots of people who see the Office 2007 eye candy walking round PC World or the like and then come in a demand that they get this great up-to-date software. We give it to them, and say "You had better save the spreadsheet your working on in a different name, just to be sure. Use SaveAs".

... and we wait. It takes approximately 5 minutes until they realize that all their long remembered menu commands are not there anymore. Then they want Office 2003 back because, at the end of the day, they are paid to do work - no to figure out where the heck their software has gone to.

Wow - what a sales pitch

This makes me want to upgrade the wife's version of Vista, which she is constantly complaining about, with a version of Windows 7, in what way? I have to pay for it; I have to make sure that every time I upgrade I must register that fact with the police in Redmond; and it soaks up half the godamn CPU just keeping its visual fluff alive (yes, ladies, I do disable this!).

Or I could choose Ubuntu. No nags, free software, install what you want and when you want.

Paris - because even her sales pitch doesn't have as many caveats as MS.

Stab resistant suit?

Can we havest the silk from these puppies to make suits that are stab resistant, harder than kevlar, etc? Sounds like just the trick for my neighborhood.

Paris, because there is nothing hard about her silk thingies

concepts

I can't get the concept of a concept - may be my axioms are wrong.

I think we need ....

... a Playmobile reconstrution of this.

Paris, because she can afford a hotel room to avoid such incidents.

Ubuntu upgrade - very painless

One difference between MS and Ubuntu is that I upgraded my Ubuntu desktop overnight. It was free, it worked, it looks great, its faster and it works on my 6 year old hardware (it was top of the range then!). Everything works, even all my DVB video capture cards and they are definitely non-standard.

When I upgraded one of my families desktops, Vista took out the bootsector and forced a reinstall. It wouldn't work with the firewire card, it was slower, looked like "my first computer" and cost money. Result? We downgraded to XP.

If only I could pursuade the wife to run Ubuntu, as I spend half my time fighting her computer on Vista. It's networking is terribly fragile, it is slow, cumbersome and bloody minded. My daily mantra of "Its Vista, save your work, reboot, and then if its still a problem I'll look at it" has definitely got to the stage where I need a placard with on as the spoken words are beyond the grating stage with her.

Looked at Windows 7 - and yes, it does look like an improvement. But then, the bar was set pretty low. What was wrong with XP anyway?

RIP MySQL?

Mines the one with "Postgres for dummies" in the back pocket. Gotta move with the times.

@Eejits

Thank you for you wise words and carefully thought through argument. As it happens, yesterday I needed to download a new, perfectly legal, version of Ubuntu. I must have broken some law in Eejits-ville because I used a bit torrent download so I didnt hose a specific server.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors

Now I now, I should have downloaded the full ISO from a mirror. Silly me.

</irony>

Kilowrists?

I thought the national standard for porn was now the Timney?

Old but good

http://xkcd.com/327/

@What the hell is AC on about?

He sounds like a Microsoft stooge to me. Why let knowledge of the subject matter get in the way of a good flame?

"All that matters in this life is a good command line. "

And a saucer of milk for the man in the corner.

But where is...

The now mandatory comment about Man Made Climate Change? Surely this cold weather blowing in from the Arctic must be to do with all the CO2 that gas guzzling 4x4s generate. Right? I mean, it stands to reason, Cold spell = Global Warming.

And where is the Play Mobile reconstruction of no trains, no buses, few tubes and load ohelsea farms teaching how to drive the Toyota Land Cruiser?

Come on Sarah, get with the plot here, we want a reconstruction and we will babble on about Southern woofters until we get one.

Common on guys

I know the comments are in jest, but lets give credit where its due. This is a computer system in what can best be described as a hostile environment. It has been kept running continuously for 5 years. And it has a hiccup which is debugged and recovered from earth.

The fact that is has kept going so long is the suprising issue, not that it has had a glitch now.

