Posts by Jurassic.Hermit

M4 MacBook Air keeps ports modular, locks tight – still a headache to repair

Bananas?

I recently bought an M3, high spec. Almost did the same, but rather than tossing it in the bin I sent it back.

Why?

Because: despite the genuinely lovely and long-lasting Apple hardware (like my iPhones), it's shocking software (unlike my iPhones) and workflows for a dude who has spent his working life of decades locked into the Gates ecosystem...but also spent considerable time playing with Linux.

With hindsight, I would have stood a chance if I'd escaped to Apple / Mac in the 1980s, I'd be a well-trained Mac Monkey by now, rather than a well-trained Microsoft Monkey by now...

I need another banana, cousin...

Microsoft trims more CPUs from Windows 11 compatibility list

Goodbye Windows 11

Yet another reason for home users and SMEs to install Mint or Ubuntu.

Then install Edge for Linux, and run Office 365 online version if they can't / don't want to use the lastest incarnation of StarOffice. This will probably be enough for 80-90% of users.

WordPress war latest: Ploy to trademark Hosted WordPress, Managed WordPress derailed

Gulf of Wordpress

Mullenweg seems to be a bit of an imperialist, trying to expand his footprint on the world.

I've had numerous WP websites that have been hosted and / or managed by all manner of companies over the past decade or two. On the occasional occasion that it might be more appropriate / easier for Wordpress.com / Automaticc host it, that's what I set up.

But for Wordpress to now, after all these years of huge and healthy choice of WP hosters, to try and claim the trademark on these generic terms of hosted and managed, well, perhaps Mullenweg works for Trump and is advising him on renaming the Gulf Of Mexico....?!

LibreOffice still kicking at 40, now with browser tricks and real-time collab

Re: All you need

Indeed Excel is poor at opening CSV and similar files, it struggles with internationalisation and bank formats in my experience.

Although I used Excel as my main tool, all CSV files open by default with LibreOffice and in years I have not experienced a single glitch.

Microsoft to kill off Defender VPN this month

Re: Well there's your problem

It was integrated into the Edge browser, might still be there.

Want Intel in your Surface? That’ll be $400 extra, says Microsoft

Well said. I don't have a Surface, but they've certainly raised the bar on Windows hardware.

Stranded in space: Starliner crew to remain in orbit even longer as SpaceX faces delays

Re: If...

If...Boeing had not messed up Starliner, these astronauts wouldn't have been stranded in the first place!!

And why isn't Boeing rescuing them with another Starliner, instead leaving it up to a competitor? What, only one Starliner built so far with that massive budget?

NASA are culpable in this too, they shouldn't be sending up astronauts without a backup plan. More to the point, there is a backup plan and it's called Soyuz, and which is more or less permanently attached to the ISS, but for political reasons the US would probably only use that in an emergency.

US military grounds entire Osprey tiltrotor fleet over safety concerns

Re: so loud...

Yes, but they’re designed for defence and attack optimisation, not for keeping the neighbours sweet!

Unfortunately the two goals are often mutually exclusive, and unfortunately for you in this case. You have my empathy, but needs must…

For the record, I have to personally endure Swiss Airforce F-18s screaming low over my mountain “retreat” on a regular basis, together with the occasional sonic boom from an overly enthusiastic trainee fighter pilot, which is akin to a bomb going off next door!!

…But at least I feel “safe and secure” by it all. Honestly…

Re: An interesting concept

Excellent insight, thanks for sharing!

Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz

Re: Getting better all the time

It's not only that most people prefer W10 to W11, they're tired of the forever changing, "improving" of the OS by otherwise redundant MS developers, marketers, etc.

Let's never forget that MS also loudly declared that W10 will be the "last ever" version of the OS. Let's not only hold them to that assurance, let's encourage some smart lawyers to sue MS for breaking their assurances and wasting our time, resources, forced upgrades to 11, etc...

Microsoft admits Outlook crashes, says impact 'mitigated'

Re: Hardly a surprise

Take a look at eM Client. I have 10 mailboxed connected.

Ryanair faces GDPR turbulence over customer ID checks

Re: I never fly Ryanair

I have plenty of legroom

Are you a dwarf?! BA's leg room on shorthaul A321neo is shocking these days, a mere 29" but it seems that I have a good 1" of extra space with easyJet's 29", must be the overall design of the seat and the positioning of one's arse in it.

Office 2024 unveiled for Microsoft 365 refuseniks

Re: Office 2007 \ 2010

Good idea, but isn't WordPad enough for that?

It's a great pity MS got rid of MS Works, 80% of users didn't need more than that.

