* Posts by Steve Davies 3

7136 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

'Your computer has a virus' cold call con artists on the rise – Microsoft

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Number Witheld.

Most of the time I get calls from 'Microsoft Support', the number is withheld.

I'd love to put a call blocker on my line but most of the NHS has moved to calling with 'Number withheld' all in the interests of patient security.

I learned a few choice swear words in Hindi that question the callers parenthood for these people calling from MS.

Other calls get answered with 'what are you trying to sell me?' That gets rid of most of them.

UK consumer help bloke Martin Lewis is suing Facebook over fake ads

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: seeing his face on an advert

Perhaps you had a little too much Old Peculiar over the weekend?

IMHO, Martin Lewis is a pretty good guy especially when compared to many other people we have to deal with on a daily basis. At least he tries to make a difference for us mere mortals.

Sysadmin unplugged wrong server, ran away, hoped nobody noticed

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: PDP-8 programming

If you are still inclined that way, you can induldge in a bit of PDP-8 development.

I have one of these on my desk at the moment.

http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8

PDP-11 versions are on the way.

Chinese web giant finds Windows zero-day, stays schtum on specifics

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Once Edge is finished, I'll give it another whirl.

That will be 2030 then?

Will MS still be relevant then?

Time to ditch the front door key? Nest's new wireless smart lock is surprisingly convenient

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Kids carrying the shopping

Good idea in principle but.

Sadly No 1 Child is in New Zealand and No 2 Child is in Vancouver.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

did you notify your Home Insurance Provider?

If you didn't then you should not be surprised to hear them say

"Sorry, you are not covered."

I'd be very surprised if this lock meets the relevant standards for use in UK properties. That is more often than not a requirement for getting insurance.

Oh, and don't forget to wipe down the keypad after use because thieves can easily see what numbers are used. Far fewer combinations to try then even if they just get one or two numbers.

anyway, as this uses Iot and even worse Google's IoT then what happens when Google fail to take over the market in door locks and decide to kill the whole kit and caboodle? It would not be the first time they have killed a product line after 1-2 years.

You are left high and dry.

sorry, not going to bite. Keep on trying though. IT makes for nice reading at the weekend.

Apple's magical quality engineering strikes again: You may want to hold off that macOS High Sierra update...

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: 32bit apps

The only remaining 32bit apps on my two MacBooks (2012 and 2015) are from Drobo and Adobe neither of whom seem remotely interested in moving to 64bit apps.

Yes, I am running 10.13.4

Two's company, Three's unbowed: You Brits will pay more for MMS snaps

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Phone usage outside Europe

The costs are and always have been a bit silly.

That's why there are dual sim phones.

In most places (India excepted) it is easy to get a local SIM.

Even Apple is reported to be working on a Dual Sim iPhone.

There is no perceived IT generation gap: Young people really are thick

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Headmaster

Yo Dabbsy

Hey man, I was with you until...

It’s only as I stroll back to the train station,

We ain't in 'merica are we bro?

Sorry, my faux youth mask slipped again.

Now, now Mr Dabbs, anyone over the age of 40 knows that is it a Railway Station not a train station. Next you will be complaining about your train (which runs on a Railway gettit?) was due to leave from Track 12 and instead left from Track 12a (No track 13 in 'merica you understand) rather than using the correct term, Platform.

now write 500 times...

Passenger Trains run on Railways and stop at Railway Stations.

When you are done, you can go home for the weekend.

:) :) :) :wink:

Facebook previews GDPR privacy tools and, yep, it's the same old BS

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: has Facebook managed to connect-the-dots with its other data-sets!

Don't you mean 'Big Brother' (is watching you). That's what Facebook has become (along with Google and Amazon)

Next, Zuck will propose changing the 12hr clock used in the US to a 13hour one.

Amazon and Google (via their so called home assistants) are just as bad.

Get off Facebook and all the other clearly antisocial snooping networks and take your Echo etc to recycling.

Kick them out of your homes now. BB will have a harder time watching you.

Elon Musk's latest Tesla Model 3 delivery promise: 6,000... a week

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Replacing the batteries.

