* Posts by mikus

84 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jan 2008

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What strange beauty is this? Microsoft commits to two more non-subscription Office editions

mikus

First hit is always free-ish.

Enslaving a new generation, why not? Or people could just use LibreOffice, a perfectly usable solution to replace Office for the past 20 years already.

I've been working/consulting in enterprise IT space and have used Linux for the past 25 years, where 20 of that full-time personally using a Linux desktop, LibreOffice has always been exceedingly just fine to use, and something I use daily. People need for day to day probably 5% of what any office-suite does, and for that most any other solution is fine, and open-source is best for trust. After using LibreOffice/OpenOffice for so long, moving back to real MS Office on a customer provided device annoys me greatly.

Apple's had it with Epic's app store shenanigans, terminates dev account

mikus

Apple mostly spit in the face of the EU's plans to corral them into playing fair, hopefully they respond in kind. If Apple is simply going to play this cat and mouse game, EU should simply ban their sales until they come in good faith and not some passive aggressive at best flaunting of their market power.

Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

mikus

All this means is they used the cheapest grade of stainless possible vs actual quality stuff that is truly corrosion-resistant. I wondered if something like this would happen, and simply laughing that yes, like most cheap Chinese "stainless" things you get from amazon or wish with low-grade metals, they corrode/rust about as bad as steel.

What Microsoft's latest email breach says about this IT security heavyweight

mikus

Same as it ever was

When will people stop being surprised Microsoft is this inept? Have we not seen almost 30 years of security ineptitude from them from the operating system to things like internet explorer as the best malware delivery engine of all time? If anyone gets into your network, it's 99% of the time going to be via a windows box, active directory, or crappy 3rd party application built for them.

These reports going public are now only since they "have to" report these sorts of breaches, as they can't trust their secret won't be leaked by the instigating hacking crew to shame them and put them in a compliance situation. They will however downplay the severity as much as they can to placate the user base back to blissful ignorance, and hide any unnecessarily embarrassing details.

Just imagine how often this has happened over the past 30 years they haven't told you about publicly since ransomware and exfiltration has become more common that they have to?

John Deere tractors get connectivity boost with Starlink deal

mikus

All new ways to let janky ass corporations control your data.

Cloudflare defends firing of staffer for reasons HR could not explain

mikus

As an Account Manager, they have quotas, and they are essentially disposable sales drones. Either you close deals, or you don't and eventually get fired. They obviously didn't, regardless of how many they had "in the works". After 25 years in IT, I see AM's come and go each year from my vendors, I rarely see the same one more than a year at a time. Then I see them at another vendor asking me to buy their product from there next.

This is the nature of a job in sales - either she's naive, inexperienced, or simply being petulant to expect anything else if she's not closing deals to their liking.

Sadly IT sales is a job where the more attractive they are is directly proportional to how much they sell. When most in the IT industry is male, females are hired as Account Managers as customer doors magically open for them and calls are taken. When do you ever see a male AM? You don't, that's why they pair them with a Systems Engineer that actually knows the products they're selling. If she's not closing deals, well maybe she needs a boob job, or a different career. Might as well call the job a modeling career.

Nvidia readies downgraded chips for China, but will anyone want to buy them?

mikus

I suspect they'll probably ship standard hardware and attempt to cripple it via firmware as they've done before (remember the crypto hashing restrictions?), in which case once received someone in China will magically create a firmware hack to open them up entirely. Hooray, export restrictions.

With the resale and auction-style pricing for H100-style cards with scarcity, I wouldn't be surprised if China doesn't just buy what they can on the secondary market like everyone else at that point. Resellers I'm sure won't really care who's buying at ludicrous MSRP+small-fortune profits.

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

mikus

I only use windoze as a runtime for Visio and Project, or other odd one-off windoze-only tasks, XP that I can with 384mb of ram and 5gb of disk was perfect. Anything after only added spyware, telemetry, and garbage I never wanted or needed.

If visio/project ran in wine, I never need windows at all, but Microsoft would never let *that* happen.

Three Chinese balloons float near Taiwanese airbase

mikus

They really mean the reunification of TSMC with China. All your GPU are belong to us!

Windows boss takes on taskbar turmoil, pledges to 'make Start menu great again'

mikus

At some point Russinovich has to retire, he's spent 30 years wiping microsoft's arse, he needs a break.

Maybe they can hire someone for a better idea than fix what isn't broken, ie the task bar and start menu, making them the advertisement bazaar that the start menu became when people got lazy under Ballmer. Anyone with an advertisement background should be summarily excluded.