Mine's the one with "Defensive Coding" in the pocket

You just don't understand

The records are not wrong, they have deliberate errors in them, introduced as a security measure. Now, when they leave the copy made to a USB Memory stick on the 16:40 to Cheam (because no Civil Servant worth his pension would work after 5pm) Wackie Jacqui can stand up in Parliament and honestly state that no real information was lost - it was all encrypted.

Mines the one with keyfob in the pocket.

The five 'odd ones out' from the full list of Bloody Annoying Windows Vista features were

Someone needs to tell Santa I need a new keyboard, mines full of coffee.

Nice one, Miss Stob.

From a smug linux user!

Lets hope they get the true/false flag right...

"The LRO will share its ride with another Moon mission, an impact probe called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite."

Houston: Ok, lets shoot the Impact probe at that there crater

Technician: Initiate firing in 3, 2, 1

AMES Technician: Hey, we just the main mapping camera from the LRO, now we have lost everything. What did you texan coboys do?

Houston: err Technician, when you programmed the test

IF isLRO() = FALSE then

EXEC FIRE_ME_AT_THE_MOON

END

You did define FALSE as -1? Our Atlas launch system uses zero and positive as TRUE.

Good luck on the DENON suit

I have a Denon and its ability not to connect to WiFi is legendary.

Shock! Horror! Out Rage! Vandalism!

You reported that Jimmy Wales spoke in a calm and reasonable tone yesterday. How dare El Reg report such blattant lies? Don't you check anything you report?

"Wikipedia doesn't censor."

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Now let me wipe my coffee off the screen. Does anyone here remember naked short selling? Oh, I think we can all agree that WikiMasters do edit when its in their own best interest.

Now, on the album cover, as it was rereleased with a different cover, is it such a gross editorial restriction for Wiki to use that one?

Anyway, all this will do is get everyone googleing for "Virgin Killer Scorpions" to see what the fuss is about. Oh and by the way, despite their being German, look for an acronym related to the new wave of british heavy music.

Paris - well, because she knows from experience that you can't police the intertubes

Great Article

Just rebuild YET ANOTHER LINUX BOX - whilst reading this on the other screen, and it took me back. First job I ever had was with GEC, pursuading the boss that with all the money he spent buying time on the central mainframe, he could have his own PDP-11. Anarchy! The wrath of Weinstock fell heavily in those days and the arguement was long and hard. In the middle of this the DEC Salesman whispered "what about a VAX instead?" and so we got an early VAX 11/780.

What a simply wonderful machine? The power was awesome. A macro assembler that has never been beaten.

Nanny state

Is this a case of Aunty becomming Nanny?

Ross was on well after the watershed. If you don't like his style there is magic button people can press, its called "OFF". Why do these people bother if they know they are going to be offended?

Pass the coat - mines the one with "how to swear in 20 different languages" in the pocket.

"While you may trust the police with your data..."

Oh really?

Where did the leap of faith that I don't mind plod looking at my phone records come from? Not with out a court order, due process and legitimate cause.

Oh - I suppose because I want some privacy I must be a terrorist, hence by definition if I don't want the Police to look at my phone records, they have the right to do so. Hold on, I hear a knock at the door, be back .....

All that money - so little care

What are NASA playing at? They spend so much money getting to the moon and then they ditch the original tapes and loose the archive (ie the disk copy) of the data. This is appaling.

It would be bad if this was the only time this has happened - but its not. It seems that NASA has a history of just chucking old tapes away (because, you know, the US is full and there is no space for a tape store). They threw out a lot of the old data tapes from Pioneer 10 and 11. Just chucked the tapes, which are irreplacable, in the bin. Now, with the strange effects that are being witnessed due to the Pioneer Anomaly, there is a push to re-evaluate the data and see if our understanding of gravity is all we think it is, and hey - no tapes!

So, NASA - score EPIC FAIL.

a Putbull called lipstick

Someone owes me a new keyboard, Its full of coffee now!

Thats was the best suggestion so far.

