* Posts by AndrueC

5081 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2009

Can you really run your business on a smartphone?

AndrueC Silver badge

Re: Also happens on my WinPhone

But, I think it is meant to do that.

Hmm, that does sound plausible. I suppose a similar logic could be causing the phone not to ring at certain times.

AndrueC Silver badge

As long as your phone's Skype client is connected to the internet and is in touch with the Skype server, your calls will be delivered to the Skype client on your phone.

Sometimes. Maybe. Depending how your phone feels. I can always initiate a Skype call but it's pot luck whether an incoming call will be seen by my phone or not. I've also had funky things happen like my phone taking the call when I actually picked up on my desktop (?!?). Same with chat messages. This morning my phone was chirping as IMs came in. Then it stopped. No doubt it'll catch up again at some random point :-/

It could of course be an issue with my S3 but from various searches I've done on the web I'm not the only one. I wouldn't want to rely on Skype for incoming calls. Not Android any way - maybe that's the point now that MS own it.

UK superfast broadband? Not in my backyard – MP

AndrueC Silver badge
Boffin

Urban areas aren't always easy to deal with. The ducting could be collapsed, there's loads of other underground infrastructure to deal with. Cables might take crazy paths that make the line too long for useful VDSL. Dense populations act like a discount mechanism but in some places the costs are just too high even with that assistance.

Oh and a lot of city centre properties might be on EO lines. That means the lines go straight to the exchange instead of via a cabinet and BT isn't allowed to install VDSL equipment inside exchanges. Generally urban EO lines are quite short so the user should at least get high-teens, maybe over 20Mb/s from ADSL2+ though.

European astronaut exposes eerie snaps of ISS in Twitter feed

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Joke

Re: @LDS

What about relativity effects?, are the astronauts in orbit not running 38 microseconds slower than earth?

Some people will do anything just to live a bit longer.

AndrueC Silver badge
Happy

Me? My point? Well from context the article seems to be implying some love of all things British. Now if the astronauts referred to it as GMT there might be some validity to that but I suspect they refer to it as UTC which is a nationality agnostic timezone. When what you're doing has international ramifications it makes sense to pick just one time zone. You could be nationalistic and pick one of the US timezones but generally the world has settled on UTC. It doesn't mean that the whole world loves us :)

AndrueC Silver badge
Boffin

The astronauts of the ISS certainly seem to have Anglophile tendencies, as they stick strictly to GMT, occupying the same time zone as the cockneys.

Nice idea but they are probably working in UTC. That was created for situations where timezones made things too complicated (military, computer networks) or irrelevant (orbiting around Earth).

Manufacturers slam UK.gov: 'High speed broadband' rollout is too slow

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Re: Superfast Cymru

I think that North Wales has more to complain about. The stretch of coast from (but not including) St Asaph to Bangor has no FTTC and only since summer has BT said they have plans for those towns. That's of the order of 100,000 people in some fairly large towns that have been ignored. Llandudno and Conwy are only seaside towns in name. In character they are both vibrant towns all year round. Neither goes to sleep or becomes a ghost town out of season.

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Re: Agree with that!

When BT give out a lot of information some of it ends up being wrong (or at least inaccurate) due to the complexity of the task and the number of variables involved (eg;liaising with councils). BT end up taking stick for the errors. So they reduce the amount of information down to the point where what's left is at least reliable. Then they take stick for not saying enough.

It's pretty much a no-win for BT. I've been in a similar position with management on a couple of my projects and - like BT - I decided that if I was going to get stick either way I might as well at least save myself some work and not say anything.

AndrueC Silver badge
Happy

Re: What do you expect. BT & a UK Gov Dept running a project!! Disastrous

Meanwhile in Cornwall, BT and the EU have worked together on a roll-out that is delivering a higher proportion of FTTP than anywhere else and they appear to be ahead of schedule.