I use windoze anything only as a hypervisor for visio, quick launches saves me most of the frustration, but think of the children.

Southwest Airlines lands $140M fine for that Christmas IT meltdown

mikus

And... here we go again.

Yep, must be a cost vs downside thing, here we go again this year. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/southwest-flights-canceled-airlines/

Cisco goes Christmas shopping, buys Cilium project originator Isovalent

mikus

Alas poor Cilium, I knew him.

Cisco will try to cram a square peg into a round hole most of their backward customers will never ever figure out how to use while they still try to evolve beyond windows. As a Linux solution it's great, but as a Cisco solution it will be spurned and/or forked, thus marginalized as an undesired solution internally that it'll become another relic of the past like appdynamics, tetration, tail-f, viptela, and others.

Pro-China campaign targeted YouTube with AI avatars

mikus

Of them causing them incidents, or getting got externally?

The world would be a better place blocking anything out of china, russia, and other undesirable places as a whole anymore. Nothing good comes out, if they did want to, they'd use something not of their country so toxic.

A great firewall of 'murica isn't so bad an idea anymore, keeps me from having to invest in better firewalls if it worked.

Not even LinkedIn is that keen on Microsoft's cloud: Shift to Azure abandoned

mikus

Well if they won't let us go to AWS, we'll keep our Data Centers.

Two years on, 1 in 4 apps still vulnerable to Log4Shell

mikus

I recently ran into this with mremote-ng, a windoze software client for ssh and remote desktop use, so like something mostly system administrators would use was still using an ancient vulnerable log4net, a variation of log4j with the same vulnerabilities. My FortiClient EPP software noticed it to alert, luckily I had some enterprise security to do so, but how many others do not?

Looking up the software project's github to post an issue, someone else with the same alert from FortiClient told them years ago, and they closed it, telling someone to get the "nightly" version vs. the ancient and non-updated main app from the website that you know, 99% of people including myself would just download to use. I opened a new ticket asking them patch the main version ffs too, and finally did after some nagging and public shaming, but by this point I already uninstalled it, cursed having to use anything like that on windoze in the first place.

Anything on windoze, particularly 3rd party software I imagine is all a rats nest of vulnerable dependencies that never get updated. I use windoze for anything as little as possible for that reason alone, usually only keeping it around as my visio runtime.

Lenovo's USB-C Power Banks pack more heat than expected

mikus

Apparently they never temperature checked their 230W psu's, my T15G2 with an nvidia gpu warms my room on cold days.

Tesla, Musk likely aware of Autopilot deficiencies behind Florida fatality, says judge

mikus

Well, this is Musk you're talking about.

Kill a few humans? Pah, rumours and lies, spread by those I've tread upon!

Robocar tech biz sues Nvidia, claims stolen code shared in Teams meeting blunder

mikus

One slide to rule them all

If your company hinges on something in a slide deck, you probably have bigger problems.

OpenAI staff threaten to leave if ousted CEO Altman is not reinstated

mikus

I'm certain today there's ~700 positions open at Microsoft in their new AI team. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free^H^H^H^Hcheap.

Not even the ghost of obsolescence can coerce users onto Windows 11

mikus

Re: PC is good enough for now.

Linux comes default with Mahjong usually if any games, which on flights as the only default game learned to greatly enjoy in place of solitaire.

FEMA to test emergency alert system US-wide today

mikus

Ours were in Spanish, apparently Arizona has been officially annexed into Mexico.

City council Oracle megaproject got a code red – and they went live anyway

mikus

Has there ever been a proper ERP implementation that hasn't run 5x or more in cost than intended? I've never seen or heard of one, pretty much anything Oracle or SAP is simply destined to be a disaster when put toward every weird and wacky business or government use case.

Russia to ban all VPNs – again – says senator

mikus

Yeah, let me know how the great firewall of Russia or China keeps the vpn's out. No business could get done if they didn't.

US State Dept has no idea if its IT security actually works, say auditors

mikus

If anyone bothered to actually properly audit, and not the old buddy wink and a nod audit, they'd find most State and Local Muni orgs across the US operate the same way. I used to consult at many of them locally, they certainly don't here, and having worked enough sampling of the rest of the US too, have no doubt. No one in government actually implements proper measures, they buy something, pay a consultant, pray it works to drop a bit extra in the hat in on sunday when done, and when it doesn't, hand a claim over to insurance to go back to waiting for their pension to kick in.

