* Posts by Down not across

1987 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2013

Systemd supremo Lennart Poettering leaves Red Hat for Microsoft

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Re: SMF

I think that may have been the point the author was trying to make.

If systemd, rather than being the cancer it is, had truly been FOSS implementation of SMF, I don't think anyone would've objected. I run a lot of Solaris boxen and for any homecooked stuff, I pick either simple init script or SMF with its manifests if I really need the contracts and milestones.

Everyone back to the office! Why? Because the decision has been made

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Re: that jerk with the annoying voice and that other bastard who sniffs all day.

Back in the day (when all phones still had (easily) removable batteries) the standard was to remove battery and leave next to the phone on hte desk., Repeate offenders had some all all parts dropped in their bin.

Of couse now that (nearly) everything has a sealed battery, your suggestion...

Alternatively take the phone and smash it with a hammer.

is a good alternative. or if you want to give them some hope dump it in a pint/mug of water (especially if not a waterpoof model).

Windows 11: The little engine that could, eventually

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Re: Re-added need for MS Account to download from Windows Store.

You forgot (unless it has changes again) that in non-enterprise versions you will have to have MS account to install/activate, no more local accounts.

Perhaps you can afterwards create and use local account but i'm not interested enough to even find out.

When time runs out on W10 then I suppose any game that doesn't run under Wine/Proton will lose out.

Graphical desktop system X Window just turned 38

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Re: Baby and bathwater come to mind.

It's come a long way from it's origin, but browsers were meant to handle largely static, mainly one-way communication. Extending that into an application display framework always seemed like an ugly fudge to me, and I think the bloat and inefficiency in our modern web browsers, which are now probably the biggest resource hog in any workstation just shows how poor a decision that was.

I wholeheartedly agree. Dynamic content in the form of CGI was far enough. This current fad of "web apps" is infuriating. They're not exactly "just run in the browser" anyway, as many require downloading additional crud/plugins to work.

Warning: Colleagues are unusually likely to 'break' their monitors soon

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Re: What is the market for these devices?

That is certainly a possible outcome. Would be a shame as the Series X is actually a pretty decent console. Not to mention Sony needs competition.

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You say that like its a bad thing. And if you don't connect them to network updates are largely irrelevant.

CockroachDB adds command line tool as database hits version 22.1

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*less

"I am fascinated by the serverless thing," said Walker, "I think it should be called Infrastructureless, eventually, I think that's really what this thing becomes… what we're doing it is we're preparing it so that it can actually work for huge massive applications."

This irks me. Without some server and infrastructure, there is nothing to run the stuff on. Yes it might be somewhat opaque to the end user, but there has to be server and networking somewhere.

Repairability champ Framework's modular laptop gets a speed boost

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Re: I'll Be!

Not a fan of Realtek. Some RTL interfaces hang when you actually push any data through them, so I'd like to see intel network card option (even if only at !Gbit/s). I would also like to see 3G/4G WWAN option. Otherwise it is quite tempting proposition to consider replacing my 12.5" latitude E7240 (the 1rst gen "slower" would do fine). EIA-232C expansion would be really nice too to avoid yet another dongle off of USB port.

Turing Pi 2 crowdfunding goal smashed within a day

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Re: A million dollar gimmick.

I have also backed this. I have Turing Pi version 1 (which for those who don't know, supports 7 nodes on the board) which is bloody brilliant. I think theyv'e done a cracking job in having just enough integration/management built in that (for me at least) it is worth paying a bit rather than doing from scratch. Sadly CM3+ modules are bit difficult to obtain at the moment.

I am stil wondering if I should've pledged for 2 to have a fail over cluster.

Enterprise-strength FreeBSD-based TrueNAS releases v13.0

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Myself, I went with nas4free (think they rebranded as XigmaNAS some time ago) for reasons that I can't even recall (sometime afrer the fork from FreeNAS happened) and the upgrade worked flawlessly. Slightly different approache between iXsystems and Xigma as they each went in slightly different direction.

Touch wood, has worked flawlessly without any issues on HP MicroServer (old N36L IIRC) booting off of internal USB stick. I did add intel dual port gigabit card to the MicroServer which improved network throughput and reliability.

FTC says Frontier lied about its internet speeds amid $8.5m settlement

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Re: I had Frontier service, and TBH was perfectly happy

Verizon did flog all/most of their copper wireline to Frontier. I wonder if there is any correlation.

