Posts by Amorous Cowherder

Re: "95 floors in 5 SECONDS"

Who down-voted? Some people, no sense of humour!

Also better warn the Bentley garages to prepare for a lot of owners of sub-contract companies putting in orders!

Re: Come and look at this!

They were bloody good guys from IBM!

I started off working on mainframes around 1989, as graveyard shift "tape monkey" loading tapes for batch jobs. My first solo job was as a Unix admin on a set of RS/6000 boxes, I once blew out the firmware and a test box wouldn't boot. I called out an IBM engineer after I completely "futzed" the box, he came out and spent about 2 hours with me teaching me how to select and load the correct firmware. He then spent another 30 mins checking my production system with me and even left me his phone number so I call him directly if I needed help when I did the production box. I did the prod box with no issues because of the confidence I got and the time he spent with me. Cheers!

Re: No

Creativity relies on pushing yourself to think just a little past the line all the time. If you want to grow you need to be in an environment that will nurture that growth, whether it's software development, painting, photography, making cakes, whateber, when you're challenged you grow and you feel fulfilled. When you have every idea stamped out of you at every turn you begin to wonder if there's any point in being creative. We've all had managers that are just not interested in our ideas. I'm not saying MS is anything like that, I doubt it, they wouldn't be able to keep going if it was. II doubt that every area of MS is creative and some parts are probably very rigid. Some people need more creative freedom than others and in this case it appears Molyneux felt too comfortable and not challenged enough.

We all have to find our muse and our own impetus to push us on.

I don't know it's always a laugh trying to get an appointment ( usually a 2 week wait ) and then telling your GP you looked up your symptoms on the NHS website, then watching him roll his eyes and tut at me!

Re: right - 'what's wrong with white middle aged males?'

"But on the subject of whipping boys, name me just one time in the last 2000 years of western civilisation where it's been a bad idea to be a straight male. It's a minority that's finally finding out what unfairness feels like."

So it's OK to pick on that group now?! Jesus wept, you need to wake up and then grow up! I am not my father, grandfather or my ancestors I do not share guilt or blame for their actions or attitudes.

Yes I am a hetro, married, white middle-aged male, I choose to be a better person from the lessons of my ancestors. I choose not to use the word "tolerance" of any minority, to me that means putting up with something. I do not "put up with homosexuality" I embrace it as a another facet of a wonderful diverse society I am privileged to live in. I am lucky to have a nephew who is gay, his partner is a superb bloke who everyone in our family loves like a brother and has made one of family very happy. That is the most important thing to us, that one of our own is happy and free to express themselves with their choices and feel love and support of their kin.

Do NOT tar everyone with your one-size fits all brush of discrimination, as it makes you no better than the bigots you protest against!

While I appreciate you are making a joke, I bet the PR bods at Apple have had a nice start to the week with news like this.

Re: £500 to update each parking machine?

Oh dear God! Way too much common sense from "monkeyfish", huge headache, need a lie down...

Re: Java on the desktop is dead

So you don't have any kids under 16 then? If you did then you'd find that they play Minecraft and sorry to say but that is run on Java. It's something like the 10th best selling game of all time, I believe.

A quick straw poll shows that at least 10 of my colleagues here in the office and roughly 5 friends kids play Minercraft regularly.

No Java, no Minecraft!

In IT we have software we use at my office, UC4 ( Java GUI ) , NetBackup ( Java GUI ) , Oracle SQL Developer ( Java GUI ), Eclipse ( Java GUI ), NetBeans ( Java GUI )...

Re: Green/Amber

Yep, used to help my old man with some kit where he worked, they had a couple of green sceens attached to 286s on a 386 Concurrent DOS network ( anyone remember Concurrent-DOS? ). Each one had the DOS DataEASE menu screen burned in, it used to stay there even after the power was pulled.

Re: Pliers Hold Stuff Really, Really Tight

You wimps!

Never mind your weedy pliers and grips, there's nothing a bloody good pair of stilsons can't get undone!

