* Posts by d3vy

1633 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Mar 2014

Microsoft raises pistol, pulls the trigger on Windows 7, 8 updates for new Intel, AMD chips

d3vy

"Just got a brand new Kaby Lake windows 7 laptop 2 weeks ago. Timing sucks."

To be fair it was announced in January 2016 that this was happening...

Troll it your way: Burger King ad tries to hijack Google Home gadgets

d3vy

A friend bought an echo for Xmas... I joked about shouting "order a 12inch horse dildo" through his letter box... Seems BK had a similar idea.

UK.gov cuts deal with Microsoft to avoid £15m post-Brexit price hike

d3vy

Re: Public Sector? Office 365?

"Are there offline installers for Office 365 products?"

Yes.

Microsoft's new hardware: eight x86 cores, 40 GPU cores

d3vy

Re: This "or" That ?

"But it would not cover PS and XBOX

Then you do need 2 subscriptions"

No different from now - I fail to see the argument.

d3vy

Re: Sorry to be pedantic but...

404

If I was in the market for a second hand tractor craigslist would be the last place I would look for one... I'd expect the chickens to do a more reliable job than anything sourced from there!

d3vy

Re: Sorry to be pedantic but...

"Tractors can be hired out you know"

I am well aware - I used to write software to automate plant hire for a highways contractor...

As long as you can get the job done in less than 14 days I guess you could rend one (Didnt have the exact model I quoted prices for before but this is close : Source

But thats not what the original comment said, it said "I could sell them and buy a tractor.

My point is - no you can't. ;)

d3vy

Re: I'll buy it

I've got an Raspberry pi 3 that's running a PS1 emulator.

Interesting. Ive got a pi3 running retro pi for SNES and NES games - Dont know if it does PS as well... are you using retro pi or something else?

I also have a stack of old machines just because theres something about having the original hardware... blowing on a catrridge etc that adds to the whole experience. Last week I picked up an original play station for £10 with controls and a few games, got a PS2 (Slim) a few weeks before for £30 but with about 50 games... Just need a 3 and 4 now then I can start buying up all of the old Sega machines!

d3vy

Re: Microsoft's new hardware

"Can I put Linux on the Microsoft hardware?"

On the surface book - yes.

I'd imagine it would be possible on the studio - but dont own one and cant find anyone online that has done it... But I'd imagine that it would be possible as it is on the Book and tablets.

On the console - probably not. But then youve not been able to do that on anyones consoles for quote some time (You could on the original XB if I remember rightly)

d3vy

Sorry to be pedantic but...

Retail cost of a chicken : £3.50 (Source)

Gross profit (Assuming no expenses and some tax evasion) : £3584

Cost of a tractor : £44k (Source)

I think you're going to need some bigger chickens.

d3vy

Re: This "or" That ?

"A valid argument against this -^ would be the monthly fees for online gaming."

I'd imagine that the one xbox live sub would cover both the XBOX ONE and Scorpio. The one sub currently covers xb360 and XB1... so I cant imagine that it will need an extra subscription.

d3vy

Even if you have just one 4K HDMI port, you can always use a switch. Plus Xbox Ones can do HDMI passthrough. Will the Scorpio be able to do 4K HDMI passthrough, meaning it can go between the Sky box and the TV? Don't know yet.

That passthrough requires the xbox to be on though... which is a massive pain in the arse.

d3vy

I hope that this drives down the price of 4k monitors... I currently have two 28" 4k monitors on my desk at the moment and want another 2 but having spent almost a grand on the first two I need to wait until the prices come down a bit.

Printer blown to bits by compressed air

d3vy

To be fair, if every time they destroyed the printer with compressed air they were supplied with a new one... resolving the original problem.

Seems ideal to me.

A bit like a friend of mine who years ago took offence to the cost of ink cartridges for his epson inkjets to resorted to using the ink up that came supplied with a new printer and then returning it as faulty knowing that for the sake of £50 the shop would just give him a new one and send the "Faulty" one off as an RMA to the manufacturer... He got about a years worth of printing out of that before they refused to replace any more.