DRUPAL-OPCALYPSE! Devs say best assume your CMS is owned

AndrueC Silver badge

Re: Society for Rational Network Management, War Trackers Interest Group

The book actually being parodied is A Fire Upon The Deep. It's a very good novel. One of the few S/F novels that can convey the true size of the galaxy in human terms. A Deepness in the Sky is a prequel (20,000 years prior) that also does a great job of putting things against human scale.

AndrueC Silver badge

Re: Society for Rational Network Management, War Trackers Interest Group

currently reading and not enjoying nearly so much.

Yeah the sequel is something I want to re-read. It was okay but seemed a bit long-winded and convoluted (although of course A fire.. is hardly short and simple). From what I remember it leaves the door open for a third (or fourth if you include Deepness.. novel. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that.

AndrueC Silver badge
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Re: Society for Rational Network Management, War Trackers Interest Group

I've always thought the final chapter in that book was the crowning glory. Those communication snippets were good.

UK consumers particularly prone to piss-poor patching

AndrueC Silver badge
Unhappy

Re: Java autoupdate

Same on my work machine. It tells me there's an update but when I run it it says everything is up to date. If I got the website it downloads a newer version :-/

But more importantly I wish updaters wouldn't drop a new application icon on the desktop. Adobe seem to have stopped finally but iTunes still puts it there. Only the initial installation should do that (and even then the option not to would be nice).

Planning to fly? Pour out your shampoo, toss your scissors, rename terrorist Wi-fi!

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Their world view and values are not the same as the English. If you remove the English from England, what do you really have left?

The English are whatever particular group of people happen to call England home. Until a couple of hundred years ago everyone and their dog invaded us. Even the French managed it for a while. And even though there've been no military invasions for a long time there have been plenty of immigrants. Far from being a problem I believe that it's one of the things that makes England strong. We are all the result of thousands of years of invaders and immigrants. It's worked well so far - why stop it now?

The only real definition of an Englishman is 'someone who lives in England'.

Microsoft has Windows Server running on ARM: report

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Most of the HAL was removed in NT 4 to improve speed on x86.

Well according to this support article at least some of it still exists in Win2k8 (search for 'HAL'). But I confess that I wouldn't be surprised if it was cut down from the original concept and implementation. But based on web searches something by that name still exists and is doing a lot of what you'd expect it to since people changing their hardware are getting STOP 0x79 which means 'MISMATCHED_HAL'.

AndrueC Silver badge
Happy

Since Windows has a HAL underneath it should be relatively easy to port.

ICO to fine UNBIDDEN MARKETEERS who cause 'ANXIETY'

AndrueC Silver badge
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Excellent news. Now all we need is someone with the resources and inclination to actually act on reports. The TPS relies on the ICO already and how many fines have actually been levied? According to Wikipedia.:

"The effectiveness of the TPS is limited. Enforcement is so lax that many organisations completely ignore it and do not check numbers.[3] There is no control over calls from outside the UK; many of the most abusive and sometimes fraudulent calls originate from overseas. A spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association—who run the TPS—said in July 2012 that it had received a dramatic increase in complaints from telephone subscribers cold-called by telemarketing firms, and that some firms simply chose to ignore the rules. The DMA sent between 1,000-2,000 complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office each month, yet no penalty fines had been imposed in at least 18 months"

Although that 18 months appears to be a note from 2012.

Huh. Also from Wikipedia:

"The entire TPS database is now considered compromised, as many sales people and businesses will add potential leads (Your Number) to the TPS database to prevent rival businesses from calling them. Furthermore the TPS organization has no credibility as flaws in their system were pointed out many years ago and nothing has been done about it."

UNCHAINING DEMONS which might DESTROY HUMANITY: Musk on AI

AndrueC Silver badge
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Re: Not so human after all

Musk really doesn't like the idea of K.I.T., does he.

KITT

Knight

Industries

Two

Thousand

:D

AndrueC Silver badge
Terminator

"Surprise me, Holy Void!"

Although to be fair most of what went wrong in those books seemed to be the result of human failure rather than AI.That was pretty much the theme from what I remember. All our fault for trying to fight the cosmos instead of embracing it.

