Posts by Robin

Scribbling limits in free version of Evernote set to test users' patience

Re: $130 per year?

I'd imagine those exciting plans for next year include "simplifying" the tariffs (i.e. making it more expensive)

Meta's ad-free scheme dares you to buy your privacy back, one euro at a time

Forward this to all your friends!

Groan, I can already imagine the dumb forwarded posts, about how "Facebook are going to start charging for your account" and probably also mentioning Bill Gates for some reason.

Apple lifts the sheet on a trio of 'scary fast' M3 SoCs built on a 3nm process

Re: Or for less money ...

That's funny, I almost spat my morning cup of potato all over my keyboard

Sorry Pat, but it's looking like Arm PCs are inevitable

Re: Strategy

Can't it be both?

NASA to equip International Space Station with frikkin lasers (for comms)

How big?

This optical module is described as being the size of a microwave

So somewhere between 1mm and 30cm? Not very precise.

Lost your luggage? That's nothing – we just lost your whole flight!

My punishment? U had to buy cakes for the whoe office!

I like that punishment! One place I worked had a "Broken Build Biscuits" rule; if you committed code that broke the master build then you had to buy a pack of Maryland cookies for the team.

Ssshhh

as a database admin with a certain unspecified national airline

Wow that's quite some level of secrecy. But I bet if he nosed around the database a bit more, he could have discovered which company it was.

OpenAI's DALL·E 3 teams up with ChatGPT to turn brainfarts into art

Re: Apropos Dall-E

Which suggests it picks up "yellow", "blue", "jacket", "car.", and possibly "man". But doesn't know what any of those words actually mean or how to link them.

Could be worse, it could be picking up "person", "woman", "man", "camera", "tv" and nobody knows what it means.

Lightning struck: Apple switches to USB-C for iPhone 15 lineup

Re: milking the lightning cable royalties

Ah yes. All hail apple...

There's "all hail Apple" and there's "all hait Apple", and the truth lies somewhere between.

Dutch consumer groups sue Google over its entire business model

Re: Illness

Aha but I found a way to keep one step ahead, by already searching for online medication, cryptocurrency investment advice, hot girls in my area and also I send money to random Nigerian princes as well just to be sure.

If you like to play along with the illusion of privacy, smart devices are a dumb idea

A couple of years ago lived in a small place where the room through which you entered the house didn't have normal ceiling lighting, and instead had to rely on plugged-in lamps. And the only convenient place to plug in such a thing was the other side of the room from the door. So no, it's not always possible to do that. Yes it was annoying. I set it up as described above so I could either turn on the lights from my phone as I approached the house, or do it via a voice command once inside (and it would also tell me a joke).

I'll see your data loss and raise you a security policy violation

Re: Outlook...

Or having a massive pile of photos, random bits of paper and possibly even DVDs on the surface of their desk, and complaining they can't find anything, while the desk drawers are completely empty. Oh and I suppose in this metaphor the recycling bin would actually be on the top of the desk too.

When?

At the time Windows often lived in a mess of its own making

Doesn't help narrow it down, really.

Polishing off a printer with a flourish revealed not to be best practice

Re: Stories from Grandad

It's stories from the future that need a time machine.

This week's submission comes telepathically from a reader we shall Regomise as Tony. Cast your minds back to the 2130s. It was 25pm and Tony had barely started his weekend of being on space-call, when the fluxcaller rang. "Oh Belgium!" he cursed as he threw his moonbeer to the floor, only to see it miss and float away. His space boss gave him the bad news that the space printer was on the blink again and he would have to go there in his space rocket...

Windows screensaver left broadcast techie all at sea

Who me on call?

Isn't this article more in line with "Who, me?" rather than "On Call"?

I've always thought that:

On Call = This situation happened (or management imposed this stupid edict) and I fixed it in this way

Who Me = I fucked up in this way and did/did not solve it by doing this

You're not seeing double – yet another UK copshop is confessing to a data leak

Re: Captain paranoid

Nice, thanks for the links! Interesting reading.