Lenovo's 2017 X1 Carbon is a mixed bag

d3vy

Re: Heavy Sleeper

Ah, thats interesting, I hibernate my laptop and desktop all the time (desktop at the end of each day, laptop multiple times each day) Never had a problem. Thats why I asked.

d3vy

Re: Heavy Sleeper

Serious question, Why would hibernate be worse?

Other than writing a large chunk of data to the disk - which happens regularly anyway?

d3vy

Re: Dosh?

"Lenovo seem to have failed to understand why an SD card slot can be useful in a laptop. It's not to add storage, like it is in a phone."

To be fair I can see where they are coming from on this. The YOGA series all had full sized slots but only half depth meaning you couldn't put a card in there and leave it in for storage purposes. This caused people (Myself included) to be very pissed off and vocal about it on the forums (I was pissed because I hadn'd done enough research and spent £100+ on an SD card at the same time as buying the laptop only to find I couldn't use it for its intended purpose)

It looks like they have gone the other way now - My problem is resolved as I can put a large micro sd card in and go away happy... but they have now pissed off a whole other group of users!

Ive had my yoga apart... theres room for a full depth slot - Im sure there MUST be room in the BIGGER x1.

d3vy

Re: Dosh?

"When a rival site's link gives you almost as much information again as the Reg article, in the space of a few seconds, it's time to sack your writers."

To be fair the article is touted as a real world test not a review, its a description of how the machine stood up during real world use not how it performed in benchmarks.

Londoners will be trialling driverless cars in pedestrianised area

d3vy

Re: Glad I'm not a pedestrian in London

"Well - from anecdotal evidence (ie - me) I can say that's rubbish. I've never been hit by a car (although I've hit one or two!) but I've been hit a couple of times by cyclists[1].."

I know you were not talking to me, but Ill just point out that this backs up my point. Hit by two bikes, did you die?

Being hit by a bike is preferable to being hit by a car in every conceivable circumstance. :)

d3vy

Re: Glad I'm not a pedestrian in London

"I suspect that since the injuries inflicted by "a mostly squishy lycra clad human" would be less severe, then the dying could very well take a lot longer"

... Or just not happen at all?

Are you seriously saying that because the WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME from being hit by a car and a bike is the same that you would rather be hit by the car for a faster death... given that I have NEVER heard of anyone dying as the result of being struck by a bicycle (Not saying its not happened - just that its rare) I'd still choose the bike every time.

d3vy

Re: Make use of...

"There is no such thing as Road Tax in the UK. Sorry to disappoint you. There is vehicle tax, but roads are under the remit of local government (except motorways), so actually cyclists probably effectively subsidise motorists to use roads - they don't produce much wear."

Also worth noting that the vast number of cyclists will also own cars and pay tax on those, so even if there was road tax they would be paying it.

d3vy

Re: Glad I'm not a pedestrian in London

"That depends on your ratios. Per km travelled by the bike or car, bikes are about the same for pedestrian KSI. But if you look at the chances of being hit per km walked, the ratio is dramatically skewed towards cars, for the simple reason that more km are driven than cycled by a very long way."

I cant imagine the number of deaths caused by being hit by a bike is that high?

I wonder what the average speed of a bike vs the average speed of a car is? If I was to pick something to hit me at its average speed I'd pick a mostly squishy lycra clad human over a car any time.

Mac Pro update: Apple promises another pricey thing it will no doubt abandon after a year

d3vy

Re: Did the meeting really take place or is it fake news?

No,

Apple never repsond to requests from the reg, their refusal to comment on this article should not be read into.

WWW daddy Sir Tim Berners-Lee stands up for end-to-end crypto

d3vy

Surely we can just knock up a GUI in VB to track the IP address of the messages... That's bound to help somehow?

Wi-Fi sex toy with built-in camera fails penetration test

d3vy

Yeah!

I've found a new name for my mobile hot spot!

D'oh! Amber Rudd meant 'understand hashing', not 'hashtags'

d3vy

"The trouble is, the electorate is only given a choice between sets of clowns, so inevitably clowns is what we get."

That's not entirely accurate... We have ukip too, so it's clowns or arseholes.

UK to block Kodi pirates in real-time: Saturday kick-off

d3vy

Re: Horses for courses

"Sounds like the ideal motivation for ISPs and others (router vendors?) to finally get IP multicast working right then, surely, rather than letting it gather dust because "no one wants it"?"