For most people this won't be an issue.

This report

https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/

Shows that Tesla's can lose around 10% of charge after 160,000 miles. How much power does your Petrol/Diesel engine lose after that sort of distance?

Hardly significant IMHO.

Anyway, by the time most people want to replace their batteries, the price will be less than 50% of what it is now.

OR

you could buy a Renault Zoe and lease the battery... No worries about replacing it then are there?

Chrome 66: Get into the bin, auto-playing vids and Symantec certs!

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

re: Version 66

Don't worry, Version 666 will be released next week.

It's US Tax Day, so of course the IRS's servers have taken a swan dive

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

And naturally, the IRS will fine those who coudn't file on time

That is the way the Tax People work. Everything IS YOUR FAULT and not theirs.

Microsoft has designed an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip. Repeat, an Arm Linux IoT cloud chip

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
FAIL

re: and securely connects to an Azure-hosted backend.

All the better to spy on you then? {1}

Does MS think we are blathering idiots...?

Well with things like this any IoT (Idiots or Turnips) move is IMHO just plain stupid.

{1} I wonder what would happen if my firewall stopped that connection in its tracks? My guess that it would stop functioning very shortly afterwards.

Another IoT answer waiting for the question.

UK spy agency warns Brit telcos to flee from ZTE gear

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Alert

re: Spyware

It is either that or given the UK Newspapers headlines today warning of Russian Hacking (and worse) about to descend on us, GCHQ seems to be worried that the secret sauce keys to ZTE comms kit is in hands of Kremlin Hackers.

Either way, see Icon

The only way is Ethics: UK Lords fret about AI 'moral panic'

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Pint

and in other news...

Wetherspoons is quitting all (anti-)social media platforms.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43781281

Good for them and have a Pint for me. I'll pop into one ASAP and buy it.

New Galaxy un-smartphone can’t go online because Samsung's thought of the children

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Childcatcher

Re: The Sand, the Ocean, and the Damn Phone

not with the phone. That should be disposed of properly. There is enough plastic etc in the sea as it is.

{see Icon}

Congressional group asks FBI boss Wray to explain Apple lawsuit

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Isn't this all rather moot now?

given that PD's all over the USA are apparently forking out the $15 big ones for the device that makes Apple's security efforts rather redundant?

Round 1 - to Apple

Round 2 - to Law Enforcement

Round 3 - ? {well, here's the bell. sit back people and enjoy}

probable outcome?

A bill presented before Congress to force Apple and everyone else to put in backdoors just for US Law Enforcement use.

US LE will have a must luck keeping that secret as Apple does from keeping staff from leaking.

Apple leak: If you leak from Apple, we'll have you arrested, says Apple

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Paris Hilton

Re: Pantone numbers

A company, not Apple btw, was sued over releasing the Pantone numbers for the finish of their device. Apparently, you have to pay Pantone money in order to use them publicly or for commercial purposes.

I just blame the lawyers. There are so many Law grads in the USA now that many have nothing better to do to fend off unemployment.

Paric simply because she needs one (A lawyer that is...) more than most.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Arrested?

This is the USA we are talking about.

In most states, if you nick something worth $1001, you can be sent down for life. In Virginia is it apparently $501.

Fart in Public and that can be a $5000 fine.

Apple's statement is by contrast seems very reserved.

Exposed: Lazy Android mobe makers couldn't care less about security

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Moto E second generation

@alain williams<br>yup, no ROI on keeping us simple fellows happy.

Apart from the customer saying to themselves when it is time for a replacement, "ok, moto provided lots of updates and ***** didn't.. Ok, I'll buy another Moto."

This situation is nothing new. Basically Android phones after 1 or 2 or sometimes 3 years are 'landfill' despite working perfectly. (by landfill, I mean that they are rubbish and should be disposed of correctly).

What it the alternative?

Who sells mobiles and gives not only security updates but OS ones for more than 3 years?

Answers on a rotten fruit core please...

In essence it shows the rather pitiful state of affairs in the devices that most of us use today.

