* Posts by Colin Bull 1

216 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Apr 2010

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Year of Linux on the desktop creeps closer as market share rises a little

Colin Bull 1

Re: It is the UI

" it's remarkably hard to do so. Most vendors will sell you Windows or Windows, and if you try and convince them to sell you a machine with no OS at all, because you don't want Windows, they just plain won't."

3 upvotes for this. But as much as I like PCspecialist, I have found their CPUs are 6 months behind the curve of the major PC suppliers.

Dell will supply PCs without Windows but I am completely flummoxed as to how to do this. I am sure the Competition and Markets authority should be doing something about this but I guess the FOSS eco system is not geared up to dishing out the brown envelopes. Every time I buy a PC I shudder at having to pay the MS tax and not get any benefit.

Capita says 2023 cyberattack costs a factor as it reports staggering £100M+ loss

Colin Bull 1

Re: Take your pick

"Adopt a password keeper so people only need to know one password."

Am I missing something here ? That is only ONE password. What about the other 200 passwords we need most weeks of the year?

Data watchdog tells off outsourcing giant for scanning staff biometrics despite 'power imbalance'

Colin Bull 1
Mushroom

Re: Pathetic response from the ICO

I think Ofcom would probably edge this one. How many years has it taken them to think mid term hyper inflationary price rises were acceptable. Still out for consultation?

TPS has been outsourced so as to have deniability - that is now a 100% waste of time. Every complaint has the same response. We "cannot be sure this is the company you are complaining about". Even when you have a verified email from the spamming fuckers.

Zen Internet warns customers of an impending IP address change

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

not my experience

I would never recommend the Phone Coop to anyone. They are more interested in being a 'Coop' than proving a service. I had a loss of service for over 3 weeks and they were pathetic. I only got the service back by getting a friend of a friend who was an Openreach service manager to get involved.

Raspberry Pi on IPO plans: 'We want to be ready when the markets are ready'

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

Re: Here's hoping the IPO doesn´t ruin the community and support

'oh dear, looks like a referral to the charity commissioners then.

They are a waste of space like Ofcom. They will ask if you have complained to the charity trustees and what response you got. If you like pi$$ing in the wind, go ahead.

How Sinclair's QL computer outshined Apple's Macintosh against all odds

Colin Bull 1
Thumb Up

IBM PC compatible with Apple II

I had an IBM portable with a Quadram 6502 card that I used to demonstrate apple IIe software. It was also better than than IIe itself in that it would run colour IIe games with an external monitor that was difficult and expensive with the IIe

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Re: The 128K Mac was not "rubbish"..

A good example of the beauty of the original Mac was a program called Musicworks. No idea of the authors, but it was a lovely piece of software. Compose music, multiple instruments, play back with multiple screens, add to boast of their ability to multitask they had a utility called trails that would leave a ghosts of the mouse movements at the same time as everything else.

And the best bit was their manglement of the standard apple file menu. Remember Apple introduced a new coherence in the pull down menu options across all software vendors. In musicworks when you clicked on the standard File / Volume button it showed an image of a power plug with disconnected wires. To control volume Musicworks had its own volume control button.

Magic

UK PM promises faster justice for Post Office Horizon victims

Colin Bull 1
Childcatcher

Re: How is Fujitsu not in the dock?

"Why didn't they attempt to properly audit these cases "

What I do not understand through all this is why transaction logs were not requested by defence in these prosecutions.

One example was a supposed 40K plus deficit in one day. Surely this would have shown up on a transaction logs for a sub post office.

Every system of any size I have worked on has transaction logs of some kind.

UK officials caught napping ahead of 2G and 3G doomsday

Colin Bull 1

D for Dream world

You are living in a dream world if you expect Ofcom to step in and do anything. They have only just woken up to the fact that most suppliers are selling fibre/copper as fibre and think they need another year or 2 to get their act together and tell the truth in their adverts. And after years of conning people with hyper inflationary mid contract price rises Ofcom think perhaps that should not be allowed.

Microsoft puts the 'why?' in Wi-Fi with latest Windows patch

Colin Bull 1
FAIL

Wifi works OK but ...

I recently bought a Lenovo laptop for my grand daughter and straight away replaced Windows with Linux. Wifi worked perfectly with no problems at all.

Pity the keyboard did not work. In my 40 years in the industry that is the first time a manufacturer has managed to bork the bios to disable keyboard. Must be down to these new found keyboard specs. I only got in working in the end by installing the latest version of kernel (6.5.10) in Fedora 39.

I feel for all those Linux devs who have to put up with this crap.But they fixed it !

