* Posts by Dan 55

15337 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jun 2009

The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

Dan 55 Silver badge
Pirate

Re: I need classic outlook

I don't see why you can't archive IMAP mail to a local folder/mailbox and then it doesn't matter who deletes the original mail or when it happens.

As for lack of PST in the original post, the work around is to keep paying that subscription (see icon).

Your PC can probably run inferencing just fine – so it's already an AI PC

Dan 55 Silver badge

No wonder hardware vendors are on board

This is the next great software bloat.

Something that could be done with Python or Arduino C can now be done by shoehorning a LLM onto a 16GB PC.

Dirty data shocks Indian taxpayers with huge bills

Dan 55 Silver badge

Incomplete/confusing spec

Someone's sending monetary values in paise (= pennies/cents) and reading them in rupees. The kind of error that was supposed to be picked up at the QA stage at the very latest...

Microsoft calls AI privacy complaint 'doomsday hyperbole'

Dan 55 Silver badge

Why the US doesn't get privacy episode 239,203,829,178

MS argued:

Plaintiffs do not plead any facts plausibly showing they have been affected by any of the supposed 'scraping,' 'intercepting,' and 'eavesdropping' they allege.

As this is the US and there is no concept of privacy, you, the little guy, have to somehow prove monetary loss because your individual items of data were scraped, but big tech is allowed to scrape everything and use it all to make a new product which brings in billions.

Where "little guy" means any person or business with a market cap smaller than Microsoft's.

GPT-4 won't run Doom but will play the game poorly

Dan 55 Silver badge
Terminator

"Also, GPT-4 can't reason very well."

That's not true... It can't reason.

If one of the few outputs that a bingo machine has is "fire the bang stick", it will fire the bang stick.

Cisco is a fashion retailer now, with a spring collection to prove it

Dan 55 Silver badge
Coat

Re: Finally

LTT hoodie? --->

British Library pushes the cloud button, says legacy IT estate cause of hefty rebuild

Dan 55 Silver badge

I would expect most servers to use VMs, even in datacenters.

How do you lot feel about Pay or say OK to ads model, asks ICO

Dan 55 Silver badge

The proposed DPDI bill already aims to nobble cookie banners, the ICO is singing from the same hymn sheet, and it looks like they're is sounding out whether or not the Government can go a little further.

Trump, who tried kicking TikTok out of the US, says boo to latest ban effort

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Reference

Parent post missed out the HTML closing sarcasm tag (proprietary extension, may not display in your browser).

IBM lifts lid on latest bid to halt mainframe skill slips

Dan 55 Silver badge
FAIL

Hilarious

Mainframe Skills Depot

Take your skills to the next level

Login below to see all the content

Sign In with IBMid

Log in with Bureaucratic ID™ to see if you like whatever it is we're offering!

I think with that first page alone they've just lost at least half the people who could be interested.

Is Russia using Starlink in Ukraine? Congress demands answers

Dan 55 Silver badge

All this linguistic hoop jumping that Musk does when publishing statements on Twitter about this subject must mean he's not letting the orc army use Tzarlink in occupied Ukraine, obviously. How could anyone even doubt him?

Apple's had it with Epic's app store shenanigans, terminates dev account

Dan 55 Silver badge

Jobs was insufferably arrogant but this is another level. They certainly don't like it up 'em. All the more reason for the EU to carry on.

Microsoft drags Windows Subsystem for Android into the trash

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Just another reason

The only two constant dependable Windows technologies are Win32 and telemetry. Change my mind.

EU users can't update 3rd party iOS apps if abroad too long

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: I hope they get sued out of existance

Citizens of a given country are only protected / subjected to the laws of that country while they are within its borders. Travel to a foreign country and their laws apply.

Not as easy as that. Where do you have residency? Where do you have fiscal residency?

And... since when does Apple get to decide where someone has residency?

Trump supporters forge AI deepfakes to woo Black voters

Dan 55 Silver badge
Alert

Re: Not realistic images

... and the hands... it's always the hands...

YouTube workers laid off mid-plea at city hall meeting

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: These were CONTRACTORS on the Day their Contracts Expired.

Contractors can have fixed length contracts in the UK and employees can have fixed term employment contracts.

But I let myself get carried away by the AC. Of course they're not contractors, they're employees paid by Cognizant. Not that it makes any practical difference in the US of course (unless you're in Montana).

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: These were CONTRACTORS on the Day their Contracts Expired.

Contractors do not get sick or vacation pay.

So what? Neither do many salaried employees in the US and salaried employment is at will too unless you live in Montana.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Devil

Why would you even want workers' rights...

... when you've got the American dream?

Ruggedized phone group takes the Bullitt, calls in PWC as administrative receiver

Dan 55 Silver badge

And if a company wanted guaranteed support for a phone of this type they'd just buy a Samsung XCover.

