Posts by big_D

Re: Really?

On many occasions this has been true. But in this explicit case, they are helping affected users, by informing them that hackers are already exploiting this bug, even though there is no patch.

If they had just announced this "for the hell of it," I'd be with you. But in this case they have good reasons to announce it. I'd have preferred a joint statement with Microsoft, but you can't have everything.

Re: Really?

The hackers already knew about it (and are using it), hence the reason why Google announced this, to warn users.

They should have co-ordinated a statement together with Microsoft, but regardless of whether there is a patch, this is already being exploited and users should be informed. I do not agree with Google jumping the gun, when it comes to releasing information about exploits, before the software producer can patch it, but in this case, it is fully justified.

Re: Really?

In the circumstances, I am relatively happy that they have publicly reported this.

They reported it to Microsoft privately, but this is being actively exploited, so people should know about it.

I'd rather see them do a co-ordinated statement together with Microsoft, but regardless of whether a fix is available or not, people need to know they are vulnerable.

What is funny about the German EC cards? I've lived in Germany for 20 years and never found them funny, what am I missing?

I was working on a 200 page Word document on a Mac Plus in Word (end of the 80s). I was going through marking all the words to be indexed... I'd done over 100 pages, when whumpf! The screen went black.

The cleaner was over by the wall and had yanked out the plug, so they could plug-in the vacuum cleaner, GRRRR!

That was when I learnt to hit save every couple of minutes. It has saved me a lot of misery since.

Re: do they mean speculative algorithms

They've shown that the stock market dipped, but they have not actually proven that it had any effect on the ability of the said companies to actually carry out their work. And that is a big problem, too much emphasis is placed on stock market performance and not on actual company performance, they are not the same thing!

Looking at the stock price is a stupid metric for the impact of the EO. I don't agree with the EO and I'm for people going to the US to work, if they are truly needed and not just "cheap" alternatives to equally well trained people already in the US. (I don't live in the US, but I have benefited from being able to move to and work in a country of my choice due to freedom of movement.)

But that second part is a big part of the problem. You need to invest to provide an education to skill people up for the roles required. Ignoring education and just importing people to work cheaply, because you can't find anyone locally is not the answer. The whole "labour supply chain" needs to be examined and adjusted.

As long as the only metric of import for the stock market is a business' profit for the next quarter and not its sustainability, the US education and labour markets won't benefit or recover. And, yes, the same is true in many other countries. Education means investing in short-term goals over 1 to 1.5 decades into the future. Although this is a short-term goal, it is still at least 40 times longer than many stock market speculators are willing think about,

Also, we are talking about multi-nationals, for the most part, so why do these skilled workers even need to be in the USA? Especially in Silicon Valley companies, which have been lauding and promoting products for remote working for nearly 2 decades. Some jobs need to be done locally, but if SV's claims for their products are real, they don't need all of those H-1B visas anyway.

Re: Seems reasonable

I hope you disable copy and paste between the local machine into the remote session.

Re: Macros

Our users do that anyway.

We've had a flood of phishing emails being forwarded from the users, asking if it is truly a phishing email. And I am glad they do, I'd rather deal with a dozen requests for confirmation every day than one incident of a user using their own initiative and reacting to a phishing email.

We have seen an up-tick in malware attachments, generally in .doc or .xls files and those formats are automatically stripped from emails by policy, regardless of whether they are infected or not. Some users complain that they aren't getting information from suppliers or customers, but we are hard and ask them to inform the other party that file formats that have been declared dangerous for over a decade will not arrive and they should use more modern formats that are less* vulnerable.

* I don't think any format is 100% safe, you can just try and minimize the chances of compromise.

Re: Tip for those sacked

Keeping company data after you have left the company, however the relationship ended, is not a good idea. And personal data should never find its way onto a company owned device.

Re: Seems reasonable

True, but that company device still needs to connect to some form of network. If the home network already has one or more compromised devices on it, the company device can still get p4wn3d, even if you are running a closed tunnel VPN from the device for when it is connected to the office network

A VPN is needed and helps, but you need to still make sure the device is safe from attack when it is in "strange" networks, regardless of your VPN settings.

Re: Glass...

I had a series of Lumias with polycarbonate cases. They got bashed around a lot, took some knocks and the screen never broke and the back either, just a few lumps taken out of corners or scratches on the back.

I never had any component failures.

Re: International Insecurity ..... the Gift that just keeps on giving

The heads of and the ministers responsible for the BND, MI6 have all been drawn over the coals before now or fallen on their proverbial swords for overreach.

Heck, the US Supreme Court ruled that the CIA, NSA and Co. had gone too far, based on the Snowden leaks and had acted illegally.

The UK's RIPA bill has been thrown back at the Government at least twice, because it breaches Human Rights standards.

Re: Simple tables

That or tab separated. That is the way I've been doing tables in Word for a couple of decades.

Having faced many abortions of "systems", "developed" in Excel, I can only agree with Rupert.

Using Excel as a proper spreadsheet to analyse some figures, fine.

But I've experienced:

* Timesheet system for a whole company automated with Excel 4 macros (not VBA, Excel Macros).

* Forecasting system so complex in 1-2-3 that Lotus threw up their hands in disgust and told my project manager to use a real language!

* Production completely bypassing an ERP system, doing planning and production in Excel and booking the end result back into ERP.

* Complex "databases" automated in Excel

And many more sins.

Re: Hypocrite Much?

You have to do both. You need to train people up and once there are people capable of doing the job locally, as far as I understand the visas, those being imported to do the job will no longer be eligible for a visa.

You also need to throw in things like forcing equal pay, so that it isn't "cheaper" to import workers.

So, you can gradually reduce the number of visas as people come out of training in the USA and are there to fill the jobs.

When I went over to the US in the 90s to do a training course on a product I had written (UK HQ had implemented a new global system and I was there to train up the US employees), the first question I was asked at immigration was, "could a US citizen do this training?" I was lucky. My employer told me to tell immigration that I was only there for a meeting, but tired and "zombied" out after the flight, I just blurted that I was there to train the users. Luckily the immigration officer let me through, as I was only there for 2 days.

Yes, I'm in Germany, just dropped my Vodafone "up to 500mbps" LTE contract and gone back to congstar, they only offer me 50mbps, but I actually get 50mbps at home and work, as opposed to Vodafone, which gives me 5mbps at home and 0.001mbps at work. And congstar costs half of what Vodafone costs and I get 15GB a month, instead of 10GB (of which I am currently lucky to actually use 1GB, due to lack of coverage).

If I go into the local city, I do get >100mbps, if I am lucky. But as I've spent 80% of my time in areas with little to no data coverage, the contract was a complete waste of money.

5G? I'd be happy if they sorted out 3G or 4G first.