Posts by blu3b3rry

Tech support detective solved PC crime by looking in the carpark

"....the candy factory's mechanics started giving him the cold shoulder...."

Their own fault for thinking no-one will notice misuse of a work PC, I guess. I've never wrapped my head around those who use them for any personal stuff.

If I do need to do some personal bits at work, say on my lunch break, I bring in my own laptop in. Either using my phone as a bluetooth hotspot or the visitor WiFi (we're allowed to use it) although naturally am very judicious about what websites I'd visit!

Workplace had someone sacked a few years back for browsing all sorts of "niche" images and videos on their work laptop while WFH. The content was described as "effectively illegal" which led to a lot of speculation....!

Future jobs in AI will come with a hardhat and boots, tech bigshots argue

What a load of codswallop

Jensen and Satya sounds like they are getting high off their own farts.

Satya's definitely on something if he's denying the existence of a bubble. His own company is still desperately and impotently shoving ClippyPilot into every orifice of their products in a desperate attempt to find a use case and actually make returns on it.

Meanwhile Jensen goes off the deep end and burbles on as if AI development is going to produce some magic "blue collar" jobs resurgence (and you can bet they won't want to pay anywhere near the earnings some of those trades currently get when building datacentres!).

Total bollocks.

Splash-screen memories from a Bangkok ticket machine

Re: Windows, again

I'd trust Win 2000 way more than some newer versions. At least it isn't running Copilot enabled Windows 11. Assuming it could actually boot into the software without crashing, it'd likely start hallucinating trying to sell tickets to destinations that don't exist in currencies that aren't of this universe.

Palantir CEO claims AI will mean western economies won't need immigration

Re: Someone has made a lot of money doing something

Often as not, letting them spout off about things tends to show up how much of a twat they are.

The british nobility are a very, very good example of that.

Windows 11 shutdown bug forces Microsoft into out-of-band damage control

Re: Times like this

Indeed, had such issues on Windows 10 before. In this case, not my choice as the PC belongs to my employer (plus is far too "old" to run W11)

I can only imagine how much snapper it would feel running linux mint!

Times like this

I'm glad I'm "stuck" on Windows 10 on my work machine....

Ready for a newbie-friendly Linux? Mint team officially releases v 22.3, 'Zena'

Re: LDME

Huh. Took me 30, no, 10 seconds to look at the page for it on their website: https://www.linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

The website even tells you at the top of the page:

"What is LMDE?

LMDE is a Linux Mint project which stands for "Linux Mint Debian Edition".

Its goal is to ensure Linux Mint can continue to deliver the same user experience if Ubuntu was ever to disappear. It allows us to assess how much we depend on Ubuntu and how much work would be involved in such an event. LMDE is also one of our development targets, as such it guarantees the software we develop is compatible outside of Ubuntu."

Effectively a backup project, I guess the developer effort to keep it maintained is fairly minimal given Ubuntu's parentage.

Re: Impressed

Have an upvote, thankyou for that. Another jotting for the notebook!

Impressed

I'm impressed with the tweaks on both the cinnamon and XFCE versions. I wasn't sure when I first saw screenshots of the new menu but so far I like it. It feels snappier than the previous menu iteration and has a nice comfy W7-esque feel.

Been using it since W10 went EOL including on my gaming rig with no regrets.

S Twatter: When text-to-speech goes down the drain

Re: for all those who say "it shouldn't be this difficult". apparently it is.

Having grown up in East Anglia with regular family holidays on the coast, the journey often passed by such fantastic places as:

Happisburgh ("Hayesborough")

Postwick ("Pozzick")

and Wymondham ("Windam").

My better half has english as a second language, but is very much fluent. As far as they're concerned, brits seem to just make up the words and how they're said as we go along. Probably not untrue.

Also further away is Bicester ("Bisster").

Of course, there's the somewhat old joke about the american tourist calling Loughborough "Loogabarooga"

Sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that! PCs refuse to shut down after Microsoft patch

Re: issue

Battery wasn't glued in and actually fairly easy to replace given they were internal, only three or four screws once you removed the bottom cover iirc. Sadly there were no spares available. This was in 2021 or so, with PC parts and indeed new PC's being in incredibly short supply, I seem to recall at one point HP were quoting lead times of seven months for new laptop purchases.

Re: issue

At the workplace we have a large fleet of HP Elitebooks / Probooks, all of varying ages. Mine until recently was a very pre-loved 2018 model with an increasingly weak battery, to the extent it couldn't last an hour on battery just at idle. Naturally Windows Update decides while away from my workbench that this is a good time to reboot and tried to apply a BIOS patch without warning, I stopped it from bricking by borrowing a charger to keep it alive.

