* Posts by Down not across

1987 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2013

Thales launches payment card with onboard fingerprint scanner

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Re: Hmmmm ...

Well, you would only be touching your own card.

NSO Group 'will no longer be responding to inquiries' about misuse of its software

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Re: Oooo look, magically fixed!

So you can see how I'd want to remove Global Sign from the list of trusted certificate authority. How do I do it?

I think you mentioned you were using FF so something like this:

- Options->Privacy ~& Security

- Scroll down to certificates

- Click "View Certificates"

- Fine the one you want and click "Delete or Distrust"

The old New: Windows veteran explains that menu item

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Pint

(*)OS/2 was also a damn good platform on which to develop DOS and Win16 applications. No more machine crashes from errant code. If the VDM barfed you just spun up a new one.

Have an upvote and -->

I had to do some some stuff in Delphi in the 90s (luckily only as a side as my main job was to run Sun and DEC systems) and got utterly disgusted at Windows crashing the whole box. Enter OS/2 Warp, after pain of getting networking up to speed (Warp Connect did not exist then yet) it was pure bliss. No more crashes (well not of the whole system anyway). Ran faster and more reliably the DEC pc (can't recall if it was 386 or 486).

It was so much better than Windows for actually getting stuff done.

Hijacked, rampaging infrastructure will kill humans by 2025 – Gartner

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Re: Another SF prophecy clanks into life

That just reminds me of Maximum Overdrive (based on Stephen King's short story Trucks).

AWS gave Parler a chance, won't say if it talked to NSO before axing spyware biz's backend systems

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Re: Is that good enough for mission-critical operations?

What's interesting is why a company peddling stuff like this actually chose to use AWS, rather than hosting their own servers. Surely they'd prioritise their own security over ease of use?

Possibly scale. Ease of deployment. No incriminating (assuming illegal in their jurisdiction) hardware/data on premises. Hiding in plain sight among all other stuff that lives in AWS.

The coming of Wi-Fi 6 does not mean it's time to ditch your cabled LAN. Here's why

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Pint

Re: Easy peezy, lemon squeezy

Cheers! Don't mind if I do

I meant to comment on patch panels and switches but got sidetracked and hit submit.

Personally I would wire them up to patch panel for future flexibility. You could probably just house switch(es) in same space as the patch panel (I'm assuming none of your cables need to be longer than 100m from the patch panel to the wall port) and there is sufficient ventilation to the switch(es) don't cook.

If it was me, I'd probably also try to get incoming internet/telephony wired into the same space. Easy to then do what you need with it and/or distribute.

Cannot comment on the observatory, other than excellent idea! As for another workshop, that is a no brainer. One can never have too many workshops.

Good luck with your build!

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Re: Easy peezy, lemon squeezy

Whatever you think ... double or triple it.

Also you could always run more cables than needed for the wall ports. If you need more ports in few years time, its lot easier to pull the box out of the wall, cut hole for another and install than trying to run new cables in a house you're living in.

Given Cat6a should be good for 10G, I'd imagine it should be quite sufficient for forseeable future.

Hubble, Hubble, toil and trouble: NASA pores over moth-eaten manuals ahead of switch to backup hardware

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Re: Sounds Like...

Well, they don't necessarily need to start from scratch...

NRO donated couple of Kennens to NASA

https://spaceflightnow.com/2016/02/18/nasa-moves-forward-with-mission-using-spy-satellite-telescope/

https://www.planetary.org/articles/nasa-gets-two-hand-me-down

Plenty more articles on that around.

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It sounds corny, by mistakes are great learning experiences. Just don't make them a habit ;)

However it is true. And making it a habit is not a problem either, as long as you learn from your mistakes and don't make same mistakes repeatedly.

SteelSeries Apex Pro plays both sides of the mechanical keyboard fence – and wins

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200 quid and not even USB hub

You'd think at that price they could chuck in a USB hub with 2-3 ports (like Sun did on the USB keyboards). Would be much nicer to plug mouse/USB stick/headset etc to the keyboard rather than box under the desk (or worse try to find free port on a laptop).

And its Razer. Perhaps have been unlucky, but most Razer peripherals I've had (mice, keyboards) years ago all died pretty quick.

Linux kernel sheds legacy IDE support, but driver-dominated 5.14 rc1 still grows

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Re: I. AM. OUTRAGED!

It's really the controller, not the drive.

I remember occasionally hooking up for example ST-225 to RLL controller. Better the drive, better the chance of it working. In fact, whilst probably an oddity, i found ST-225 more reliable with the RLL controller than the "real" ST-238R.

