Posts by Chika

Got an old Raspberry Pi spare? Try RISC OS. It is, literally, something else

Wha... *yawn* what? NEW RISC OS?!?

Oh joy! Must bust out my RPi! It'll make a change from fiddling with Linux and *shudder* Windows! Might even consider re-igniting my Phoebe project to put it in a Phoebe case that I put on the backburner years ago!

Musk's latest X-periments: No more headlines, old posts vanish, block gets banned

I don't care anymore

I find that I have had less time to tweet anyway and since Muskrat took it over I've had even less inclination to post. If he really does enact these latest edicts against that which was once called Twitter then I suspect that I may be one of many that will be removing ourselves following all those others that have already said goodbye.

Let's face it; Elon is a spoilt brat with more money than sense. Paypal only became successful after he went, Tesla has a record of making shoddy product and now the little whiner is doing everything that he can to kill off Twitter to try and make something that nobody asked for.

And to think that I broke my long silence here just to say all that! What a waste!

Elon Musk's Twitter moves were 'reaffirming' says Reddit boss amid API changes

I have little or no interest in Reddit generally but I can appreciate that it has been used over the years as a repository of information for so much, both in the IT industry and outside. It was only a matter of time before it, like Twitter before it, would be used as a cashcow so I'm not sure if the whole blackout thing was worth the effort beyond the obvious news grab.

The one thing I would say, however, is just one word. It's all that Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and any other company needs to remember before they try risking their positions for the sake of money.

MySpace

You'll never get Huawei with this, FCC tells US telcos: Buy Chinese kit and you won't see another dime from us

Re: Communism IS terrible

You mean rather than a country where the state holds sway over you and can monitor your every move, you prefer a state that is controlled by a shady group of people who can hold sway over you and monitor your every move.

I see your point. So can all the other victims worldwide of US Intelligence monitoring. Huawei? ZTE? Feh!

Three UK goes TITSUP*: Down and out for 10 hours and counting

Re: Three customer here...

sPeak up *crackle crackle* can't hear you! *BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

Romford Station, smile! You're in London cops' final facial recog 'trial'

Romford, where?

If you really want to insult me, refer to me as a Londoner. Bloody expansionists.

OneDrive is broken: Microsoft's cloudy storage drops from the sky for EU users

So now you know why...

...I always said that I didn't trust cloud technology like this. The problem is the single point of failure; Microsoft.

Your RSS is grass: Mozilla euthanizes feed reader, Atom code in Firefox browser, claims it's old and unloved

Re: re: I read this news first from the RSS feed

Totally agree, and on a lighter note, after recently having extended troubles with Quantum, I discovered Waterfox, a branch of Firefox that got out of there before Quantum swallowed up the whole ecosystem.

I do have one Linux machine running the latest Quantum as a reference point but everything else either runs pre-Quantum ESD or Waterfox. Sod Mozilla if this is their attitude right now - as bad as Microsnot.

A third of London boroughs 'fess to running unsupported server software

Re: Server 2005???

I'm looking at the paragraph right now. "Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2005; and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008."

I never heard of Windows Server 2005 either.

Heads up: Fujitsu tips its hand to reveal exascale Arm supercomputer processor – the A64FX

ARM dreams of being in a laptop?

I wonder where I put my old Acorn A4?

OK, deep breath, relax... Let's have a sober look at these 'ere annoying AMD chip security flaws

The only question I'm asking is have these chip 'flaws' surpassed Y2K yet as the biggest non event in computing history?

As one of a large number of people who worked pretty hard to make sure that everything worked reasonably well come 01/01/2000, I think that I can guess why you might have a few downvotes on this post.

Microsoft whips out tool so you can measure Windows 10's data-slurping creepiness

Re: Reporting ...

It's more than that. Oh yes, they want to be as transparent as possible but the loss of trust means that some will have trouble trusting a tool from Microsoft, and they still won't switch the slurp off either.