IT have a cupboard with a fair number of bricked laptops that did exactly the same as mine but had users who didn't understand what was going on.......

I "fondly" remember having a laptop running Windows 10 home that used to do just that. I could be anywhere (overseas, at work, etc) and it would randomly power on and promptly flatten its battery.

I remember being at college during Windows XP's heyday and the desktops in the computer lab often doing the same thing, either getting stuck when trying to reboot or just refusing to shut down altogether. Nice to see the inclusion of AI has fixed all of that. /s

Engineer used welding shop air hose to 'clean' PCs – hilarity did not ensue

Re: Good lord

Stupidity should never be underestimated.

Qualifications don't often enter into the equation either. I've come across both PHD holders and people with no formal qualifications at all who appear to struggle with basic things like shoelaces or jacket zips.

Danish dev delights kid by turning floppy drive into easy TV remote

Re: WTF

It's still less terrifying than Mr Blobby.

Mall display crashes the vibe with Windows activation nag

"making sure the signage hardware is of decent quality."

This sort of digital signage gear is normally barebones cheap-as-chips stuff built to meet the lowest demoninator possible while remaining "sort of reliable", which in some cases leads to rather strange lashups.

I've seen Mini-ITX form factor cases used to house a x86 SBC running these things when they could have made the unit far smaller. Presumably done because the ITX case was dirt cheap and less expensive than a properly sized alternative.

If any of these companies were to switch to an alternative OS away from Windows it would likely be Android or Debian flavoured in some capacity, mainly as they're rather ubiquitous and therefore easy to get stuff written for.

My own employer uses Ubuntu internally in their products to render a heads-up-display although that's also due to the certifications on offer.

Your posts remind me of Richard StalIman's POV. I don't think most enterprises give a hoot about the provenance of their software in that manner.

Brussels plots open source push to pry Europe off Big Tech

Re: Cyber Security: A Pre-War Reality Check

"......imagine how bad it is in Britain!"

It's okay, we'll get Crapita to fix it. Our digital infrastructure will then be so broken there will be nothing functional left to hack.

Reducing taxes for businesses and top earners worked so well in the UK when Liz Truss did it that we're still paying for it almost four years later.

CES 2026 worst in show: AI girlfriends, a fridge that won't open unless you talk to it, and more

Yet another wonderful smart addition to the home

Does the fridge have a Genuine People Personality™ too?

The Microsoft 365 Copilot app rebrand was bad, but there are far worse offenders

Don't forget the multiple "Windows Apps" including the one that was an attempt to replace Remote Desktop.

And Microsoft Teams, which can mean the crappy chat/videocalling software, or Microsoft Team which is some kind of business-oriented SharePoint thing. Or did it replace SharePoint? Or was that OneDrive CoPilot for Business?

It sounds like even MS themselves don't fscking know.

Google pushing Gemini into Gmail, but you can turn it off

Re: It really is time to move to some place like Proton

Did the same late last year, I pay for the Proton bundle that includes a VPN and cloud storage, been pretty impressed with it so far. It's also nice to have android apps that aren't constantly trying to ram Gemini features down your throat.

Yes, moving everything was also really tedious, but it's been really worth it in the long run.

SanDisk heals WD Black and Blues, rebrands beloved client SSDs

Re: Dearly beloved…

At least you're not feeling blue about it. Or maybe you're seeing red?

Lenovo shows off new laptops that twist and roll

Re: Priorities?

Upgradeable and repairable started going out the window on laptops when the obsession with "thin and light" came along thanks to stuff like the Macbook Air.

The best way to find anything of that ilk now is either going with a gaming laptop or some of the mid-range Dell/HP/Lenovo business models from a couple of years back. The 2021ish Dell Latitude i7 I was given at work is surprisingly easy to service and upgrade, despite having a unpleasant feeling keyboard and one of the worst trackpads I think I've ever come across.

Baby's got clack: HP pushes PC-in-a-keyboard for businesses with hot desks

The HP "slimline" keyboards are among the worst I've ever come across. Akin to typing on a damp kitchen sponge, only bettered by the cheap Microsoft wired ones....

While that is true, and a good annual clean never hurts...I find that very, very rare for anyone to bother with on a work device. Especially one they don't own, don't pay for and therefore don't care about.

My own keyboard is a spring chicken compared to yours, but it's still 20 years old and works just fine thanks to being kept clean.

Humongous 52-inch Dell monitor will make you feel like king of the internet with four screens in one

I'm sure it's lovely

But for that price I'm happy to stick with the pair of 27" monitors on my desk. One a decent ASUS gaming job (think it was about £500 during the covid times of crazy prices), the secondary a decent Samsung model that work wanted shot of that I got for free so I guess they balance each other out cost wise.

