* Posts by Philip Lewis

991 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2009

We gave SQL Server 2012 one year to prove itself: What happened?

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: @diodesign

I was too busy today to write my own diatribe, but the fact of the mater is that SQLServer is pretty piss poor at a lot of things.

SSIS (like DTS before it) is abysmal for anything beyond trivial, and even then it borks often.

To describe the optimizer as severely challenged, is as polite as I get. When you throw partitions into the mix, the optimization results are more often table scans than not. Add a few @vars in the predicate to spice up your life.

And don't start me on statistical drift ... brain dead statistics are a major pain and the optimizer relies on them and some hard coded values in the algorithms targeted at toy databases (which SQLServer still is).

I could go on about broken queries returning wrong data, broken internal structures never repaired, broken data type conversions etc etc.

Time for bed, enough fighting with this for today.

pjl

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: Wrong, wrong,and wrong again

Wrong. I actually DO want to know the highest price paid for an item.

You pass the arrogance test, you think you know something without the necessary information to know it.

Ho hum, don't apply for a job here.

Philip Lewis
FAIL

"not a word about the core DBMS functionality"

My point was that they did not review the database, just the junk that is bolted on. That, IMHO, makes the story as useful as tits on a bull.

Philip Lewis

Testing ....

I have just this week installed Win2012 and SQL2012 on a test machine.

I haven't had time to test anything yet though.

I doubt anything useful will have been added, and I doubt the various known broken things that are known as T-SQL will have been fixed. Nor will there likely be useful things, like an optimizer that understands partitioning correctly.

philip

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Wow, a whole article about SQLServer2012 (a database management system) and not a word about the core DBMS functionality, just a lot of waffle about peripheral stuff that might be useful in some shops but pointless in others.

This article simply reinforces what I have always believed about the SQLServer "experts" pool, and that is, that for the most part they really don't know about the dbms engine or why it is terminally brain dead in vast number of ways, and apparently neither do they care.

philip

Hey, Teflon Ballmer. Look, isn't it time? You know, time to quit?

Philip Lewis
Pint

Re: Balmer is transforming MS

Citation Needed

$10? I used to read $5 regularly. Did the price go up or is their "guesswork inflation" at work.

Honestly, where did you get this number? I think 10*n where n=global android would be a big number. Is it really that big?

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Re: Monkey Dance

For me it was when the Reg noted that he looked like Uncle Fester

Paris: Better looking than Fester for sure!

Philip Lewis
Pint

I took the test and won

When I did the actual coke taste test, I was offerred two small cups. I was with my buddy who was a Pepsi drinker and I am a coke drinker. As luck would have it, the cups we each chose first were our regular brands. I called coke, and he called Pepsi. We were both right and we did not bother with cup number 2.

I cannot recall the exact question we were asked, but I seem to recall it was about differentiation, not preference - but hey, it was a couple of decades ago.

ps: I lived in Atlanta when this was all going down (quite some time after the Coke test)

pps: New Coke was horrid, like Pepsi (which tastes like soap) but worse.

pps: Classic coke isn't as good anymore because they use corn swetener which ruins the tast compared to suger.

ppps: Beer is my preference

IBM gives a cloudy outlook for COBOL

Philip Lewis
Mushroom

Re: Social and COBOL...

SOC7 surely!

'I think you DO do evil, using smoke and mirrors to avoid tax'

Philip Lewis
Thumb Down

Re: Not wanting to cheer on Google, but .........

Hmm, a downvoate:

a) Downvoter doesn't like blondes?

b) Downvoter thinks British politicians are above reproach?

c) Downvoter has a crushon MP Hodge?

d) Other?

Philip Lewis
Stop

Re: "Irish Sales"

Google might be skating on thin ice here, and the taxation regulations apparently in place might already solve this particular issue, were they to be actually applied.

In accounting, the "recognition" of a sale is a fluid term

Philip Lewis
Headmaster

Re: Not wanting to cheer on Google, but .........

It would, IMHO, be a mistake to underestimate the intelligence of Paris Hilton. In fact in any reasonable comparison of PH with any living politician, I suspect PH would win hands down, especially in the pulchritude department.

Climate scientists agree: Humans cause global warming

Philip Lewis
Happy

Re: Lets get this straight

Why on earth would I want to downvote you?

Australia's net filter sneaks into operation through back door

Philip Lewis
Big Brother

IIRC the "act of viewing" certain websites is in fact illegal already.

Soon the thought of viewing them will be illegal.

