* Posts by Down not across

1987 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2013

Review: ASUS dual-screen laptop may warm your heart, will definitely warm your lap

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Re: Rubbish "solution" looking for a problem

Seconded. I did just that and got one of those cheapie chinese 1920x1080 IPS portable jobbies. Power from laptop USB, signal from HDMI. Works a treat. And its not an annoying touchscreen either.

Cyclops Blink malware sets up shop in ASUS routers

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Re: Eejit guide to detection...?

The article says

According to Trend Micro's Cyclops Blink technical analysis, once the modular malware, written in C, has been injected into the gateway and is running, it sets itself up and renames its process to "[ktest]" presumably to appear as a Linux kernel thread.

So i suppose one way is to ssh into the router, run ps and see if there is [ktest] listed or not.

Just tested on a RT-AC86U running AsusWRT-Merlin 384.19 and saw no such process.

Client demo in 30 minutes. Just what could go wrong?

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Re: X25 woes

Can't argue with that. My experiences with SunOS 4.1.3, HSSI cards and X.25 might not even qualify for a podium..

Pioneer 10 turns 50: Remembering humankind's first jaunt to Jupiter

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Re: "more than 2 million years to reach it."

Perhaps it will become P'eer.

We have redundancy, we have batteries, what could possibly go wrong?

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Re: This is well beyond my knowledge and experience but....

You mentioned a funny little thing the so often gets not thought about.

And that includes the consequences of the precaution.

Millions of APC Smart-UPS devices vulnerable to TLStorm

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Yet another pointless insistence on "cloud"

Why on earth would my UPS need to connect to "cloud" or anything external?

All my UPS and RPC kit are on their own VLAN and definitely without any access to internet. Only access is internal monitoring, logging and control.

Network operating system Dent 2.0 targets smaller firms

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Re: Can't wait for the Slartibartfast version :)

And a cup of tea to get entropy for the crypto?

IT blamed after HR forgets to install sockets in new office

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Re: Names

Instead they get promoted, or hired onto another company to do the same or worse.

Backblaze report finds SSDs as reliable as HDDs

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Re: Kudos to Backblaze

Seconded. I've found the provided data incredibly interesting over the years.

Just a shame manufacturers don't use the attributes in a uniform way especially with SSDs and many attributes are not directly comparable.

I wonder if 249 could be used to (across vendors) compare amounts written (and calculate how many TDW if adds up to) and then factor that into the failure calculations. I couldn't find the raw SSD data downloadable, but perhaps it is not yet there or I looked in the wrong place.

Proprietary neural tech you had surgically implanted? Parts shortage

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Re: The joys of modifying windows sounds...

Reminds me of few occasions of catting some suitable .au files to cow-orkers' /dev/audio.

Ah the days of innocence and less concern for security.

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It didn't take very long to memorize the most common ones either. What didn't help was that the codes were dependent on the BIOS and usually not same at all across different vendors.

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Probably PC7300 especially given the 10MB HDD. It had MC68010 running at 10MHz and ran System V Release 2. Later 3B1 had drives up to 60-70MB or something along those lines. Sadly I never acquired one, as I quite liked it.

Saving a loved one from a document disaster

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Re: old kit and wp software

And the corrupt one was Verbatim "DataLife" ?

Perhaps I just had few bad batches, but we used to call them (DataLife 5.25" DSDD) DataDeath due their unreliability.

Yes, your ST would've used 3.5" and I do recall Sony and TDK being amongst the more reliable ones,

Oracle creates new form of free Solaris

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Re: OpenIndiana

Yes. Solaris is stable. It also has very functional working SMF unlike LInux's systemd cancer.

LDOM/containers and virtualisation works very well and you can live migrate VMs with no impact to what is running.

IMHO running Solaris (in corporate environment) on Sun^WOracle hardware is a no brainer while Solaris is being supported.

Disclaimer: Yes I am slightly biased with house full of old Sun kit, but in my defense nothing new enough to have been done under Oracle's label.