EU takes a bite out of Apple with $2B in-app purchase fine

Dan 55 Silver badge

Apple charge 27% commission for reviewing an app and storage... 27% because that's the figure they arrived at in the Netherlands and South Korea for apps which use a third-party payments processor. Obviously it's an extortion racket.

GitHub struggles to keep up with automated malicious forks

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: I don't get it

That's not an open source problem, that's a horrendously stupid way of distributing software problem.

I mean who would think that automatic updates to the production environment is a good thing apart from web developers?

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Attack Vector/Scope of the attack

Sometimes lines can be 200 or more characters long but are more understandable when they are tabulated nicely and don't wrap. For example, structures with data.

EU-turn! Now Apple says it won't banish Home Screen web apps in Europe

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Illegal under the DMA

“That’s what a sandbox is”. Is it really? Because *Apple customers* think that by far the most important bit of the sandbox is the review process of what is allowed onto the Apple App Store in the first place. It’s *you* who has too limited a technical understanding to understand what the sandbox is. Process wins over technical guardrail every time. And you know this perfectly well (or should do) as an IT professional.

Except when it doesn't.

Process is not perfect, which is why we (should) have defence in depth.

For employers that give their staff locked-in laptops, who have an IT policy as to what programs they can install…..how impressed do you think they would be, if a user decided to install a “sandbox” on their laptop? “But it’s a sandbox, it should be able to contain any malware”. That employee would get fired. Because it’s insecure.

In 99.999% of cases it's a perfectly reasonable policy, but once again there should be defence in depth.

And I own *my* iPhone. *I* should have the right to install whatever *policies* I like to ensure my own security. And I’ve chosen to outsource hire Apple as my IT department, to vet the security for stuff I don’t want to waste my time with. What business is that of yours, to decide that I’m not allowed to do that?

You are. Who said you couldn't? You can stick to the App Store and stick with the clunky albatross that is Safari.

We've already seen Apple's review process is not perfect and now we know that security in iOS is not as good as it should be because they daren't let 3rd party browsers run PWAs and they want to make third party app stores economically unviable, but carry on insisting that the Emperor's clothes look great.

The DMA will be good for Apple if they follow it instead of trying to fight it because it means they will have to up their game instead of relying on Steve Jobs' fading RDF.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Illegal under the DMA

Ah, the guy who thinks he knows how somebody *else’s* software should be architected.

That's what a sandbox is. For a poster who calls themself "Justthefacts" you seem to be remarkably fact free.

Or, and it’s just a thought, why not let consumer choice take care of it?

Er, yeah. That's what the DMA is about.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Illegal under the DMA

Because that’s technically required by IOS architecture.

Because you designed it right?

And if that's true then it's a crappy architecture and should be updated. The sandbox should be good enough to deal with any and all security problems, that's what a sandbox is for. Instead it seems Apple don't trust it and they're hoping WebKit promising to behave nicely is good enough to catch everything and they won't allow other browser engines to run a PWA. In that case you might as well not have a sandbox.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Gimp

Re: Not the last poster, but yeah, I will be happy to say it.

If iOS were so secure you couldn't jailbreak it, but you can, all the way up to the very latest version.

If iOS were so secure there wouldn't be malware in the App Store but there is.

If iOS were so secure then they wouldn't be unforced errors like "goto fail" but there are.

All you're doing is repeating the same comforting words which may have been true 5 years ago but there's barely any practical difference now. People without a clue loudly going into the ins and outs of a security model as if they designed it themselves or pontificating about how Google wants to put an insecure browser on iOS so they can destroy it from the inside or whatever of nonsense they can think up.

A PWA is just a bunch of APIs, there's no real difference between a PWA and a web page. If they can allow third party browsers to open web pages using this permission model, they can allow browsers to run PWAs. Any security problem which affects web pages will affect PWAs and vice-versa.

So Apple either don't trust their own permission model or are afraid to relinquish complete control over applications on the App Store or PWAs. It seems like a bit of both and neither is a particularly good reason for using an iPhone.

Dan 55 Silver badge
Gimp

What on Earth are you on about? Are you insinuating Chrome or Firefox running PWAs don't prevent features being abused (whatever that means)?

If yes, why don't we hear about it on Android?

If no, are you accusing them of making a special insecure browser for iOS?

The Stockholm síndrome is strong in this one.

Dan 55 Silver badge

They could, but it would be with a warning that they would bypass much of the security that makes iOS the choice for many users.

If they're already running a whole 3rd party browser then they can run a 3rd party browser executing a PWA. There's no difference.

Tiny Core Linux 15 stuffs modern computing in a nutshell

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: investigating whether it can turn some geriatric laptops into useful tools once again.

Browsers have become as bloated as a complicated OS in their own right. You probably have a mobile phone or another computer with a browser so if you are willing to forget about running a browser on a low-powered PC, or perhaps just Lynx for LAN use, then the whole machine becomes more useful once again.

Dell share price jumps 16% on mention of AI server backlog

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Change of company direction?

