* Posts by Steve Davies 3

7136 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

Cortana threatens to blow away ESC key

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
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Cortana ...

Go and delete yourself.

I'm sorry Dave I can't do that.

IMHO, this is another example of Microsoft fiddling while their empire burns all around them. (see icon)

This tool might be useful on a phone (at least that's what the adverts tell us) but on a desktop? WTF?

At least Apple haven't unleased Siri to the Mac users yet (AFAIK). now that would result in a lot of Fanboi gnashing of teeth and a hundred blog posts about ho to remove it.

Why is that idiot Osbo continuing with austerity when we know it doesn't work?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

all you lefties and champagne socialists should...

Go and sign up to vote in the forthcoming Leaderership election for the Labour Party.

If only cost you the price of a Mocca Latter (£3.00) to get a vote in the election.

Then you cann elect the leader you want to fight the Tories in 2020.

My I humbly suggest Mr Corbyn as a viable candidate because he is well left of Centre.

Jurassic World: All the meaty ingredients for a summer blockbuster

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

Wot!

no middle aged Brit thespian as the 'bad guy'/mad scientist ?

Hollywood casting must be getting senile.

Doomed to be a failure (sss Icon)

Entertaining prospect: Amazon Fire TV Stick

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: I got one...

Watch out with Amazon. They'll try to sting you UK VAT even if you are physically outside the EU and not liable for UK VAT If you use your UK Amazon Account

Apple store staffers probed like 'criminals', lawsuit claims

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Unhappy

Amazon set the precident

They took it all the way to the US Supreme Court and won the right not to pay their drones during bag (and other) searches at the end of the shift.

Apple could just do the right thing and set an example and pay their staff. Ethics and all that....

Nah, thought not.

Belgium trolls France with bonkers new commemorative coin

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Stop annoying Les Frogs

otherwise they'll send a raiding party to rescue Emperor Napolleon III who lies burried in Hampshire and still refuse to return a couple of Henry's who are entombed in France.

Shouty investor Elliot trains guns on Samsung merger

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Or....

Does Elliot also own a stake in Apple?

Just Askin'

The thing about Apple's 'one MORE thing'? It's a streaming music thing

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Anyone know if it supports caching?

It would be nice if it could cache a few days' worth so you could load it up on wifi and have it play when you're on vacation without needing cellular data or when out of cellular range

Errr..... That's why you load up itunes (purchased or ripped from CD) on your iPhone/iPad/iPod with your songs before you go on holiday. Saves a packet in Data charges.

My iPod Touch(circa 2009) was loaded with a good part of my music collection before I went on a 3 week trip to the US. Large parts of the Western states have no mobile coverage let alone half decent 3G let alone 4G services expecially if you are on T-Mobile so an MP3 player is the only way to go.

Frankly I don't see the point of streaming services. First you have to pay for the stream then you have to pay your mobile company for the data it graciously lets you recieve. But hey, each to their own though.

I fully expect one (or more) wags to be along soon predicting that the advent of Apple Music will allow Apple to reduce the amount of storage on their iDevcies thus boosting their H/W profits even more. The 9Gb iPhone is not a thinkg of the past folks!

Remake, remodel: Toshiba Chromebook 2

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Mattte Screen - Yay!

1366x768 resolution? Boo Hiss

What a load of old Tosh. IMHO Glossy screens are only there to make the latest hollywood/bollywood releast look half decent. For some of us the reflections on a gloss screen is a real PITA.

The watts in a box that kept West London's lights on

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

How do you know?

As you seem so sure about this why don't you share some proof to those of us who don't know?

A lot of us work well outside the M25 bubble so would be very interested in finding out more about why UKPN will only do this in London.

Apple preps summer bonking bonanza for Brits

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Chip & Pin in the USA?

Well, if my recent trip to CO, UT, NV, OR, ID, MT, WY, SD, NE and NM is anything to go by the October deadline is going to be missed by a huge margin.

Lets take Gas (sorry Petrol) Pumps as an example.

about 50% didn't require a PIN

0% actually read the Chip so all the data was taken from the magstripe.