Yeah I agree that would be a great solution. But then you're back to running a paid subscription service that people wont pay for while theres a free stream available too...

Unless you are suggesting multicasting the pirated/unlicenced streams that fixes nothing.

Y'know CSS was to kill off HTML table layout? Well, second time's a charm: Meet CSS Grid

d3vy

Re: <table>

"it would depend on a lot. A simple way to center a quote, for example might be like this:

blah blah blah textᐸbrᐳ

ᐸtable align=center width="95%"ᐳᐸtrᐳᐸtdᐳ

ᐸbᐳblah blah blah quoted areaᐸ/bᐳ

ᐸ/tdᐳᐸ/trᐳᐸ/tableᐳ

blah blah continuing on"

Are you on drugs?

You can do the same thing with a p tag and text-align=centre

Simpler, Faster, LOWER BANDWIDTH, easier to understand when reading the HTML.

Whats more MY WAY WORKS - dont take my word for it : https://jsfiddle.net/x0bawqdL/

d3vy

"an old standard, put a small banner at the top "this site looks best in Firefox or Chrome or Safari" with links to the appopriate packages. SHAME Micro-shaft into doing the right thing."

I hope thats a joke?

If not can I suggest we go right back to the 90s and also give them an optimal resolution of 800*600 (maybe 1024*768 if you're feeling fancy)

Ill just finish by pointing out as others have done that this is NOT A STANDARD *yet*, MS are doing nothing wrong by not implementing it yet.

d3vy

"Not to blunt your righteous rant, AC, but you are aware that this CSS grid is not currently a standard? It's a candidate release. I mean, you're talking a lot about standards so I'm sure do. Don't you?"

Of course they dont, this will be one of the people who was hacking away at getting HTML5 sites pumped out back in 2014 and then complaining that they didnt look right in Firefox Safari and IE.

Implementing non standard features is what got microsoft shafted in the 90s - its WHY WE ARE STILL STUCK WITH IE6 in corporate environments.

Timeline :

1. Someone proposes some awesome HTML5/CCS3 feature.

2. Browser manufacturers all rush out to implement it.

3. Designers/Developers all develop their apps to use it.

4. Standard agreed (With differences from the proposal)

5. Sites start breaking as the new standard is rolled out.

This is exactly why we used to have to have CSS hacks and conditional HTML comments, so we could target different browsers to use the different implementations of the same thing.

This is something that I see creeping back more and more now... Its like stepping back in time - I honestly thought we were past it but nope, apparently we are doomed to repeat it.

The one good thing is that the browser manufacturers seem to be communicating more so there is a better chance that the implementations for this change will at least be similar.

I still think anyone going out and using ANYTHING that has been proposed but not yet made a standard in a production application (Unless they control the browser like in a corp environment*) is asking for trouble.

* Actually given that I do work for the NHS and have to target IE6 still because of this attitude I take that back - even if you have tight control over the clients your asking for it.

d3vy

Re: Finally!

"I use table for general formatting a lot of times. it's more convenient and renders consistently everywhere I look. Let's hope 'table' doesn't get dropped from the HTML spec as a result of a CSS alternative. That would be like dropping 'C' as a programming language in favor of C-pound or Objective C... no, wait"

For a start, its SHARP - as in the musical notation - but you knew that already.

No one is suggesting getting rid of tables for laying out tabular data, thats what they are for.

Now as for your suggestion that you use table for layout of your pages... great, give me the URL so I can have a look at it on my phone...

d3vy

That sounds like a very specific and slightly unusual use case...

d3vy

"So web developers will *still* be having to write 2 sets of code, one for Microslow browsers and one for the rest. Been like that for decades so what's new?"

No,

Sensible developers will continue working to the standards that are common across all popular browsers which means anyone going out and developing using this today is probably a little inexperienced.

That said, https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?year=2017&month=2 shows that IE usage has dropped WAAAAY below where it was last time I looked, still if I was creating a new web app today I'd definitely not want to use a technique that wont work on 10% of the clients trying to use my service.

d3vy

Re: Finally!

"And no-one ever has written shit CSS?"

Plenty of people write shit CSS, but the thing is as long as the site renders and looks like its meant to it doesnt matter how shit the css is.