Microsoft admits slim staff and broken automation contributed to Azure outage

mikus

Well, who can blame them as a small business, one has to make sure to right-size their staffing accordingly. They can't afford to do it like those real "large" IT companies do it. Maybe those relying on this solution should shop for a more appropriate sized organization and product offering that can actually meet their needs for redundancy and scalability.

High severity vuln in WinRAR could allow code to run when files are opened

mikus

I still laugh every time I see an enterprise that rolls out winrar or winzip on a corporate level, I can only ever say "eww" or think "what silly old warez d00d admin put this out there?". Particularly when there are far better and far more open and un-encumbered license-wise solutions like 7zip that don't come with a shareware trial nag on every launch. Keep it classy y'all.

Twitter sues Brit non-profit, claims hate-speech reports scared off advertisers

mikus

After he's routinely stiffed most orgs that do business with Twitter for major dollars already, would you work without cash up front from him?

Anyone of conscience has long since left left the platform and/or doing business with them, I presume it's only bottom-feeders left now, and these sorts of lawsuits expose that even more.

Euro monopoly cops to probe Microsoft for slipping Teams into Office

mikus

It's the same old bundle-in they've been doing for 30 years to sucker/draw people into their ecosystems. Why is anyone shocked?

Micron warns China's ban could cost it $4 billion annual revenue

mikus

I wonder how Jack Ma's time in "readjustment" went.

With dead-time dump, Microsoft revealed DDoS as cause of recent cloud outages

mikus

Having worked at a major cloud company circa 2003, I became well acquainted with ddos, and quite interesting how they deal with this 20 years later.

This ought to be an instructional piece of history how long they torment Microsoft. or anyone really.

Third MOVEit bug fixed a day after PoC exploit made public

mikus

Now that they know, they'll bust it up to eternity. These "secure file transfer" gateways are always a racket, use a properly secure means.

If you buy a suite like moveit, hire someone to tell you to stop.

Music bosses go after Twitter's unlicensed soundtrack to the tune of $250M

mikus

How does a failing business model make something from nothing? Hire lawyers and sue everyone for anything.

I do hope Musk publicly taunts the RIAA/MPAA media cartels, it should prove as entertaining as a couple of one-legged men in an asskicking contest.

Kinder, gentler Oracle says it's changed, and now wants you to succeed

mikus

Yet we still haven't heard how or why oracle cloud mysteriously went titsup for an entire day last friday to bring businesses to a halt while they lick their wounds. One simply can't trust the machine.

Microsoft stole our stolen dark web data, says security outfit

mikus

It probably means they slurped their entire db, made a cache to use themselves in whatever format they do, and didn't need them any longer. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

HCL proves Lotus Notes will never die by showing off beta of lucky Domino 14.0

mikus

Crappy companies too lazy to move off it vs. just paying monkeys to keep the dance going and issue mediocre security patches to avoid moving to Office 365.

Metaverse? Apple thinks $3,500 AR ski goggles are the betterverse

mikus

$3500 says the first zero-day no-click will be for imessenger still, allowing NSO Group and customers to watch what you're now literally looking at. Hooray for evolution!

Singapore tells its people: Go forth and block those ads

mikus

Everyone should block ads, if they're not, they're silly twats wanting to be infected.

Apple: No more sneak-peek previews of iOS unless you pay for the privilege

mikus

Pay up, get your zero-days here!

What isn't there love about pay for play!

China's Hisense bakes Teams into Android-powered commercial displays

mikus

At least until they end up on the next list of US import ban lists, but then they'll just become OUSKSHYTSA99 on amazon with 500k reviews.

After 47 years, Microsoft issues first sexual harassment and gender report

mikus

Obviously they got rid of enough of the old guard. It started with Ballmer, finally enough cashed out to join the old money club and try harder.

AMD’s latest, greatest Radeon graphics card $600 cheaper than Nvidia’s top RTX 4090

mikus

When did $1000 video cards become normal?

Not really sure, with the advent of Steam Proton support for Linux gaming, I suddenly care to game again 20 years later, but pretty absurd being re-introduced to this when people were scalping gpu's for 3x the cost, ie several thousands of dollars, as apparently they generated gold or something. Suddenly they don't, and I just want some pretty graphics maan, but really - starting at 1000 dollars? I remember buying my first voodoo2 that broke me at $200 bucks, so perhaps I'm jaded.

Mormon Church IT ransacked, data stolen by 'state-sponsored' cyber-thieves

mikus

No, magic underwear does not come with malware protection.

