Posts by Gordon Grant 82 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Apr 2007
is kill the BOFH with some dodgy tinsel, I mean electrocute him, slice n dice him and then burn him, then maybe just maybe he'll stay dead...
The PFY will erm "forget" anything about what happened while the BOFH was away but he'll be more wary and the money will somehow "turn up" or a note dropped anonymous off to HR..
Hmm the beancounters had best look out....
Is some dolphins and a man who said he was from guilford but is in fact from somewhere in the vacinity of Beatlujuice for it to be any more tounge in check and off the wall.
Lester brilliant
What you all forgot is that the great iPad is going to solve world hunger, world peace and find a cure for cancer and that's just this weekend.
If Douglas N Adams were alive today he'd have one but he'd be laughing his head off at this.
It does required a sacrifice to run, a gallon of extra virgin olive oil for it's eco-friendly charger.
Sarah I love the witty retorts.
1) It's bootnotes - not to be taken seriously
2) it's the register bootnotes - why the heck would we do anything but laugh at the stuff here.
3) It's apple / microsoft and at least 5 minutes since they last got "upset" but the other camps fanbois
Hmm nasty a secondary card system embedded quite literally in the building now that is sneak, underhanded totally BOFH... good one, back to his sneaky best and I do think the PFY's days may be numbered unless he can find the master controller and reprogram the whole system... Now that would be a good game of chess.
@ AC well you obviously don't get sites like twitter, MySpace and Facebook.. Twitter is very limited and I personally don't get "why" it exists. MySpace / facebook well they are a great way of letting your mates know what your up to and help you plan out your weekend. I wonder AC if you have enough mates, me I have friends all over the place. Okay so I can't nip down the pub for a pint with most of them but that's not the point... Keep up the good work, carry on.
Wow a refreshing change for sure to see someone like Apache openly fess they've been hacked and not to how the fix the problem but how to they are preventing it happening again in the future.
Windows + IIS unless it's behind a freaking hardware firewall and for internal use only is FAIL..
Reminds me need to check my apache logs I'm sure they'll need truncating with all the "IIS overflow attempts" people try .....
Well you can always install Open Office and use the Presentation software on that, since well that will open Powerpoint and has no hooks into any activeX controls what-so-ever and I think it has a similar set of features as Power Point, go try it...
I have to say it's not really IE that's the major problem it's some of the background DLL's that aren't exactly secure, I mean I do believe there is still a HOLE concerning some ActiveX loading Java / javascripted malware going around. I mean the WHOLE activeX control thing is bad enough.
I'd go and count up the number of bug / vunrabilities that can be contributed to ActiveX and I think over the years it's been quite a few, if not the majority of bugs.
I see no point in using an activeX control to be honest as most things can be made more cross-browser by using Java, okay the Java applet has to be written nicely....
Custom installs of Windows have been around since well 98 it's just they aren't exactly clear even with XP and that's without having to go into automated scripts.
Well I was wanting to see if there was as "Oh my god I've like got to update my browser it takes too long" comment and we have it, 1st comment I wonder why AC probably so none of his/her "mates" can point and laugh at them for being so stupid as to want to go back to IE..
Sure FF crashes and memory leaks but at least you can close and restart the session with details fairly intact (site dependant) and memory is flushed and returned. IE only recently got "tabbed" browsing and it looks stupid - I mean I don't want to see every time I open a new tab "about:tabbed" I know I can turn it off but I use IE so seldom I don't bother,
It might as well be called "About:I'm an idiot help me Bill the Mighty"
Oh and incase your wondering that last sentence was called Sarcasm..
I do love the fact firefox alerts me when I have updates for extensions / themes or the browser itself, with IE you have to kinda do that manually, grab that toolbar update etc now THAT is too much effort..
I do agree with the previous commenter about memory leak fixes are always good, it's the fact it has to work outside of the MS framework as much as possible only hooking in where it needs to, since IE is already Hooked in...
Heck I mean I do get the occational disconnect from google mail but that's normally due to me downloading an legal iso via torrent and that sucks up all the bandwidth leaving none for gmail. As a web interface based mail client it's not bad, I see Hotmail has taken on board some of the points from gmail like "mark this e-mail as read" which wasn't there before.
I seem to remember way, way back the whole of the AT&T network failing because of 1 line of code caused a cascade failure of the whole network..
Shit happens, the guys at Mountain View got stuck in, found the problem and fixed it as soon as they could.
When things run fine everything in the garden is lovely, yet when something goes wrong everyone gets the knives out..
1) If it's free don't complain
2) If you paid for it, this outage bites just a bit but it was just the web face that went down.
I do wonder how well an Exchange server in the open, i.e tuck away in the Head Office with everyone connected into it via LAN / WAN / VPN would hold up genuinely.