Tesla sues Swedish government after worker rebellion cripples car biz

Colin Bull 1
Happy

It takes 2 to tango

50 years ago I worked for a company that had good industrial relations. It was completely unionised, but the management worked with the unions for the benefit of all employees.

The main benefits were -

profit sharing

Sick pay decided by managers/shopfloor committee (NEVER any them / us nonsense)

Extra days off if no sickness in a year

Suggestion scheme with BIG payout. £10k one year and a car !!

Everyone worked for their mutual benefit.

Meta, YouTube face criminal spying complaints in Ireland

Colin Bull 1

Kickstarter option

If he had a Kickstarter option, I would put a few quid into it.

Excel recruitment time bomb makes top trainee doctors 'unappointable'

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Tools for the job

Sounds to me like it would be easy to write a SAP report that could be mangled with AWK or sed ( or even Perl for the newbies) and input into anything. I think there is a term for it, ETL. Extract Transform Load.

Yes, Singapore immigration plans to scan your face instead of your passport

Colin Bull 1
Thumb Up

I have only been to singapore once, about 30 years ago. The memory is still etched in my mind.

Arrrive at check in desks. About 20 of them and about 6 people waiting for all of them. heaven.

You shouldn't be able to buy devices that tamper with diesel truck emissions on eBay, says DoJ

Colin Bull 1

no ..but

In the UK at least they can be charged with aiding and abetting.

They are assisting the illegal sellers and should be prosecuted for doing so.

Singapore may split liability for phishing losses between banks and victims

Colin Bull 1

Re: Who is responsible for rampant payment and transfer scams?

This is patently absurd. There is no way you can verify the number at present - it is simplicity itself to spoof any number- here in the UK at least.

Robocall scammers sentenced in US after netting $1.2M via India-based call centers

Colin Bull 1
Mushroom

broken system

My experience in the UK is that the TPS (Telephone Preference Service) and their contact with the ICO is completely broken. EVERY complaint to TPS has a boiler plate reply that the complainee has said it is not them, some other company is using their name, EVEN WHEN you have proof with a verified email from the spamming bastards.

SK hynix vice-chair denies selling to Huawei, calls for memory probe

Colin Bull 1

15 years?

How can anyone envisage what the IT world will look like in 15 years is beyond me. The only logical reason for this is so the salesman can get his commission for the 15 year term now.

Capita class action: 2,000 folks affected by data theft sign up

Colin Bull 1

Re: Er - not very good reporting

As a member of one of the pension schemes involved I would be interested in this. If it was not for the fact that Barings a lot of scamming bastards that ignore TPS and GDPR regulations and the Solicitors Regulation Authority do not give a fuck either.

Angry of Tunbridge Wells

Toyota servers ran out of storage, crashed production at 14 plants in Japan

Colin Bull 1

I have said it before ...

I have said it before and will say it again ..

http://www.baarf.dk/BAARF/BAARF2.html

:-)

What happens when What3Words gets lost in translation?

Colin Bull 1
Happy

No excuse

But the Torpoint ferry runs 24/7 - no excuse

VMware sees no need to Arm itself for multi-architecture multi-cloud

Colin Bull 1
Pirate

Same old ?

Intel have a history of paying to eliminate the competition. Perhaps they are still managing to do that. Itanic failed even though Intel manged to nobble Tru64, HPUX and others by doing a deal with Carly. Who knows what they are up to now. I wonder if any under the counter deals are happening with TSMC to reduce AMD's capacity?

G20 digital ministers sign up for Digital Public Infrastructure push

Colin Bull 1
Mushroom

India leading th way in trust ?

If this leads to a way of verifying spam calls that 99% come with an Indian accent I would welcome it tomorrow.

The TPS treats any complaints with the same boilerplate message "Despite our best efforts, TPS has not been able to ascertain valid contact and/or address details to raise this particular complaint"., Even if you have a voice recording. Even if you have an email from the company with DKIM and SPF headers verified by Google. Even if you give them full company details.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's pop artifact stash now heads to a museum

Colin Bull 1

A I understand it - Gates and Allen were 50/50 originally. Allen was doing something else on the side, so Gates "suggested" they reduce Allen's share to 60/40 or something because Gates would screw any one he could. When Bullmer came along he was from the same mould as Gates and they tried to concoct a deal that reduced Allen's shares even less. Allen overheard the discussion and said FU, I am off.

I believed Allen was the better programmer, but I do not know where I got that from.

Colin Bull 1
Alert

How would Microsoft have turned out if Gates and Bullmer had not tried to shaft Allen?