Fortinet says it’s all about the security ASICs

mikus

Re: Interesting

Remember? You missed the memo Radware bought the rotting carcass in the Nortel collapse, and used it to make their "next-gen" load-balancers now. Yes my friend, it's aliiiiiive! <cackles to himself>

I always wondered what jackasses actually buy radware (that aren't Israeli), and last year I ran into one still running ancient radware LB's (still required flash!) and went in on the "next-gen" kit now. I tried to talk some sanity into them F5 or Citrix might be a more rational option, you know, people actually use and support them, but they couldn't be bothered to look at switching vendors.

I just laugh inwardly that someone actually bought the last-gen-before rejects as everyone already forgot the stench from the first and second round of life.

Microsoft patches the patch that broke VPNs, Hyper-V, and left servers in boot loops

mikus

Re: Quite a blast radius!

I've used only linux for almost 20 years now, and in IT consulting have to exchange files regularly with clients that of course only use MS Office. OpenOffice worked well enough mostly, and now with current LIbreOffice have almost no issues with import/export of native docx/xlsx files. Of course MS Office supports native odt and ods files for Word/Excel native import, which works well too, and so does even 365 online word/excel.

Give it a try, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised these days. The great equalizer is export to pdf if nothing else, which I tend to do for formal docs anyways.

Games Workshop has chucked another £500k at entrenched ERP project with no end to epic battle in sight

mikus

Yet another failed, er, delayed ERP project that's overbudget and undelivered. Death by a thousand cuts, or change orders.

Maybe at this point The Reg do so some public service and tally all their failed ERP projects year over year like the 12 days of bork, and name the incompetent (both implementer and customers that bought into them). Might pay it forward to the next generation of poor bastards that have to implement something new. ERP systems are always such nasty, nasty projects, no one gets out alive at the end of the day. They're almost as bad as medical HMS software.

LAPD cops who preferred playing Pokémon Go to tackling robbery can be fired, appeals court rules

mikus

One of my childhood friends used to tell me how he "gamed" the system as a DPS freeway officer to make an actual decent salary, as cops don't typically get paid the most. He would work a LOT of overtime with odd jobs at odd hours, thus improving his income, but usually just hanging out at DOT construction jobs playing his Gameboy or watching TV.

You know, those guys that sit in a cop car at off-ramps you're NOT supposed to get off at, with his lights on, doing nothing 99% of the time. Before that I always thought they just parked an empty car there with the lights on to scare people off, but no, your tax dollars pay for someone to be in there, doing nothing but playing games or watching TV in one flavor or another, usually at time and a half hourly rates.

This was even more egregious, like actually opting NOT to show up to a robbery because pokemon go was more important, but still, it always irked me a bit when he'd call me bored during those overtime sitting festivals with nothing better to do but soak up my tax dollars. I guess that's why we aren't close friends anymore...

When ERP projects go awry: Surrey County Council incurs £3.2m additional costs in delayed Unit4 project

mikus

When have you ever seen an ERP project go right? ERP is a four letter word.

Every time I have been involved in one, it's quickly learned that the folks doing the work are usually under-qualified, and then they start asking for change orders for everything, stating the project wasn't scoped correctly. If it does get done, it's usually a hack job that has problems just to say they finished anything, then just continue to request more change orders to fix them, and never really "finish" what so ever.

I pity the folks that have to work with ERP companies and software.

HCL accused of wage theft, underpaying H-1B workers by at least $95m a year

mikus

Nothing like modern day slavery, or at least indentured servitude. They want to come over, will work for nothing just to get there, and their own people are happy to sell them at an extreme profit. Then once here, the H1B is held over their heads indefinitely by the importer as a goal they can't achieve while paying them as little as possible.

Sounds like how America was founded alright.

Microsoft adds Buy Now, Pay Later financing option to Edge – and everyone hates it

mikus

Why would you use this?

So instead of sending everything you do to in a browser to google, you send it to microsoft. yay.

Plus you get the "downgrade me to IE" for instant infection capabilities from their finest legacy code, what is not to love for enterprises.

Now they're down to grubbing for cash by giving you a layaway plan. You know how you can always tell a bad neighborhood? Count the check cashing stores on the corners, and this is the newest variety.

As a full-time linux user, I laugh when they announce Edge builds for linux, like any self-respecting user would ever other than as a random benchmark.

Cisco warns 'unintentional debugging credential' left in some network switches can be abused to hijack equipment

mikus

Oh yeah, so this one China order...

They said just cut and paste this here for big order.

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