One station required an in state ZIP code as well as my card PIN WTF is that all about. Cash to the rescue!

IMHO, outside CA and a few states on the East Coat end Chip & Pin is a futuristic dream.

I saw one Point of sale terminal that accepred 'Square' (UP Museum in Cheyenne) and only one place actually advertising Apple Pay (outside of the Denver Apple Store)

So my point above about C&P is even more evident when it comes to Apple Pay. As most of the phones I saw were of the Fruity variety then I think that Android Pay is going to find it tough in the states mentioned above.

Dre-stic measures: Apple Beats retreat from iTunes brand – report

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Unhappy

iTunes ain't gonna go away (AFAIK)

iTunes will still be the place where you BUY music.

Applie Music is where you pay to borrow (sorry stream) tunes that you can't be half arsed (or too stingy) to buy.

on an aside, I ventured into the Apple Store n Denver, Colorado (not the hamlet in East Anglia) as I had an hour or so to kill. Not a sign of their new toy, the Apple Watch. No bands nowt. Very dissappointed.

Apple do seem to have cocked this launch up yet they have sold millions of the things.

As an aside, a few doors away was a Sprint shop. They were offering a Samsung S6 for $0 down and no phone markup cost over the two year contract. How much are Samsung paying Sprint to make this happen. Are they even making any money on the devices that are sold this way?

Over here it is all Apple devices (at least in this part of the states) yet some states around here don't even warrant an Apple Store. WTF!

Spy: Acres of comedy talent make this smart spook spoof an instant classic

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Thumb Up

Saw it last night

in rural Colorado (Grand Junction). The audience didn't get who Miranda was or that Jason S was sending up most of his past roles very well. However the movie passed the Kermode and Mayo 6 laughts test withing the first 10 mins so the film went down very well although I was laughing at bits the yanks didn't get and vice-versa.

A good romp and it is nice to see a Plus sized heroine take on the Size Zero matchsticks.

Some of the local TV reviews (made typically by size 1 or 2 blondes) were not good but I could tell that the audience enjoyed it.

Holy SSH-it! Microsoft promises secure logins for Windows PowerShell

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pint

Re: Whoa

around 2025 then?....

Just had a couple of excellent beers at the Vernal Brewing Co, Vernal, Utah. The Brontosaurus is especially nice and relevant because we are dealing with the MS Dinosaur here....

It's FREE WINDOWS 10 time: 29 July is D-Day, yells Microsoft

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
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Re: Loving the free upgrade

Time is money.

Time to take the backup

Time to install W10

Time to find out that it is a POS

Time to restore the backup

At $150/hour then yes it does become expensive

Taming the Thames – The place that plugged London's Great Stink

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Kempton Park

don't forget the 1000hp Triple Expansion engines that are sited at Kempton Park (just off the Northern end of the M£ and before you get to Twickers.)

Marvelous bits of engineering like the others mentioned in this article.

Oh hols in the USofA at the moment and had an interesting discussion with a guy from Oregon (we were in Nebraska) last week about turbines and how ther were a british invention and also hydraulic rams and how they could be used. He'd never heard of them but a quick search revealed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_ram

He went away a happy bunny with a new project for the winter. He emailed me yesterday saying that he'd found some plans online and was ordering the material next week.

Score one for old blighty.

Free Windows 10 upgrades from Microsoft will FLATTEN PC sales

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Correct for me.

What I expect the OPmeant was that if the OS behaves differently in a VM than when it is running directly on the silicon then all the testing that currently takes place in VM's will have to go by the wayside.

This frankly sucks bigtime (if this is the case)

It matters little if the copy of Windows that is running in the VM is licensed or not but I am assuming that it is.

Could I faithfully simulate the industrial plant I develop for if W10 works differently in a VM? Maybe I can. If this behaviour extends into the Server world then a good number of devs and sysadmins alike are going to be tearing what little hair they have out by the handful.

Personal comment

I think that MS has to be careful here. Their push to get everything into the cloud may well backfire if this alledged behaviour is true. They really do not want to piss off their corporate cash cows and more than they have done especially after their recent price hikes. I'd bet a pint (see Icon) of T.E.A that for some, the world of Linux could be their next step.