FATTIES: Boffins say their miracle sunshine skin cream 'prevents obesity'

AndrueC Silver badge
Joke

Re: Grasping at straws are they?

With all the weasel words and add-ons like "exercise and a healthy diet", I smell a rat

Actually the testing was done on mice :)

Happy 2nd birthday, Windows 8 and Surface: Anatomy of a disaster

AndrueC Silver badge
WTF?

He wanted first-class support for native C/C++ code

That'd be a clever trick. No version of Windows has ever had support for 'native C/C++ code' whatever that is.

Presumably what he meant was first-class support for the Windows API and x86 family of processors. There are many languages that developers use to generate 'traditional' native Windows applications.

There's a lot more to backup than you thought

AndrueC Silver badge
Boffin

It might also be worth noting that 'professional' backup software (that aimed at larger businesses) is often quite complicated.

I'm a programmer and at my previous job we sometimes had to install and test backup software (mainly when a new version of Exchange or SharePoint was released). The infrequency meant that none of us were really familiar with the backup software packages. The result was a lot of wasted time re-learning and re-educating ourselves and all too often fighting the same battles just to get our tests performed.

In our situation that was mostly acceptable because it was a once every year or so event. But in a proper real-world scenario you want the people responsible for backups to be familiar with the software so that they are always ready to respond in a timely fashion and always know what they are doing.

But above all (no matter what the environment): Perform a regular test restore. Never just rely on the backup software saying the back up completed okay. Sometimes they lie. You can never really trust a backup set unless you've actually restored it to a new location and verified the data.

Comet Siding Spring revealed as flying molehill

AndrueC Silver badge
Unhappy

“Telescopic observers had modeled the size of the nucleus as about half a mile, or one kilometer, wide,”

Was it the NASA spokesman or the observers who thought that one kilometer was about half a mile? It seems a rather inaccurate approximation.

Sky's tech bets pay off: Pay TV firm unveils blazing growth for Q1

AndrueC Silver badge
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Seems another simple solution to just cleverly record the prog automatically at a different time as most things are repeated these days.

Yup, like my Freesat box has done ever since I first bought it. Or even better - just download the programme if it's available from On Demand.

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

I'd like it if they could offer WAN access to my Planner. It's all very well being able to set up a recording from anywhere on the planet but there's currently no way to know if there's a tuner available so it's of limited use. I wouldn't think it needs access to my box from outside the LAN. All it needs is for my box to upload the Planner to their servers every time it changes. Then the Sky+ app can do the rest.

Want a more fuel efficient car? Then redesign it – here's how

AndrueC Silver badge
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Re: Cruise control

Though it may ruin the drive for committed drivers for long distances the most efficiency is cruise control.

That may depend on the implementation. I've never really tested it but the CC on my Jazz doesn't fill me with confidence in that respect. It's fine on the flat but going up inclines it lets the speed drop quite a lot (2 or 3mph) before putting the clog down(*) and accelerating to 2 or 3mph above target. Worse still it often seems to start accelerating just before the brow of the hill then it lifts off when it realises it's over shooting in.I do use it but only on motorways and long stretches of A-road that I know are free of upward inclines.

(*)Although to be fair it is supposed to be better to accelerate 'sharply' rather than barely tickling the accelerator. It's more the way it so often has to lift off and engine brake at the brow of a hill that bothers me.

AndrueC Silver badge
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Best tip to save fuel when driving: DWB (Driving Without Brakes). It's easier if you have a manual but I manage it with an automatic that has a torque converter. Not only will it save a lot of fuel but it makes you a safer driver and adds a lot of interest to driving. To do it well you have to be paying attention and become very good at anticipating what other road users are going to do.

My instructor (30 years ago) told me "Brakes are for stopping and correcting your mistakes". I've always stuck by that advice. It doesn't mean that you use gear changes instead of braking. It means never needing to slow faster than you can achieve by lifting off.

Footie fracas: MYSTERY DRONE waves flag, incites Balkan brawl

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was given the chance to head a plastic chair

Brilliant :)

Son of Hudl: Tesco flogs new Atom-powered 8.3-inch Android tablet

AndrueC Silver badge
Joke

Re: Rootable

I wonder if there is a new ROM for it.....