Amazon Alexa can be hijacked via commands from own speaker

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Re: They are "mostly harmless", honest

As a matter of interest, I did a quick web search and found a page that says "Alexa is always listening but not continually recording. It doesn’t send anything to cloud servers until it hears you say the wake word (Alexa, Echo, or Computer)"

I have this bridge here for sale...

Intel creates lite version of vPro management tech

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I wonder if Tesco are going to claim trademark infringement over this.

Shouln't that be Waitrose?

Now on the actual topic.. remote KVM would be handy, unless that really also requires Windows which makes it rather useless.

Intel targets edgy 5G and AI with new chips, software

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OpenVINO

Well, its friday. Open a vino? Don't mind if I do. Cheers!

Your app deleted all my files. And my wallpaper too!

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Use the source Luke

Ever popped the name of a particularly annoying user into the source, only to come a bit unstuck at code review time?

Yes. Repeatedly. And I wasn't the only one. Some comments in some code caused a bit of grumbling as it was rather critical of management (decisions) and that was plainly explained in the code/comments as for reason why something was done in the way it was done.

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i don't do Windows (apart from having to use it on company laptops) and probably self inflicted but after using OneDrive for backing up files it seemed to default Office to saving everything to OneDrive instead of locally.

Its the thing that I really hate about Windose is when it or parts of it think they know better and make arbitrary decisions without asking if that is what I want. Alternatively it may of course ask repeatedly about pointless things...

EU proposes law forcing manufacturers to share data

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Re: Compete effectively

Did I say you wouldnt pay more for such a feature? And you are of course welcome to do so anyway. As a result this should not be an issue for you. What you do say is dont send data to the US which sounds like a blanket ban that would affect other people not just you and your preferences.

You make a fair point there. My preferences should not impact/limit others' as I would expect nothing less in return. What I would like is a meaningful choice (not just whether to purchase a product or not) of where my data (yes yes, there is a whole another argument of whose data is it) goes.

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Re: Compete effectively

Thats one way to make the European product more expensive or non-existent.

Did I say anywhere I was not willing to pay fair price for a product where my data was not snaffled up?

If the product can't exist without data being shipped to US then it probably shouoldn't exist either.

But they are. If you want to get something untracked then go spend the cash for an offline product etc (like most products are).

Where did I say I wasn't willing to do that? Bear in mind that some products insist on some "cloudiness" (say Logitech's Harmony remotes... no, i wasn't willing to support that model and voted with my wallet to stay away from them).

Some SOHO routers/gateways seem to also exhibit similar tendencies (Linksys for example) and again thankfully there are better products without that and I have been and am happy to pay fairly for a decent product.

(and no I didn't downvote you, as I am happy to engage in discussion/debate and stand by my views while accepting others view things differently)

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Compete effectively

We need to find a way of working with the Americans that is in accordance with this in order not to get a negative Schrems III judgment. It is a priority for us in order to enable the business community to make the most of data under safe and transparent conditions."

How about just not effing send it to US.

"Mandating organizations in the EU to share the data they own — or, equally, restricting them from sharing or transferring data to third countries — will not only prevent EU businesses from reaping the full benefits of the digital transition but will render them less able to innovate and compete effectively in global markets."

My heart bleeds. Re-evaluate the business then. Accept that your customers are not the product.

Also how about mandating publication of protocols used for any "cloud enabled" (in many cases which there is no choice) tat so that once the vendor is dead or abandoned the product it will at least be possible to recreate the backend (or build one to avoid the vendor one in the first place...).

ServiceNow preps mobile apps for real-time transformation tracking

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Track me not

Which is where the mobile apps come in. Fipps claimed they'll literally track progress against corporate performance indicators in real time, and that ready access to those metrics will be welcomed by users.

If they tracked how slow the platform (could be down to implementation/configuration) is and how much time is wasted on using it perhaps, however we all know that will be yet another "Are we there yet?" as we don't have enough already with phone and various IM solutions.

So might be welcomed by manglement, but unlikely to be welcomed by any actual users.