Let's hope that the new found realism that MS seems to have will make this a non-starter.

Google spins up 'FREE, unlimited' cloud photo storage 4 years before ad giant nixes it

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: @ diodesign Nonplussed

Beach in norfolk?

Here have some adverts for thermals and winter clothing.

Visiting Hunstanton in summer was always 'freeze your balls off' whereas Lynn could be positively barmy by comparison.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: privacy...

The Photos app on OSX can be disabled you know. My other half used her noggin (and google) and quickly found how to stop it bursting into life when she inserted an SD card into her MBP. Instead it starts Lightroom if it is not already running.

Never trust a developer who says 'I can fix this in a few minutes'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Trust

I had a problem described to me a few weeks ago.

After a few moments of thought I answered, "I know what the problem is and how to fix it. It will only take me a few minutes BUT, they way they are using the application is not covered in the signed off use cases and there is no specific test for this set of operations. That will take 2-3 weeks to draft, get approved and fully regression test the fix and get the customer to sign off on it".

The PM answered, "But I told the customer thay could have the fix tomorrow. It didn't sound that difficult to me."

The PM is a failed developer which says a lot really.

The moral is that changing one line of code may only take 10 mins but everything else could make the time to fix extend out for weeks if not months.

Jeb Bush: Repeal Obamacare and replace it with APPLE WATCHES

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Don't you mean...

What Religon has done to the world?

Samsung offers $90,000 if you can fix California's epic drought with tech

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

El nino to the rescue?

don't Panic but it is the time for another El Nino event. This usually results in the wrong sort of water falling on California by the bucketload.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32704506

Amazon, eBay and Oracle in dirty power SHAME

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Really?

What about Hydro Leccy?

What about pump stored systems?

What about burning non fossil fuels (like the Drax Power station can) such as wood?

Just saying that renewable energy is not confined to Sun/Solar and Wind?

But it is Apple we are talking about so it is certainly the devil that is powering their DC's at night.

Automation eases the pain of software patching

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: OK... teased us with the scenario and methods..

g) who to scream at when the patch fails to install (I'm looking at you here MS)

h) being able to roll one or more back. What ! It might go wrong?

Gaze upon the desirable Son of Alpha: Samsung Galaxy A5

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: the competition from the more obscure Chinese OEMs is irrelevant

Quote:

With the majority of British buyers looking for monthly contract deals from a high street name they can pronounce, the competition from the more obscure Chinese OEMs is irrelevant.

how about this...

With the majority of British 'lemmintgs/muppets' sadly still looking for monthly contract deals from a high street name they can pronounce (what is Dixons etc called this week), the competition from the more obscure Chinese OEMs is irrelevant.

The reason for not being able to buy the chinese kit at your local emporium is down to cash. There is simply more money to be made from fleecing the illinformed and selling them something that might be crap but makes the retailer more money.

Telstra builds trans-continental land bridge for data

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Living in Perth....

Don't you use any AdBlocking?

Why do you need to load adverts from the other side of the planet?

Haven't they heard of Cloudfare and the like?

If the webdesigners in Oz are so lazy with their coding then they deserve to be blocked.

Microsoft points PowerShell at Penguinistas

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

All MS needs now is for a Distro to include this 'thing'

and the ranting, wailing and teeth gnashing that we have seen over systemd will seem rather insignificant.

All I know is that it ain't gonna get anywhere near my Linux servers. They will remain a MS tool/product free zone.

(Yes, I know that there is some code in the kernel that was submitted by MS)

Spotify springs bloody leak as losses grow to $197m – report

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

No wonder they are afraid of Apple

Their investors will be getting itchy feet.

Apple to buy Spotify? Nah. They don't need them, they bought Beats.

What surprises me is that Spotify didn't see Apple muscling in on their play when the Beats deal went through. They have had enough notice of the as yet unannounced Apple service.

A few too many PHB's in Spotify perhaps?

No, really, that 12.9-inch MaxiPad is totally on the way now

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Joke

Can I do no 1's or is strictly for No 2's?