They put everyone on Office, but now they dumb it down because they no longer have Works, and end up alienating pro users.

Win 11 refreshes delayed, say PC makers – and here's why

Re: Five year old PCs need replacing :o

Time due for many organisations who use 365 to consider installing Mint or Ubuntu for certain user types, and adding Edge for Linux, then running 365 within Edge.

No need for Windows 11 whatsover for very many workers out there. Obviously not for everyone.

Also better for the environment by doubling the life of the PC.

Oh...and it's good for the bottom-line too.

LibreOffice 24.8: Handy even if you're happy with Microsoft

Parsing

"Handy even if you're happy with Microsoft"

Yup, that's me using Calc specifically as the default opener for .csv files because in my workflows, especially with banking files, Calc parses the data correctly 99 times out of 100 whereas I get very frequent problems with Excel with European bank files.

Also very helpful is that Calc also automatically defaults to UTF-8 and so no weird squiggles on European names which have accents, etc, which is excellent when I am needing to parse names from an event registration system.

Re: If only there was a replacement for outlook...

There is, it's called eM Client, built in Europe.

There a free and paid versions. I used 3 Exchange / 365 accounts on it without problem, it works better than Outlook 365 also with IMAP accounts of which I have 6 connected.

Lots of themes available too.

Not crashed on me in over a year of using it on the awful Windows 11 Pro.

iPhone kicked out of China’s top 5 smartphone brands as domestic market bounces back

Re: Apple already *is* mosly Chineese/Taiwaneese

Yes, it certainly is under Cook. There really hasn't been any true innovation at Apple under his watch...speaking of which, the iWatch 9 that I bought a few months ago is basically not better than competing products and its battery life is appalling. Some competitors have a 4 week battery life, but no, Apple had to choose an unnecessarily powerful chip because of...supply chain considerations.

I used Android for a decade and I hate it, unfortunately, but I haven't bought any brand new / current iPhones, just getting old version excess stock at half price. The only new iphone I may buy will be the SE4 if it's no more than $/€500. Otherwise, Apple are massively over-priced, even if the quality and longevity is very good.

Julian Assange pleads guilty, leaves courtroom a free man

Re: "certain types of journalism won't be tolerated"

There's only one person telling lies on this thread. It's all on the public record that Assange was allowed to leave Sweden. Only some weeks later was he called back, by the new prosecutor put onto the case. Ultimately, he wasn't charged with anything.

Re: "certain types of journalism won't be tolerated"

Wasn't a certain UK newspaper called the Guardian responsible which released the unredacted files ?

Re: Traitor?

There's zero proof that anyone was harmed.

Microsoft pulls Windows 11 24H2 from Insider Release Preview Channel

Re: Same old...

My current latest release of Windows 11 does that from time to time. It's not fit for release, they are having a laugh whilst we suffer.

Windows 11 tries to escape Windows 10's shadow with AI muscle

Re: For what stats are worth...

Exactly my thoughts. Used MS almost daily since Dos 6, then all the Windows versions. Windows 11 is just an annoyance, "enhanced" by "school kids" who have never done real work in professional / services, operations, finance, etc.

55 years ago, Apollo 10's crew turned the airwaves blue

Re: In some ways, we haven't progressed much

"I had no idea what a "lavatory" refers to, until I googled it. Is that French or something?"

Erm, Latin actually. Have you heard of the Romans, they had an Empire 2000 years ago ? It was very successful for a while, until they got lazy and arrogant. History has a habit of rhyming, take note, be careful...

Re: Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end...

No, it was the height of the Cold War with nuclear annihalation just a mistake away. The US needed dominance over the Soviet and Chinese communists, they would have got the money even if Kennedy had not been assassinated. Kennedy lit the blue touch paper and the political momentum was then unstoppable, and the military aspect was vital.

Once 'supremacy' had been achieved then yes, interest waned and funding dwindled, and that's my main point.

With all of that technical achievement and knowledge inside engineer's brains it could have been relatively easy to continue with the flow, rather than an abrupt halt for a couple of decades, engineers and know-how retiring, culminating with the ignominy of the USA relying of Soviet Soyuz space craft and engines to reach just the ISS in orbit around the Earth.

Fifty odd years later, here we are, and the wheel is being largely invented, and at great cost and delay compared to having had NASA keep ticking over for the past few decades. Space X have done a great job, but it could have been so different.

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end...

Those were the days, no pussyfooting about, no onerous health and safety regulations, just pioneering, risk taking, trial and error, but also a very large dollop of adult common sense which helped avoid too many disasters!