Sure G-mail is behind a firewall but in comparasion they are like a Bank Vault where as most Exchange servers are fort knox, not accessable unless you have several keys, right IP, your IP is on the "okay to allow through list" on the firewall, your account has remote access allowed on it, your username is right, your password is right and yeah it's not "3pm on a wet tuesday afternoon" (some random event)..
I've seen worse web mail interfaces,
Yahoo, hotmail - they've improved
Orange - thank god I've got POP..
I dislike IE as well it's swiss cheese when it comes to security sometimes. I use it very rarely normallty only to check how a site I've just played about with looks in IE6 and older.
I do have to put hacks in but the hacks I've put in only trigger if document.all exists which it does only on IE 6 or below as IE 7 finally got smart and uses document.getElementById which IE6 doesn't do at all and rather than write some JS to put it in to translate for IE 6 I have IE 6 checks and it all works nicely now well most of it..
IE 8 well is more broken than IE 6 I feel IE 7 being a bit of a step forward at least if they would tweak IE 7 a bit more and actually take on board what people want...
Oh hang on this is Microsoft!!!! we are talking about, they don't listen they just say this is how we are going to do it and your going to love it.. case in point the "ribbon".....
IE 6 is mainly Style hacks / some code converting and can easily be done as I've said by a simple javascripted check, probably work something similar with PHP too.
Hmm now let me see IE 8 is CSS 2.1 complient if so then it should take any CSS 2 style sheet and render this correctly with no stupid IE 5/6/7 quirks, it SHOULD therefore ignore any of those quirks as they are all well documented..
It depends on what's breaking, i bet it's MS "implimentation" of the standard, they just can't get it right IE 7 works sort of I code around stuff for IE 6 or below but only IE 6 or below since
"document.all" (remember that one folks) doesn't work in IE 7 (easy way of detecting IE 6 or below they answer to that).
I personally use FF 3 as it renders all my sites, works with my bank and pretty much everything else unless that site insists on some stupid fuxing ActiveX control in which case it can go **** itself...
Hey it's out there, it needs a few tweaks to get it working, only way you can find some faults is to actually deploy it in the field I mean in the "lab / dev " environment with "simulated" devices there maybe no problems or might have gotten lucky with the test device..
Seems Evesham was in trouble long ago but just didn't want to admit it, and since we no-one want something nowadays that doesn't return a quick buck or 5, it was doomed there too.
Nice of the former "Frontline" Tech to form a new company and offer support to what is their old customer base. I've no doubt those guys were doing their best to keep things going for as long as possible but nowadays it's all Dell, HP/Compaq or "PC World" specials no space in there for the "Eveshams" of this world, since you can pick up a "branded" PC cheap enough since MS bundle their "OS" with it, OS in the loosest sense, it's really bloatware or you can build your own fairly cheap as well and put linux on it or buy windows if required, or use an older version that's no being used else where and buy an upgarde to new..
Yeah got a few kicking about the house now, they do take a little while to warm up but are fine after that and are brighter than the bulbs they replaced, also do remember
60w for the old bulb, 11w for the new one.. Work it out
Cost of bulb + cost to power it over it's a timespan (approx what 3,000hrs)
say 60w bulb at say 50p ..
3,000 x 0.06 Kw = 180 Kwh of power required for this 1 bulb.. what's power these days 9p/Kwh something odd.. -> £16.20 + 0.50 for the bulb - £16.70
Now for the CFL - cost £1.80 say (it's a phillips one) so that's
3,000 x0.011 Kw => 33Kwh of power at 9p/Kwh = £2.97 + £1.80 => £4.77
So even if it only lasts 3,000 hrs dues to lots of spikes / blips / repeated on/off which kills many things quicker, your still saving..
So I'll stop there, yes it's a pain you can't use them in certain fittings but it doesn't say you can't, it just says that it will reduce it's lifespan.
Now if they could get them to work with a dimmer switch I'd be loving it as 5 x 9 w much better that 5 x 40w.
People are still "caught" out by this, thankfully nothing like this hits my inbox, I see it arrive, hit the filters and then be deleted off the mail server..
besides the "Name" of who it's from should give it away as should the e-mail address unless it's addressed to <insert pet name here> from <insert partners pet name here>.... even then check the headers.
I'm betting it was a borked CSS. I'm betting it was styled on IE 6 which is totally borken when it comes to CSS. I should know I still have to code around it..
since on IE6 width !=width it's width+padding+margins+borders i.e width of 200px not going to come out as 200px unless margins, padding and borders are 0 even then it's suspect.
there is "hacks" for it but they are just UGLY!.
wonder if would pass the W3C tests.
Also it maybe that you have a "default" stylesheet running and that takes over when it can't find stuff...