Skills shortage puts SAP projects on hold

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Re: Skills shortage

Here is a website with some "training courses". In addition to having more work to do than you could do anywhere near normal hours, you must also do X hours/X courses. Chop chop.

Beware the techie who takes things literally

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Perhaps. Not how I interpreted it tho.

So that's exactly what Frank did. After one year his app would stop working. To be absolutely sure of staying compliant, he also ensured his app would delete itself and remove all its source code.

I took that to mean his application deleted itself (not just the shareware library) and all its source code as well.

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I'd have the program show a big popup about the license violation (of the shareware library) and perhaps delete just the shareware library, and if feeling particularly helpful, include a pointer as to where to reobtain the library in the popup.

Dark-mode Task Manager unveiled by original's creator

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A lot of the graphs are useful, but not essential to be part of process listing/killing tool.

Task Manager should remain simple and to the point. Pretty graphs etc could be booted off to a different application that could then happily run at lower priority.

When the system has started sucking mud, you just want to find out what is eating all resources and if applicable, kill it.

Intel's plan to license x86 cores for chips with Arm, RISC-V and more inside

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Re: Intel

Well I'm not a fan of the Failbox, and S0NYs Managment is set to make the PSV as succsessful as the PS Vita, at this point. At this point my trust on / in S0NY is that they will continue to fisk this up. Why they don't mortgage the Farm to aquire, and in turn make all future Take2 / Rockstar Games PS Exclusive, is frankly lost on me. Perhaps S0NY are holding out some hope that Brandons DoJ will block this deal? I'd gladly place my money on exactly that NOT happining.

Nor am I. However Sony pushed me to it with the PS3 debacle back in the day. Constant delays, and then in the end sold a crippled console in Europe. Not long after they then started stripping features off too (other OS). The new Series X is actually a decent console.

Exclusives are so last decade. If Sony did that they'd be even more dead to me than they already are. There is no game (as much as I enjoy GTA) that would make me go spend 500 quid on a console just for that game (or possibly couple more depending on the studio in question).

it's not just the console debacle either, they have have had other bugles and the few times I've tried their hardware it has been substandard quality and had to be sent back.

Quite sad really. You used to have to pay premium for Sony (Trinitron etc) but it was worth it. They've lost their way (like to be fair pretty much everyone these days).

IT technician jailed for wiping school's and pupils' devices

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Re: Wrong job description

Given his attitude and antics I doubt any IT security firm would ever hire him. Even as a janitor.

Red Hat signals Intel's software-defined silicon will debut in Linux 5.18

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Re: New wine in old bottles

I recall unlocking cores in various AMD processors. Same CPU, different SKU. Often lower SKU had some cores fail in testing and it was hence sold with less cores. Sometimes you got lucky and could unlock cores and they worked fine.

Facebook exposes 'god mode' token that could siphon data

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Re: Simple Solution

Gawd, I'm getting old

bring back IE6 ffs

Still too new. Lets just go back to lynx or better yet gopher.

Real-time software? How about real-time patching?

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Re: Portable? Shirley you mean luggable ...

I did fair bit of travelling with a Kaypro 2X (didn't trust 10's disk to take the beating of knocked about on travels) so two floippy drives had to do. Got to say the edges were digging quite unconmfotably into your legs (nothing rounded about that beast).

Use Zoom on a Mac? You might want to check your microphone usage

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Re: Just looking in

You're Edward Lyle and I claim my £5

You should read Section 8 of the Unix User's Manual

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Re: Some people find themselves in hell... and build ladders

Unfortunately, too many developers are really just users.

Quite so. And more often than not, have no idea or understanding of the Ops side of things such as resources, manageability, stability, maintainability etc.

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Re: Best manual

Have an upvote for having been a Coherent user. I purchased it back in the day to run on old 286 (IIRC) when the other alternative (for x86) was considerably more expensive Interactive UNIX. Probably the only example I can think of from top of my head, where something rather cheap was very very good. Thanks MWC! It was few years later when Tanenbaum's MINIX started to emerge.

UK.gov threatens to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

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Re: Idiocy

And there I was thinking 1060 W Addison St would've been the most popular choice.