Nokia 8: As pure as the driven Android - it's a classy return

If it wasn't for the fact that my current Huawei, nearly 3 years old, still really performs well for me, I might have considered this. Suffice to say that buying a replacement Huawei is a no-no for me because of the EMUI (aka "I want my Android to look like any phone other than an Android") interface, the only downer here (yet again) is the sodding sealed battery!

All your masts are belong to us outfit Arqiva confirms IPO plan

Re: Crawley

I'm currently thinking of the Yeoman of the Guard... or Mikado Overture...

Brit bank fined £75k over 1.5 million text and email spamhammer

My first reaction to this story

About bloody time!

My second response...

It's not enough!

My first reaction to this story

About bloody time!

Microsoft slings bulked-up Windows Defender preview at world+dog

Physician, heal thyself!

Detecting keyloggers, eh? Now which keylogger might be excluded from that?

Lick, lick, SLURP, SLURP.

Microsoft extends free Windows 10 S to Win 10 Pro upgrade offer

What Windows 10 S achieves which is a more secure locked down environment would be better if it was a mode you could turn on once your PC was how you wanted it, a simple toggle switch.

Quite so, but let's face it, the only people in the marketplace are corporate types who don't want to lock down to Microsoft, they want to lock down to their own subset of applications. Other than that, users want to do what they want, not what some Merkan corporate wants to lock them into. The only good thing I can say is that at least Micro$oft were up front this time about it rather than sneaking it in like they did with the Slurp(tm) or like Google and much of their shady doings.

Re: So...

I think that Microsoft's management are getting a bit too game fixated. Turning W10Pro into DLC, microtransactions and such.

By logical extension, this means that people buying Surfaces with W10S on want a fully open system, not one gimped to the MS Shop, so the MS Shop is another failure? Are we equating the Shop with Zune-like failure here?

Re: I use Bing and I know it

Call me weird if you want, I don't care.

OK, Weird.

What's your flava? Ooo, tell me what's your flava... of Ubuntu

Re: Mmm, Ubuntu.

...I can finally quit typing ctrl-t pulseaudio -k all the time.

Like I said, Poeterring's shitware gets everywhere!

I want my old Amiga operating system back !!

That reminds me. Wonder if that RISC OS Linux UI is still about?

Re: 2017 Year of the Linux Desktop

Do any come with a choice of systemd or not ?

Unfortunately, the various big distros either make it as tricky as possible or simply don't provide for it. It gets worse as some packages rely implicitly on systemd being there. The only distros that come to mind right now would something like Slackware, Devuan or Gentoo.

Poeterring's shitware just seems to get everywhere.

Re: Does KDE work now?

Another SuSE user here who is a little puzzled. I've been using SuSE since I switched from RedHat at the end of the 1990s and have used KDE on most of these. Don't believe I have ever seen this fault on any version of KDE. Even the time I flirted with TDE on Mint this didn't happen. I'm using KDE3 on openSUSE Leap 42.2 at this present moment and haven't noticed any messed up backgrounds or crashes. Not even on my ancient openSUSE 11.4 netbook.

You sound like you got very unlucky.

Re: RE: macjules

Pirating software? You'll end up doing bird for that

Why? You a stool pigeon then?

I'll have a piece of Pi with not so much Rat in, plz...

Re: I must be missing something ...

You mean that whole Plasma thing? It's one reason why, even to date, I still use KDE3 and substitute "plasmoids" for Screenlets. Like that lot over at GNOME, my thought was that KDE were concentrating a little too hard on self indulgence and not enough on what users were actually asking for and while KDE3 isn't perfect, KDE4 wasn't the answer IMHO. Plasma 5 isn't as bad but it still doesn't quite come up to the mark either.

Yet again, it seemed that certain types within the Linux community were trying to reinvent the wheel for no other reason than that they could. The only difference with KDE4 and GNOME3 was that they had a lock-in that Unity didn't have, though while the backlash against GNOME3 brought forth such projects as MATE and Cinnamon, I've come to conclude that Trinity isn't KDE3 in every respect and certainly doesn't have the push of the two GNOME offshoots.