That's what maxipads are for aren't they?

Traumatised Reg SPB team barely survives movie unwatchablathon

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: American priorities?

And the prize for getting to proper 'Boffin' status?

May I suggest the plastic pocket protector (gotta put all those pens somewhere haven't you?)

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: How about a Nicolas Cage marathon shitfest?

Nick Cage is No 2 on my avoid list just behind Adam Sandler.

Mr Cage (IMHO) can only play one part, himself and not that well.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Anything with Adam Sandler in it

is on my do not watch list. I find him totally unfunny and 1000 on the cringe meter.

However, I would have put 'On golden Pond' as my 3rd movie. I have tried 4 times to watch it. Every time it sends me to sleep.

Ericsson to Apple: Cough up for licences or stop selling iPhones, iPads and Watches

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: It it to do with the selling price I bet

FRAND means that you can't charge one company double or tripple what you charge another for the same thing.

If a FRAND Patent holder decides that their Licensee can pay a whole lot more because their use of their patent is bringing home lots of $$$$ then the Licensee is right to say nope. That is what the F (FAIR) stands for.

At the moment we don't know (and may never know) what the sticking points of the negociations were in this case. We shall just have to wait while the shysters (aka Lawyers) on both sides get in the ring and try to beat the hell out of the other side.

Also, it would not be unknown for a patent holder to jack up the license fees on a patent that is about to expire.

It is also interesting that ther case is here in the EU and not in East Texas. It sounds to me that they really don''t want victory in court but a settlement.

A world of conferences beckons for the Apple sysadmin

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Eh?

don't Apple devices 'Just work'? Why do they need administering? Surely they are perfection already?

Would you trust your DNA with APPLE? HealthKit lined up as genome data trafficker

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: The only DNA of mine

Then it's off to Chokey for you then.

Your DNA can be analysed and extracted even from the ashes (according to C.S.I....) and the simple act of trying to set fire to the Church of Jobs will ensure that you never see the light of day outside Jail for a very long time.

Sorry, Windows 10 early adopters: Microsoft Edge WON'T block ads at launch

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Answer: The hosts file.

and just how are the majority of windows users going to find it let alone know how to change it properly?

Will they even know what IP's/URL's to alias to 127.0.0.1 in the first place?

The hosts file is fine for us experts/geeks/etc but for the average Wayne or Sharon? forget it.

Personally, this Browser is a non starter apart from the one use which is to act as a downloader for other browsers that can block Adverts.

Oculus Rift VR bucket will be seen on noggins near you in 2016

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Look on the bright side

You won't see people walking down the street wearing one

You hope you won't see people walking down the street wearing one. Everyone else will be ROFL'ing.

There fixed it for you.

DEFCON 23 to host Internet of Things slaughterfest

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Fancy Bosch Oven

I was considering getting a bosch Oven last year. The John Lewis salesman said that a lot of customers were returning them. He didn't go into the reasons. The clocks might be the reason why.

In the end I went for a J-L own brand. Even setting the clock on that is a bit of PITA. Sometimes the UI designers (yeah right) for this type of device need to be taken outside and given a good kicking.

Apple Watch fanbois suffer PAINFUL RASH after sweaty wristjob action

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
FAIL

They arer Wearing it wrong

or

"If someone can make it go wrong then they will"

and the US version

"If someone can make it go wrong then they will and sue the makers to cover up their own stupidity."

Microsoft enlists fat-piper Equinix to pump Office 365

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Too much Azure?

Azure this,

Azure that.

It seems to me that the 'Azure' brand is being attached to far too many things of dubious benefit.

Too much Blue methinks.

How long before MS becomes shirt sponsor at Chelsea or will the fat lady carry on singing the blues?

Bridge, ship 'n' tunnel – the Brunels' hidden Thames trip

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Don't Forget....

Other engineering feats designed by Mr Brunel

1) the GWR bridge over the thames at Maidenhead. Many respected engineers thought that it would fall down

2) Box Tunnel on the GWR. The sun is reported to rise and shine through the tunnel on Brunel's Birthday.