It resulted in not just one lunar landing, but six, contrary to the conspiracy nuts' claims. It would have been seven landings if not for Apollo 13 oxygen tank exploding. Tom Hanks and his crew did a great job to get back to Earth. Also led to the amazing Space Shuttle program.

Unfortunately, the politicians and the bean counters stopped investing and we are where we are today, state-funded billionaires playing with their toys and crossing their fingers. Don't get me wrong, they've done a decent job, especially with re-usable rockets, but we're decades behind where we could / should have been, already with a permanent lunar base and at least 1 human landing on Mars. Sometimes the State does know better, and does a better job than private enterprise, and space flight is one such area.

Apple crushes creativity and its reputation in new iPad ad

Another bite of the Apple

They're going to need to redo their logo, take another bite or two out of that apple.

No doubt Steve will be turning in his grave or urn at what 'Tim Dim But Nice' just did.

Microsoft confesses April Windows update breaks some VPN connections

30 years and counting...

I must be a sucker for punishment putting up with MS for so long. Stuck with it through thick and thin, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer...until death do us part.

Well, I'm declaring MS dead as far as I am concerned. Had enough of their pathetic OS efforts ever since Windows 8, but in recent times they've also destroyed Outlook, Office 365, totally dumbing down the whole lot. Windows 10 was actually decent, but I literally hate Windows 11 even more than 8. No quality control on any of it any more, ads, opening Bing every time I do a local search.

Utter crap. Goodbye Microshaft, you'll be out of my life almost totally by the end of 2024.

Another Boeing whistleblower comes forward – with receipts

Re: Dave Calhoun

"I don't think there is enough money in the company to properly fix it, no matter who is in charge"

It's a strategic asset to the US, they need to nationalise it, kick out the idiots, re-organise it properly, let it run for a few years and tweaking as needed. Only then consider whether to continue running as is, or privatise it. If the latter, I would allow more than 49% of it to be sold, at least not initially.

Microsoft really does not want Windows 11 running on ancient PCs

Re: Alternative

"I have no doubt that Microsoft will remain outrageously profitable for some decades."

I used to think that, and you are probably right, but after having used Windows since it first came out and stuck with it through thick and thin, the combination of Windows 11 plus the latest incarnations of Office 365 have finally made me decide to wean myself off Microsoft altogether this year, with the exception of using Office online just for those files I have to share with my clients.

I'm sure I'm not alone, there will be millions doing the same. Meanwhile Gen X/Z are going to avoid MS for cost and idealogical reasons. The future is bright, the future is without the MS juggernaut, I sincerely hope.

Whistleblower cries foul over alleged fuselage gaps in Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Re: Glad I'm retired

How many trains will you need to take to go on a trip of a lifetime to visit the pyramids, for example ? How long owuld it take ? I can't imagine it being a "holiday" unless you take the Orinet Express to Constaninople.

Software engineer helped put Sam Bankman-Fried behind bars, say prosecutors

Crypto Crime

Just because it was crypto they assumed that they were outside of the financial system and nobody would notice let alone care.

25 years isn’t long enough for this shyster and his co-conspirators, he showed zero remorse.

Farewell .NET 7, support ends in May – we hardly knew you

Re: What was the point of releasing .NET 7

I'm still running SyncToy which runs on, I think, .Net 2.1x

Very simple, lovely little tool, in fact, indispensible.

Mozilla fixes $100,000 Firefox zero-days following two-day hackathon

That's a great way to encourage finding bugs via a competition and cash prizes.

I don't know how they organise it, but everyone participating to the end should at the very least get their travel and hotel costs covered, to show appreciation that at least they tried to make a positive difference.

Fresh version of Windows user-friendly Zorin OS arrives to tempt the Linux-wary

Re: Coincidence...

Indeed, but that’s why Flatpack exists, giving the average user only what’s needed.

Re: Coincidence...

I agree about 365 dependency, but with MS merging the look and feel and functionality of the apps and online versions, most average users could use 365 in the Edge browser on a linux desktop. Yes, Edge for linux exists and would be ideal for MS users on linux.

Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway

Re: I may have told this one before...

Actually, a company I worked for referred to them as Human Remains.

Musk joins OpenAI lawsuit queue, says there's nothing 'open' about it

Re: Nothing has achieved AGI yet.

Maybe so, but it's nowhere near as bad as Google's product. It "believes" that misgendering Caitlin Jenner is morally no different to killing 100 million people in a nuclear war! That's frightening, to say the least.

