Posts by Dave K

If you pop Windows 10 LTSC 1809 onto it, you'll get security updates until late 2028 - one option to consider anyway. Or wait until the LTSC version of Windows 11 lands and install that with tweaks to bypass the requirements checks. My VM testing shows that Windows 11 on unsupported hardware will download security updates just fine, but not feature updates - which makes it a royal pain to use if you use a standard version as you have to do an ISO upgrade install every time your build runs out of support.

Re: Edge

At least that's their website. I understand Microsoft.com advertising Edge and Windows at me. Imagine however if you browsed using Chrome to Mozilla's web page only to be plastered with ads about "Use Chrome, it's way better!". Or if you visited Microsoft.com and it gave you a big embedded advert for Chromebooks instead.

Like I say, this isn't advertising on your company's own website, it's identifying URLs from competitors to hijack them and push your company's own stuff.

Re: This is a job for .... Justin Case!

This.

It's also the reason that many organisations have change freezes in place around Christmas, Easter and other such periods of the year where the majority of skilled staff will be on holiday.

But they're not suing. Its publishers who object to IA renting out digital books. Nothing to do with the software on there.

Re: 冰山一角

I wondered that as well. It's not that difficult to lock-down corporate Android devices so that only allowed applications can be installed. At least, that's the way my work phone functions. If I wanted to use a social media app, or use a file-sharing service other than company OneDrive, I should rightly have to use my personal device for that.

The fact that UK government employees apparently can install whatever they want onto work devices doesn't fill me with confidence.

Re: Why would one ...

I'm more intrigued by what would happen when the toaster finished toasting and tried to eject the pizza across the room...

Re: smacked down for saving the day?

A bad manager will ignore your concerns, then smack you down for this when you're proven right.

A good manager will see this as an opportunity, not a threat and will both publicise when a concern is raised, and will promote the fix/brag about how their team helped solve the problem.

As a former tech for many years turned manager, I like smart people in my team. Helps to avoid shit hitting the fan in the first place, and helps to recover from a mess if things do go wrong. Only bad managers dislike those smarter than themselves further down the chain.

Re: Funding

I agree entirely. Plenty of otherwise profitable companies have been felled by such buyouts. Over in the UK, Maplin was one of them. Several changes of ownership adding more and more leveraged debt, then when sales declined, the company quickly plunged into a loss-making position and was wound up. Without the burden of those interest payments, the company would have suffered a decline in profitability, but certainly wouldn't have sank as quickly as it did. Numerous other examples exist as well.

Simple fact is, Twitter sold for $44bn, and Musk should be liable for every single cent of that, but he isn't.

Re: It's not all bad

It's not so bad when the entire recipe is in "cups", but it is a problem when you come across some American recipes where half the stuff is in ounces (ie for things like butter which can't fit in a cup), and the rest in cups. Also, it becomes a problem for any recipe where you use eggs.

Knowing how big a cup is supposed to be matters quite a lot when the same recipe calls for 3 eggs and 6 ounces of butter.

Personally I much prefer recipes that say 100g of porridge and 200ml of milk. The ratio is still clear and if you want to pour them in via a cup, that's entirely your choice.

Re: With the passing of Win7, we morn the loss of the last true windows desktop. So long Aero...

Upvoted. I'll also add it was the last environment designed purely for the desktop PC which was also designed to look pretty whilst being powerful and flexible.

Win 10 is quite flexible, but has the style and aesthetics of a sheet of A4 paper. Then there is Win 11 which was designed to look nice, but has all the flexibility of a concrete block.

Farewell Windows 7. The last Microsoft OS to be both pretty and powerful.

Re: No surprise here...

Very few. I think initially a number of businesses did migrate to LTSC, but that didn't please Microsoft - their intention was that LTSC would only be for specialised environments and they needed companies to use the standard channels, because that way companies have to get involved with testing new builds and that helps improve MS's chance of discovering bugs - seeing as they don't have their own QC department any more.

Anyway, MS got their wish by blocking Office 365 on Windows 10 LTSC. For most businesses, that pretty much eliminates the option of using it on regular office machines. Of course if you don't use O365, LTSC works just fine...

Re: "buttons replaced with touchscreens"

Or on the flip side, it means that when you are changing gear or adjusting something, your dominant hand (at least for the right-handed majority) is on the steering wheel. Also, roughly 2/3 of people are right-eye dominant, and having that dominant eye on the side of oncoming traffic is preferable.

Simple fact is this, studies have repeatedly shown that for these reasons, plus others, countries that adopt right-hand-drive vehicles that drive on the left have a lower crash likelihood than LHD vehicles on the right. Hence, not a misguided decision at all.

Don't get me wrong, the touch controls of modern cars are bloody awful, and I imagine they are easier to operate for right-handed people in LHD vehicles, but the better solution is to bin the touch controls.

Re: Pranking is abuse

I agree, but to clarify when I say "wanting to bring [someone] down a peg or two." it's more in the meaning that a practical joke can help some people realise they aren't as infallible as they think they are.

Case in point, at a previous company there was an ex-IT-support member of staff who'd moved to working on an ERP implementation project. She was pleasant enough, but liked to act as if she was the god of all things technical because of her previous role and this did irritate a few of her ERP colleagues. So one day they stuck a piece of gaffer tape over the optical sensor on her mouse.