The HTML on the other hand does affect people - mainly people with visual impairments using screen readers.

The whole point of CSS was to decouple the style and layout of the page from the content with bootstrap and others there has been a bit of a blending again where we find ourselves having to craft HTML is special sometimes awkward ways in order to fit in with the pre-determined CSS & JS

As an example using bootstrap to create a single form element requires me to create two divs a label and an input, the way that we did this back in the old days would have been a table - the only real improvement bootstrap gives us in this case is that it will scale for mobiles.

The way we would have done it before bootstrap (the way I still prefer) would be to have an unordered list with each list item containing a label and an input then CSS to layout the form in a sensible way.

d3vy

Re: Finally!

"Tables have never been a problem. If you think tables are a problem I'd write to your primary school and demand the teddy bear gets some more IT teacher training"

Tables are not a problem when they are used to display tabular data.

When they are used for *layout* (Which is what this about) is when there starts to be issues.

The problem is to use tables to layout a three column page with a header and a footer you need a table with three rows (One large cell in row one, three cells in row two and one large cell in row 3).

This will NOT scale well on different devices.

This will NOT be accessible to people using screen readers.

This will use more bandwidth to download and take longer to render on the clients browser.

Then there are the development challenges, this is the markup required to generate the table described above

https://jsfiddle.net/xxjgpxvm/

Now imagine we need to add a fourth column into the middle on *SOME* pages, its not that bad but becomes a bit of a problem. Now add into the mix that if we are not using CSS for layouts that your menu is probably going to be rendered in a table -get ready for the nested tables- because thats how it was done...

https://jsfiddle.net/xxjgpxvm/1/

As much as I am being filled with nostalgia about this, I never want to return to the kinds of complex table based designs I used to work with 10-15 years ago - tables are for displaying TABULAR data thats the only thing they should be used for. Using a table to layout a web page in 2017 would be mental - if I had a designer who did this it would be the last proposal they submitted to me.

d3vy

Re: Finally!

"Right, that's why tables are still a fundamental part of the structure of nine out of ten webpages."

I challenge you to find ten pages (popular ones - not your mates page advertising his dodgy kodi boxes...) made in the last 5 years that use tables for layout.

IT contractors behind IR35 calculator to leave HMRC... because of IR35

d3vy

Re: Still don't understand....

@Roland

Ahh right, I see, so force them to take at least 26k in salary and then they can do what they want with the rest - that makes more sense and would likely be preferable to the way that IR35 is implemented.

--

However with the dividend rate being increased and the allowance being decreased the % of tax being paid by contractors has already crept up considerably in the last few years, The effective % that i paid out was always not far off what you would pay through PAYE anyway, its probably even closer this year.

--

A quick bit of back of the fag packet maths shows that the extra wage WOULD increase the contractors personal tax contributions BUT because wages are a business expense the corporation tax would DECREASE.

This means that the money in the company available for the contractor to take out at that sweet 7.5% dividend rate goes up a bit and HMRC gets less money overall and the contractors net remains fairly unchanged as the extra dividend pays their PAYE bill.

* Disclaimer - Im not an accountant and its 1am so I am prepared to be wrong - but at the moment it all looks right.

d3vy

Re: Still don't understand....

"So a contractor on £400+ pday is probably doing the same work as an HMRC employee on £26K pa. ie. minimum wage"

No permie developers (except maybe graduates or juniors) are on 26k a year.

26k isn't minimum wage.

And you assume that client work is the only thing we do... How do you figure i reimburse myself for all the bits that i do for my company?

What about the evenings and weekends spent upskling? Actually... What about the costs of my training? On 400 a day after corp tax and company expenses and the wage you propose there's not enough for training (at least not decent training)

I don't think you've thought this through.. given your figures/assumptions i don't think you have much of a grip on the reality of the job market in 2017.

d3vy

@anon.

Yeah the % was somewhere in the low 20s.

Does that make you upset?

I doubt my accountant has a tax bill in double figures, he's very good.

I can picture your little face getting redder and redder as you thump your hands on the desk and stamp your feet at the thought of all of these people paying less tax than you.

