Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: Citrix

Back about then I had a gig overseeing UAT for a server upgrade of an application I'd had a hand in developing years before that. The timing should make it clear this was strictly character-based stuff and they were using some sort of thin-client devices for at least some of their users. The UAT had gone ahead, the application had been cut over to the new H/W & everyone was happy. I was just about to pack up & go home when there was an urgent call to say somebody was now getting unacceptable performance.

It turned out that although it was supposed to be character based the business had bought some sort of package to GUIfy sessions. They weren't supposed to be using it but of course there's always one...

Your staff will be doing SFA until you send them home to work.

Of course it might be a fleet of JCBs we've not been told about but Microsoft seem to be doing the job quite nicely and sending them home to work won't help.

Re: "meaning fewer devices need to be summoned into existence"

Nadella know this. In fact, it's the root of his problem. If nobody's buying PCs they're not buying Windows licences. If they're not buying Windows licences because they've got them the only option to keep the money coming in is to rent them another licence that they don't need.

Re: Why not go all the way?

A Raspberry Pi would have more than enough power to run the equivalent of a Chromebook and/or to run the usual suite of Linux office applications - LibreOffice or whatever (there are choices). I'm not saying you'd necessarily put one in your Chromebook equivalent but it's not a tough job for an ARM processor. But why would you want a Windows VM in your thin client?

That depends on the cost of the remore service. And once you're nicely locked into that....

The answer isn't a Chromebook as such but something like it that isn't tied to a specific service.

Re: Didn't Oracle come up with a similar idea

But just think of all the Windows and Office licences they'll be able to sell when that happens.

Nor do all those bits get shuffled backwards and forwards to and from the cloud do so without more energy being expended doing so. What is the carbon footprint of the internet? Not the computers connected to it, just the routers etc?

Re: Let me see now...

"In what universe is that a basis for a lawsuit?"

One in which, amongst other things, lawyers now require payment in advance.

"Twitter is 100% his without any minders or babysitters."

Does he not have co-investors? If he loses their money he might be well advised to decline invites to embassy parties.

You should really add another - wife's birthday.

Re: ... next time

Also the locks had a bit of tolerance so that a number could just be near enough. That meant that in the worst circumstances it wouldn't take as long to open it blind as would if he'd really had to try every single combination.

Re: Hacking an airport

"with a business card to prove it"

None of the Air Canada ladies nor the policemen must have watched the Rockford Files.

Never write the password under the keyboard. It can't be read and typed at the same time so anybody wanting to use it will have to make a copy of it and that's a Very Bad Thing.

Re: Sometimes you do what you have to do.

A Jake Austen ending!

Yes, the magic isn't in the word "root", it's in the UID 0.

Re: This is totally expected - it doesn't know what you're trying to do

It doesn't even have any idea about what it should be doing even when there's a documented standard such as an RFC.

I asked it to produce Pascal code for generating UUIDs to see if it would reproduce the Free Pascal unit (I've noticed the unit's initialisation for a pseudo-random node for variant 1 value misses out on a minor detail which might have been a give-away).

After some wrangling to persuade it I wanted a variant 1 as well as a variant 4 it eventually produced code for, allegedly, both variants. I didn't try to follow what its supposed difference between the variants was but one thing was quite clear: there was no trace of the supposed variant 1 being in any way time based.

Re: "repeated the same disable component, save, re-enabled component, save process"

By the time you've installed the updates it's back down again.

He made money by having people make something customers wanted to buy.

Having so much money has detached him from reality. He's forgotten that he still needs to provide something that customers want to but. Either that or he hasn't grasped that his customers are the advertisers. In fact, given that he's trying to flog multi-coloured ticks to users, the latter is probably the case.

Re: Bit one sided

"become E-Waste overnight"

No, they just stop receiving updates. They can continue to run Windows without updates or they can be upgraded to run a better OS. They don't become E-Waste.

Re: Bit one sided

If only it had been built 4 years earlier it could have helped with William I's great survey. OTOH given how quickly Domesday was put together without computers "help" might not have been the right word.

Re: Bit one sided

"When Windows cut off devices in the past, they didn't really cut them off; the device just wouldn't run well."

AFAIK when they ended support the device simply continued to run as before. But if the cap fits...

Re: computers, what computers?

My first biology teacher was a good shot with a blackboard eraser.* We eventually hid it on top of a wall cupboard for the rest of the term.

* Reputedly so was my late cousin, a woodwork teacher.

Re: Perceptions

You mentioned "algorithm". According to some HMG ministers that makes you a Bad Person. That's how dire our situation is. Sunak worries about the general public's innumeracy but he should really look at those he gives jobs to.