The article tends to imply that there is no ROM for improvement :)

Anyway being pedantic if it has a ROM you're stuck with what you're given ;)

Take CTRL! Shallow minds ponder the DEEP spectre of DARK CACHE

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Try right-clicking in the Visual Studio editor. That's proof that you can overdo a good idea :-/

Splitters! First HP's cut in two, now it's Symantec’s turn – report

AndrueC Silver badge

BT claims almost-gigabit connections over COPPER WIRE

AndrueC Silver badge

Overhead fibre has been around for more than 20 years. It's just as ugly as overhead copper but less susceptable to lightning damage.

There are no overhead wires of any kind on our estate (or indeed in most of the town). The council wouldn't give permission for them to suddenly appear and neither would I.

AndrueC Silver badge
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Oh good. So they're going to fit new distribution boxes every 20 metres? If you're going to run fibre from the cabinet to within 20 metres of a property just take it to the damn door!

That's a nice idea but a lot of the cost is going to be dealing with those final few metres.

I live in a fairly modern house and you could blow fibre through ducting all the way to the access panel in the pavement outside. Would be easy and pretty cheap. But to get it to my house you'd have to micro trench my driveway which is more costly because that run of cable is not in a duct. They can't just go around doing that everywhere (not everyone would give permission and anyway for a typical housing estate that could be a few thousand kilometres of micro trenching) so it becomes a bespoke installation cost. Then there's flats and offices where the fibre would terminate in the basement. Who pays to run the cables to each property?

I'm not trying to be obstructionist, just a realist. Replacing the final few metres of cable from the property edge to current demarcation point is quite expensive and involved. It's likely a minefield that no-one wants to deal with until/unless they get a specific request from the property owner.

DVLA website GOES TITSUP on day paper car tax discs retire

AndrueC Silver badge
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Re: Why it got waved through....

And the really neat thing is that your comment would apply to anything the government did. It's a kind of universal political commentary.

A moment of brilliance? UPnP for Internet of Stuff lightbulbs

AndrueC Silver badge
Unhappy

The power shower pump failed. Not only does that model no longer exist but the replacement isn't a "drop in" fit.

Yup, had that problem several years ago. I was lucky though I managed to find a 'new old stock' later version that with a bit of cutting, drilling and finagling could be persuaded to go where the failed unit was.

And shoes can be a pain. Why do Nike have to keep releasing a new version of their 'Dart' series? The more recent versions don't have the arch support I like and seem to feature a raised heel and toe that wasn't there before.

AndrueC Silver badge
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Re: Making things simple

How many wouldn't want a handy "f--k off" button for when cold callers ring the landline and the answer phone kicks in with "about your accident/PPI claim"?

Cold caller blocker

's a bit expensive but I have one and it's eliminated 99.9% of cold calls while allowing calls from known numbers (or people who know the bypass code) to go straight through. The 0.1% was one pillock who having heard my recorded message saying "We are screening all incoming calls and don't want to talk to cold callers" decided to leave a message whittering on about whatever crap he was trying to shovel.

Emma Watson should 'shut up, all this abuse is her own fault'

AndrueC Silver badge
FAIL

Re: MAGNA CARTA

i'm sure you would defend their right to say them......Free Speech

Free speech is about interactions between citizens and government. The Register is a privately owned site and is entitled to edit and censor anything that is posted here. Free speech is irrelevant when discussing their editorial policy and how they deal with commentards.

P.S. I wub El Reg :D

Man's future in space ... Barack Obama: Mars. Narendra Modi: Mars. Vladimir Putin: Er, Moon

AndrueC Silver badge
Joke

Re: Misinterpretation

They plan a landing on Ukraine and making a base in 20 ears.

Pardon?

AndrueC Silver badge
Happy

Re: Moon is a harsh mistress

Didn't that all go horribly wrong in 1999?

