Posts by JimboSmith 1704 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Aug 2012
You can use the online version of Office on Linux, I know because I’ve done it on my laptop. I know of at least one business that doesn’t use the standalone version of Office at all. Everyone uses the online version which makes working from wherever on whatever platform much easier.
I’ve had three Chinese phones, one was an android made to look like an IPhone but with the Android logo on the back instead of an apple. That i used for casual browsing and surprising people at parties when I took the back off and then the battery out.
The second was a doogee which wasn’t actually that bad but suffered because the manufacturer could update the firmware without having any input from me.
The third is a Xiaomi Redmi phone that I have (for one of my 2 phones) which has a privacy policy for using everything. A message will pop up asking you if you accept the privacy policy for almost everything before you use them. If you think that doesn’t sound too bad it comes up on the Calculator, the Clock etc. The thing states that:
“In order to provide personalised services Calculator needs to connect to the internet. Before using calculator you must read and agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. Agree?
What is it going to offer as a personalised service on my calculator? Is it going to tell me that Bryan actually had a prawn cocktail starter which he denies when used to split the bill? Apps will shut down randomly and without warning which is bloody annoying, the no root firewall is a good example of that. Despite selecting that you want VLC as the default music player, when I try and play anything it will use the inbuilt app first instead. Oh and that inbuilt app will also have a privacy policy.
Also someone else on here told me of a creepy hidden system app
Have you looked at the FM Radio app in the settings App section? There are two listed, your first is the Radio and I would suspect that this is actually the one that will run the radio. The other more suspect one is a “FM Radio Services” which has access to my microphone and that’s not something I can deny it. Why does a radio need to use my microphone, a bit creepy that. Then if you look deeper at it, why is the FM radio trying to connect to the internet which it does according to my firewall?
Also set your apps in Settings to show system apps and scroll right down to the bottom of the app list. You’ll find if your phone is like mine an app with an Android app icon and the name is three Chinese characters as the name. This has access to the Camera, Microphone, Storage and Telephone, all of which again would be permissions you can’t stop access to. If you weren’t paranoid before you probably are now.
I found that hidden system app and looked up the translation of those characters after reading that and it comes out as “Radio” in English. Appears to be different to the FM Radio app which has a privacy policy too.
Maybe the Chinese don’t mind all of that but it buggs the crap out of me.
If their car is anything like the Xiaomi Redmi phone that I have (for one of my 2 phones) then the car will have a privacy policy for using everything. A message will pop up asking you if you accept the privacy policy for the indicators, or the horn (and almost everything else*) before you use them. The satellite navigation app (for example) will shut down randomly and without warning. Despite selecting that you want to use your mp3 player as the default music option, when you try and play anything it will use the car stereo first instead. Oh and the car stereo will also have a privacy policy
Maybe the Chinese drivers won’t mind all of that but it buggs the crap out of me.
*Why does the calculator app on this phone have or indeed need a privacy policy?
《train a senior manager and a cocky kid who had just graduated from university (in Classics)》
At least the kid would know what a Pyrrhic victory was. :)
The manager being rarely ever exposed to, or responsible for, any other kind - not so much.
I didn’t think the Harry Enfiled “Tim nice but Dim” character was based on an actual person until I met that manager. As for the graduate, she knew everything already you understand, that’s why her notes were sketchy at best. There’s only so far in life large mammary glands will get you and that’s something she needed to learn.
Burning Bridges by Mr Mission Impossible theme - Lalo Schifrin.
I used to do a regulatory function as part of a job I had. I had to report items (and I'm being deliberately vague because I might identify myself) to a certain external body every month. One day after we were taken over I was told that I was about to become surplus to requirements and at risk of redundancy along with others. And low it came to pass that I was made redundant. Suddenly they realised that I did a specialised job as part of my work and was asked to help. Could I train a senior manager and a cocky kid who had just graduated from university (in Classics) ? Not wanting to make waves I agreed to do two sessions of training for them. This was far less than they needed, given the attitude and attention paid, but I explained how to map and merge two sets of data from two different pieces of software/databases and generate the report. All you had to do then was chase the missing data which the report highlighted as not being there.