Re: Captain paranoid

Management and CIOs are scared to say no

I'm not particularly up on this stuff, so it's a genuine question... what happens if they do say no? Surely there's a mechanism in the Act to tell people to do one if it's an unreasonable request?

Florida Man and associates indicted for conspiracy to steal data, software

Re: Let me just correct the record here.

Thanks for including the phrase "Sleepy Joe", it means I don't have to bother reading any more of this thread.

Have you ever suspected your colleague doesn't hope this email finds you well?*

Re: Or the really annoying

Agreed!

It's really fucking anno**ng.

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

Turn turn turn

"Five reports indicate an inability to steer the vehicle. Seven additional reports cite loss of power steering resulting in increased effort to control the vehicle," the NHTSA said in its investigation document.

So a new Tesla is about as easy to control as my 17 year old banger with a failing power steering pump?

Want to live dangerously? Try running Windows XP in 2023

Since it's maxed out, it would be a good experiment to try running Windows XP on it

Samsung’s midrange A54 is lovely, but users won't feel seen

Re: Duh, comparing apples to oranges

This has echoes of "you're holding it wrong".

Sure, there are situations where a fingerprint reader is more convenient than facial recognition, but if it has the latter as a capability then shouldn't it work properly, even if it's not the preferred method?

Brit broadband subscribers caught between crappy connections and price hikes

Re: Speed issues

> my kids do not understand the difference between "WiFi" and "the internet"

> My kids ask for an "Android charger" when they mean mini/micro USB.

Kids say the funniest things :-)

Indian telecoms leaps from 2G, to 4G, to 6G – on a single day

Re: 6G may be

> no one reading this will ever have a use for it in their lifetime

To be honest, if they just got 4G working consistently everywhere (to like 100Mbit/s or something) I'd be happy.

Bosses face losing 'key' workers after forcing a return to office

> WFH makes a difference when there is no metrics as to whether any work gets done

Developer-turned-Team Leader here. I have no metrics on specifically who's doing what work, yet still it all gets done regardless of what kind of chair people are sitting on. My team is distributed across 4 different locations around Europe and I literally have no idea (and neither do I care) whether they're in the office or at home that day, unless I happen to see the background of their camera in a meeting. I trust people to do the stuff that our team has committed to, and they repay the trust. Everyone plays their part and it's quickly apparent when someone isn't pulling their weight.

As an aside, in the past I've had plenty of days in the office where I've done hardly anything and also days working at home where it's way more productive than in the office due to absence of distractions.

Google HR hounds threaten 'next steps' for slackers not coming in 3 days a week

Re: if it ain't broke, don't "fix" it

One company can't manage remote workers properly, therefore the concept doesn't work anywhere? Understood.

File Explorer gets facelift in latest Windows 11 build

Explorer? You mean the internet?

Is there a feature to go back in time to whenever someone at Microsoft had the bright idea of naming File Explorer almost the same as Internet Explorer, so when you're trying to guide users as to what to do, they keep opening IE instead of browsing files? I have a cricket bat with that person's name on it...

Meta tells staff to return to office three days a week

OK, how do you stop the non-morons (aka wife) wandering over and asking you to put a plug on this, take the dog for a walk, look after junior whilst she nips to the shop etc?

Maybe have a grown-up discussion about it? e.g. in my home working scenario, we have an agreement that if the door to this 'office' room is closed then I'm working on something from which I can't be disturbed, otherwise I'm fair game for interruptions. And I usually say at the start of the day what time is good for lunch together.

Fed up with slammed servers, IT replaced iTunes backups with a cow of a file

Great...

complete with their disdain for "the man" and any sort of corporate diktat

...now I want a Kit Kat.

Buckle up for meetings on the road as Cisco brings Webex to Audi autos

Re: CARIAD?

Here you go:

Dwi ddim yn caru'r syniad hwn (ond sgen i ddim Audi anyway)

Mars helicopter went silent for six sols, imperilled Perseverance rover

"Initiate 'wipe on t-shirt' procedure..."

Re: Wrong place for the solar panels?

I see a similar effect here on Earth with my own panels.

I too have problems with the exposed "panel" on the top of my head interacting with the environment, and sometimes I have to deploy a hotfix (knotted on both sides).