On a serious note the % paid means nothing, permies have many ways to legally keep themselves in the 20% tax bracket, it's not my fault you're a bit too thick to realise this and take advantage.

d3vy

Re: TAX CHEAT ALERT!

"So you are taking a reduced salary in order to avoid paying tax and NIC on travel loan repayments?

Doesn't that make you a tax cheat?"

Only in the same way as a pension or cycle to work scheme makes you a tax cheat.

It's all above board and approved by HMRC, they have a page on their site about it.

My point was you can't complain that contractors get tax free travel expenses as a benefit when employees can do the same thing though a different mechanism.

d3vy

Re: easy pickings

"Tell you what, I'll forego sick pay and pension contributions (currently paid into a pretty hopeless scheme but it's the only way to get the company contributions), take a 30% pay hike and sort my own affairs out - no sick pay, no holiday pay, no pension contributions."

There's nothing stopping you becoming a contractor and doing exactly this

d3vy

"About time the contractors paid tax."

I know, I know don't feed the trolls...

Last year I paid around 13k in Corporation tax, 2k in NI and about 2.5k (It was somewhere in the middle of 2 and 3) personal income tax. So thats £17,000 - how much did you pay?

I also collected around £5K in VAT for HMRC and helped to keep a small accountancy firm in business.

d3vy

Re: The team?!?

"Are you serious?, GDS is so inept, that a handful of questions required a team of contractors to deploy?"

Yes - if there was not enough perm resource to develop and manage the project it would have been staffed by contractors. Thats what contractors are for.

d3vy

Re: Travel expenses

"People not claiming back £14,000 per year for travel would not be a terrible thing. Employees pay their travel out of their wages (after they've paid tax too)"

Utter arse gravy.

For a start a permie wouldn't be able to commit to that commute and if they needed to for a short term placement their company WOULD have to pay it.

As for the paying commuting expenses from post tax income... Also arse gravy in many situations.

Every permanent employer I've had has offered travel loans for the purchase of rail cards etc, the loan is paid back as part of salary sacrifice.

This is a very common arrangement.

d3vy

Re: Travel expenses

"You can say what you like about sick pay and holiday pay - it's not worth that much"

Well holiday pay is worth AT LEAST 30 days worth a year (probably closer to 35 with bank holidays) and sick pay varies depending on you being I'll but as a permie at my last co I could take 6 months on full pay...

Forget the sick pay though.. let's focus on holiday pay, your employer pays you to have 30 working days off, they still make your pension contributions for that time and still pay employers no payments.

I think youll find its worth more than you think.

Yee-hacked! Fired Texan sysadmin goes rogue, trashes boot business

d3vy

"Which is why you link IAM to AD via ADFS. Disable the AD account and all IAM access disappears."

RTFA

He set up at least one new account they didn't know about.

UK gov draws driverless car test zone around M40 corridor

d3vy

I've been wondering when widespread testing would start in the UK.

It's one thing testing on American roads, nice and wide, mostly built using a grid system. Testing in the UK where a good number of our roads follow old Roman foot paths is something altogether different.

I for one can't wait to see how they deal with passing places and national speed limit b roads.

New plastic banknote plans now upsetting environmental campaigners

d3vy

Is tallow unique to cows? Or can we extract something similar from vegans...

Europe to push new laws to access encrypted apps data

d3vy

Ive not read the rest of the comments yet but it seems to me that there isnt a way to enforce this.

You can compel companies to give you access to their services but anyone wanting to communicate privately will find ways to do so.

I mean whats to stop me going on twitter and tweeting a lump of 140 characters of encrypted text with a #TodaysBigNewsStory hash tag?

Potentially thousands will see it and disregard it - only the one guy that I have previously shared the key with can decrypt it...

Actually Im pretty sure I could patent this in the US :)

Or you know.. we could go back to the 70s and start posting hidden messages in the lonely hearts section of the local paper..

Windows 10 Creators Update: Clearing the mines with livestock (that's you by the way)

d3vy

Re: The full set of release editions...

@word_merchant

Are you sure it's not an acronym?

d3vy

Re: Creator What??

Ok..

So not like mint, cinnamon, marshmallow, lollipop, mountain lion, Snow leopard, leaping lemur and gnats nad?

MS didn't start this ridiculous naming scheme so it hardly seems fair to complain about it.