Posts by Acrimonius

This one weird trick can make online publishing faster, safer, more attractive, and richer

Plain look

The plain look is so refreshing and it loads instantly! Hope they survive

Did they work out what caused the unrecoverable crash? Was the WordPress and its many add-ons so badly coded/setup?

iRobot may be iDead in iYear

What was Amazon thinking?

Crazy the way the business world works now. Losses in millions for a number of years but yet still manages to keep going and even attract buyers with deep pockets (or more money than sense) for a billion and more

Anyway, I hope iRobot name, in tribute to Isaac Asimov, is then available for something less prosaic as vacuum cleaners. How did it in the first place grab this iconic name?

$16B health dept managed finances with single Excel spreadsheet. It hasn’t gone well

Oracle/SAP plus Excel

Not unheard of people with Oracle or SAP still extensively using Excel. So you pay an arm and a leg for an eternity, it fails the user expectations and Excel with its shotcomings is then still more useful.

Re: Maligning Excel

Yeah much about how you set up Excel and there are many pitfalls plus limitations. The VBA front-end with error checking and report creation would just keep the user away from actually editing the cells.

Maligning Excel

They will rue the day they maligned Excel. Just needs a lots of VBA to verify/audit and automate/front-end everything and they are good to go. It will however never appease auditors like Deloitte and they are in part to blame for the fore-gone disastrous conclusion the head-first dive into Oracle or SAP will be.

Satnav systems built for Earth used by Blue Ghost lander as it approached the Moon

Signal strength

The signal strength received would be interesting

Mega council officers had no idea what they were buying ahead of Oracle fiasco

Re: Who made the decision?

What alternatives were offered? If any, comparison will have been very subjective with no like for like as is the case for these ventures. So subjective that it could be easily manipulated. In reality a comparison is very difficult as equivalent data across all the alternatives is probably not offered or viable. All are in fact likely to go wrong during implementation and who is to say which one will be the least pain. How is excessive pain in any case defined? Like comparing apples and oranges. Net result, with time ticking away, this is all we have and fingers crossed.

February's Patch Tuesday sees Microsoft offer just 63 fixes

Do not touch Excel

Excel bugs - do not touch the code. The core has been working as it should for donkey's years. Touch at your peril

I'm a security expert, and I almost fell for a North Korea-style deepfake job applicant …Twice

Asian accent!!!

Isn't the unlikely Asian accent a big clue!

Veterans Affairs reboots Oracle health records project for $330M

Good bedfellows

Oracle and Cerner make good bedfellows in promising the earth and delivering just that, dirt, which is the opposite of cheap to dig the knife in further

Why does the UK keep getting beaten up by IT suppliers?

Re: Long time ago now...

Also countless audits recommending a new way - better, faster, cheaper - every decade or so. MOD has the luxury to hide behind 'defence of the realm' so money is no object

Re: "unforeseen technical complexities"

On factor in negotiating the best/fair deal and allowing for what-if is who has the upper-hand. It is not usually the Government Dept. Also, some of this takes time and pressure to place contract asap and come what may is high.

IT/ERP Companies also do not have what it takes

What is overlooked is that many of the companies also lack the required engineers and managers both in terms of experience/skill and numbers. This is made worse as they promise to do something in half the time than what is realistic (also never good practice to say no to the Client's deadlines) or are faced with a mountain of changes they cannot suddenly cope with. So they go cap in hand back to the Client for more money and time which itself needs more money.

As far as Government staffing is concerned it will never have internal staff with the reqired technical and technical management skills. Nor will the most able want to be in the Civil Service. It will be career ending - a CV no-no. So an army of consultants/advisors who have an hidden agenda and no one internally competent enough to also manage.

Replacing the outdated SAP is likey to a mother of fuck-ups

IBM swoops in to rescue UK Emergency Services Network after Motorola shown the door

Alway underestimate budget needed

'The contract was first tendered in May 2023 at £895 million (excluding VAT) over the same period, which suggests the price has increased by £467 million. A Home Office spokesperson explained that the contract value advertised in May 2023 was the Home Office's estimate.....'

Under-bugeting (usually plucked from thin-air in any case) is a common ploy to just get past the Treasury first-hurdle and no one is qualified to question this.

Government IT is at the mercy of an army of external consulants as most of this will be out of their depth. The consultants (themsleves not necessarily up to date) then see more revenue in proposing the impractical or the unwanted. Not one will say - look, should we not scale this down. A job for life.

Ransomware scum make it personal for Reg readers by impersonating tech support

Re: You got me at....

Often you are sharing a document or a spreadsheet and it can be easier to let others take control from time to time. This control can be the whole desktop and not just the active window/application as there is perhaps a need to switch between multiple documents.

UK tax collector's phone service 'deliberately' bad to push users online, say MPs

Cannot help after waiting an hour

Calling from overseas with mounting non-trivial call charges is no joke. Especially when they are trained to only provide stock answers. So no help at all. The other option is Facebook but it seems what you write down they only cursory look at or many are suddenly dyslexic or multi-tasking too much. You then ask again as the answer shows they have not read your question properly. Each cycle is a wait of a few days. Pathetic!

How Windows got to version 3 – an illustrated history

Mouse was a godsend for spreadsheets

I remember using SuperCalc and feeling jealous of Excel on the Mac

How a good business deal made us underestimate BASIC

Re: Earliest Programming Language

Thanks, I was trying to remember the early days. Yes, now I remember, CESIL was much like assembler. My move from Beeb to PET was mainly in connection with 6502 Assembler

Earliest Programming Language

My earliest attempt at programming was at schol with a lanuguage called CECIL. Much like BASIC. Then I bought a BBC Micro and that got be hooked, especially being able to embed Assembly. Then doing something for real at work it paved the way to Assembly on the Commodore PET. Later Excel dominated my use of computers at work and another much reviled language,VBA, become my obsession. I had completey moved away from Goto and in-memory thinking by then.

Microsoft adds another problem to the Windows 11 24H2 naughty list

AI needs to have balls

AI saying experience was "definitely frustrating for users" keen to try out the latest features of the operating system. AI needs to have the balls and say people are NOT keen and do NOT want the latest features.

Asda decided on a 'no go' for 'mass rollout' of store IT conversion

Things are always in 10's of millions

So many millions to just set up shop

Microsoft coughs up yet more Windows 11 24H2 headaches

Not recognsing all devices on USB Hub

All was fine before the update but straight after the update it would not see the keyboard on the USB extender at logon. Have to now plug out and back in everytime.

Has Windows become a monster now too complex for Microsoft to handle?