Windows 8 'sales' barely half as good as Microsoft claims

Philip Lewis
Megaphone

Win7 UI + Win8 OS stack.

During the year of Win8 is coming hype, I tried to find details of the OS changes that were to be included. They were pretty much absent in any detail from the press coverage and from MS themselves.

The UI is not the OS. It is merely one mechanism for interacting with the OS.

I would be perfectly happy with Win8 sporting the Win7 UI. While the Win7 UI is not perfect, it is perfectly usable for anyone familiar with other windowing interfaces for computing.

Developing aggressively demented Win8 *only* versions of programs which form part of the Windows package is the sort of brain dead idea I have come to expect from American management school morons, who for unfathomable reasons seem to think that the "burn all bridges" approach to anything is a viable strategic model.

This will now all come back to haunt MS as they apparently do not even have the option of providing a clean Win7 interface to the the 6.2 OS stack.

This is a shame as it appears at first flush, that Win8 is more efficient & less resource hungry than its predecessor. Win8 is handicapped only by TIFKAM which IMHO should be expunged from the earth's surface at the earliest possible moment.

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: If Windows 8 is a spork

I just installed Classic Start Menu on a WinServer2012 machine. Now I can find stuff.

TIFKAM is pointless on a server at best. I did not install the OS on this machine, but the default pale blue colour scheme (like the new Windows logo) I seem to have is offensive to my sensibilities and in fact functionally useless.

Try viewing the new whizz-bang Task Manager. Look at the CPU monitor and set it to show kernel times (hint, not on the menu any more, so right click the moving graph).

Compare and contrast with the WinSer2008R2 version.

Tell me, in all honesty. This is an improvement?

Philip Lewis
Headmaster

Re: Splayd

Indeed, I remember the adverts as a child.

I personally think that it is correctly a "runcible spoon"

PayPal security boss: OBLITERATE passwords from THE PLANET

Philip Lewis
Pint

What, no XKCD reference?

http://xkcd.com/936/

Ten ancestors of the netbook

Philip Lewis
Megaphone

Re: Psion Series 5

"Nokias idiot CEO classed them as a burning platform they had a higher market share than the current Apple one "

They had a higher market share than EVERYONE ELSE put together!

Philip Lewis
Thumb Up

Psion NetBook

I have one gathering dust on the shelf.

I used it regularly for quite a long time though and was genuinely sad when the limited screen resolution became a web browsing issue.

When Opera dropped development of the browser it pretty much killed the device's future.

It even did WiFi with a buffalo PCMCIA card which was a big plus for me.

I never replaced it, since I never found anything that met the battery life/weight capability criteria.

I did however buy a Medion Akoya (Aka MSI Wind) Netbook which was used massively. It is still my coffee table/guest machine in Hackintosh form. It is to this day the computing device which I genuinely rate as the best value for money I ever spent.

Perhaps I should put the Psion Netbook on eBay?

Does a cloud have to be public, or can it be private?

Philip Lewis
Boffin

Re: of course they believe that

"I think Amazon's archaic design prevents them from doing this and it's easier for them to argue the exact opposite than fix their shit. "

Enter Flexiant. http://www.flexiant.com/flexiant-cloud-orchestrator/

These people think they are going to change the game and together with Telcos, ISPs and whatever seriously dent Amazon's "top of the heap" cloud position.

The quote above might be now put to the test

Nokia shareholder tells CEO Elop he's going to hell

Philip Lewis
WTF?

Re: Android would not have magically saved Nokia

"Nokia was in trouble LONG before Windows Phone or Elop came along."

No, they weren't actually , as any rational reading of their financials and market figures actually shows.

Were NOKIA dysfunctional and less than perfect - hell yes (still are probably) - but in case you have never worked in a mega-corp, this statement is true of them all. What NOKIA were not, was in any sort of objective "trouble"

What NOKIA were, was THE TARGET, and a lot of guns started aiming at them. NOKIA had a longer term plan which had the advantage that it did not leave its users in the lurch and provided an orderly controllable transition path for developers and phone users. Elop killed it and propagated the same myth that you just did. It is just as false now as when Elop gave it credence. The only difference is that when the CEO of a corp burns the entire corporation in writing, it has a knock on effect - in this case plummeting sales and burning of billions of dollars.