Re: That's exactly what Facebook paid for...

Oh come on, what utter dipstick down-voted this?!

Take a bite of the reality pie! As LDS above has said, this is the one and only reason Zuck want's WhatsApp, purely to get his greedy mitts on your private's and preferably a way through, via your phonebook, to all your mates private's too!

As you have so rightly pointed out, I think this another perfect example of simplifying a technology to make it quickly usable by as many people as possible. TBL wanted people to use it and get up to speed quickly. When you teach primary school kids programming you don't give them a copy of "C# Bible" or the Java Doc set and expect them to start writing apps, you hand them something like Logo or SmallBasic, that have less keywords than the list of ingredients in beans-on-toast but it allows them to get up to speed quickly. Like most great, simple ideas we all plan to go back at some point and sort out the kinks but real life gets in the way and adoption of a simple tech is so rapid that it quickly becomes too late to retrospectively correct the mistakes as that would break it.

Re: Those eyes! They will give me nightmares...

Anyone else think of Arnie's adversary in the original Total Recall?

Re: Congratulations

Nope, pure 100% isolated word-play held in context it was intended. At least that's how I and I believe 95% of this forum saw it. I bet if you asked every one on this forum what they thought the second they read the OP comment, most would have simply said they had absolutely no mental image, I certainly didn't, most simply saw an isolated phrase held in an isolated context.

Re: Sounds about right

Well said Geoff C!

Me too, I help out when I can and I do it for nothing, in turn they might take my kids to the cinema one Saturday so I get a bit of peace or they might come round and help me when I need a pair of hands for DIY job. Like Geoff said, I have a particular skill and it's good to use it to help people who will actually appreciate it. Sounds like you lot don't hate fixing computers, you hate dealing with your rellies!

Re: !!STOP THE PRESS!!

Yeah, I think you missed the point. Unlike the rest us poor schmoes who are lucky if we're allowed to print a sheet of A4 without some HR/stationary nazi coming down on us for not thinking, these FB lads can print what they like, when they like and in 3D if they so choose and no one will tell them off.

Re: "Merely...make money"

Don't give me that tough-luck story! It's not like people who rip-off movies and music, they are genuinely doing something illegal and businesses do suffer, although the jury is still out about the true cost on that one.

An ad-blocker is not illegal any more than wearing blinkers while walking down the street to avoid seeing billboards or switching off your TV when you know the ads are coming. If they don't like people using them then they can organise a class action and get an injunction banning them from being offered. Otherwise they can either charge more for the service they want to offer, to cover the bills or get out of the business in question.

These websites sign up to ad services and they simply leave a place-holder in the page with no idea what ads are being pushed through that slot! I'm sure they have a choice of adult/non-adult adverts other than that do you really think they give a shit about about what's being sold through that slot? Give me a break, I have no sympathy for advertising agencies their whole existence is to make you buy stuff. They don't care how they do it and they don't care if you can afford it or even if you need it. They don't care if it screws the planet when it's no longer wanted, they just want you to buy the latest piece if plastic garbage from "Shiity Products Ltd ( tm)", once they have your money they couldn't care less about you! So guess what? I don't care about them, hence why I block adverts at every opportunity.

Re: But think of the children!

Yeah I agree but we have to wait for the next election!!

Re: Cheapest option sometimes

OK what about education? If the company doesn't educate and ensure security is maintained, how can you blame the users?

For example. User is trading data with third-party, and the thrid-party send user in a USB stick with some data on it. Stick is carrying shitware which then gets into the network.

The user's had never been told to not just accept devices from third-parties on spec. The desktops should not have open USB ports. Was the AV software up to date? Was a standalone PC available for testing portable devices for shitware when they come into the building?

Obviously I don't know the background but even though I've worked in IT for nigh on 30 years I still keep an open mind 'cos I know we're not holier-than-thou in IT just 'cos computers are our business. No story is ever pure black and white, and once management get involved you know it's going to get a lot more colourful!