Framework starts taking orders for 16-inch repairable, upgradeable laptop

Colin Bull 1
Thumb Up

On my radar

3 years ago when my laptop failed and I needed a replacement in a hurry, I had 2 requirements. Wanted a recent AMD processor so my bollocks were not burned and to reduce the jet engine noise when the cooler cut in of my then Intel processor - and the ability to run Linux.

I was forced to buy a Lenovo paying the Windows tax AND I had to suffer a soldered SSD. I thought long and hard about this but eventually bit the bullet. It is still going OK, but when the SSD fails I will have an expensive brick.

I will probably think about one of these as a Xmas present for myself.

Days before its earnings call, Infosys announces $2B in new business

Colin Bull 1
Holmes

Crystal ball gazing ?

Infosys's Q1 2024 results, which run through to June 30, are scheduled [PDF] to be released on July 20

I know we are living in cloud cuckoo land, but this would be amazing if they could predict accounts this far in advance :-)

Brit broadband subscribers caught between crappy connections and price hikes

Colin Bull 1
Joke

The big issue is the elephant in the room.

This is a joke survey by an organisation that does not seem to have a clue. THE BIG ISSUE is as above, POTS disappearing in 2 years. There has been no consumer publicity for this. How can any company offer a 2 year contract when the hardware existing will not be usable in 2 years.

Ofcom is a complete waste of time. Has anybody mandated what is going to be offered at switchover time. Or is this date another load of cobblers that will be put back because BT is not ready. Or is it a ploy to stitch up all the non technical consumers and force them into another 2 year above inflation new contract otherwise they will lose service and their existing numbers.

Brit data watchdog fines sleazy sales ops £250K for 'bombarding' folk with calls

Colin Bull 1
Mushroom

Another way forward ..

If the tossers at Ofgem had a clue, they would ban agents and sub agents from working on behalf of the energy companies. This all because in a short sighted pursuance of competition it was decided it would be a good idea to allow agents to peddle their wares. Why is a sub agent based abroad and ignoring all UK laws allowed to be in this arena?

There was enough problems when the energy companies marketed directly - it is easy to see how they have got round their obligations.

Google changes email authentication after spoof shows a bad delivery for UPS

Colin Bull 1

Re: Lack of SPF

I had similar this week sending from my Zen domain. Required DKIM set up to send to a Gmail account. Zen's instructions worked eventually but it took me a while.

This typo sparked a Microsoft Azure outage

Colin Bull 1
WTF?

Re: A large pull request of mechanical changes swapping out API calls.

Excuse my ignorance, but WTF are "application lifecycle services".

Just asking for a friend.

Lenovo Thinkpad Z13 just has this certain Macbook Air about it...

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

Soldered SSD ?

I have a few issues with Lenovo -

Having a soldered SSD as the only internal storage is a very bad move. Not mentioned in this article if this device has or not

Not being able to get a recent AMD processor laptop WITHOUT Windows.

Another security calamity for Capita: An unsecured AWS bucket

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

Another couple of hundred thousand ...

Receive letter today from Unilever Pension fund that their scheme administered by Crapita may have been compromised. Data includes pension ID and banking details. 12 months free Experian monitoring for free . Guess that is worth sweet FA ( https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/experian-account-hijack-krebs/ )

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 as a Linux laptop

Colin Bull 1
Devil

Optional

Why for f***s sake can we not buy a lenovo without windows. I bought a AMD yoga 2 years ago which is a dream but HAD to pay the windows tax.

Atomic energy body proposes fusion framework to manage British energy grids

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Re: Nice

I am turning to be a socialist in my old age. What we want is an organisation to plan and develop storage solutions. We could call it the CEGB. We have power companies who have their own systems, we have water companies that have theirs. The CEGB could develop pumped storage systems using our reservoirs that are relatively local based to even out the load, using all that wind energy when not required by the grid and storing it locally for when everyone puts the kettle on after Eastenders or the cup final.

We have thousands of miles of canals with the potential to give a large storage solution with perhaps 150mm of 'storage'. With a central non profit body, this could all be planned with adequate capacity.

It is not in the interests of the generators to do this. It is not in the interest of the water companies to do this. It is not in the interests of the British Waterways to do this.

Where I live there were 5 oil storage tanks put up virtually overnight in WWII that had the capacity to store something like 25Mwh each. Plenty for the local community. If they could do it then, it would be easy now.

Microsoft tells people to prepare for AI search engine that goes Bing!

Colin Bull 1
Pirate

Re: Decisions Decisions

The jokes on you . In pirate country we would NEVER use butter - the jam goes on first to give something for the clotted cream to stick to. Simples

Atos and Nest part company two years into 18-year £1.5bn contract

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

awful

I had savings with NS&I but withdrew the lot because the web site was so dire. The feeling was they do less testing than MS and more time was spent clicking the fuck awful repetitive consent screens than anything useful.