3) The GWR itself. Railway Locos at the time (circa 1840) were not very powerful. The London & Birmingham Railway had to haul its trains up the incline when leaving Euston. Brunel engineered the GWR to have very little in the way of gradients. That and the large boilers that were possible with the broad gauge (7ft 1/4in) allowed the GWR to run trains at speeds that other railways could only dream about.

IMHO, Brunel was one of, if not the greatest Enginner in thr world. Railways, Bridges, Tunnels and even Ships. A true genius.

Hyperconverged Infrastructure 101: A short primer about HCI

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

In plain (jargon and buzzword) english please?

Is it

1) Some gobbledegook cobbled up by a bunch of drinken marketing bods at some conference in Vegas?

2) Resillient Storage for Clouds (buzzword heaven)

3) something else entirely.

That's probably five years and a dozen pieces of buzzword bingo from now, but it's quite clear on the horizon.

From where I sit, the horizon is 'Obscured by Clouds' and these words come to mind

And no one showed us to the land

And no one knows the where's or why's

But something stirs and something tries

And starts to climb towards the light

Good luck displacing Windows 7, Microsoft, it's still growing

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Windows 7 is popular because it is easy to pirate

You can download an ISO for Windows Server 2012** with a 6 month trial license.

Far longer than the lifespan of a Mayfly.

** Add something like StartMenu (+ QuickLaunch) and it is usable.

Intellectual property laws in China, India are flawed, claims US govt without irony

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

don't forget all those

lovely H1B Visa's and all the IP that those with one get access to.

The US, famous for closing the stable door after the horse has disappeared over the Horizon.

US == UnServiceable

USA== UnServiceable Again

Why should I learn by ORAL tradition? Where's the DOCUMENTATION?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Happy

Re: The only thing better than a weird CMS ...

Open Source is all well and good (I use it a lot myself). However you do run the risk of a good proportion of the developers having a big tiff over some bit of trivial functionality and the best ones throwing their toys out of that particular pram and moving onto the next 'best thing since sliced bread'.

Yes you have the sources.

What do you mean you have not downloaded them and put them into local escrow?.....

What do you mean that the product web site has gone?

So by all means use Open Source but be aware of the risks associated with it and take steps to mitigate them especially if it is some widget that your whole IT build procedure depends upon.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Coat

Re: Training? Chance would be a fine thing.

Training during paid employment? What's that?

Oh yes, I did have some once circa, 1992 or thereabouts.

Us Grumpy's don't get training. Our final role is to GIVE training to young upstarts who after reading their 'Idiots guide to XXXXX' think that they know all about XXXXX.

Then we get our P45's and are put out to grass.

A few months later we are back because our replacments screwed up the implementation of XXXXX.

The pay is better this time around.

Anyone would think that we gave the upstarts 'Duff Gen' in the first place.... (Honest guv, we didn't)

Coat because the new management are looking for more IT cost reductions. Time to think about getting my Leathers out and heading for the IOM and the TT.

New Windows 10 will STAGGER to its feet, says Microsoft OS veep

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Telling words

We need them to think that we’re trying to build a product that is for them

Do they think we were born yesterday?

They know full well what W7 users want. Thousands of forum posts since W8 was released has told them loud and clear.

Will they listen? That is the question.

The releases so far have (IMHO) been very mixed. More of a case of 'now you see it, now you don't'

ZuckerBorg assimilates Microsoft boffins into potentially world-threatening FART

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pint

Re: "FART"? really?

Nah, they are all just a bunch of boring old FARTS.

Time for a pint or two.

iOS and Android apps on Windows 10: How is this supposed to work?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Develop for iOS without needing a Mac?

Perhaps this might do the job?

http://www.embarcadero.com/products/rad-studio/whats-new

Burger me! Microsoft's chainsaw rampage through sacred cow herd

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Interesting times.

Had to do a 'collect' from Dixons-PC-World-Whateveritiscalledtoday today. While the staff struggled to find the order I had a wander around. The Apple counter was busy but Surface display was blowing tumbleweed. None of the devices were actually turned on.

After deciding that I really didn't want to spend more than a grand on a 4K TV with crappy colour rendition I collected the order and left.