Devilish plans for your next app update ensure they never happen – unless you start praying

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Re: Flying car

Given how challenging managing X- and Y-axis with their cars appears to be for many people, is adding Z-axis really a good idea?

Data collected to promote public health must never be surrendered to police

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Re: observation

Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin who said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" ?

Microsoft wasn't joking about the Dev Channel not enforcing hardware checks: Windows 11 pops up on Pi, mobile phone

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Re: More usable, however, is Windows 11 on a Raspberry Pi.

Does this bit ...

even if we have to admit that our Pi 400 seemed a whole lot happier running the Linux-based Raspberry Pi OS.

..from the article answer your question?

Revealed: Why Windows Task Manager took a cuddlier approach to (process) death and destruction

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Re: Why so long?

Isn't that the kind of thing systemd-cancer was supposed to handle.

Never had such issue with any of my non-systemd systems, easy enough to reorder things happen at startup/shutdown.

Panasonic's Toughbook G2 comes Windows 11-ready even as TPM 2.0 supplies dwindle

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Re: That keyboard dock looks like a beast

I don't have the need for ruggedized, but I think Panasonic did a great job on this one.

I think Panasonic has done fantastic job on Toughbook line since its inception. Certainly has been my first choice to consider if needing something rugged.

Tablet with keyboard dock seems quite a sensible idea to satisfy varying needs. And 10-point touch even when wearing gloves is nothing to sniff at.

Ouch! When the IT equipment is sound, but the setup is hole-y inappropriate

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At least it is keyed... even if twice, so at least you have 50% of chance of getting it right instead of 25%. :-)

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Re: SVGA cable screwed...

Lemmeguess: D-SUB HD22 (3 rows / VGA) into D-SUB HD20 (2 rows / old serial mouse)?

Hmm... for VGA to serial I'd say D15 (3 rows of 5 pins) into D9 (2 rows, 5+4 pins).

What you need to know about Microsoft Windows 11: It will run Android apps

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Re: So, SatNad...

Disable telemetry? Far from it. The article suggested that (at least for Home version) with Win 11 microsoft account is now mandatory unlike in Win 10 where at least you can just use local account and shun the "Store" and Cortana etc.

Windows 11: Meet the new OS, same as the old OS (or close enough)

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Re: LSW

There's absolutely no point in running it in a VM inside another OS. That just multiplies the effort required.

I don't entirely agree with that. Once you've created the VM image, it will (or should do) be easily transportable across machines as you fix/upgrade/reinstall them without having to deal with trying to reinstall a specific Windows version or possibly have to hunt for drivers etc.

If it all runs on current version of Windows, then I kind of see your point but you still leave yourself open to the possibility that forced Windows update renders the application non-functional.

Updating in production, like a boss

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Re: There are two types of database programmer in the world

There are also those who don't use transactions and use "autocommit" because that's how their old dBase/Paradox/Access/mySQL database worked....

It is not necessarily quite so "simple". For example Sybase, by default, runs in unchained mode so transactions (if not explicitly started) will commit automatically. However that does not prevent you from explicitly starting a transaction with BEGIN TRAN which you will then need to either commit or rollback.

You can of course also set your session is chained mode if you so wish.

UK spends £36m on 18 little 'bullet-proof' boats to protect Royal Navy assets

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Re: Well tried and comprehensively already field tested .....

Erm no. The boats linked to were avaiable between 11-13m and choice of props (for capacity) or jets (for speed).

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Re: Well tried and comprehensively already field tested .....

also there's no comment on the sea states this runs in.

They do say it complies with Lloyds SSC G2 which says

G2 Service Group 2 covers craft intended for service in reasonable weather, in waters where the range to refuge is 20 nautical miles or less. This group will usually cover craft intended for service in coastal waters, for which geographical limits are to be identified by the Builder and agreed with LR.

Systemd 249 release candidate includes better support for immutable OSes and provisioning images

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Re: Thinks I like about systemd

Ah, but systemd is best thing since sliced bread. Fixes "problems" with old init. No?

Yup, I never had any issues with old init either. Why yes, of course my x86 servers are FreeBSD or Devuan. Closest thing that resembles systemd I have is SMF on Solaris but at least that works and only does what its supposed to.

We don't know why it's there, we don't know what it does – all we know is that the button makes everything OK again

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Re: The light..

There's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses.

(yes, I know Carrie had M16 in the tunnel and the flamethrower was in the phone booth scene....)

BOFH: Despite the extremely hazardous staircase, our IT insurance agreement is at an all-time low. Can't think why

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Re: Ah. The Stairs!