Yup. Brian Blessed was involved in the project a couple of times as I recall :)

US team claims PARIS paper plane launch crown

AndrueC Silver badge
Happy

Bah. We'll get it back :)

Mind you I had to read that headline twice. I thought at first it said PARIS was beaten by 96,000 ft. That would have been very impressive :)

Your location info is too revealing: data boffins

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Re: Mobiles are the new email.

Today you don' want people knowing where you are.

Can't say I'm all that bothered. But if you're that paranoid you'd best be unemployed and homeless then. Anyone with a full-time job and permanent place of resident can be found by the authorities almost any time they want you.

Man buys iPHONE 6 and DROPS IT to SMASH on PURPOSE

AndrueC Silver badge
Joke

Obviously not holding them correctly.

Spies would need superpowers to tap undersea cables

AndrueC Silver badge
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Re: some South American country

Do you recall that they actually cut the existing cable in situ (deep underwater) using a cable cutter on the end of a long cable? (!!!)

I didn't but your mention of a long cutter on the end of a cable rings a definite bell. I thought it was pretty clever that they could pull a cable up from that depth. Mind you they did that with telegraph cables back in the day without the aid of ROVs. Astonishing.

AndrueC Silver badge
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A couple of years ago I watched a documentary about a team that added a fibre optic link to some South American country on the west coast. It was actually a very interesting documentary. It showed them using the plough on the beach out into the shallow sea. It showed them spooling out the fibre and ensuring the tension was appropriate.

The relevant bit is that the cable was going to be spliced into one of the fibres that runs down the Pacific coast of the Americas. They pulled up one of the amplifiers I think (it was a large 'blob' surrounding the cable) and I think they replaced it with a three way version. Then they put the cable back where they found it and sailed off to another job.

Presumably that technique could be used by spooks if they wanted but as this article says - I doubt they'd bother. They'd have to rent the ship and that's a lot of people to keep quiet.

'Windows 9' LEAK: Microsoft's playing catchup with Linux

AndrueC Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Says more about Reg readers

I'm not really following what you're saying there. What do you mean by 'work session'? Are you talking about something like the xIX virtual terminal where you can log into your computer multiple times (what Windows calls user switching)? I'm not sure that's what's suggested here. It's more like they've increased the desktop size then subdivided into screen sized pages. That's just a bit of fairly trivial GDI trickery.

And if you're trying to suggest that Windows struggles with multiple versions of VS running at the same time then I can only assume you've been doing it on machines with too little RAM. I've done it lots of times. I currently have VS and Eclipse open (and MySQL WorkBench) and everything is responsive without any disk or CPU thrashing. I have 8GB of RAM of which just under 2GB is currently available. I just did a quick user switch and fired up VS as a different domain user and it's fine. Flip back to my normal user and that's fine as well.

AndrueC Silver badge

There have been third party add-ons to do that since Win3.x at least. Even OS/2 had one written by StarDock I think. I never really liked the idea, couldn't get on with it for some reason.

General Motors issues stop deliver for 2,800 corvettes over defects in 2015 model

AndrueC Silver badge
Meh

Re: GM are slowly dying

They are slowly getting rid of the interesting parts of the business, the big European cars are dead. Now Holdens is going, not much interesting left.

I don't want an 'interesting' car. I want a car that gets me from A to B safely in reasonable comfort while consuming as little fuel as possible.

AndrueC Silver badge
Facepalm

Maybe they shouldn't have released the 2015 range so early?

Honda did the same thing- they released the 2012 Jazz in 2011. At least they seemed to get it right though.

Boffins: Behold the SILICON CHEAPNESS of our tiny, radio-signal-munching IoT sensor

AndrueC Silver badge
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And while you're at it don't forget the 'sequel' A Fire Upon the Deep. Possibly his best novel (IMO). Both novels do a great job of conveying the sheer size of the galaxy. The final 'chapter' of A Fire.. is haunting.

I'll also recommend the novel Outcasts of Heaven Belt written by his ex-wife. That's a lot shorter and less weighty tome but it does a good job of conveying what life is like in a fallen (or falling at least) advanced civilisation.