A 15 year old work placement student could have done better.

Three seconds of audio could end up costing Fox $500,000

Colin Bull 1
Mushroom

Re: Harmony by disharmony

Well down here in pirate country ( Cornwall ), this small part of the country has a nuclear alert test every Monday at 11.30. BUT it is the ALL CLEAR signal. This is a continuous tone. The alarm signal is a variable tone. Simples.

Tributes flow as Creative CEO Sim Wong Hoo - the mind behind Sound Blaster - passes aged 68

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Dr Sbaitso

My kids are in their 40s and they remember Dr Sbaitso text to speech app from SB. Brilliant for its time. I will have to dig my soundblaster T shirt out and wear it for the next week.

What did Unix fans learn from the end of Unix workstations?

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Re: I'd quite like an X-term

"PCs + Hummingbird X-Windows software replaced them."

Is that the software that was about £600 a pop. We sent someone to the states to grey import 20 copies and made a handsome profit.

India's – and Infosys's – favorite son-in-law Rishi Sunak is next UK PM

Colin Bull 1

You are Liz Truss

and I claim my £5 reward

Cops swoop after crooks use wireless keyfob hack to steal cars

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

coincidental

IN 2017 I bought a 2 year old Citroen C4 with only one key. Timpsons said they could duplicate the key with a authorisation code from Citroen. When this came the car was booked in, for most people this would be a short drive straight there. For me it meant a ferry trip and turning the ignition on. On Trying to restart the car I got a Key Fob error warning and the car would not start.

This is too much of a coincidence for me. I believe there is some telemetry in the car at allows this.

From Citroen website -"Citroën Connected Services includes practical programmes such as Real Time Traffic and Telemaintenance which are FREE to activate for new car customers"

I think word has got out how to do this.

Loathsome eighties ladder-climber levelled by a custom DOS prompt

Colin Bull 1

Re: Joshua's suspicion that Toad was playing games

He was probably using Leisure Suit Larry's boss key

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Re: point of order

Nobody used edlin for much of anything in 1987

If I remember correctly the in thing then, was the fabulous Borland Sidekick. Always kept it on a floppy for when on customer sites.

Cloudflare's invisible CAPTCHA works by probing browsers with JavaScript

Colin Bull 1
Unhappy

Re: And what if you block JS?

(the internet is a big place).

Cornwall council tell me that I MUST verify voting information every year and they give a convenient link to do this. Stupidly not only do I need to enter password and keyphrase I must also do a captcha with US based themes. I have told them this is stupid as they are sending this request to a verified email address.

What are trying to guard against? A bot that registers 50 new voters.

Tesla Megapack battery ignites at substation after less than 6 months

Colin Bull 1
Pirate

Re: Any engineers here?

Well I am not an engineer but I think everybody wants to do things on a massive scale when small and plentiful can be more beneficial.

Just a few miles from where I live there are 4 x 25,000 m3 ( 50m diam x 7m high) WWII oil tanks buried in the hillside 100m above sea level ( which is only 200-400 metres away). These are in AONB and are not visible unless you look hard for them. When i did a fag packet calculation several years ago i worked out to be 25MWh of storage. These were put up in months 80 years ago. Would work for all the local renewables in a 25 mile radius with using partly existing infrastructure.

These could be replicated thousands of times if politicians could think small instead of big.

Japan to change laws that require use of floppy disks

Colin Bull 1
Happy

Re: Obsolete regulations are best regulations

You obviously missed the recent article 'AWK gets Unicode support'. CSV not naturally supported (yet) but hardly difficult

Universal Unix tool AWK gets Unicode support

Colin Bull 1
Happy

a programming language for analyzing text files

I think this is the understatement of the year. It is more an Extract Transform Load machine.

Thanks to A and W and K.

Interconnect innovation key to satiating soaring demand for fiber capacity

Colin Bull 1
Alert

No need for more than 2Mbs

My memory might be failing , but I am sure when I was at Homechoice/Videonetworks in the year 2000, some big wig from BT said consumers would never need more than 2Mbs. Thet were charging £700 for a broadband connection at the time and even then Premier League football was blurry at times.

Australian wasps threaten another passenger plane, with help from COVID-19

Colin Bull 1
Mushroom

Apples and oranges

On planes these things are installed for safety. In cars they are used to justify obligated visits to a garage to clear the faulty faults before the car will not start and you need a tow, all because there was a micro amount of static that the sensor read as a fault.

Sore, not me - I am happy to pay best part of a grand for a fault that comes and goes.

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