A month after I left I had a call from the university grad now panicking and much less cocky. Unsurprisingly she couldn't understand anything she'd written in notes taken in the training.I said she should talk to the manager but strangely he couldn't remember anything either apparently. I said I would charge to do more training or to come in and fix it at which point they were less interested. I believe they were fined far more than the cost of hiring me back for a day. They then hired a firm to produce an automated software method of doing this. That took a long time to iron out all the bugs and I understand more fines were issued. Turns out the manager had only been there to check that I was actually doing the training.
Washington wasn't joking when they pledged to fight Russia until the last Ukrainian.
Washington wasn’t the one saying it though were they? I was under the impression that it was Moscow or more specifically Putin who said it. Reuters agrees:
"We have heard many times that the West wants to fight us to the last Ukrainian. This is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, but it seems that everything is heading towards this."
Don’t suppose you can post your Washington source can you?
When a company I worked for had a pay snafu, our manager called an emergency meeting at 9am that day, which was payday. He wasn’t affected but people lower than his paygrade were and he wasn’t happy. He said that the problem had been investigated and the cause found, to our general amazement. He said the director of the division would like to speak to everyone at lunchtime (another meeting) and that if we could demonstrate a loss (fine/charge for late payment of something etc.) the company would cough up for it. The director turned up bang on 1pm, apologised for the cockup, said he’d banged heads together quite hard and everything would be fixed by lunchtime the next day at the latest. If it wasn’t then the relevant people would come and explain why it wasn’t and would apologise in person themselves.
Repeated what the manager said about covering fines etc. However went on to say if you needed money now, (mortgages, rent, large credit card bill etc.) he’d have the finance division write a cheque immediately and you could have the time off to go to the bank to pay it in. Said he’d come in at 6:30am that morning to start looking into what went wrong along with other relevant people. We agreed afterwards that this was the textbook example of how to handle this hopefully very rare type of event.
When we had gotten in that morning, there were some seriously pissed off people and by lunchtime everyone was far happier and confident that they would be looked after.
You can read a very authoritative if quite technical to CEEFAX here https://www.bbceng.info/additions/2018/CEEFAX%20-%20Its%20History%20&%20The%20Record%20Of%20Its%20Development%20By%20BBC%20RD.pdf
Someone from another company I met at a meeting said that their cloud provider had gone down and they were having a COTM at that point. I asked what that was and she said Cup Of Tea Moment/Minute/Minutes depending on how long it lasted. Apparently they had quite a few of them.
Not based in Scotland are you?
Scotland bans smut. What smut? Won't say. Filth-lovers won't know what the law is until they break it
A spokesman told us: "We do not publicly disclose our prosecution policy in relation to specific offences as to do so may allow offenders to adapt or restrict their behaviour to conduct which falls short of our prosecution threshold."
They added that any such information would also be exempt from any attempt to tease it out by using Freedom of Information legislation.
https://www.theregister.com/2011/01/25/ignorance_of_scottish_pr0n_law_no_defence/
Bit like being done for speeding when they won’t tell you what the speed limit is.
The speech which I’ve just re-read has the word Peacfully mentioned once in it which is nice.
Not so nice is the use of the word fight or fighting of which there were I think 20 mentions,
Corrupt got 10 mentions,
Illegal or Illegally 24 mentions
and an honourable mention for…..
Fake which managed just 7 mentions.
For me the key phrases were where he suggested to the already worked up crowd that Mike Pence could stop the certification which he legally couldn’t.
And he looked at Mike Pence, and I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so.
Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
Trump needs to find a better constitutional lawyer…….
All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
By the way, Pennsylvania has now seen all of this. They didn't know because it was so quick. They had a vote. They voted. But now they see all this stuff, it's all come to light. Doesn't happen that fast. And they want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories.
Mr Pence did stand up for the good of the US Constitution which is way more than the Donald did on Jan 6th.
All this will do is make the IT savvy kids the most popular ones in school. The ones who have their parents Age Verification password, know how to use a VPN etc. They then just share it around possibly for a small fee. A few years ago I was on the way to the post office just after kicking out time at the local Schools. On the bus ride there I was joined at the back of the upper deck by several spotty teenage youth in uniform. One of them had an impressively high resolution image of one lady and four men engaged in what I now understand is a position referred to as 'airtight'. His phone was filled with such images and films and as this was the latest addition he was bluetoothing or wifi sharing it to his mates sitting around him.
Just realised I would have been the most popular (and richest) kid in my school…….and not Antony who looked like he might be 18 and so his local newsagents sold him some of Richard Desmond’s finest publications (and I’m not talking about the Daily Express).