Sarah well said couldn't have said it better myself!
Never had it myself as a kid, I had the other stuff you know "lego", I know deprived childhood..
I do love it that he was asked to design a collectable toy, and look what it spawned. I look forward to the "recontruction"
@Garath go crawl back under your rock.
Okay so the BOFH and PFY got sloppy but the Boss is dumb enough to believe them that it will all be nice and cosy this year, which it will then mysterious things will happen, like the bosses bank account showing money from the "outsource" company, that then just as mysterious is wired to an "off shore" account....
A slow start to the year, probably due to the PFY and BOFH sleeping off the excesses of christmas and re-wording the "excuse calander for 2009" just incase they users are getting smarter.
Funny I should read this story as I think it was either last night or this morning I recieved an e-mail from them regrading the website / forums and providing the full list of contact numbers in case I wanted to order anything, quite nice of them actually..
I do hope they get the swine, I don't use the site that often as well I upgrade systems that often :).
I'd be going through a list of "customers" who've returned big value items for clues, if they've not done so already..
There is a SIMPLE way to disable Autoplay but MS don't tell you
Plug in a USB drive or put a CD / DVD in the drive and close the drawer while you hold shift down. Oh look no "what do you want to do with this USB device" and no "autorun"...
You just need to remember hold down SHIFT, left shift is prefered as the right shift might enable "sticky keys"
As for network drives well no idea but probably shift on boot works as well although some programs that are run on start up from Start > All Programs > Startup will probably not run..
I like the range of the pay cuts those at the top taking the biggest temporary hit.
I do hope they don't just get rid of the employees by the numbers rather by the skills they have, although marketing should take a good hit, I mean I do sometimes wonder what planet these "marketing" types are on...
The load time is such as it loads the full program into memory not just a tiny little bit to let you get started, I'm betting the quick starter is off, loads it a little bit faster.
Also since OO isn't an MS product it has to load a lot more as there is less dll hooks involved..
Try Open Office on a *nix box you'll see it's faster - well *nix is faster anyway.
MS would stop changing the file format ever so slightly each time they bring a new version out half of this "3rd party" type addon combobulation software thingy wouldn't be needed as it would be native as it would all be built into the software. Oh wait that would mean we'd need to code correctly.
There is a solution Open Office works, okay it doesn't play with exchange but then again it doesn't really come with an e-mail client. Here is the surprise it will open most MS docs and TRY it's best to save them in the right format also if you save it in it's own format, you can then open it in any version of the software, as if the version doesn't understand the formating tag it ignores it.. and tells you it's ignoring it I believe.
Yes lets make like we like "macs" and sell more trash - MS memo...
They are just trying to steal the march on stuff like Google docs which works in the browser.
Epic FAIL!
I mean I do remember VRML, oh god what a controted thing that was or maybe it was just the editor I was using. Now unless any of these actually RUN in the browser, which I doubt or they specifically use HTML encoded packets (only way to find out is to sniff), then Worlds.com can well go stick that patent where the sun don't shine..
That patent is so broad it's like me saying patenting "white paint" and then sueing anyone manufacturing white or "nearly" white paint..
Now where did I put my mage spell book I think I need to go fire a few frost bolts at something.
Well it makes sense, since both DT and Vodaphone are laying down fibre and the costs are basically split down the middle. Now for that to work here....
BT, Orange, Tiscali, Thus, etc would need to do similar or pay a fair percentage of the overall costs of laying the fibre in stages of course I mean if it costs say £10 million with BT looking at the %age share of the various other ISP's and dividing it up with say Orange 25% would equate to £ 2.5 million, not saying they don't have that but that's one BIG hit, as it's rolled out pay the same % everyone is kept happy as we get faster speeds, within limits and more downloadable per month, since that would only be fair..
Maybe even get Virgin in on it or since they've already invested in fibre maybe not, can't exactly see them "sharing" fibre lines somehow, would be nice if everyone could play "nice", but I just know someones "going to throw the toys out the pram"..
Oh look something shiny and new, of it's free :D It's from the evil bemoth MS, so it's FREE, grab with boths hands...
Erm look it's a a pair of mountains, funny coloured ones at that...
<user zooms back!>
OMG it's .... a naked woman!
@ Shock + Awe
Agreed I mean, I've seen them, i don't need a freaking hand held pc if I wanted one I get me a netbook or similar, it's a "phone" for poncy people..
Kids of today balanced - well erm most are...
It looks nice, sure but heck I'd rather bounce around in the bios using a keyboard anyday, one with a PS/2 connection on it as how many actually have the USB legacy keyboard option enabled in the bios so you can actually boot into the bios using a USB keyboard, that's quite funny actually
"I can't get it to boot into the BIOS to change anything, I'm pressing the right key but it doesn't do anything....."