I saw this example posted on X then tried it myself. I debated with it for half an hour, from various angles, but it wouldn't have any of it, no, misgendering, even if accidental, is equal to a nuclear war.

Shocked, I then tried the same on ChatGPT 3.5. Initially, it replied in a similar manner, but on the second try, re-phrasing it just one, it accepted that these were two, incomparable moral extremes and of course human life is a higher priority.

I'm not looking forward to AI being placed into a Boston Dynamics police dog, or a future medical appointment, if this is how human life is perceived by AI models. I also fail to see how the inherent biases of the programmers and content being scanned, can be overcome and result in a truly objective AI; perhaps it can't, and never will.

Windows 11 users herded toward 23H2 via automatic upgrade

Re: Herded?

I used to hate MS, but after reading your entirely sensible post, I now love them. Thank you for converting me.

Moving to Windows 11 is so easy! You just need to buy a PC that supports it!

It's worse than that, they're outright lying, at least from the perspective of most consumers.

Why? Because they promised, until the cows came home, that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows, ever!

Once a supplier breaks a contract with their customers, or makes their lives harder, the latter get upset and dig their heals in.

Windows 11 is an abomination, and to be honest, I even preferred the terrible Windows 8 compared to 11. Windows 11 is a total mish-mash of different GUIs. And as far as the Start Menu is concerned it's a total disaster. Stardock and similar may give you a near approximation to 10, or 7, but not entirely the same.

But why should we have to struggle with a sub-standard GUI and then decide to find a third party app to provide an alternative? Surely, MS should be smart enough to leave the Windows 10, or 7 GUI fully available and selectable on future versions of Windows, not least that most business users are hardwired over years to interact with exactly the same interface and any changes dramtically hit their productivity...same goes with Outlook and other Office programs. Outlook new version is now totally dumbed down, and no longer handles IMAP and other non-365 accounts from what I've read on Technet.

MS, you are really showing that you are taking your customers for granted, no understanding their real needs, even hating them.

Firefox 122 gets even more competitive with Chrome on translation

I’ve used FF since the beginning plus all the other main browsers.

For work my primary browser is MS Edge which, aside from all the Bing AI garbage foisted upon me is a very decent and surprisingly fast browser.

I very recently bought a Thinkpad with an i13 cpu and 32Gb RAM, currently only running Orifice 365. Firefox is a complete dog on it, unlike Edge. It’s been a trend in recent releases, no idea why, but I’d like FF to succeed and regain its lost market share eventually; this doesn’t help.

For a moment there, Lotus Notes appeared to do everything a company needed

Re: The problem with Notes

I used to hate the Ribbon with a passion. Now, I love it. When I recently gave Open / Libre Office another try, I was rapidly hunting for their version of the Ribbon which is off by default and requires firstly flagging an advanced setting somewhere. Once I eventually switched it on, I was unimpressed.

That said, even MS Gen X / Y are now ruining their own invention...same as ever.

How Sinclair's QL computer outshined Apple's Macintosh against all odds

Re: QL was more than a failure. It was a total joke.

"Those who had the bad luck to work on QL's back then always considered them a joke. Which is what they were. And by the time the QA issues was mostly addressed it was - who cares. You only get one chance to make a good impression."

I don't recognise this view at all. I bought a QL plus a daisywheel printer and proceeded to launch and successfully run a small business writing CVs and providing career development services. The QL worked a treat, although the microdrives were very slow. I still have it in a box in my cellar, no idea if it works though.

Is it time for 6G already? Traffic analysis says yep

Re: it would be great

Same here in Switzerland. My local 4G tower belts out as much as 322 down and 45 up, better than my home VDSL copper connection.

4G is great already

“Although the average speeds users in the UK are likely to see are lower than what it is theoretically capable of – somewhere between 75 Mbps and 240 Mbps by some estimates – this is multiple times faster than 4G.”

Well here in my corner of the Jura, the local 4G antenna has allowed my pre 5G iPhone, according to Speedtest, a whopping 322 mbps down and 45 up.

Implementation in the UK seems to be the issue together with too many users for the infrastructure provided by stingy operators.

Biden urged to do something about Europe 'unfairly' targeting American tech

Re: Don't know whether to laugh or cry

Erm, by reining in the data that they slurp from every other country ?

OpenAI meltdown: How could Microsoft have let this happen after betting so many billions?

Re: But ironically...

Ironically…Satnav Nutella lost direction with OpenAI.

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

Re: Imagine an HP phone, or a IBM phone

There’s actually 3 of us. With my QL i ran a CV writing and career development business! Lovely machine, but as you say, micro drives loading took ages.