Elop didn't have anything personally invested in NOKIA and the years invested in an orderly transition from Symbian to Meego/Maemo. He needed something that was unmistakingly his contribution. That's how big swinging dicks operate. It's about THEM, not the corp. that are charged and paid to manage. Killing everything is a no brainer for a big swinging dick. Getting into bed with MS is a no brainer for an ex MSoftie. Hiring MSofties to key positions is a no brainer for the big swinging dick as he cements his control over the executives. The fact that he owns a shit load of MS stock is a strong indicator that his decision making is clouded by personal interest, so betting NOKIA on the success of WP is also a no brainer.

Finally, you would do well to read about Elop's "glorious" past. Having done so you might be tempted to think he is a Balmer sock puppet - I do.

Coke? Windows 8 is Microsoft's 'Vista moment'. Again

Philip Lewis
Pirate

Re: improvements required

"I need the other hand for a mug of tea" - riiiiight, nudge, nudge ... say no more

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Re: Let's take Business Categories for $400

Paris: because I don't think she would understand what this means either

Microsoft off the hook for billions in Motorola Mobility payout

Philip Lewis

Re: >> How come Moto's real patents are worth so much less than MS bogus patents?

" force discriminatory terms"

Please explain how you draw this conclusion.

Philip Lewis
Flame

See previous post.. Commentards here in general would do well to brush up on what FRAND standards patents are and how they are administered and charged for vis-a-vis specific patents.

The ignorance demonstrated here gets tiring to read.

Bootnote: Your opinion that MS's patents are bogus is not shared by MS themselves, or apparently the companies that pay for them. I have no direct knowledge of them, so I don't have an opinion on the matter. MS may not be the "good boy" in the room, but they are entitled to negotiate whatever they can for their patents with users of said patents.

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: The sickening stench of The Beast is everywhere

The rules of the game for standards essential patents are different from regular patents, by contractual agreement between the parties. Your comparison is flawed on the basis of this alone.

Cook: iPad is a gateway drug which leads to harder Mac addiction

Philip Lewis
Holmes

Apple.next

The purpose of a company is to make profit for the owners - not to satisfy the egos of pundits, analysts and the assorted nerds and geeks of the world.

Apple makes 10s of billions of dollars in profit a year and is still "banking" cash at a rate of $50B p.a.

Apple are hideously successful and continue to be, despite a whole industry of punditry which has their collective knickers in a knot because Apple won't "do what they say" and continues to chart its own long term course without reference to the punditry's opinions. Tsk, tsk - how dare Apple do that. Better start beating on them some more.

While all you geeks & nerds sit there and froth off about iOS being stale, and there being no innovation blah, blah, blah, Apple continue to provide the market with what it apparently wants to the tune of 10s of millions of devices per quarter. Sales are up in almost every category, despite 3 months of solid "poor sales" messages from the anal-ysts. Macs down 2% in a market that tanked 15%.

* The wearable computing is a nerd thing. The greater part of humanity doesn't (and won't) give a shit for decades if ever.

* The iWatch idea was executed quite well by Sony but no one wanted to buy it. Pebble is meh so far. I am not convinced that Apple will bother either without some killer feature that changes the state of the art.

* An Apple TV. Here the opportunity is massive. Once you have tried to use what TV manufacturers call a SmartTV you will know that this is an area ripe for a sophisticated "user-friendly" interface. The market here is wide open, and with Apple's proven ability to deliver content for a profit, this is I submit the most likely .next product from Apple.

* An Apple car maybe :D

Apple beats revenue estimates but margins are falling

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: Finally paying the price

AAPL stock is underpriced now, so it's a good investment for Apple to buy it back - Tim Cook

That is the position of Apple's management and plenty of companies have done this. Apple, being so large and having so much cash means that the $ number is also very large - mind boggling in fact.

Your argument is a false dichotomy, by investing in itself, Apple in no way compromises its R&D ability or financial capability to spend on R&D.

Philip Lewis
Thumb Down

False dichotomy

"In the meantime Apple is using its enormous cash pile to placate investors and support the share price. In the opinion of this hack it might be better investing this in new products and technologies rather than buying off investors and Wall Street."

Why are journalists so generally incapable of constructing a logical and coherent position?

Weak iPad, iPhone demand hits LG Display in the wallet

Philip Lewis
Unhappy

Re: Maybe Samsung know something

"which we seem to be seeing via Foxconn and LG quarterly reports"

You forgot to mention Cirrus Logic.

Characteristic of all these reports is that that they infer something negative about Apple, when no information specific to Apple was announced. There could be many reasons for Cirrus Logic screwing up their inventory. That Foxconn has apparently had quality control issues is a Foxconn issue, and LG's situation can be explained by the forex market alone.