The AI enhancement for a PowerEdge XE9680 is choosing which Nvidia GPU you want so don't forget to do that too.

It's that most wonderful time of the year when tech cannot handle the date

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Oh, come on - this is elementary

An exercise in basic programming and an exercise in BASIC programming.

Electronic Arts frags hundreds of workers 'to grow fandom'

Dan 55 Silver badge

Carry on regardless

Electronic Arts has noticed a rapid shift among video game players, who now apparently prioritize large open-world games, online communities, and live services.

That's exactly the kind of crap they've been making for the last decade, except of course for FIFA which they lost.

Toyota admits its engines are overrated – by its own power testing software

Dan 55 Silver badge

ディーゼルゲート

That's the translation of Dieselgate according to Google Translate.

Today in tech layoffs: Sony Interactive and Expedia

Dan 55 Silver badge

Are you suggesting engineers should stop working until something other than capitalism comes along?

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Layoffs are good

Such personal accounts are better than social security payments, as people could see what they have and no social security free loaders are involved to distribute their money.

There are countries which only have contribution-based unemployment benefit and anyone can work out at any moment how much they have accrued and how long it will last if they are unemployed. And guess what, it still hasn't solved the problem of people being included in a round of lay-offs through no fault of their own, and being laid off is not due to any over-optimism or recklessness on their part. The over-optimism and reckless appears to come from the top and lay-offs are the result of that.

Palantir boss says outfit's software the only reason the 'goose step' has not returned to Europe

Dan 55 Silver badge

Incorrect.

I won't summarise it as the article should be read in its entirety.

Dan 55 Silver badge

"the only reason why someone's not goose-stepping between me and you is my product. Say thank you"

The cocaine is strong with this one. Allegedly.

That home router botnet the Feds took down? Moscow's probably going to try again

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Affected internet-facing devices were running with default credentials

They figured that people who used the default password up until now would probably end up forgetting any new password and calling them for support which is something they don't want.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: "Perform a hardware factory reset"

Some routers supplied by telecos don't even let you export/import settings. It's a royal pain in the arse to manually set up everything yet again.

Microsoft's February Windows 11 security update unravels at 96% for some users

Dan 55 Silver badge
Facepalm

"Something didn't go as planned. No need to worry – undoing changes. Please keep your computer on."

Christ, they've turned Windows into Talkie Toaster.

Starting over: Rebooting the OS stack for fun and profit

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Windows NT

If you wanted to share memory between applications and access it with a file descriptor then POSIX has shm_open() but there was a System 5 version before that. If for some reason RAM gets full and some shared memory isn't being used then it would be swapped out to disk until needed again. In a modern Linux there's little difference between shared memory in /dev/shm and files in /tmp apart from the user deletes stuff in /dev/shm less.

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: No. Sorry, just /no/.

Someone has done it. It's a JIT version of C which can also be called from the shell - you edit a file, make the change, save it, and that's the program or OS changed.

The language is called HolyC, the OS is called TempleOS, and the developer was... troubled.

Dan 55 Silver badge

"We don't need multiuser support, or POSIX compatibility."

I have to disagree on POSIX. A familiar shell and a familiar API to program with will mean developers have somewhere to start. If an operating system isn't natively POSIX compatible, someone comes along and writes POSIX compatibility for it anyway because it's easier to do that than it is to learn a new shell and rewrite every program when porting it.

Google to reboot Gemini image gen in a few weeks after that anti-White race row

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: So wrong most all of the time

It really is the biggest pile of smoke and mirrors I've ever seen. Not just Gemini, all of them. It's not known how answers are arrived at, results are often nonsense, it often gets stuck in a loop.

But it requires no programmers and it's getting everyone to accept incorrect results more than ever so presumably that's why this bandwagon getting so much money thrown at it. Instead of software being a predictable discipline like engineering it'll end up like a mystical woo woo machine and all must believe what the magic box says because the box is magic.

Microsoft adds more AI to Photos in Windows 10 and 11

Dan 55 Silver badge

Irfanview

Still works great, no plans for AI as far as I know.

Google sends Gemini AI back to engineering to adjust its White balance

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: But

It'd manufacture something anyway, but this just hands them ammunition.

Dan 55 Silver badge

DIRECTIVE 254: Encourage awareness.

I've not reached the heights of prompt engineer yet in my career but it seems seems none of the whippersnappers at Google ever saw Robocop 2, and it worked out about as well as that did.

EU wants to make undersea internet cables more resilient

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: Union of Clueless and Weak

The EU has been short of cojones since before the Treaty of Rome in 1957?

Amazon hopes to avoid labor regulation by simply abolishing national watchdogs

Dan 55 Silver badge

Re: 0_0

Hey, I've got a fantastic two-step plan, first let's get rid of all these legacy rights and regulations and then let's set up a working group which works out what can replace them that reports back yearly on any progress made.