Sounds like the SOP wouldn't have been against using said Land Rover to cart things up/down if the lift was out of order (or even if it wasn't).

iFixit slams Samsung's phone 'upcycling' scheme for falling short of what was promised

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Re: "You buy a phone. Two years later, you buy another"

They probably did the minimum necessary in order to be seen "to be doing something", as I would imagine they're a lot more frightened of a government legislating that devices must be supported for at least X years.

Or requirement for manufacturers to provide unlocked bootloader, if not during support cycle, at least at end of support.

Samsung shows off rollable and foldable displays, suggests they'll arrive in 2022

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Re: Tekwars PDAs have arrived

Or the "Global" in Earth: Final Conflict.

Microsoft sheds some light on perplexing Outlook blank email incident: Word was to blame

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Coffee/keyboard

Re: "foolishly attempt to author web content there and save as HTML"

..that was more prone to fail than a drunk neurosurgeon with epilepsy

B..stard! There goes another keyboard.

Oh, and swiped for future use.

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Phone home

Some of the less appealing aspects of Microsoft's platform were exposed by this bug. One is that Outlook, despite its high value in integrating email, calendar, contacts and tasks, remains full of legacy code that can cause problems.

Equally, if not more so, appealing is that despite having updates off, the software phones home and does updates behind you back.

LG intranet leaks suggest internal firesale of unsold, unreleased smartphones as biz exits the mobile market

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Re: WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

I just want a good OLED screen with the latest HDMI or DP, in a frame more durable and thicker than my fingernail, so that I can immediately plug something else into it to make it "smart" that actually works reliably and not worry about the panel shattering the second I look at it wrong, respectively.

I'd rather he money was used for more HDMI/DP ports than pointless "smart" crap. I'd be happy with large, low-lag screen with 8+ HDMI ports and no "smart" gubbins. Yes 8 is bit of an overkill, but 4 (especially with one possibly used for ARC) is not really enough (think 2-3 consoles, Pi/NUC for "smart", possibly another PC or two, DVD, LaserDisc.... etc). Preferably with discrete selelction of ports via IR or wired remote control.

Sadly the "industrial" options whilst not having the unnecessary smarts, often also don't have large numbers of ports and as you said often have rather mediocre panels in them.

The future is now, old man: Let the young guns show how to properly cock things up

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Re: tape headers

Factory fresh tapes would often benefit from being forwarded to EOT and then rewound back to BOT before actually writing anything to them.

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Re: Back door in to the comms systems

That's what I used to do with systems I supported. Multitech modem, with dialback numbers configured. Bonus was that the company paid for the call (except the inital call to initiate the callback) which with metered calls could easily add up.

As you said, dead easy to setup. And yes you could set it up so that you could also provide callback number with your "password" for the modem to fial back (only to be used at your peril of course).

For the marketeer that has everything – except a CPU fan

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The management were interested, until someone mentioned managing the PIs. I asked (on here) for a decent MDM solution for Raspbian. Didn't get a single answer. Just a lot of downvotes.

Shame that. Shouldn't have been too onerous to do (I appreciate you didn't get useful answers at the time) by PXE booting the PIs.

Your private data has been nabbed: Please update your life as soon as possible while we deflect responsibility

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Re: Boilermaker?

So, essentially submarine but with whisky instead of vodka (well some use Jägermeister). Whisky is better match with beer (IMHO).

An actress, an internet billionaire, and Tom Cruise walk into a space station ... not necessarily at the same time

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Re: Pizza from space

A pizza.

Openreach slaps another 5 million premises on top of FTTP connection target, expects to pay 'minimal tax in the UK' over next few years

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Up to...

I suppose the "create up to 7000 new jobs" is just like "up to" is in with regards to broadband speeds.

‘Staggering’ cost of vintage Sun workstations sees OpenSolaris-fork Illumos drop SPARC support

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Re: Solaris alltogether needs to die

And I'm not talking about dealing with a couple servers, of which you could eventually get to know every single quirk. I'm talking about ruling over three hundred physical servers, with LDOMs and zones so poorly distributed (dev/staging/prod on the same blade) you'd learn to hate Solaris the way I did.

Then you were not doing it right. I've experienced environments much larger than that, running Solaris, with no appreciable maintenance/upgrade headaches. Yes of course time and effort was spent to get the basic setup (scripts/tooling) right, but after that it makes no difference how many hundred servers you have.

I'd say OS is pretty irrelevant in that discussion anyway, as you would have to get the basic setup right regardless of the OS. If you do it well enough your install/management/monitoring is probably fairly OS agnostic anyway.