Misquote: "There are two things that are infinite, human stupidity and the universe - and I am unsure about the last one" - AE.

And this pretty much sums up a vast amount of the comments in here - uninformed drivel.

Philip Lewis
Thumb Up

@sleepy

now now sleepy, don't let the facts get in the way of the haters diatribes - their lives would be so meaningless without it.

Philip Lewis
Pint

Re: Really? @dougal83

An inaccurate and moronic comment if ever there was one.

FACT -You can know nothing about sales trends from a share price.

You (and I) can guess that whatever you (we) want, it will still be a guess.

In any case, the declining share price is concern amongst big fund managers, anal-ysts etc, that Apple's exceedingly high margins have been eroded a little. Apple are still clocking in cash at the rate of almost 50 billion a year, so it's not like earnings are any substantive issue.

The anal-ysts also are also fans of the "stupid" argument. Where they equate increasing competition as meaning that the subject of their analysis (Apple) will necessarily be impacted/unable to react/compensate. Their implicit assumption being that Apple management is asleep at the wheel. It is a broken idea, but popular amongst analysts who want their name in the press.

Finally, the anal-ysts seem obsessed with the idea of Apple releasing some iPhone-el-cheapo model not quite understanding (or simply ignoring) what that means for the branding, margins, USP etc. etc.. They then bad mouth Apple for not having done so yet, because they (in their vacuum) think it's a good idea.

My prediction is that it will not happen until Apple have a deal with China Mobile and it will probably be a phone just for that network. <-- Please note, this is what is called a guess.

Java still vulnerable despite recent patches

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Devices

It is more than a decade (maybe 15 years) ago that 3rd parties started providing management software for their products using Java from within the browser. The "write once execute everywhere" attribute is very, very appealing to a manufacturer who sells a piece of kit that can plug into various OS environments, e.g. VMS, Windows, Linux, HPUX, AiX and so on. SAN manufacturers spring immediately to mind, such as EMC, and indeed Navishpere is a Java app. Managing a live SAN from the CLI is a terrifying prospect, so we choose to install Java.

So, Java exists for a lot of good and often unavoidable (for the end user) reasons, and is installed widely by people who are very definitely not morons.

Some of you guys need to get out more.

As I mention occasionally here, there is basically no bank that can be accessed without Java in this part of the world (Scandinavia), and interaction with the Danish government requires chap authentication via a national identity system. There is a large and growing class of citizen to government interactions which can no longer be executed manually - there is only the online mechanism.

Welcome to your future ...

Paris: Sadly, not my future :(

Google Glass will SELF-DESTRUCT if flogged on eBay

Philip Lewis
Megaphone

Re: What gives ANY company the right...

Here is what Google says these days. It used to be far more evil.

"When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services. "

More Brits ditch Apple tablets for Amazon, Google, Samsung kit

Philip Lewis
Stop

Re: I am tempted away from the Apple to the Android but I like the idea of a closed shop

[citation needed]

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: Everyone keeps forgetting...

That is not what I wrote.

I merely pointed out a well known characteristic of people in general. People who cannot afford a product that they would in fact like to own, would rather denigrate said product than admit it is out of their price range. Evidence of this human characteristic is writ in very large brushstrokes across The Register forums.

While price != quality, buying high quality cheap stuff is rather difficult and products which are overpriced for the quality they deliver rarely last long in the market. Whether you like it or not, quite a lot of people consider Apple to be high quality kit, and are willing and able to pay for it.

Philip Lewis

Re: Everyone keeps forgetting...

Apple makes premium kit and makes money by managing their supply chain efficiently and pricing their products at the premium end. Generally, Apple's products are not significantly more expensive than similarly specced competitors, they are however generally of a higher manufacturing quality, something for which people will happily pay a premium.

I own some Apple products. I don't feel ripped off at all! They have been as durable and functional as I expected. YMMV

Bootnote: Just because you are o member of the jealous poor, there is no reason to advertise it via your opinionated comments.

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Re: Wow, what amazing insight (sarcasm)

Where is your evidence for those broad assertions (Hint: There isn't any)

Apple alert as half China's fanbois consider switch to Galaxy S4

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Re: It's happening here as well...

casual empiricism at its best*

*worst depending on viewpoint

IBM Australia on the stand over $1bn blowout

Philip Lewis
FAIL

Re: SAP

My company employs 100+ people. We are in the transport industry.

Don't fucking lecture me about the influence of trade unions on payroll systems. You are a prick and you are clueless.