EU monopoly cops probe complaints about Microsoft Azure

You'd think of all publications, El Reg would have its vulture-based metaphors on point

Monopoly Cops

"EU monopoly cops probe complaints about Microsoft Azure"

We could do with those Monopoly Cops turning up to our house on Christmas day.

I've seen things you wouldn't believe, like an atom about to photosynthesize

Re: Pics! Where are the pics?

Or far away.

Nostalgic for VB? BASIC is anything but dead

Re: GUI interface

Thanks a lot. I just had to go and watch that clip again, and now I feel sick.

Most Londoners would quit before they give up working from home

no-one in the office to ask those 'off the cuff' questions

My team of 9 is split across 4 offices and in my particular office there are 3 of us. Today one of my colleagues is off sick and the other is working from home, but I can ask off-the-cuff questions to any of my other team members over text chat or a quick call, possibly involving a screenshare of some code. In which case it's the same whether I'm at home or here. We still learn stuff via these random chats or side-chats during calls. Although obviously it's not perfect 100% of the time, it's pretty straightforward and our team has been working like this for about 5 years now. We work as one team regardless of location and most of the time I have no idea whether my colleagues in other offices are at home or not.

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

Re: We all traipse into the office for that critical meeting that HAS to be face-to-face..

The problem there is as you say, most people being in one room and some people calling in. For that stuff we try to do it so that either ALL attendees are physically there, or ALL attendees are calling in, even if half the people in the meeting are sitting at their desks on their own machines near each other.

UK's Online Safety Bill drops rules forcing social media to remove 'legal but harmful' content

Re: An exercise in pointlessness

road to hell and all that...

The road to hell is Rhea-ly dangerous.

Just follow the instructions … no wait, not that instruction to lock everyone out of everything

"the stories seem to have got a lot less dramatic recently."

Wait until you hear about the time I left a USB cable on my desk...

Millennials, Gen Z actually suck at workplace security

Re: "something only 15 percent of boomers and 31 percent of Gen X admitted to"

If companies got rid of the requirements for upper case, lower case, numbers, special characters blablabla and just made users type in longer phrases that are more easily remembered, then the ...1,2,3 stuff wouldn't even happen.

Infosec still (mostly) a boys club

I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

No, working in IT does not mean you can fix anything with a soldering iron

Party Smalltalk

When getting to the "so what do you do?" part of smalltalk at a gathering, I'm sure we've all been on the receiving end of "oh, you'll be able to help with my [WiFi | Printer | Old laptop | ... ]

I just say I do pure programming and "other guys" do the hardware stuff.

He's only gone and done it. Ex-Register vulture elected to board of .uk registry

Chew gum and kick ass?

For the sub-heading, I can't help but think that the "drink milk and kick ass" variant from IT Crowd might have been more in keeping with the theme of this esteemed publication :-)

Microsoft mistakenly rated Chromium, Electron as malware

Re: Microsoft’s changelog...

Yeah if I made 8 releases to fix a production issue in our system, I'd quite rightly be accused of having guessed what the problem was and just trying things until it went away.

Be careful where you install software, and who installs it

Private Libraries?

General Misunderstanding and Major Problems

British intelligence recycles old argument for thwarting strong encryption: Think of the children!

Re: Only the Guilty?

Only English allowed?

You jest, but in a previous place where I worked, a manager became frustrated that he couldn't eavesdrop on some conversations between devs (presumably paranoia-driven) and declared "English only in the office please".

Said office was in Gibraltar, where a large % of people speak Spanish. You can imagine how well that was received.

Apple forgoes cooling systems in M2 MacBook Air

Sticky Stuff

I don't really understand how they're celebrating the fact that things are "modular, and not glued down" whilst also moaning about "dealing with ever more brackets and screws"?

What's expected here? Velcro?

This is the military – you can't just delete your history like you're 15

> (er, let's call them Celtic Bereaved)

Were they running Scottish Windows?

Happy birthday Windows 3.1, aka 'the one that Visual Basic kept crashing on'

Re: If You Ask Me

"I think someone has an axle to grind."

I'm getting tyred of all these puns.