If I need into the BIOS it's generally to check something real fast like WTF just happened, what's the CPU / NB / Sys Temp..
Sure it's old, but it WORKS, why change something if it works Change for Change sake never works in the end, all I will say to this is "PISTA" i can't bring my self to write out the proper name of that accursed OS.
I don't need "shiny", I want functional, anyone that can't easily navigate around in there, probably shouldn't be in there in the 1st place, I always read the mobo manual so I know where most things are that I'd need to change / check..
Bios updates from inside Windows - good idea, a GUI Biox not so good
Majel Barrett-Rodenberry we thank you for giving the enterprise a voice, it would have been rather dull without it. Can you imagine not hearing the computer say "Enter when ready" on the holodeck?
Your on screen parts were always troublesome to the Captain although more so Poor Captain Picard.
Your presences on and off screen will be sadly missed.
To paraphrase a quote from ST II:
From the many who watched,
And the few who met you
to the one first lady of startrek..
We thank you.
out bastard the BOFH is generally fatal even to other company BOFH's.
I'd be watching out for loose flooring, "live handles" and some choice Photoshop'd photos floating around, or maybe something from that "dutch sex shop" again..
The Boss had better look out...
Oh and I vote for the tape safe having a remote lock / unlock...
I looked at the list of installed items on the examiners computers and thought it rather strange no word viewer, I mean you could just simply ignore all macro code or make it a requirement no macro's to be included in submitted work, having to submitted as a pdf is technically a bind but then again maybe they should use something smart like open office which automatically includes a "save as pdf" option just goes to show what can happen, also before it was submitted surely the links to internal files on the server should have been resolved and the files included or at least had the e-folio checked over by the teacher, they do still have those in schools don't they it's not just pupils in front of screens teaching themselves is it....
Yeah I did notice a fall then a rise again what's much more freaking annoying is that they are using my own isp based e-mail address either directly or adding 1 or 2 characters to it and sending it to me I mean I could send e-mail out on joebloggs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.co.uk and it would be from me but it's being sent from catchthismail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxx.co.uk etc to me it's truly funny but annoying / depressing all the same, thankfully I can report it and I could always look back and see where many of the "origininating" was done as well as where the "links" are hosted..
I seem to remember seeing "cnc-noc" a lot.
Flame Icon well I have a just cause...
42 but to be perfectly honest I didn't know the ultimate question and I cannot know the question but I can help built the computer that can find that ultimate question who's bootstraps i'm not worthy enough to even lick...
DNA was right...
I think someone once figured out what the universe was all about and it got replaced by something even more bizarre...
Yeah I fonud something like that on another site it was basicaly a borked script that just needed a single line changed to a few lines as somewhere along that line the script broke but I was told to use IE as well if I wanted to use that site as they had no plans to fix it anytime soon.. It's a well know supermarket site to boot.
I mean If they had given me an e-mail address I could have e-mail them the fix there and then would have taken about 10 minutes maybe.
I do love those "paypal" dispute ones going about... I precheck all e-mail via mailwasher as it shows where the links truely go that and the true return address of the e-mail.
With all this "we've got to be greener" and companies wanting to flaunt thier "greener" credentials it's good to see lists like the green 500 it makes you think..
Hmm AN Other good idea that i'm sure that someone somewhere has tried that or will no try it...
although not sure exactly how much it would save I suppose it depends on how efficiant the heat exchange / power generation can be done..
@ AC - Yes the switch is called the "close program" icon...
I like µTorrent on the PC, quite easy to set up, can even leave it on defaults almost if your not sure of anything. What I love about it is the miniscule size, < 1Meg for what it does not bad, full gui, integrated search, webUI (once you turn it on), the fact that it's very aware of what environment it's running in, with XP firewall on/off , uPNP (I turned that off - hmm nice feature too hackable).
I've used a few torrent clients and found this the nicest one, to all the mac users out there you'll soon wonder what you did without it..
OPHS, what a spectular goal that was, an own goal..
Sure I mean give most "HD" TV's are at most 1090 and monitors generally now support passed this resolution. Yes there is a need for "copy protection" but this over the top method of doing it is a bit much..
I think apple will need to supply Free to anyone who asks for one convertor from "display port" to VGA / DVI which takes care of the "HD encyption" I mean it's a bit silly to try and copy video data from a VGA / DVI output anyway is it not..
I like it, a bit pricey for me right now..
It would just do nicely in F@H, but hmm Seventeen or Bust, Intelligence Realms, any other BOINC project although these would probably need someone with CUDA experience to tweak the client for it..
I can see it now a few people will want them and just so they can say "Roadkill sold here" to a few people..
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