As other posters have noted, the payroll rules are indeed monstrously complex and there is exactly one group that bears the responsibility for this state of affairs.

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

SAP

Anyone who has ever had to deal with the byzantine wage and work systems that exist in Australia, constructed by the powerful trade unions for the very purpose of being viciously complex (and thus open to rorting) will be able to nod knowingly at this article.

It is close to impossible to build payroll systems that deal with the millions of exceptions that exist.

Add to this the fact that it is SAP based, another "kiss of death" if ever there was one, and you have a project that will never end and will cost unlimited money and will never actually work.

The Australian Trade Union movement has spent lifetimes crafting trade agreements that guarantee them power in the workplace, and which are more or less technically impossible to implement because no one actually knows what all the rules and exceptions are.

It's a disaster zone, and sadly it is not unique to Australia. :(

Paris: Sanity in our time.

Half of US smartphone owners have no idea which mobe to buy next

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Re: The haters mantra

Points well made.

Interestingly, I have an N9 and recently had an iPhone5 flung at me from the office, so I have them both in daily use. Both are excellent pieces of kit.

Personally, I prefer the N9 these days, which is the IOS interface paradigm with some cool features added on. Nokia were headed in the right direction with the Meego interface. There are, however, many more apps available for the iPhone.

I have also noticed two recurring mantra from the technical punditry.

* IOS is antiquated and uncool and no development happening

* Apple will be "forced" to enter the low cost phone market in order to survive.

The pundits are seemingly blind to their own ignorance and logic failures. And that pretty much sums up technical journalism.

Paris: Because it's Friday

Major blow for Apple: 'Bounce back' patent bounced back by USPTO

Philip Lewis
Mushroom

Re: @ AC hypocrites

Pete: Repeating the lie that Apple "stole" from Xerox will never make it true. Xerox were compensated and Apple went on the develop what they paid for.

So, the rest of the world haven't called Apple out, as you suggest they could, because there is nothing to call on.

The internet is forever, and there is plenty of documentation that puts your rant in the trashcan where it belongs

Steve Jobs to supervise iPhone 6 FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

Philip Lewis

Haters and cynics, diminishing difference

Oh my, so many pathetic small minded haters in one spot. Rather sad that so many comments do nothing but heap vitriolic bile on someone who is no longer with us. And they do so while demonstrating that they are totally clueless about product development cycles.

Relaxed Windows 8 rules hint at smaller slabs to come

Philip Lewis

Is windows8 the first non-486 compatible windows

What is the NX instruction and why is it so necessary?

A P4EE 3.4Ghz machine runs win7 quite nicely, and if win8 has improved the quality/speed of the underlying core OS then it should run win8 fine too.

Sadly, this super duper instruction is necessary, so Gallatin chips and before are out of the game.

Have MS ever done this before?

Why now?

Microsoft says WinPhone outselling iPhone, BlackBerry

Philip Lewis

Re: Pont of view @csumpi

You must be the visually challenged induhvidual who down voted me.

It's not a question of what I believe. I simply used my personal examples of the Mk. I eyeball on the graphs as shown. I didn't make the graphs and it matters not a tot if I or anyone else believes them.

I am sorry if you are functionally blind and reality refuses to align with your bigoted world view.

Paris: At least she wears spectacles when needed

Philip Lewis
Megaphone

Pont of view

Point of view

When I look at that graph I see 3 things.

1: iOS's share rose last quarter

2: Adroid's share fell last quarter

3: "the rest" share fell last quarter

Another headline might have been ...

"Android's share plummets, its days are numbered - declining global share hints at fandroid exodus! (Windows Phone still irrelevant)"

Are the PCs all getting a bit old at your office? You're not alone

Philip Lewis
Paris Hilton

Re: No push to upgrade business machines anymore

The "three year cycle", at least in countries I happen to frequent, is based on the taxation legislation, rather than any notion of longevity of the capital equipment (in this case a PC).

Case: I bought an expensive piece of kit for my business. It died a fiery death 13 months later, out of warranty. My attempt to write off the remaining 2/3 of the asset in the second tax year was denied by the tax dept as the depreciation of PCs is fixed by them at 3 years. The fact that it was provably dead and "unfit for purpose" had no effect on their position. I sent it back to the tax dept. with a note that I could not afford the space & storage costs for the next 2 years and that they should 'look after it for me'.

Tax laws are the determining factor, not the product life.

Paris: Fit for purpose to be sure!