If you can get it try their Extra Dark with Cranberries, Blueberries and Almonds which is so much better and far less vomit inducing/tasting than their usual stuff which I don’t like either.
https://www.amazon.com/Hersheys-Chocolate-Cranberries-Blueberries-3-52-Ounce/dp/B000IXSLMI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pb_opt?ie=UTF8
You seem.. confused. Russia started the SMO because Ukraine was poised to do a Gaza on Crimea and Donbas. Seizing territory by force is ok, if the territory is in Syria, Ukraine etc. Ukraine has seen a vast number of it's population flee the country and the ones that are left are being drafted to make up for the very heavy losses Ukraine has sustained. There is no democracy in Ukraine, and Zelensky told the West he might hold the election that's due, if the West gave him $50bn. And Zelensky has been locking up his political opponents and protestors, just as the US has. Meanwhile, Putin is riding high in the polls compared to Zelensky, or just about any Western 'leader', because Russian's view Putin as defending the motherland against the combined forces of Ukraine and the West.
You forget (deliberately or otherwise that) there isn’t any free press or media in Russia and most foreign news outlets are banned . Russia blocks access to BBC and Voice of America websites Website and apps that actually allow citizens to speak freely and can’t be censored by the authorities such as Facebook and Twitter are blocked.
Therefore all the Russian citizens are fed is a diet of propaganda from everywhere and don’t get to see what’s really happening just what the Kremlin want them to see and hear. Then they pass laws banning people telling the truth about how the war is really going and ban people from calling it a war. Those who resist are locked up, like artist Alexandra Skochilenko who changed some price tickets at a grocery store to anti war messages and got 7 years in jail. Russian artist jailed for seven years over anti war price tag protest.
Then and perhaps most chillingly there are people who rat out their friends, family strangers etc. if they’re telling the truth about the war. Ukraine war: The Russians snitching on colleagues and strangers Then Putin has the opposition locked up or murdered or sometimes both, so yeah he’s a really nice chap who desrves his poll figures. What else have people got
The late ex Prime Minister Berlisconi only got the support he did because of his vast media empire bombarding the Italian people with stories about him in the news bulletins, newspapers etc. My Italian friends said it was unrelenting and got boring after a very short time. They however could switch channels and watch something else.
Oh and It’s a war, not what you called it which is Russian propaganda.
Who is the "we" who have "stolen Syria's oilfields"?
And the only "we" who started the conflict was Putin. He is the one who lined up a vast army on his border over several months, in full view of the world, while everyone warned him not to invade. But invade he did - he planned to take the entire country but fortunately his vaunted military was shown to be an inept paper tiger, and their invasion was Kyiv was a comical failure. Or would be "comical", if not for the atrocities their war criminals committed in areas they briefly occupied like Bucha.
Only a complete psychopath who has no feelings of empathy for anyone could possibly support Putin in this war, and try to rewrite history claiming it is all about "protecting" ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Crimea by conveniently ignoring how it started and how Russia attempted to make a beeline straight for Kyiv. You are true scum.
Did you not see the Abrahms tanks rolling into Moscow?
Oh no that’s right they didn’t did they, it was Russian WW2 tanks rolling into Ukraine.
Can’t imagine how I got those two confused.
Everyone else seems to agree that Putin started this by invading Ukraine and destroying the place so that there aren’t any Ukrainians left at the end or anywhere left standing for the millions of refugees to go back to.
Just a question. How much time per day do you spend supporting Putin's propaganda. On the Register, and on Digital Spy and probably on many more fora.
Don't you have a real job? Or is this your job?
The reason why we get tired of debunking all you lies is because we all have a real job. What's the reason why you're able to spend so much time spreading them?
Interesting to see from that site you linked to that the similarly named poster on that site was banned.
Prigozhin already admitted this was lies and it was the Russians shelling Donbas.
Yes it’s interesting how long you live in Russia if you are a public figure and make any sort of anti Putin or anti war statement or stance. Your average citizen will just be locked up but I certainly wouldn’t get on a plane or stand anywhere near a critical public figure even on the ground floor as so many have died falling out of windows. It’s not that the military are immune from this either as a Russian general who was critical of the army's operation was found dead.
A decorated Russian general and his wife were found dead at his home. The general, Vladimir Sviridov, was critical of soldier training in the Russian military. He's the latest in a series of critics of the Russian establishment found inexplicably dead
How odd.