Best thing about a smart toilet? You can take your mobile in without polluting it

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Pugin

Have an upvote. I visited Stawberry Hill house in S.W. London last year. A pure delight.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

nice one Dabbsy

"solve a problem that no-one really has"

That sums up IoT in a nutshell. Can I have a gold star now?

HMRC delays digi tax plans amid Brexit customs woes

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

I hope that HMRC...

have a 'Plan B' and are talking to Kent Police and the DFT.

I think that it will be highly likely that Operation Stack will be in operation all the time after BREXIT.

It is odds on that any IT system implimented will fail miserably for the first 6 months and the suppliers (no doubt working on a T&M basis) struggle to get it working even half decently.

IMHO, Dover will be a port to avoid.

Boring as she goes at Sage? Oh no, no, no! Shares slide as sales slip below forecasts

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Facepalm

Perhaps...?

Sage should use {cough} {cough} "the Sage Cloud" for their accounts after all it is supposed to be the 'bees-knees' for business accounting.

Don't forget to pay the subscription otherwise your accounts will go missing again (sic)

It's April 2018, and we've had to sit on this Windows 10 Spring Creators Update headline for days

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Why the delay MS?

the answer is that it is probably a bigger pile of shite than other updates than previous updates and will probably bork millions more devices and the lawyers have finally seen sense and told them "No. Do not release this [redacted] until we say so."

Ok, so I'm dreaming but MS is just a distant dream to me so directly, I don't care. What I do care about are the ordinary users who will no doubt get well and truly shafted by this update.

The guy doing my bathroom at the moment is tearing what little hair he has left out because the last update stopped him printing invoices and quotes for new work. I'll be going to take a look at it when he's done later today. He's the sort of person that MS screws up not us, the readers of this fine site. We (probably) know enough to sort the issues but the like of him don't.

Never mind, the sales droids at PC-World will see a lot more people after a new computer in the next week or so because their old one no longer works. So there is a bright side... really... honest... (sic)

The true victims of Brexit are poor RuneScape players

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

What a load of old cock

to quote James May

The Pound/Euro exchange rate has really not moved very much for around 20 months.

What we should be ranting on about is all the prices of goods from say MS and Apple (and others) that went up quite sharply after the USD/GBP rate went south after the vote and why they have not revised them since yet the pound seems quite stable above £1/$1.40 level [1] which is pretty close to what it was pre-BREXIT vote.

[1] This is always assuming that there is a world left next week once The Donald gets to play with his new 'smart missiles'. He's like a kid with a new toy at the moment but that is off topic.

C'mon, Zuck... don't make us feel second class. Come talk to us in Europe – EU politicos

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Please come Zuck

Then you can give your sleball to Cambridge University in person. I'm sure they'd love to see you.

So will the MP's. Don't try to lie to them like you did in DC and this time please tell us what Hotel you are staying in. We'd all love to know so that we can avoid it.

Jury to Apple: You owe patent flinger VirnetX half a BEEELLION buckaroos

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

About time that

costs were awarded to the other side in {cough-cough} dubious law suits in the USA when the patents are found to be invalid.

That might very well stop the East Texas Patent Troll lawsuit factory.

If they had filed pretty well anywhere else in the USA then I might have given the suit some credance. But East Texas... come on.

IANAL etc.

Can't view memes on London-Southampton train? It's the worst line for mobile coverage

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Eh?

Other factors included the Waterloo route having a lot of deep tunnels.

There are only a few tunnels BUT there are a lot of deep CUTTINGS on the LSWR Mainline.

Pretty well any Railway Line (note not Train Line...) or Road that runs through a cutting will have signal problems (of the mobile kind) unless there is a mast right beside the cutting.

The Reading-Redhill line has real signal problems to the west of Dorking and south of Crowthorne.

As for the Wage Slaves needing to keep in contact with work while commuting...???? Just say no and use the time to relax and get your head straight either for the work day ahead or looking after the sprogs in the evening (other parental and non parental activities are available). One old boss of mine used to complain about not being able to phone me on my journey to/from the office. As I commuted by Motorcycle he just didn't get it that it was better to arrive safely rather than listen to his [redacted] ramblings.

