Posts by JimboSmith

Re: Absolutely ourageous

Was in one of my first retail jobs and acting as support for a company involved in selling larger pieces of furniture. The woman from the company’s risk management team turned up at the branch i was at and asked to see the stock. Manager was busy with other things so I was thrown in at the deep end and told to assist her. After I said no to three very big items she wanted to see she asked if we sold a lot of stock ex-display? I said “no” again and then item number four was also not in the store. I asked how old her stock list was and it had been printed 2 weeks earlier. I said that explained it, we had had a showroom change since then and her list would have maybe 10% of the items still here. Those would mostly be things like picture frames, plant pots with fake plants in them etc.

She wasn’t in a good mood at this point as her report would look rubbish if it just said she’d located the grey marble effect vase and the fake tulips contained within. I said to just generate a new list but she didn’t know how to. I offered to show her how and take her round with the new list pointing out items. She still wasn’t 100% happy but her mood improved as everything turned out to be there. I knew it would because I’d just finished (that morning) entering it all into the stock management prog and cross checked it. That wasn’t really my job but I was the only one there who understood how to import from a CSV file. That was the CSV file I’d prepared earlier which again was beyond everyone else. That was so much quicker than doing each item individually on the prog.

An accountant usually visited the store once or twice a year to do something similar and I asked about this duplication of work. She said they didn’t 100% trust the the accountants and hence did spot checks themselves. We took her to the pub after work to drown her sorrows.

Re: Rural Areas ?

Plus, If they want to force everyone to abandon old 3G phones, they also need to start selling new phones that are not based on Android or Apple, do not track and download your every move and fart, and have a HMI interface that consists of more than a stupid fondle screen.

I agree with that, I’ve currently got an old 3G BlackBerry that I use just for calls and texts. Battery life compared to my 4G Smartphone is staggering and lasts several days. I’ve yet to find a modern phone that matches it on battery life and a lack of Facebork/WhatsApp/Instagram/Google apps etc. i need to be able to get calls and may not always be near a power supply or had power. I’ve gone for 24hrs or more like that (especially after a power cut in a rural area) and my BlackBerry has retained power for far longer than that. No chance of getting anything better than 3G there either.

I totally agree with what you are getting at. But perhaps, if people who are signing up to these contracts, actually read them first..,. I mean, they are blindly signing up to paying a huge amount of money? Sod "right to repair" they have signed that right away. It is their problem.

They never had the right to repair in the first place.

Precisely and as I pointed out even Apple (now) aren’t as bad as these guys, which is saying something.

This sounds similar to Microsoft tricking people into upgrading to Windows 10 by using the close window red X https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/29/microsoft_removes_updatebydismissal_win10_policy

And how is that different than using Edge or Chrome or Firefox, unless you believe you can go the source and recompile Chromium or Firefox yourself after you've fixed it?

No matter what OS you use, what browser you use, you are vulnerable to dozens if not hundreds of severe unfixed bugs. Most of them have never been discovered, but some have are in sitting in the vault at the NSA, GCHQ, FSB, MSS, Mossad, etc. or worse has been sold on the dark web to malware/ransomware authors.

Yes bugs exist and will do on all browser engines on most OSes I would expect. The difference on IOS is all the browsers on IOS are forced to use the same WebKit browser engine, that’s whether it’s Safari, Firefox, Opera, Chrome etc.

So that means it makes no difference whatever browser you choose to use on IOS you’re exposed to the same bugs and vulnerabilities. You can’t avoid a serious bug/vulnerability in Safari on IOS by just using Chrome or Firefox instead.

On Android/Mac OS/Windows/Linux there is no restriction and browsers can use any engine, so Gecko, Blink etc.

Re: Marketing Flannel

Does that mean "make it work"?

Probably not, it just changes the colour of the light from white to a nice soothing Magnolia colour.

Re: Ah, yes. The dreaded "fix it NOW!" call ...

One boss was trying to get me to take a company mobile so I could be contacted if something went wrong. I was first responder for my department during office hours but out of hours you called regular support. As I didn’t have anything other than a landline* at the time and quite liked that, I said no thanks. He offered to pay for all my calls business or not made on this mobile. I said no thanks again and he dropped the idea. Somebody asked why I was so reluctant and I said I’d never get a minutes peace. On top of that the number would be listed in the company phone directory and everyone would be able to see it. Given a lot of people knew that I had technical skills, I reasoned like now they’d ask me first before calling IT. That way they appeared less dumb in front of ITSupport, but they could only do that whilst I was in the building. If they could get hold of me whenever I shudder to think about the possibilities.

* Boss had the landline number but it often went through to the ansaphone if I was too tired/busy/couldn’t be bothered etc.

If it’s fed an image, it can classify objects.

So that’s capatchas buggered then is it? Prove you’re not a robot or Meta, select the images that show someone handing all their data to Facebook.

Re: Inrage and outrage

I asked someone at a party at Christmas (everyone had to test negative to gain entry) what he had against end to end encryption. He said something similar to the Banardo’s tweet and that people can use it to hide their dodgy financial dealings etc. “I have nothing to hide” I asked him if he had curtains in his house and he said “obviously” so I said he therefore did have something to hide.