Re: Meanwhile, on top of Great A'Tuin...

My first of his books was Eric, I think I was about 14 when I read it. Read every Discworld book since then, but can't quite being myself to open The Shepherd's Crown either. Not just yet. Every now and again I browse through them and have a read. There's a small group at work who have also read the books, with Discworld references often cropping up in conversations much to the confusion of others!

I'm not familiar with the interview he had with Bill Gates, sadly the only source I can find is on twatter: https://x.com/20thcenturymarc/status/1133395241837506561

It makes interesting reading with a 2025 2026 perspective on things.

Even now I come across references, or realise he had riffed off something else I've encountered since. My favourite recently was the Discworld region named Djelbeybi (say it out loud!) which I hadn't picked up on for genuinely ten years or more. Naturally the first thought as ever is "damnit Terry!"

GNU Terry Pratchett

ChatGPT is playing doctor for a lot of US residents, and OpenAI smells money

Makes you wonder which is less accurate

ChatGPT or RFK Jr? I guess its a low starting point given they're both bullshit generators.

Techie turned the tables on office bullies with remote access rumble

Most of us are also mature enough to "Not Type Like This"

I often wondered how typing like this happens. It can't be attributed to laziness as surely it requires conscious thought, and therefore more effort to repeatedly press the shift key (or more likely toggle the capslock) for every damn word....?

Finally - a terminal solution to the browser wars

Re: Too bad it uses Chromium

Just had a play with Browsh and fairly impressed, likewise I'm not so keen on anything Chromium based.

That said I do like that it's the space year 2026 and people are still coming up with terminal mode browsers! Browsing the internet on one is rather refreshing in a way.

Lynx/Links gets fairly regular use on my little 32-bit only single core Atom Netbook which at least allows it to render webpages without chugging hard on a lot of the cruft out there.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella becomes AI influencer, asks us all to move beyond slop

Re: Well he's a goner....

Activision Blizzard "Do you guys not have phones?"

(upon announcing the next Diablo title was to be a 'phone game rather than PC platform, and the audience responding with boos)

What a load of codswallop

A while ago I suggested that the "Altman" would be a good metric for quantifying the level of AI slop and bullshit infesting everything.

I think a "Nadella" (unit could therefore be in Nads?) is more appropriate.

Things like Copilot would get used if they were actually useful and consistent. My employer pays for the 365 version of the chatbot and it's just as shit as the free one...so why the fsck is anyone in their right mind going to pay for it?

iPad kids are more anxious, less resilient, and slower decision makers

Re: 'read to your kids'

Likewise my folks were always encouraging, and I was plied with books from a very young age. I was a year or two above everyone else in reading ability by the time I started school and it's always been a huge help since.

I don't devour books quite so much as an adult but still make an effort to pick up something to read on my lunch break at work.

New York’s incoming mayor bans Raspberry Pi at his inauguration party

Re: Prohibited Items

Hopefully the new mayor and his aides have received the training for self-defence against fruit.

You don't need Linux to run free and open source software

Re: What can't people do with a GUI on Linux these days?

One that springs to mind for me with Windows is having to jump into diskpart via a terminal window to do simple tasks that a GUI like GParted (or even cfdisk!) lets me do in pretty much any flavour of Linux.

The windows partition manager is another example of a half-broken bit of GUI. Random hangs, confusing removable USB drives with a disk drive, and the clumsy way it tries to assign drive letters.

Another one that springs to mind is fighting disk encryption on Windows 11 home. It's not bitlocker, but called "device encryption" and can enable automatically.

The only way to manage it properly? manage-bde in the command line.

Zuck buys Chinese AI company Manus that claims it deals in actions, not words

Re: So, The Zuck is openly integrating Beijing into his empire

Makes you wonder how long it'll be before the requirements to open a facebook account not only include location and online activity, but having a camera pointed at your face at all times while logged in, along with access to all your local files on your device.

Let's say it's for "user verification processes".

I did have a farcebook account but after several years got fed up with all the crap on there and deleted it. That was almost ten years ago so I'd hate to imagine what a pile of slop it is now.

Stop the slop by disabling AI features in Chrome

Re: waterfox for the win

I know some older versions of Waterfox pre v6.60 had issues directly importing bookmarks from Firefox. Exporting them as a file and importing it manually seemed to work for me okay but I guess it can depend on your setup.

Re: waterfox for the win

I've said it before and will gladly repeat it - used Waterfox for over a year now and been really happy with how it performs.

As for Chrome - why use Chrome itself at all? If you have to use a Chromium-based browser, either switch to Ungoogled Chromium or Vivaldi.

Keeping Windows and macOS alive past their sell-by date

Re: Thanks for the article!

