* Posts by Ian P

14 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2008

Boeing... Boeing... Gone: Canada, America finally ground 737 Max jets as they await anti-death-crash software patches

Ian P

Boeing Black Boxes finally land in Airbus-land

Ok, this is serious - apart from the route the Black (aka Orange) boxes took from Ethiopia. Ethiopia didn't want to send the Black Boxes of the doomed Boeing MAX flight to the US. Why? Because of the time-zone difference. Really, Why? Because Boeings are made in the US. So Ethiopia asked Germnay if they could download the data. "Sorry, we don't have the software to enable us to do that". UK? Sorry, we're not very United at the moment (I lied about that one). Final destination? (sorry, that was a really bad pun). France. Home of Airbus. And so Boeing are really - and I mean really - looking forward to working with the French on this one. Fight!!!!!!

London's Gatwick Airport flies back to the future as screens fail

Ian P

"All flights are currently leaving on time." Much easier to do this when the passengers cannot find their planes.

Uber's disturbing fatal self-driving car crash, a new common sense challenge for AI, and Facebook's evil algorithms

Ian P

LiDAR doesn't work in the dark? WTF?

"It’s frightening that the LiDAR onboard didn’t detect her either, most likely due to the dark conditions "

Can somebody tell the software engineers that people quite often drive cars when its dark.

BA's 'global IT system failure' was due to 'power surge'

Ian P

The power (with its backups) will never fail so we don't plan for it.

I guess it is just a blinkered approach. You convince yourself that the power will be fine and so you ignore the case when there is a failure, hence chaos when the system that will never fail actually fails. Is it the MDs fault? Yes for hiring an incompetent IT Manager. But I'd replace the IT Manager when the dust has settled. But are those crucial nuggets of information that he has in his head backed up?

Black Friday: Cashback site Quidco goes TITSUP* on payday

Ian P

"Promotions will be extended." I'm impressed that Quidco has the power to extend Black Friday, not that Black Friday ever meant... Black Friday. PS. seems to be back up.

GMX Mail Chopped (unless you read their adverts)

Ian P

GMX Mail Chopped (unless you read their adverts)

GMX Mail users will see their mail cut off and thrown away on 1 September unless they agree to new Terms and Conditions of 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH. The service is being transferred from 1&1 Mail & Media, Inc., in Kansas, to 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH, in Germany.

If you don't currently use their brilliant webmail service - the one with lots of adverts - you won't know about this. Here's their demand in detail...

Dear GMX Member,

In the past, the GMX Service was provided to you by 1&1 Mail & Media Inc.

After August 31st, 2016 the service can be provided to you by 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH in order to ensure the high level of performance and data protection you are used to.

What you can do at this point is to click on “I agree” which will confirm that you have reviewed and accept the Terms and Conditions of 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH as of now.

If you do not agree, 1&1 Mail & Media Inc. will cancel your contract by August 31st, 2016. Your GMX account including all your data will then be irrevocably deleted as outlined in the Terms and Conditions currently applying to your GMX Service.

Your GMX Team

<button> I agree

<button> No, I do not agree

Please agree to the Terms and Conditions of the future provider of the GMX Services, 1&1 Mail & Media GmbH, to be able to continue using your GMX account after August 31st, 2016.

Some Windows 10 Anniversary Update: SSD freeze

Ian P

Re: Why doesn't Win10 support multiple drives better

This current "SSD freeze" issue was raised by people a mixture of SSDs and HDDs. The freeze is typically indicated by 100% disk usage - but not necessarily on the SSD! The "100% disk usage" issue has been around ever since 10 came out. Either Microsoft never got to the bottom of the issue in the first place OR didn't incorporate the fix in the Anniversary build. If the latter, this is a big mess up.