If KDE are finally coming to their senses with Plasma 5 then all power to them, but I'll keep my KDE3 install going for as long as I need to until I'm happy with what they have done. Mind you, moving to Ubuntu of any stripe is unlikely for me...

Hey, cloud big three! AI-wielding Huawei says it's coming for you

Re: The world according to Huawei

Is one where everything you do is done with a Huawei branded device and you are driven in a Huawei robot vehicle to your Huawei branded house where you eat Huawei branded food and the Huawei braned security system feeds every movement and conversation you have back to central control.

And so what is so different? Simply substitute the word "Huawei" for "Google", "Microsoft" or "Apple" and it all makes the same amount of sense. These are all people that want your respect, your obedience, your loyalty... your money...

I wouldn't blame Huawei for trying to get in on the act that Amazon and others are trying. Trust them? Perhaps not. Blame them? Moneeeeey....

Microsoft sets the date for Fall Creators Update

Re: Ya'll missed it by a mile...

Question is: Why do they want to be Google?

Now there's an obvious answer! What do Google and Microsoft have in common?

1. They are large corporations based in Merka.

2. They have a stranglehold on one or more parts of a lucrative business.

3. They have a lust for money and power.

So if Google are making moolah from doing things and acting in a certain way, why would Microsoft do the same thing?

Let's try not to be evil...

Re: This is a UK site

Apparently it's Microsoft that believes this is Planet America.

They'd like it to be...

Wasn't 'fall' a big enough giveaway?

Depends on who you are talking to. Not everyone speaks in Merkanese, you know.

("Fall" is Merkan for autumn if you weren't aware).

Microsoft president exits US govt's digital advisory board as tech leaders quit over Trump

Note: The link shown links to a site that actively blocks users running ad blockers.

Red Hat banishes Btrfs from RHEL

I'm in two minds about that. On one side I totally agree, but on the other hand it depends on whether it has enough people behind it to continue it as a fan supported project like KDE 3, for example. I wouldn't care if it did end up binned though...

Given SUSE's habitual brown nosing of RedHat, I suspect that it will probably bin btrfs eventually.

Azure blues: Active Directory Connect has password reset vuln

Azure do!

Linus Torvalds slams 'pure garbage' from 'clowns' at Grsecurity

Re: Ego Overload

Instead, BECAUSE of his attitude, the kernel maintainers are reinventing the wheel without bothering to look at his code in case it somehow taints them and causes trouble.

Seems to be a common problem. Actually surprised nobody has drawn the similarities between this and a certain other bit of coding bollocks which only seems to be perpetuated because everyone has their collective snouts planted between RedHat's cheeks.

No way to sugarcoat this: I'm afraid Uranus opens and closes to accept particle streams

Re: It's always fascinating when they probe Uranus.

Quite so, and this "door" they speak of should be named Sphyncta.

UK's Ministry of Fun considers what to tell social media firms about online bullying

Typical...

"Now then, now then, just tell me all about it and I'll see what I can do."

"Yes"

"I see"

"Well I'll just tell them that they have been a naughty tweeter and they mustn't do it again. Now blow your nose and be on your way and don't forget; my door is always open."

>SLAM<

Google hit with record antitrust fine of €2.4bn by Europe

"We respectfully disagree with the conclusions announced today. We will review the Commission’s decision in detail as we consider an appeal, and we look forward to continuing to make our case.”

Translation: Bollocks.

'OK, everyone. Stop typing, this software is DONE,' said no one ever

Somebody just came out with a patch for the "Hello World" program...

Concorde without the cacophony: NASA thinks it's cracked quiet supersonic flight

Not sure about that. Was it not really because of the noise of the pro-Merkin anti-competitive rhetoric during the early days of the Conk?

Kaspersky files antitrust suit against Microsoft

Re: "We want Microsoft to stop misleading and misinforming..."

Perhaps Kaspersky think that Unicorns exist and everyone lives inside a huge hug bubble.

But they DOOOOO!!! Isn't that right, Twilight?