Terminal trickery, or how to improve a novel immeasurably

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Re: Novel interference

Seems to apply to darts and snooker as well. I suppose suitable amount of alcohol relaxes away any tensions.

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Re: Novel interference

I resemble that xkcd. I do recall one morning (after a heavy night out) discovering I had, apparently, finished some bit of code I was writing (at home for own purposes mind). Worked flawlessly. Had no recollection of touching it previous night. As I recall it was quite elegant (or incomprehensible ...or both).

Not as many $1m customers as last quarter? Sorry, we're out: ServiceNow shares fall despite soaring revenues

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Re: almost excellent

I have no doubt it has plenty of capabilities. Perhaps bit too much. I suspect down to implementation, but its utterly horrid and slow (guess looking up valid values for (nearly) every field takes its time).

So his "Our purpose has never been more relevant. We are making the world of work work better for people." ...for me they are making world of work much much worse.

If you have a QNAP NAS, stop what you're doing right now and install latest updates. Do it before Qlocker gets you

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Re: I have a Qnap

HP used to have nice cashback offers on their Microservers which made nice little NAS boxes (assuming 4 bays is enough).

Mine (old NxxL AMD models) are running nas4free and have been (knock on wood) totally trouble free, after adding intel gigabit card (as the onboard one chokes on large transfers).

Sitting idle while global chips fry: US car industry asks Biden to earmark cash for automotive semiconductors

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Re: Ban chips in cars

Starting at $60k, ouch. Mind you shoving that into a Suburban (preferably 7th gen or earlier for maximum effect) could be amusing.

LG Electronics finally gives up cellphone business

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Re: Shame

On (some) Xperias you also have the option of installing Sailfish. Yes there are other options too, but Xperia seems to be somewhat better supported (at least when I last looked, which admittedly was some time ago).

I've got the power! Or have I? Uninterruptible Phone-disposal Stuffup

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Re: I love the US airports that brand themselves with the name of a city 100 miles away

Or London Stansted. 42 miles from London. And only 30 miles to Cambridge.

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Re: And I love the ones in the UK.

I absolutely loved flying to Amsterdam on Suckling Airways from Cambridge. No need to leave home more than about 30+40 mins before flight. Drive down to airport, park in front of the building. Wander in, show ticket, get boarding pass (laminated piece of card with number on it), walk 2 feet hand it back and trundle out the doors, across tarmac up the steps to little Dornier. Coffee and nice home made rolls for breakkie in flight.

Sadly Schiphol end was of course the usual big airport experience.

Used to do that trip often. Some weeks every day.

Yes, there's nothing quite like braving the M4 into London on the eve of a bank holiday just to eject a non-bootable floppy

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Re: Borked firewall? Just reboot it...remotely!

Back around 1998, when firewalls were software running on hosts

Ah, joys of firewalls on remote locations. I recall back in mid/late 90s changing configuration of a Gauntlet firewall (running on a Sun box) remotely and yes of coursed ended up locking myself out.

At least it wasn't (IIRC) live yet or at least didn't bork production. Still, it meant drive down M11 to Docklands to fix it. You learn to be more careful after that.

Don't be a fool, cover your tool: How IBM's mighty XT keyboard was felled by toxic atmosphere of the '80s

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Re: Dishwashers

I believe that one of the models of Cray supercomputer used to immerse some of the boards in a non-conductive, inert liquid to aid heat dissipation. I can't remember what it was called, but I understand it was green.

3M FluorinertTM. Introduced with Cray-2 with the rather memorable "waterfall". IIRC Cray 3 also used Fluorinert for cooling, sans the waterfall. The current and recent (FC-40, FC-74) are colourless, whether that was the case for Cray-2 I can't recall (didn't think it was colourless, but it was some time ago).

This Netgear SOHO switch has 15 – count 'em! – vulns, which means you need to upgrade the firmware... now

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Re: No, please don't fix anything, Netgear!

I used to do that with the old Ambit DOCSIS modem VM were dishing out to collect stats. Never got around doing that on the crappy SH3.

MPs slam UK's £22bn Test and Trace programme for failing to provide evidence that it slows COVID pandemic

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Re: The crucial number ...

My personal experience (and one should never generalise from a single example) is that none of my three tests returned a result in under 4 days. This is totally inadequate to reduce infection rates for a virus that exhibits such a high rate of infection. (I would be interested to hear from other Register readers of their experiences of Test and Trace.)

Day 2 and Day 5 (TTR) within 24 hours, Day 8 just over 24 hours. Either they're getting better or number of test they do has reduced sufficiently that they can get results expediently.