What were they thinking?

"The Side B back-up has not been fired up since Hubble went aloft 18 years ago"

Long ago I learnt the truism that a backup is only as good as your confidence it will work. Which all good SysAdmins know which is why they test their backups regularly.

Seems the scientists are of the view that because it worked 18 years ago it must work now. Which is pretty sad and probably qualifies for an epic fail.

Understandable

Why would you want to shoot a porn movie on a space plane that doesn't go all the way?

Paris - because, well just because really

Governments' security experts aren't dummies and they aren't going to make those mistakes."

No, they will just post all the details of everyons passport on a couple of DVD's and then say that no harm could ever have been done.

Is this man totally man?

Mines the one with the Paris Hilton passport in the pocket

Problem? What Problem?

I have an iPod. It has never been near itunes in its life. It connects quite happily with GTKPOD. So none of that bloat-ware that Apple have provided. Load tracks from my CD's (you do all buy your music, now don;t you). or buy Indie tracks non-DRM'd.

My last DRM'd CD was returned to EMI when it wouldn't play on Linux as being unfit for the purpose for which it was sold. The next one by this artist came with no DRM.

Still, if Applies share price continues in freefall, I don;t think iTunes-baiters will have to worry to much.

I wish I was suprised

But this is yet another story of the British Government having gone completely barking mad and is, in fact, very soft on terror.

It should be clear, and if necessary parliament could add a codecil to the Human Rights Act (better yet, repeal it) that these rights are not enjoined to people comitting any sort of criminal offence in the UK or abroad. Pirates (the non-digital type) have no rights. They cannot claim asylum under any circumstances. In fact, their vessels should be used by our noble lads in the navy for live fire target practice.

Make them walk the plank and dance on davy jones locker.

And after 10 days computing ....

... You get a comment to the effect "Windows has downloaded a critical upgrade and needs to reboot now".

That's what happened to me, I lost a huge simulation run, and the next day I rceompiled the whole lot under Linux and have never looked back.

Microsoft? What a charade they are.

Yes its tru

My Toshiba reliably spends a lot of its time back in the repair shop. Toshiba have even extended the warranty three times.

Mines the one with all the RMA stickers in the pocket

Only two bidders?

The sad part of this is that only two bidders are being spoken to at all, neither of which is british.

So the London Transport System (and I use that in the loosest possible terms) in the lead up to the Olympics in London, when capacity is going to be stretched, will have a flawed Dutch RFiD card, operated by at least one American company (if not two). The choice for who TfL are allowed to signed with is dicated not in London, but in the US, so presumably the contract is written under US law.

I wonder which brain-of-Britain decided that this was a good idea? Who chose not to involve UK based companies (eg Logica) for this?

Oh, yes. That would be good old Ken. Nice one Ken. Loosing that election is looking like a great decision now, isn't it.

good article

Tim has hit a number of nails on the right heads with this. Yes, some of the Exploration and Production (E&P) companies make large profits - but the level of their capital investment and the risks that they run are commensurately large. Finding the oil, getting a drilling rig in to thr right place, making it productive, all without totally contaminating the surrounding area is not cheap. Everyone can wish away that it is, but it simply isn't.

Nor is it risk free. Not withstanding the technical dangers (this is a product designed to burn after all) or the E&P risks (not every well gets you a return on investment) there are commercial issues. Ask Shell how they feel about Sakhalin Island and their investments in gas extraction, or BP and their joint venture in Russia. They will tell you why they need to make profits, having just seen their investments de facto nationalised by the Russian government.

I don't suppose people will be running to invest in the caucuses after the small tiff that Russia and Georgia had this week. Wonder what the risk factor on BPs investment in the BTC pipeline is today?

And these companies make huge payments to the various revenue collectors in the areas they operate in.

If governments are serious about reducing energy prices to householders, how about reducing the tax paid by consumers? Certainly in the UK, the gross tax on petrol is huge - it would be cheaper for me to fill my car with good quality french brandy (bought in France!) than petrol. But this is not going to happen - in the UK our Chancellor has already spent the windfall raised by higher market prices on proping up failing banks.