It’s a shame that the Numbers stations of old are not still around because they were a great example of the successful use of the One Time Pad. I was explaining years ago once about encryption to someone who was doing a school project on that topic. The thing was supposed to be based on historical i.e. the ancient examples they had been learning about in class e.g. scrambling such as done by writing on a long thin piece of paper that is wrapped round a stick, substitution ciphers etc. but they lacked any for the time modern examples. This predates the internet as we know it today by a long time and I took a shortwave radio with me to their house. I explained that at the top of the next hour we would listen to a radio station.
Picked up the Lincolnshire Poacher broadcasting loud & clear with a message encrypted using a One Time Pad. Having explained the OTP system and how it was used on air I then mentioned that this required random data to begin with and reuse of the data was a serious no no. I explained that the Russians had reused material and that it had allowed the Americans to decrypt various cables in a project known as Venona. My copy of Spycatcher was well read and in that Peter Wright had done a lot of explaining. She got an A for her project and the teacher wrote on the thing, whoever taught you about the modern stuff knows more than me.
I know someone who worked with SAP and came in one Monday morning to discover that he was no longer able to run the report he normally did. There had been some work done on SAP at the weekend so he assumed like the railways the engineering works had overran. Well lunchtime rolled round and he’d done all the other tasks he had to, running this report and investigating the contents was the last of his Monday tasks. Calls IT support who tell him not to worry it will be fixed by the time he returns from lunch. He comes back to the same situation and calls again speaking to a different support person. This person asks him to run a SAP command and identifies from the result that my mate doesn’t have permission to run that report.
He had it on Friday but now he doesn’t which is odd and basically a requirement of his job to have it. He says he might as well go home when the IT support person points out that the SAP work at the weekend was to restrict access to SAP functions people don’t need for doing their job. Apparently the auditors were unhappy with the restrictions in place and demanded tighter limits. His role had had certain commands overlooked, he found more during the week he was barred from using.
Companies that have their computers due for replacement get Apple products as they are now in another league, in very much every metric.
Apple are not in the retail businesses I support other than iPads which allow staff to show catalogue products to customers. They use a mixture of desktops and laptops depending on the usage case all running Windows..
Across YouTube on every (unlinked) device I get the same two advertisers, namely:
Grammerly
&
This revolutionary heater is slashing heating bills across Great Britain. It was developed by two cleaners at a fake dog poo company in Shenzen China, one of whom was fired for using the wrong end of the brush to sweep with and has reduced the heating bills of thousands of customers. It is totally not the same as you can buy at Robert Dyas and elsewhere for far less even though it looks and works the same way.
I couldn’t use Grammarly even if I wanted to because if I use PII in the document or email I’m writing and it’s transmitted to their servers then GDPR issues crop up.
The second one should be obvious and to quote Montgomery Scott “Ye cannae change the laws of physics”.
That’s it those two advertisers and they wonder why people skip/block the adverts.
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Calls about hoax bombs can cause just as much panic and distress as calls about real bombs, which is why the perpetrators of such hoaxes often get charged with the same terrorist offences. Looks like one student won't be finishing his degree any time soon
What one senior police officer referred to as 10p terrorism in a conversation. He said that the ability of a person or a group to paralyse London would be (and this is going back a good few years now) their ability to put the correct amount into a payphone and call a news organisation with a hoax.
I don't have unnecessary stuff on because it costs money, what I have on is what I need. Therefore turning anything off could be hazardous to my health such as the fridge/freezer or the boiler I watch TV in the dark I have eco mode on that all, my bulbs are LED of Compact fluorescent etc. my outdoor lighting including the security lights is solar powered.
Lived in a flat years ago and one night a car alarm sounded outside at around 2am. It was a posh car and even after the alarm had stopped it bleeped loudly every 30seconds to let you know the alarm had been triggered. I had ear defenders and put those on but someone who didn't left a note on the offending car stating that they hadn't slept last night. They continued about how it was insane to have that fecking annoying bleep goiing off every 30 seconds especially as it was a false alarm. something else about how the next message would be left on the windscreen with a brick attached.
I logged all the data to a CSV file and shipped it off on a DVD (internet was far too slow in those days).
On a much smaller dataset I was working supporting a retail establishment. They had anin branch stock management system that was connected to the Head Office back end but required user interaction at the local level. So for example if you returned stock to Head Office or a distribution centre you needed to wait for the email acknowledging that they had received it. Then once you had the email you had to enter the product code and how much of that piece you had returned as per the details on the email. I was introduced to this by the manager of this branch who said would I mind reading the code and number out so she could enter it into the system.