Qualcomm sampling Wi-Fi 7 silicon for next-gen access points

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Channel bandwidth and aggregation

Channel aggregation and increased bandwidth is all very fine, but not much help in urban areas. Finding, a reasonably, free channel let alone one supporting 160MHz bandwtdth is nearly impossible in most urban areas let alone 320MHz. Admittedly 5GHz/6GHz helps a little bit but still leaks enough that you're sharing with nearby neighbours.

Apple's return-to-office plan savaged by staff

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Re: No real surprise

If you think working in clean rooms and/or under watchful eyes of CCTV (well IP nor CC...) is trusted, then yes.

A discounting disaster averted at the expense of one's own employment

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Re: Access is not the problem

We had someone (or someones) pointing Access to Sybase backend and it caused no end of havoc as it locked whole tables. Not sure if that was fault of Access or ODBC drivers, but the end result wasn't pretty. it is possible that it does something stupid (while thinking it would improve things0 causing lock escalation from page level locks to table locks.

Cluebat was swiftly administered for the guilty for doing that without even asking if that was allowed/good idea.

Apple to bin apps that go three years without updates

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Re: So you wrote it, and it works

Whilst true, an old app with no updates is less likely to be suddendly borked by "improvements".

i can't speak for Jobsian situation as I don't have any such handheld devices, but certainly with Android I've lost count how many times fairly well working app has been broken or made useless by improvements that either make it less stable, slower or in some cases lose functionality in some cases by bait and switch of trying to make people buy the paid for version.

I don't mind paying for something I use frequently or depend on. For something rarely used less so. To be pushed to upgrade by crippling existing version I'll just find another that does what i need (and pay for that if I need to).

Windows 10 still growing, but Win 11 had another bad month, says AdDuplex

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I haven't had a microsoft account since the MSN messenger days (was that even a microsoft account?), and there's no way I'm locking my OS behind one.

Have an upvote. No way I'd use MS account with my machine. Local account only. So as I've mentioned in another thread, I'll stick with the horrible W10 for games for now, once that stops working (need newfangled DX21 or something) its time to stick to what will run under Wine/Proton and give up on games that won't.

Nvidia, Intel, others pour $130m into optical chip startup Ayar Labs

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This doesn't threaten that investment. All that silicon will need interconnects (whether internal or external to the chip). If anything this is complementary and could be benefit to all that investment in silicon (other than electrical interconnects).

US Space Force unit to monitor region beyond Earth's geosynchronous orbit

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Re: For those

Upvoted for "Bad Taste". Now there is a blast from the past.

ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that turned Europe on to PCs, is 40

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Re: Where it all began...for some

The Dragon (especially Dragon 64) was far superior machine (IMHO) and it could run OS-9.

Robots are creepy. Why trust AIs that are even creepier?

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Re: Now steady on

Perhaps its not a typo and she is a P50.

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Re: True AI

So you're saying Dabbsy is actually Marvin?

Microsoft plans to drop SMB1 binaries from Windows 11

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Re: ID theft

Now that 1gbit broadband is becoming more common, a lot of these home NASs will be replaced by Cloud storage. The only thing stopping me at the moment is the pathetic 1.2mbit/second uplink speed.

That is rather optimistic.

I think you would find that its a minority that will be able to get 1Gbit/s broadband, and of those majority quite possibly won't see the need nor want to pay for the additional cost.

i don't see that changing very fast either.

OneWeb inks deal to launch its LEO satellites from India

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Where else did you think he'd quickly get them now all the ones from EU have been booted/pissed off.

Netflix to crack down on account sharing, offer ad-laden cheaper options

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Whilst I undederstand it is to do with content licensing, I really wish we/they would have moved beyond the geoblocking and having to fiddle with VPN and DNS.

They might even get better uptake in subs in other countries if content weren't restricted based on country you're connecting from.

Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP

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For me as a tech nerd, sysadmin and gamer Windows 10 is crap, the worst version yet.

It looks utter shite, does things behind my back whether I want to or not. Configuration is inconsistent mess. Granted its reasonably stable, but then were the other versions if you ran them on stable hardware.

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I have few DC7900 SFFs running BSD and Linux. Perfectly usable.

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Re: "This situation will likely continue [until] businesses are given a compelling reason"

No. They don't care.

Corporate is corporate and its their hardware so whatever. At home the only reason for Windows is some games. I think they have managed to push the hate meter to 11 now, so its case of either a game runs under Wine/Proton or I just give up playing it. I refuse to be forced to a MS account to install/use my own local machine.

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And a million other little checks and ticks that slow a machine down or otherwise make it unusable.

