Posts by Gareth Jones

Customers baffled as Citrix forces password changes for document-slinging Sharefile outfit

"According to Citrix, there's no specific data breach or incident behind the move"

Really? If so, why am I dealing with users asking about this then?

"We have been notified this morning of a security incident relating to our support data sharing tool Sharefile, and we have provided their message to us as part of our management of this situation. We have contacted ShareFile and are awaiting further clarification from them, and as their message states they are continuing investigations into the incident."

Microsoft pitches lobotomized Cortana for iOS, Android handsets

Re: Does her boobs really look like that?

This'll cool your ardour: just remember that it's Clippy in a geek-bait suit!

There's an image to boost sales of brain-bleach!

Leak-shamed Intel finally bares nifty Skylake details to world+dog

Who cares about power...?

jb99: "Ugh who cares about the power even a little bit?"

I do. Many others do too. There are two benefits to having better power efficiency:

1. That server you have running 24/7/365 costs you less money to run. Multiply that by 2 cpu's per box and maybe 40 boxes per rack and you have some real money being saved.

2. Lower power usage means less heat being produced. This means you can probably overclock it more without having to provide more cooling if you're using it to game with. If you're in a data centre environment it means you can either save money on cooling or pack more boxes into the same space without everything melting.

Config file wipe blunder caused deadly Airbus A400M crash – claim

Re: Lack of imagination when thinking up things that can go wrong.

Trevor Pott: "TSA agents are not merely soulless automatons, their entire purpose is to turn all of us into obedient soulless automatons. And the only tools they are permitted to use are fear, suspicion and intimidation"

....and a fanatical devotion to the Pope.....I'll come in again! ;-P

Sphere 3D: Our pop-out 2TB disk product? Of COURSE it's rugged

Yes Suricou Raven. Not only that, but should the disk fail and you're tempted to buy a much cheaper 2½" disk to replace the internals, you'll find that they've nobbled the system to only accept their own overpriced disks.

Look, ma, FOUR HANDS! Microsoft bigs up pixeltastic TWO-USER mega-screen

Re: "Most mainstream touch-technology, like that on an Apple or Windows tablet, is single touch."

It is single-touch in this context. Yes, it will accept multi-touch 'gestures' such as two-finger swipes but the point of this new tech is that it will accept multiple users simultaneously. So with a large 'whiteboard' you could have multiple people drawing or moving objects about at the same time. If you try that on a current 'multi-touch' setup it'll just assume you have one massive hand spanning the whole screen.

That 8TB Seagate MONSTER? It's HERE... (You'll have to squint, 'cos there are no specs)

Re: Now you can lose 8TB of data in one shot instead of just 4!

Well that sounds fair. When shipped they are presumably NOT spinning and therefore parked so they ought to be able to handle a fair amount of shock. If they aren't robust enough to reliably store your important data, they aren't fit for purpose. Simple as.

Nvidia gamers hit trifecta with driver, optimizer, and mobile upgrades

Re: Uninstall

Ditto on Windows 8.1. One screen down and a reboot dropped the primary to VGA. Could be an install failure as only the old driver was listed in Add/Remove Programs (yes, I know the name's changed but this is clearer). A rollback of the driver fixed the problem...albeit slowly.

Weeny SIM Wi-Fi hotspot is here! But why?

Mobile nodes for a WiFi cloud?

I wonder how long it takes for one of the networks to deploy this and use it to host a distributed cloud of WiFi access points? You've already got a large network of OpenZone, The Cloud and T-Mobile hotspots. All the operators have to do is deploy this to a large number of "willing" participants' handsets and use HSDPA as backhaul and they're making hotspot revenue off the back of your battery-life.

Europe clears Windows 7 for takeoff

What's the big deal?!

Warren G said "...they are forced to run IE, and subliminally told it's normal....".

It IS normal. IE is the browser that Windows ships with. It is perfectly adequate for surfing the web. Sure, it's got flaws but it's not like you're forced to use it. I know it lurks around in the background but if you're really that obcessed, you can go through the pain of removing and replacing it. The crime would be if you were prevented from running an alternative browser, surely?

Perhaps MS should install Firefox as the default browser.....yeah, sure if Mozilla make it financially worthwhile for them. MS are in it for the money....it's called business, that's why you do it.

If Windows shipped with no browser at all, how would your average user install one? Sure, you just download it from their website....oh wait, you can't because you have no browser. Should everyone go and buy some PC magazine with a CD on the front just to install a browser? I've been around in the days where the software you needed to connect to the internet was only available on the internet.....and it's not entirely convenient.

The situation is exactly the same with other OS'es. Apple give you Safari as the default - and try to inflict it upon your Windows environment as an 'upgrade' for iTunes too. Each flavour of Linux has it's default browser, it's default choice of Gnome, KDE etc etc. There's a default but you have a choice. There may be many things wrong with Windows.....but I can't side with the arguement that supplying a convenient - if imperfect - browser with it is one of them.

Gareth

BT brings jobs back from India

QoS

"...the service in our operations around the globe is of very similar standards."

Does this mean they're going to hire people in the UK who will treat us to the same fabulously high quality of service that we're used to getting from offshore call centres?

Perhaps a broad Glaswegian accent would make for a similar level of comprehensability.

Microsoft to spin out more non-update Windows 7 updates

Seems fair enough to me

Isn't that what Beta and Release Candidate software is for....for testing things?!

BBC iPlayer upgrade prompts new ISP complaints

A solution?

Could the BBC not make it possible for each ISP to host their own cache? That way the ISP's aren't forking out for transit bandwidth, the BBC are getting free content delivery, the public get quicker deivery because it's already waiting at the other end of their line and everone looks good.

Kiwi boffins prove that booze makes you clever

Bad Control group

If they gave the "control" group tea and fruit juice they've given them caffeine. Surely that destroys their reliability as a control....? Without a proper control group you can't state that drinking no alcohol makes you less able than moderate drinking because it may be the caffeine in the tea that causes the impairment.