But then, who was it who said that common sense was not a prerequisite for public office.

Copyright does not equal theft

Actually (caveat IANAL) if you read the "Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988", and look at what the offences are, you have to:

<QUOTE>

(a) makes for sale or hire, or

(b) imports into the united kingdom otherwise that for his private and domestic use, or

(c) possesses in the course of a business with a view to committing any act infringing the copyright, or

(d) in the course of a business -

(i) sells or lets for hire, or

(ii) offers or exposes for sale or hire, or

(ill) exhibits in public, or

(iv) distributes, or

(e) distributes otherwise than in the course of a business to such an extent as to

affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright,

</QUOTE>

So if I were to (perish the thought) download something from a site, foreign or domestic, for my personal use, without any intention of using it in my business, or even having it on a business computer, have I committed any crime at all? I think that the words "otherwise that (sic) for his private and domestic use"

My source for this? Well actually FACT's website. It seems to be illegal to BUY a pirate copy, but to download it for free? I would guess not.

I have no idea about Swedish or Italial law (and I wouldn't trust my interpretation of the English law either!)

Surely there is a logic to this.

Think about it. Evening is BT's peak time, lots of users active, so they have to slow the network speed down.

It will be fixed when they get the Phorm servers upgraded, otherwise the poor things can't record all the traffic.

Fales positive???

I think I could define MS Office Live as a virus. Good call by McAfee.

Paris - she knows how to avoid catching a virus.

Well I think this is good

Notes is a very good system for the Enterprise - not for home users, I will agree. But for corporates it scales so much better than Exchange. And if its supported on Ubuntu, the cost of ownership plummets.

And if you, as an end user at home, don't like it, well - you know what? Don't install it.

Well there you go ...

>> The technology involved in making the system secure is more complicated than

>> officials first realised when funding for the project was approved in 2003. The

>> costs escalated as contractors and departments struggled to solve the problems.

So, they have found out that security is hard. And proper security is very hard indeed. Well, what a suprise. I assume that they were using the experts from the Child Benefit Office, the Passport Office to assist senior civil servants who use trains out of Waterloo as their advisers.

So, back to the drawing board, I guess. Or more likely, they will print the sumaries and fax them around. Thats secure, surely?

Paris - because she learnt the hard way that even private data is rarely secure.

Was that the server or the PC that was down?

Something to be remembered is that that vast majority of Ubuntu updates can be installed without disrupting your work. I had too many incidents when the beast of redmond forced an update on to my PC and then kept reminding me that I had to reboot now or reboot later. One moment away from the screen and the default reboot now takes over and just trashes any work you had open,

"Hello??? Microsoft??? It's my PC - you should NEVER, EVER assume you can take it over from me". I know I can turn this off, but it is never a problem I have had with Ubuntu (switched two years ago and I ain't ever going back).

Paris, because she knows how to handle uptime.

@amanfromMars

Well, Gremlin, I have no idea what he means. I gave that up a long time ago and I'm no concentrating on finding out what he smokes.

Userfriendly

So thats where this sequence of comics comes from. I thought it was some canadian thing I didnt understand.

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080618

What - FUD ????

@Ben - My wife is the only one in the house who uses Vista, and she HATES it. With a vengence. It causes more swearing and instability than any of the other 6 PC's at home.

Its slow. Actually its glacially slow to open new apps, such as Word.

It continuously looses its printer connections. XP is as steady as a rock.

It is bloodyminded and spiteful. Just try to set up a custom network on it. "What, not DHCP? I really don;t want to play then". The so called administrator access is a total joke that just gets in the way of actually using the damn thing.

In fact, Vista is just "bloatware eye-candy" (c). By any reasonable definition it is a virus

Paris - because she stull has her fans and has never given in to bloat-wear.