Quite. Had (and still have) that with many corporate laptops. Not too bad, in some cases even quite nippy, until the corporate bloat is piled on so that end result is totally unresponsive laptop that runs like in treacle. One suffers to even get to password prompt from screensaver let alone trying to do anything else.

I suppose it is secure since you can't do bugger all on it... Thank $deity I do all the stuff in PuTTY sessions etc. If only I could just reimage with FreeBSD or Linux but corporate....

Review: Huawei's Matebook X Pro laptop is forgetful and forgettable

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Dunno, quite a few Lenovos in many corporate networks. Or do you really think Huawei is special?

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Re: However

Sure, a different CPU. However the performance difference in Windown vs a VM is dispropotianate, which is something that is likely to be a factor for many El Reg readers. There are times when Linux/FreeBSD/etc in VM is more convenient than dual booting despite how much one might dislike Windows.

From the article:

The machine did decently on my go-to nasty job: running Handbrake to transcode a five-minute 4K video file down to 1080p, consuming six minutes and 20 seconds for the job. That was just two minutes slower than the Corei9-powered Asus laptop I used on my last Desktop Tourism adventure.

However, the Huawei struggled mightily running the same workload in an Ubuntu VM under VMware Workstation. The laptop's fans got quite a workout as it struggled through the job in 16:11, more than double the time needed by the Asus.

So 130% time taken in Windows, 200%+ in VM. May not matter to you but would do for me. Although to be fair i'm in the awkward minority where lack of WWAN will make it no sale anyway.

Atlassian comes clean on what data-deleting script behind outage actually did

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Or the deletion script would look up the ID mappings and bailed out or warned "You really sure you want to do this?" if the ID was for a whole site rather than customer.

Likewise perhaps the mappings should include GDPR compliancy flag, and the "GDPR mode" would not engage if the flag for that ID was not set.

Raspberry Pi goes back to the future with the CM4S

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Exellent

Oh, I've been on the hunt for small stack of CM3+ for my Pi cluster. And was slightly concerned on the rather non-promising shipping estimates from the usual suppliers. CM4S would make much nicer cluster and I am happy to wait a bit (...could I have 7 shipped for tuesday please...).

Finnish govt websites knocked down as Ukraine President addresses MPs

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Re: "Many countries that see Western democracy view it with the same revulsion"

I am not denying that those in power in the Western democracies wouldn't exploit people. Of course they do. However, it seems to be that the exploitation by those on the top in so called communist/socialist countries is on totally different scale and the divide between the ruling elite and plebs is far greater. Don't forget that power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

No, the west and capitalism are not perfect, nothing ever will be, but I find it a lot more appealing than the alternatives.

South Yorkshire to test fiber broadband through water pipes

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Re: common ducting

The utilities aren't helping either.

Power company was digging up roads/drives to fix their dodgy old cabling (this went on for year or two on almost monthly basis before they relented and replaced the whole cable ...or what they hadn't already replaced bit by bit ...either way the street was more dug up than not for couple of years).

Cue someone smelling gas, the gas company comes to dig some more to see their pipes (not much needed as they were more or less all tangled with each other (the pipes/conduits, not the workers).

Once all sorted the amount of fuss of "whose hole" it is and who should fill it and who should fix my drive once they had agreed on filling the hole. I think it was couple of weeks before I had my drive back.

IIRC in the end it probably was the leccy company as they drew first on the jackhammer.

If you fire someone, don't let them hang around a month to finish code

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Re: Comments are bugs, too

Post-its are so yesterday.

Proper tickets are the way.

Better yet use thermal paper and they will auto-destruct

The time you solved that months-long problem in 3 seconds

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Re: Sewing? I replaced a network cable.

And motorcycles. Quite capable off-road bikes. Well at least used to be in 80s-90s, I suspect modern ones should do as they merged with KTM IIRC.

Japanese startup makes baby carrier-style sling for 'Love Robots'

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Re: "cuddling up to a furry machine"

..and there I was thinking Tamagotchi (and the craze) were nuts.

Dell creates portable workstation that meets Evo consumer laptop spec

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Re: 13.3-inch

i used to think that. I still do mostly.

However as I needed to carry more than one laptop when doing some travelling I bought some 2nd hand 7240Es and they are actually lot better than I thought they'd be. Perfect size. Much nicer to carry around being lighter (especially if you need more than one laptop) Ok battery life on old ones is not that great. Great size to use on a plane, wouldn't want to try to balance 17" on airplane tray.

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Re: Dells

Agreed. i still have some D620s as the real serial port is useful.