Windows 10 (Unhappy) Anniversary Freezes Computers

Ian P

Windows 10 (Unhappy) Anniversary Freezes Computers

Microsoft revealed yesterday that they have received a small number of reports (translation = a large number of reports) that their Anniversary Update (translation = new Windows image) freezes your computer if you use a combination of SSD and HDDs. The freezing symptoms, apart from you not being able to do anything, include that old Windows 10 favorite, 100% disk utilization. You are advised to revert to your previous Windows 10 build, noting that you only have 10 days to do this. Or move all your data from your massive HDD to your really small SDD.

Follow the fun at

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/windows-10-may-freeze-after-installing-the/5a60d75d-120a-4502-873c-8bfec65c82d0

Hotel Chocolat shares surge explained - just charge customers twice.

Ian P

Hotel Chocolat shares surge explained - just charge customers twice.

This from Hotel Chocolat this morning...

Dear Hotel Chocolat Sucker

Membership Number: XXX

We sent your latest selection to you at the end of last week; we do hope it has arrived now and you have started to enjoy the latest chocolate recipes.

After sending your box to you, it came to our attention that we had inadvertently taken your payment of £20.29 by Auto Debit twice. You may have noticed this on your bank statement relating to transactions on 6th/7th May.

We are so sorry that this happened. We refunded the second payment back to your card yesterday, and this will show on your bank statement within the next few days. We have put measures in place to ensure this cannot happen again.

Instances like this are extremely rare and we are confident that this cannot happen again. Your instruction to take payment by Auto-debit is very important to us and we deeply regret that this error happened.

Please be assured that we will only take future payments for the tasting selections that are sent to you.

Kind regards,

James Waters

Head of [Millionaires] Tasting Club

Microsoft U-turns on 'free' Windows 10 upgrade promise for ALL previewers

Ian P

In theory... because the Windows 10 installs are "pre-keyed" (a function of the version of W10 you are entitled to and the hardware you're installing onto) you simply... resinstall from any old ISO and the MS activation server will (re)grant activation... By magic. Somehow.

Plug and PREY: Hackers reprogram USB drives to silently infect PCs

Ian P

I'm new to hacked USBs - a neighbour told me she bought a 256GB one for £7 and I laughed. I said perhaps it was 256MB then she showed me the Ebay receipt. Ignoring the AV threat with these the hacked firmware in these is very clever. Windows reports 256GB, you can write files to it without problems and you can read back files PROVIDED you haven't written more than 6GB in the first place. Hence no surprise that traders of these fake sticks get lots of positive feedback. This is a massive con. This particular seller has probably made £2K since the end of July. Get lots of nice feedback and ...keeps churning out these fakes. I'm so envious of the bastards.

Plusnet shunts blame for dodgy DNS traffic onto customers' routers

Ian P

Re: Plusnet continue to blame the customer

(Some) TP-LINK routers can be hacked www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy4n8a3dy0Q

IBM snaps up banking security biz Trusteer, won't say what it paid

Ian P

New update has killed at least 2 computers

Hmmm. I've had Rapport for a while - no issues really but I maintain computers and 2 have failed in the last 2 days. A Vista-32 laptop and Win7Pro desktop.

The culprit appears to have been a (mandatory by default) update

"Trusteer Endpoint Protection" 23/8 3.5.1302.54

I've since uninstalled Rapport on all my Windows instances.

Autothrottle problems suspected in Heathrow 777 crash

Ian P

Ice Shock for Rolls-Royce?

The following story has just emerged about the Boeing 777 with Rolls-Royce engines. It MAY be a total coincidence but its timing is bad news for Rolls-Royce and its operation up in Derby.

Following the Boeing 777 accident at Heathrow last week, the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has just released an Airworthiness Directive (AD) with the following title:-

[This AD has been issued] to prevent internal engine damage due to ice accumulation and shedding, which could cause a shutdown of both engines, and result in a forced landing of the airplane.

This AD becomes effective February 27, 2008.

Details here:-

http://www.avionews.com/index.php?corpo=see_news_home.php&news_id=1084978&pagina_chiamante=index.php

Note that at this time the UK AAIB (Air Accidents Investigation Branch) has not commented on the finding.