Hello Slackware, our old friend: Veteran Linux distribution releases version 15.0 at last

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Re: No Sendmail?!

Umm...it may have been intended as a joke. i don't know. However I have written quite a few sendmail.cf by hand. Admittedly not so much in last few years, but back "then" that was the only way.

I suspect a few people would be surprised what can be achieved with sendmail.cf if you have half a clue of what you are doing.

Have you tried restarting? Reinstalling? Upgrading? Moving house and changing your identity?

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Pint

Re: Grumpy Ol' Dude

Thoroughly enjoyable decade it has been too.

Cisco inferno: Networking giant reveals three 10/10 rated critical router bugs

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"fixed software is yet to arrive for some models"

fixed software is yet to arrive for some models

I'm suprised fixes for any exist. Historically cisco seems to have had zero interest in fixing any issues with the crappy RV series. I suppose 10/10 CVE makes an exception.

Tried few RV series kit and they were atrocious. no stability. Random freezes/crashes, etc (and I wasn't even trying to push them hard). Cisco's forums revealed all the issues were common and cisco showed no interest in fixing issues.

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Umm some... but not as many as while back. The cheap(ish) second hand routers don't really cope with broadband speeds without choking the CPU. Many are now happy runnin OPNsense on PC engine's APU.

Grab some tissues: Meta's share price tanks after Facebook emits latest figures

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Generally share options have a vesting date on or after which they can be exercised at the price they were issued at. There is no (that I can see) benefit for the share price to fall. The higher the share price, the bigger the difference (and thus the money you receive) between current market price and your vesting price.

Given the vesting price (arbitrary and not necessarily anything to do with current, at the time, market price) is set when options are issued so the only way I could see lower market price possibly being beneficial if there was options about to be issued which might be loosely tied to current market price, in which case driving price down would make those options vesting price lower, and thus increase your profit (assuming market price recovers).

Back up for a minute – Backblaze HD reliability stats show oldies can be goodies

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Thank you for the statistics

Andy, I'd just like to thank you for the data you provide (and have done for quite some time) on the drives. I find it really interesting and useful.

Happy birthday, Windows Vista: Troubled teen hits 15

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Re: Vista Stumbled so 7 could Run

That reminds me of some software (can't recall which, but some where building management type ones IIRC) insisted it needed sa access to Sybase (or in some cases MS SQL Server). I said "Not going to happen." In most cases you could work out what privileges they actually needed, but again crap developers developed stuff as sa instead of normal database account.

BlackBerry offloads its 'legacy' patents – some of the stuff that made its phones hum

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Re: Legacy

What does this Catapult IP Innovations entity intend to do with whatever they got their hands on anyway?

Catapult sueballs at (un)suspecting victims?

When forgetting to set a password for root is the least of your woes

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As long as they're only telling and not trying to be more helpful by rebooting it for you.

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I'd suggest echo $PATH instead.

Earth to Voyager 2: Standby for connection – after we tip this water out of the dish

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Re: Reminds me of an old TSR program

Reminds me of DRAIN.COM, which did the same thing (but as I recall did not TSR) and at the end did spin cycle which spun the floppy, I used it with cleaning diskettes (remember those?) to clean the heads on occasion.

Idea of downloading memories far-fetched say experts after Musk claim resurfaces in latest Neuralink development

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Re: I don't see a problem in his statement.

It would be a lot simpler if we were binary, but we're not, we're ambulatory bags of electrochemical soup.

Far my my field of expertise, but that statement summarises perfectly what my understanding is.

I watched a documentary on Hugh Herr from MIT recently and modern prosthetics are (or can be if you can afford them) quite impressive.

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Re: I don't see a problem in his statement.

So we're pretty far from a SQUID yet. And it has become obvious not a lot of memories would fit on a MiniDisc...

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Re: Fitted into the skull

Fitted into the skull, the implant will connect "micron-scale threads [that] are inserted into areas of the brain that control movement" and can be charged wirelessly.

Is that like the Borg regeneration pods?