As much as I like larger screens I've grown quite fond of my E7240s that I have few and I've replaced parts as needed, maxed out RAM (or added the WWAN card if missing). Had to replace the screen on one (only annoyance is that the 1920x1080 is only available as the glossy touchscreen). I have couple spare keyboards and palmrests in the cupboard for when needed. Whilst I've always thought UltraBooks were silly, when I had to recently do fair bit of travelling i found the E7240 perfect, small and light and not too cumbersome to use on a plane either WWAN card for mobile internet is very useful when on the move and I prefer that to tethering.

I did take a look at the new lineup and looks like you can get those new ones with 4GLTE card etc so fairly similar. Sadly they have dropped ethernet port so its either the awful puck or some other USB GigE adapter. Battery is also internal as seems to be the case with all laptops now.

So £2k for new shiny that is less functonal (unless you crave USB C) than my current one.

I think I'll stick to recycling old ones until they die completely or spare parts become unavailable.

Viasat spills on the Russian attack, warns of continued risks

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Re: where did they get spares....

Not sure they necessarily need spares as such.. sounds like a case of reflashing (possibly with help of JTAG or something).

The wild world of non-C operating systems

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Re: REALTIME, baby.

HP1000 was awesome machine, although I had quite limited exposure to it. Was used a lot in process control etc due to its realtime capabilities, I mainly came across it in conjunction with data acquisition and instrumentation.

I have a pre-RISC (labeled "classic" after the introduction of PA-RISC based machines) HP3000 running MPE V. Everything apart from serial I/O is based on HP-IB (7970E tape drive, 7911 winchesters (sans QIC option).

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Re: SPL

I loved writing stuff in SPL for MPE V on my Series 39. The intrinsics were very well documented. Not quite the "DEC grey wall" but not bad documentation.

I never did try MPE XL as all my HP9000 PROMs are configured for HPUX. There is a way to unlock the PROM so you can boot either one allegedly.

Intel counters AMD’s big-cache PC chip with 5.5GHz 16-core rival

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Re: Still reeling …

My first hard drive was a Seagate ST125-1 20 Mb, in a 5.25" form-factor, using MFM as the transfer interface...

No it wasn't. ST-125 is a 3.5" drive. If it was 5.25" MFM it was ST-225. The same drive was sold as ST-238R to be used with RLL controller. Many people chanced it by using RLL controller with the ST-225 to get extra 50% storage.

MFM is actually the low level format (just like RLL) and the interface was ST-506.

HP bets big on future of hybrid work with $3.3bn Poly buy

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Trouble is, the majority of those rooms were successfully used for Zoom, Teams etc. so explain why they need a Poly solution.

Still the best headsets in my experience. I've tried many, and Plantronics have been the best, great voice quality (both ways), pretty good integration to most conference solutions (except Bluejeans).

I suspect its same case for the more comprehensive expensive solutions, but I've not had the need (nor the will to spend) for those at home.

I just hope they leave it well alone and don't mess with software/drivers/support.

Hackers remotely start, unlock Honda Civics with $300 tech

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I do the same. Each vehicle has its own keyring. Would be pointless to carry all the keys at all times, also the heavier the keyring, the more strain it puts on the ignition switch.

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Re: Slim jim

Car security has gone backwards massively in the name of convenience. But I never found a physical key an inconvenience in the first place.

I have. In cold weather. Remote unlock is nicer than try to thaw the barrel. Having said that, there is always a reasonable chance its not just the barrel that is frozen, and RKE doesn't help if the mechanism is frozen too.

BOFH: Putting the gross in gross insubordination

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Re: Wargames

It's not on the list.

Apple's Mac Studio exposed: A spare storage slot and built-in RAM

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Re: Reasonably priced Mac Pro

Only *one* of my probably 10+ laptops (running various versions of Windows, Linux and BSD) is newer than 3 years old.

Samba 4.16 release strips away more SMB 1

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Re: Old equipment

Also - SAMBA still sucks. Now it sucks slightly less, but it still sucks.

Dunno. The early versions were bit temperamental. Recent versions seem to in my experience work rather well and any issues I've personally had have been just down to me misconfiguring it.

Epson payments snafu leaves subscribers unable to print

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Re: HP Are no better

You really should have.

Toner cartridges (originals) for the 4700 colour laser are not cheap, but they do last forever. I maxed out memory on mine. Sourced maintenance manual for it. I think it'll probably last till I'm dead and buried. Same for my old LaserJet 4M and 5M printers that are still going on with the occasional feed issue to sort out. All are equallky happy with PCL or PostScript.