I looked at the email and the attached table in the Word document with interest, whoever had produced the Word one had done so without typing it themselves. So I suggested the stock system might have produced that list and might therefore have an import function. Low and behold it did and once the document and contents were converted I imported the resultant CSV file into the system. We did some spot checks and saved a bunch of work. Manager was very impressed with that because it was a major monthly pain to do the returns. I pointed out someone had obviously spent some time converting the outputted CSV file into a table in the Word document. Probably done like that deliberately to stop people realising it was possible and importing it back in using the import function.
As for the branding iron, I presume it's for Tesla owners to apply in the bedroom a la 50 shades of Musk. Ladies: Don't go out with Tesla drivers unless this really is your thing.
Now you've put that image in my head I can't escape the thought that with the possibility of infinite realities/universes/the multiverse someone somewhere is actually doing that.
One of the energy companies was in the local shopping mall and displaying the smart thermostat offering the firm had. Cannot for the life of me remember which product it was or the energy company concerned but I do remember talking to the saleswoman there. She was effusive in her praise of the system and keen to sign me up. I asked if it was able to run on a closed loop system or did it require a network connection. She told me that central heating systems were nearly always closed loop and I clarified it meant the thermostat. Oh yest that requires an internet connection and a monthly fee.
I said thanks but not thanks in that case, I have a thermostat that works perfectly and doesn't require an internet connection or a monthly fee thanks very much for asking. She tried to tell me about the benefits of being able to remotely control my heating and therefore the usage of electricity/gas outweighing the monthly fee. So I asked what security protections there were on the thermostat i.e. how easy would it be for someone to hack it and turn my heating off in the dead of winter. What happens if the company goes bust for example or my internet connection dies, will my thermostat continue to work? She wasn't 100% on that and made noncommittal responses to my questions. She did say it was unlikely that the energy firm would go bust and I said I was more worried bout the tech company going bust or not supporting it anymore. When I said I didn't want to control my heating when I'm not at home she looked a little shocked. I told her I was quite happy to come home to a cooler house and wear my jacket until it warmed up. I said I'd consider one when it didn't require an internet connection or a monthly fee.
Coming soon Blackberry the movie
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21867434/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXL_HDzBQsM
No idea how historically accurate it is though.
On a bus after the second lockdown and there were two ladies, (if you think of the Les Dawson 'Cissie and Ada' you're not far off) who are having a natter. One of them starts talking about the microchips in the vaccines (which they have not had) and the other nodding or making appropriate supportive noises. I turned round for they were directly behind me and said I don't normally interrupt other people's conversations but in this case I feel I must. How big do you think these microchips are that they fit down a hypodermic syringe? So one of them Googles a hypodermic syringe and discovers they are under half a millimeter thick. As I pointed out that's the width of the entire needle and not the inner bit where these microchips are supposed to be flowing into the body.
I then asked how microscopic microchips were supposed to be powered, or do they have a battery onboard, which would increase the size still further? By now Cissie has clearly heard enough and says that it's all bunkum, Ada is still clinging to a shred of belief in the conspiracy. So I ask how a microchip is supposed to affect human behaviour the technology for which was still very much in the infancy stages if not the embryonic. Ada says that her very reliable friend told her it was true and now she realises that this friend might not be so reliable after all.
Pretty much, i seem to remember being taught that for stabbings, impalement, people trapped under or in stuff, you wait for the experts, provide whatever first aid care you can and don't attempt to remove them or whatever has been stuck in them unless there's immediate further danger to life if you don't.
A former colleague who is now a paramedic said something similar. Unless instructed to by the 999 operator it is normally best not to move the casualty or remove anything from them (baring obviously something that will just kill them, like a speeding truck etc.) If there is a neck injury then moving them can in certain cases risk paralysis or you remove something that has nicked an artery internally and you start exsanguination
The Register asked Apple to comment and we've not had a response.
I won’t be holding my breath waiting for them to respond for obvious reasons.
Apple could, if it chose, extinguish this firestorm by dismissing claims about its latest iPhone as anecdotal and statistically insignificant.
They could say the new iPocketwarmer feature has been discovered before being announced and will feel fine to users once the temperature drops a bit.
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