Re: This is deja vu all over again

I guess the innovation of bullshit has stopped at last as well..

Tower to Porker 1, you are cleared for take off.

Wannacry: Everything you still need to know because there were so many unanswered Qs

Re: PITA

Reminds me of the Millenium Bug panic...

Don't remind me! Months of pulling code apart and updating libraries on software that was written in the 1970s and 1980s...

Mind you, it was what first switched me on to Linux. Project Cora2000, you are still remembered!

Rule 1 back your shit up

Rule 2 back your shit up

Thanks, Bruce!

Mind you, last time I had a back up of shit, I had to call a plumber!

Re: Oh, the irony!

Windows 7 machines most affected after so-called "experts" advised switching off updates to avoid Windows 10 upgrade notifications?

See my earlier comment. If Microsoft hadn't tried so hard to insert spyware into some of their patches for W7 then people would have not even suggested switching off updates. Well, some might have done but nobody would have listened to them.

Having said that, pointing fingers at users for not patching doesn't really escape the fact that the hole was there, it was exploited by the NSA, it was then stolen and somebody else used that same exploit to try to extract money. How many more holes are there in Windows, current version included, that the NSA knows about and keeps under wraps, even from Microsoft?

Or MacOS? Or Linux? I know where I'm pointing and it isn't at any specific end users.

Re: Great analysis - thanks

So the question is - why have you got several thousand W7 desktops unpatched?

I can think of a couple of reasons. The first isn't that unusual; as many have noticed, even Microsoft, there are always those that plead incapable when it comes to computers. The question here is whether such users should be allowed access; consider that these people can cause all sorts of problems for other users by not being up to the task of handling their system responsibly.

The other is a little more sinister. Since just before the release of Windows 10 there have been increasing amounts of concern about Microsoft's patching habits. The biggest concern has been that Microsoft have spent a lot of time and effort trying to integrate spyware into their products (see the Register article "Mud sticks: Microsoft, Windows 10 and reputational damage") to the extent that some people have stopped patching. While originally it was easy to spot the spyware patches and avoid them, the current regime of rollups makes this all but impossible to do.

So if finger pointing is really necessary, and before we charge headlong into a fit of blaming unpatched users or the people that perpetrated this problem, let us also consider Microsoft's role in this.

Huawei Honor 8 Pro: Makes iPhone 7 Plus look a bit crap

What is the point if most users record in vertical (moron) mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA

'Crazy bad' bug in Microsoft's Windows malware scanner can be used to install malware

"Windows has a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues, and proactively update impacted devices as soon as possible."

Reactively, Shirley?

Of course. And don't call me... (Bloody Kentucky Fried Theatre!)

"We recommend customers use Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser for the best protection."

We also recommend that we never miss an opportunity to plug our latest shitware.

Is Britain really worse at 4G than Peru?

Re: Nice llamas

Llamas are larger than frogs

Cuidado! Llamas!

It's been two and a half years of decline – tablets aren't coming back

Smug mode activated

Some years ago now I said that tablets were a fad.

I owned two of them. OK, they were cheap beasts; the first one died after a year of use which didn't impress me at all given that it didn't have much use to its name and I stopped using the second after I realised that the firmware had a bug in it which made it insecure.

The trouble was that I never really found a good use for them. Apart from those two, I had an iPad briefly at one job I had but again it often sat in my drawer doing nothing. That isn't to say that they didn't have their uses but it does show that I never really had a use for them. In fact the last use I had for a tablet was swiftly supplanted when I realised that my smartphone could do the same job with a lot more portability.

The idea that tablets would replace laptops soon came to an end with such things as ultrabooks and so forth in that people still wanted a decent keyboard rather than faffing about with a touchscreen when typing. It's the reason why Windows 8 was a flawed concept and it's the reason now why tablets are on the decline, and that's before we consider the market saturation.

Tablets were a fad just as smartwatches and netbooks were fads. There may have been good intentions behind them but a fad is a fad and all fads must end.