Result was a phone call to me (the new support tech) about a faulty mouse. Went over to her desk, found that the cursor wasn't moving and so I instinctively turned the mouse over to reveal the tape on the underside. She went rather red at missing this, there was a chuckle from the others in her office and the god-complex rapidly evaporated.

Now this wasn't an act of vengeance, it was a harmless prank, But it had the desired effect. I should add that your link provides several definitions of prank, such as "to play a trick on someone that is intended to be funny but not to cause harm or damage" and "a trick that is intended to be amusing and often to make someone look foolish" - I'd say these apply quite nicely to the example above and show that you can bring someone down a bit with a prank.

Re: Indy over O2

I did used to have a couple of Indys, but sold them ages ago as they weren't being used, plus mine were fairly modest spec and hence quite slow. The O2 was essentially the successor to the Indy. Not the snappiest system, but they do have the fun of having a unified memory architecture (no separate system and graphics RAM), which means it's possible to use video files as textures in models just by passing the relevant pointer. Quite radical for the mid 90s!

I will agree however that the plastic cases of them are unbelievably fragile and brittle.

Re: Worst code I ever saw...

That was the problem I had when learning to code. My dad (a university lecturer) taught me first in Pascal, then in C and always expressed the need for comments. As the code I was working on originally was so simple and self-explanatory, plus each exercise was pretty-much standalone, it seemed pointless to me adding comments that explained code which was simple and obvious, and which I had never needed to refer back to so far.

Of course over time, the code steadily becomes more complex as I learnt new commands/functions and more advanced algorithms and techniques. Then we get onto the topic of reusing code when tackling a challenge that is similar to some code I'd written a month or two earlier. Being faced with a fairly complex algorithm and zero comments suddenly made me understand why comments are so useful.

These days I probably end up over-using them if I'm honest, but it doesn't half help when I rip-off some of my old code from previous years.

Re: Not only two signs...

And this is why comms cabinets should (wherever possible) be located in a secure, locked room to which only limited authorised personnel have the key.

Where that isn't possible, (ie, small comms cabinets), the power socket should be located as high up as possible to discourage anyone from reaching for it to plug something else in.

Re: And so, Twitter died

It's probably so that he can find someone else to blame when it all implodes. "I believe in free speech, yet Apple/Google banned the app because of this", "The EU is against free speech and their (inevitable) legal action killed Twitter", etc. etc.

He's already stated doing that by blaming all the "activists" that are (according to him) responsible for the drop in advertising revenue. Of course the fact that he publicly advocated unbanning controversial accounts and laying off most of the content moderators had nothing to do with it...

Re: Stupid admins and their stupid ersatz "security"

Or for throwaway accounts that require this, you just start every password with the same symbol and number, then capitalise the first letter. Doesn't take any extra effort to learn and passes the "is it secure" test for an account I really never wanted to create in the first place.

Of course for everything else, I use a password generator these days. As a result, I couldn't tell you what 99% of my passwords are.

The rules can be amended you know if our needs out-grow USB-C such that a successor is needed...

Either Musk is redefining the meaning of incompetence, or what he's doing is deliberate.

A small part of me considers a grumpy child being forced to play with a toy that he no longer wants, so the child throws it onto the floor in a tantrum and jumps on it so *nobody* can have it. Maybe this is Musk's plan? Maybe inside he's thinking "The next time I try and back out of a purchase, maybe they'll think twice before forcing the deal through".

Or maybe he's just incompetent. Place your bets!

I thought there'd be fireworks, but I didn't expect anything this clueless. The guy has absolutely no idea how to motivate a workforce. Any company that told me to expect working 5-days a week in an office (because he doesn't trust anyone) for 80 hrs a week would be one I'd hand my resignation into quicker than you can say "Salad Fingers" (kudos on the username by the way).

Anyway, excuse me - need to buy more popcorn...

Re: reputation?

The company in my case above was QuietPC.com. Sorted out the shipping issue brilliantly and I continue to shop with them as a result.

Re: should we call time on the BoFH?

No, no it isn't.

Re: Upgrades

The only bit of UI I'd like them to remove is that infuriatingly cheerful "We're opening this file in Excel, feel free to keep using Teams" every time I tell it to open a file in Excel. Dimming the entire UI to display a dialog telling me it is doing exactly what I've just told it to do is pointless in the extreme.

Re: Botched Aircon

I've had the "wall of heat" twice in my life. First time was at a council where some of the support staff worked inside the server room at the far end. Room was feeling a bit cool, so they temporarily turned the newer aircon unit off as it blew cold air over their desks (leaving just one older unit running at the other end of the room) and they subsequently forgot to switch it back on later. Overnight, the room slowly but surely heats up as the old functioning aircon unit struggles to cope with the load. Eventually, it packs in altogether and the support staff return the following morning to a room that resembles a sauna.

Second time was when working at a university around 2010 or so. The external heat-exchanger for the aircon system was at the back of the building just above ground level. We'd had quite a bit of snow, but no issues to start with. eventually the snow began to melt, a huge heap of it slid off the roof and completely buried the heat-exchanger.

Re: The taste of schadenfreude

"The only people that won't like the idea of what is happening are the extremists and ideologists"

Really? I think they'll be thrilled, seeing as their lies and extremist views are what got most of them banned in the first place.