COPPA load of this FTC complaint: YouTube accused of collecting children's data

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Another 'Platform' gets caught slurping

Surprised that they are slurping stuff they shouldn't? I think not.

Surprised that they got caught? Nah. About time too. After all they give all that 'stuff' out for free. They have to get paid for it somehow. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

What will happen? This is Google. That means nothing. They will get away with a slap on the wrist at the worst. They have far too much on the people that matter.

UK 'wife'-carrying champion named

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Happy

Where's the IT Angle then?

Oh never mind. From the BBC reports it looked like everyone had fun (Apart from the dislocated shoulder that is).

How delightfully non-PC but I'm sure the anti-fun as well as the Hinder & Stop brigade will soon put a stop to it. We can't have the plebs enjoying themselves now can we eh?

Now is there a class for the Over 60's?

Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte creating app to register 3m EU nationals living in Brexit Britain

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: confused

3) Its going to cost 200 to 300 million at least.

There fixed it for you.

Modern life is rubbish – so why not take a trip down memory lane with Windows File Manager?

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Enjoy Windows Explorer?

Endure more like.

Hence the alternatives which are even more important these days given the "Nanny knows best' attitude that eminates from Redmond.

Not that MS is alone in dumbing their tools down.

Finder on MacOS is [redacted] and [redacted]. Thankfully there are alternatives there as well.

Police chief wants citizens to bring 'net oligarchs to heel

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Facebook is only making $4bn a year

So... Sue Google

and when that fails, then there is everyones favourite to file suit against...

(cr)Apple

just because everyone else seems to be suing the crap out of them.

Filing suit against Apple is what is going to MAGA.

/s

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Childcatcher

UK Laws are the problem

Where, if you lose then you may well find that YOU are having to pay the other sides legal fees as well as your own.

In the home of 'sue first (or fire, whichever is appropriate) and ask questions later' this does not apply.

It is much easier for an individual to file suit against a megacorp.

My advice (IANAL) is that before you file suit in the UK, you pay your legal team upfront and then declare yourself bankrupt just in case you lose. If you don't have any assets and that includes your home then you can't be made to pay the other side. Although, one judge in the USA made the losing sides attourneys pay the winning sides costs.

Facebook suspends, investigates CubeYou, another data-harvester

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: It's as if...

Well said but...

90% of the users don't care or are too stupid to realise what the likes of Facebook, Twitter et al are doing with your data (and your life) AND simply won't stop using them like the good addicts they are.

Now we hear that the CA data (all the 89 million or whatever) is in Russia. Good luck FB with trying to get that deleted.

Googlers revolt over AI military tech contract, brainiacs boycott killer robots, and more

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Mushroom

Wonderful!

Google Employees telling Google to stop being Evil!

Well done people.

Hey Google 'C level Execs'. Why don't you take note of what your fellow 'googlers' are saying and go back to 'do no Evil'.

Sadly, they won't listen.

Microsoft Office 365 and Azure Active Directory go TITSUP*

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Alien

Oh Bother! (or worse)

It is all happening one week early. Friday the 13th is next week. Sigh

SOP for Microsoft though. With them, you don't even get what you pay for.

Virgin spaceplane makes maiden rocket-powered flight

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Perhaps?

That will quieten(not silence) the critics if the 'Beardy One' who seem to have been pretty vocal since Space-X started getting its act together and Elon Musk came out with the BFR concept.

Interesting times especially as NASA seems to be fighing for every penny from the Trump Hedegmony. He has clearly forgotten the pride that going to the moon gave the people of the USA in the face of the debacle that was unfolding in Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia.

Blackberry snaps, yakkity-yak Snapchat app brats slapped with patent trap rap

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

Re: Lawyer Bollocks

Lawyers (esp in the USA) are the profession most likely to become Politicians. (here it seems to be that useless PPE degree but that is another story in itself)

Lawyers who become Politicians are beholden to their lawyer bretherin and so will ONLY pass laws that benefit the incomes of Lawyers thus keeping more and more of them in work. Well, that's their grand plan.