Did he bank online yes he did and seemed oblivious to the fact that used it, until I told him. Did he shop online, yes and again was amazed that this too used e2ee. Oddly though he thought email did and I told him the oft repeated phrase Don’t write anything in an email that you wouldn’t write and send on a postcard. He had no idea and sent his card details CVV address and all via email.

People need education because yes you can get rid of e2ee but you also get rid of so many other things that rely on it.

Re: A fix for this

The problem is that the commercial channels don’t want the BBC taking adverts or a subscription.I worked for a commercial broadcaster who didn't like the license fee. However they also didn't want the BBC taking advertising or sponsorship. Neither did the idea of encryption/subscription go down any better. People apparently might find the idea of two monthly charges unwelcoming and ditch the commercial one.

Re: All your documents are belong to us

Currently working somewhere that is a big user of MS and One Drive. If you combine it with the web version of Office then it’s a new dimension in annoying. You can’t open files for those ‘applications’ unless they’re on One Drive. Also I found that my one drive was filling up with book1 through to book 999. I was used to opening a blank excel spreadsheet every time I needed to do a quick but complicated sum. Wouldn’t save the spreadsheet just close it when done. IT support bloke who is fixing an unrelated issue says he’s never seen so many spreadsheets from one person. It’s then I discover that I’m on book 200 and something,

Also Outlook for web usually wants to share a link to files on my One Drive. I hate doing that for various reasons and I’d rather send a copy. One bloke shared a link to an important file on his One Drive rather than a copy of this document. Sadly he didn’t give anyone the rights to access that file and had gone on holiday. He thought he’d sent a copy and had no idea that we were without access to it.

Re: point taken....

Patent? They sent me a hen party wedding veil instead of the memory stick I ordered. When I called and pointed this out they said keep the veil and we’ll send out the correct item asap. To be fair they did and I donated the veil to a local charity shop who were bemused that I had it.

Re: And here I go changing the ink ribbon of my 70-year-old Remington

Him and my Chemistry teacher, the one who used to cover up marks on the classroom wall with TippEx. People wouldn’t have minded but he was forever borrowing it from students.

I’ve got Philips Hue lights and they’re actually great for mood lighting. Being paranoid I have them and the ‘bridge’ on a separate wifi network that isn’t connected to anything else especially not the internet.

The issue for me is that if I ever update the app I use to control them (on a dedicated device I use for this purpose only) it always wants to update the firmware on the bridge before it will work. So I don’t update the app.

Re: Easter eggs in operating systems

I recall talking to somebody from Microsoft who said the US government were a deciding factor in killing the Easter Eggs. From memory he said that the US version of our UK CESG had raised serious objections when they saw them.

Re: Always date and time

Reminds me of when the MD (of the small firm I was employed by) was an hour late for work after the clocks went forward. He blamed his iPhone not updating itself and left an hour late to compensate. We said at the time it was unfortunate given how much he was paying a week for his iPhone & contract. He was forced to apologise to the member of staff he’d yelled at the previous week when they were late. The staff member in question had suffered a flat battery on their phone.

Re: Cryptocurrencies are a scam?

According to my American friends it stabilised again on the 20th of January (and some of those are Republicans).

Re: red button

I suspect, as Red Button is another stream on the DVB multiplex, that there is some charging mechanism for data capacity. If so that would dwarf the cost of running a server.

I have a funny feeling that the costs mentioned were for both the text and video service combined. It was pointed out by those who wanted to keep the service running that even £10m was a bit steep for running just the text. I think (but may be wrong) the BBC declined to separate the costs for the two and agreed to keep the text element going instead. The text element from memory doesn’t use much data from the Mux and nothing like as much as the video element.

I think the text is scraped from the articles on the BBC website. This is somewhat proven by the current number two headline and story on the F1 section of the text service.

Will younDNF or sit on the top of the podium?

That’s it.

Re: Sentencing will be interesting

Yes I agree and thanks to Tyler Schultz, John Carreyrou and his reporting for the WSJ the story was broken

Personally I find it funny that Microsoft have embraced running their software through a browser. This was something they were running scared of years ago fearing people would do just that but with rival products. It was one of the reasons they had when they decided to try and kill Netscape off by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

I seriously hate the web (crippled) versions of Office and wouldn’t mourn if they died today.

Re: This article made me twitch.

Luckily Amongst all the other cables in my bag I had an OTG one. The metal covered USB stick really got hot doing it. I remember trying various different unusual methods to cool it with available materials. Marketing were not the most popular bunch in the company. I’ve seen a couple of crushed (and one sliced clean in half) network cables in my time and I know what you’ve been through

Re: Gotta dust off my Playbooks :-(

I've been getting the "you need to pay for your package delivery" ones recently. I'm self isolating the only deliveries I'm taking at the moment are food. Therefore telling me I have to pay extra to receive my groceries smacks of a scam. Especially as these SMS have a habit of arriving after my food has arrived.

Re: Captain Joe DePete

To me part of the issue here is that the FAA and Boeing have not had a good reputation over their handling and certification of the 737Max. As a result I suspect they're being ultra cautious over anything that could compromise safety. Although I don't know and can't think why there's been such a delay in bringing this issue to the table.

Re: The way it is done in Europe

Once again Yes Minister is there.

"The Germans will love it, the French will ignore it and the Italians and the Irish will be too chaotic to enforce it. Only the British will resent it."

They were talking about the European Identity Card but still. Oh and the Irish actually do give a fig given what they want to fine Facebork.