Had no such luck trying to install Server 2025 on a BIOS only Core2Duo machine (2008 or so vintage). It would only get as far as the splash screen before putting the laptop into a boot loop.

Re: On a MacBook Pro 2011

I've had similar experiences with my own 2011 Macbook Pro - it's been running Ubuntu or variants of since September 2022 when I dug it out from under the bed.

Currently running latest Linux Mint Cinnamon, it seems to be responsive enough thanks to a retrofitted SSD although the early generation i5 in this is starting to struggle with the modern internet now, especially Youtube. Wi-Fi performance is adequate but can be a little flaky thanks to the somewhat crap broadcom-wl chipset driver.

Re: Thanks for the article!

How old are we talking here with "very old"? If it's anything like standard W11 I assume Server 2025 requires UEFI and won't work with a traditional BIOS. Given that UEFI has been in use since 2011 or so we're talking some rather elderly machines here.

From a performance standpoint some lower end computers from that era are going to struggle with anything as heavy as a newer Windows OS regardless of how stripped back they are.

A +1 for SDIO

The full driver library it pulls down is ~40GB but definitely worth keeping on a spare USB stick.

It has support for some rather obscure bits, too - even managing to find Intel HD 2000 graphics drivers for Windows XP 64-bit.

I also found it could grab W7 compatible chipset and graphics drivers for a thin client running some obscure AMD embedded APU.

Even more useful when the OEM has removed the drivers from their website (thanks HP....)

Accused data thief threw MacBook into a river to destroy evidence

Re: If paranoid is your starting point !!!!

For those lacking a marlinspike, I found the biggest flatblade screwdriver in my toolbox also worked just fine. Just make sure to wear PPE ------>

BOFH: The Christmas spirit has run dry – time to show some chiller instinct

Given they put him in the hospital as of last episode, I think his standing is already on very shaky ground..The other option is of course sending an extra drum off for waste disposal, containing the boss.

Coming Wi-Fi 8 will bring reliability rather than greater speed

Re: the Teams session automatically transfers back to the PC

Agreed - it's generally a really annoying feature that hardly anyone wants.

I don't get the touting of a computer that locks itself when you move away, either. That's been a feature on W10 for years with just about any phone that's capable of pairing via bluetooth.

AMD Strix Halo vs Nvidia DGX Spark: Which AI workstation comes out on top?

Re: how long before obsolete?

Can't speak for other ARM devices but you do get far longer term support on a Raspberry P complete with kernel updates in the OS.

Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase, perhaps by 2030

Re: "It's new and shiny - it must be better!"

Indeed, no hate for Rust here, more distaste and cynicism for the slapdash way Microsoft seem to want to implement it.

I'm no programmer, but from what I've gleaned by reading up on it a little it certainly has advantages over other languages.

However I don't expect any exec making these decisions at Microsoft to have knowledge beyond "is new so better plus justifies AI".

"It's new and shiny - it must be better!"

This smells rather strongly of bonus-chasing manglement and/or trying to find yet another justification to shareholders for all the money they've spaffed on AI crap.

Sometimes new and shiny is nice, but this definitely isn't one of those times.

New boss was bad, his attitude was ugly, so the tech team pranked him good

Shared a test lab with two younger newbie techs. They had a more or less permanent prank war going on, and as one started and finished two hours before the other there was plenty of scope for mischief.

Such things included:

-Cable tying jacket sleeves shut

-Replacing the 24" monitor at one guy's workstation with a 5" one we used for debugging, fitting it neatly onto his monitor mount and connecting it up to his laptop dock

-Replacing one wheel on a desk chair with a slightly smaller one

-One of the two knackered his ankle playing football. On his first day back complete with crutches, blue disabled badge stickers appeared on his chair, jacket and on the rear bumper of his car....we also had a fake parking ticket do the rounds.

I also recall office pranks including putting desk drawers of paperwork back into the desk upside down, with the handle refitted backwards so everything looked fine from the outside.

What the Linux desktop really needs to challenge Windows

Re: re : Chromebooks "are the path toward the desktop."

In this instance though the OP is talking about installing on a Chromebook, which was never built to run anything other than Chrome OS, so you're comparing apples with oranges in your reply.

Installing a mainstream Linux distro like Zorin, Mint, Ubuntu etc onto normal PC hardware is no more difficult than a Windows install. Hell, in some instances it's easier - Ubuntu happily installed onto my Lenovo Legion laptop with drivers and everything working fine.

W11 fell over almost immediately as it didn't have drivers for the built-in Intel NIC (both WiFi and ethernet didn't work), so go stuck in a loop demanding I connect to the internet and log in with a MS account. This was with a year-old bog standard bit of PC hardware that anyone would buy, nothing esoteric in the slightest.