The Marx Brothers had it right with their "Shyster, Flywheel & Shyster". Like the song, it was so good, they named it twice.

Microsoft outlines some ground rules to prevent it from nicking your IP

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Companies & Microsoft

It is not only Mobile Tech that they've bled many companies dry before jettisoning them and leaving them to die.

Think back to the days of Dos and Windows 95. One who's name escapes me now sold file compression tools. Didn't MS 'fix' Dos 6.2.2 so that it would not run? {or something like that}

Basically any company that got into 'bed' with MS would be doomed from then on.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Big Brother

Easy

Like books ( Dead Tree things of the past) often had 'Not for Sale or Distribution in the USA' you could put in the copyright section

"Not for copying or any use whatsoever by Microsoft Inc, Redmond, WA, USA. If it is then it is in violation of the DMCA."

Or stuff like that.

'Every little helps'... unless you want email: Tesco to kill free service

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

What's next for Tesco?

closing their Mobile offering?

Samsung won't be happy if they did as all their in-store stores seem to display are Galaxy phones.

2001 set the standard for the next 50 years of hard (and some soft) sci-fi

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Stainless Steel Rat

Have an upvote for that.

What about "Venus on the Halfshell?"

Ducks for cover

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

Re: Still Waiting...

Mine is

Stranger in a Strange Land

{the book I'd take to my Desert Island}

Spring is all about new beginnings, but it could already be lights out for Windows' Fluent Design

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Childcatcher

re: The Microsoft View of the world

Tying Fluent to UWP pretty much ensures zero adoption, but apparently MS have copied Apple's Reality Distortion Field and so their execs can no longer see this.

The view that SatNad and crew have from inside the Redmond Distortion Field (aka Bubble) is so different from the rest of us that to me, it is just getting rather sad and depressing.

The "Nanny Microsoft knows best" attitude that they have really gets peoples backs up. The guy doing my bathroom at the moment is tearing his hair out (what little he has left) because as a sole trader, his life is on his Laptop. The lastest Windows 10 update borked it totally. I spent several hours yesterday rescuing his emails and client data from it (thanks to a Linux USB stick). Today we are going to try to re-install W10 and the plethora of updates and hope for the best.

The sad thing is that this is not the first time this has happened since he was 'persuaded' to buy the thing from PC-World (cue sighs all round) six months ago.

SatNad and co really do need to get out into the real world and see that all this 'Fluent Design' shite is just fiddling while Redmond burns.

Mad March Meltdown! Microsoft's patch for a patch for a patch may need another patch

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Windows giant can't be bothered explaining

Par for the couse then. Will this hole be a bogey or a birdie? I vote for a bogey.

Why a merged Apple OS is one mash-up too far

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

re not such a big deal

It's not as big a deal with such an OS to change the top layer, the UI,

given the difficulties that Canonical trying to make a new Top layer/UI had I tend to thing that it is a bit harder than most people think it is.

As for apple, their two UI's seem to work most of the time. Moving away from Intel is probably no big deal for them given the ARMiness of IOS.

Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
Holmes

Apple could have made a Touch Mac years ago

the technology was all there and readily available.

Yet they didn't... There was obviously money to be made... errrr...? Perhaps not. Sales of the Microsoft Surface and other Windows Touchy/feely devices have not been exactly stellar now have they.

Apple has been hampered in recent years by the failure of Intel to get low power CPU's out when they say they would. Taking the CPU design in-house when their version of ARM CPU's in iDevices already outperform the competition makes sense when you look at Intel and the limitations of the CPU's that Intel make that are suitable for Mac's. 16Gb of ram does not cut in this day and age.

Taking control of the CPU design is the next logical step for them. After all, they are designing their own GPU's these days.

And there is one less link in the supply chain for Ming Cho to spread fluff about. That can't be bad.

Anyway, where is he? He's been silent on this whole move Mac's to ARM thing. Perhaps there really is nothing going on in the supply chain to back up the posts by Bloomberg who in recent times do seem to be rather down on Apple (like the rest of Wall St).