* Posts by Rob Moir

232 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Feb 2008

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Airbnb host thrown in the clink after guest finds hidden camera inside Wi-Fi router

Rob Moir

Re: To be fair to AirBnB I don't think they can be held responsible for people doing this

“If I get what I pay for , I don't care if someone doesn't clean the bathroom or takes pictures of me”

Ah that’s ok then. I’ll be sure to let all the people who *do* mind know that it’s ok because you don’t mind.

UKIP flogs latex love gloves: Because Brexit means Brexit

Rob Moir

I always thought Farage was one of the inspirations for birth control.

Canny Brits are nuking the phone bundle

Rob Moir

Re: Logolic Nazi klaxon

Yeah, there's some missing logic there in order to arrive at the conclusion someone wanted, I think.

Also, I could say "41 per cent of customers surveyed agreed [...] that they would never buy an iPhone, compared to 15 per cent who responded the same way for Samsung."

So more than half of the customers _would_ buy an iPhone then, but that's bad for Apple somehow? I strongly suspect Apple won't mind that "loss" too much.

SuperProf gets schooled after assigning weak passwords to tutors

Rob Moir

I think you’re being unfair there. Clippy can do a much better apology letter than their effort.

No fandango for you: EU boots UK off Galileo satellite project

Rob Moir

You won and this is _what_ you've won, David Davies, so as leavers keep telling us remainers, "Get over it".

Breaking up is hard to do: Airbus, new bae Google and clinging on to Microsoft's 'solutions'

Rob Moir

Regardless of which platform you prefer, these kind of half measures will end up bringing the worst of both worlds. It _will_ make collaboration more difficult and information that shouldn't be in g-cloud will almost certainly leak into it.

And several someones on the side that's intending to move to g cloud will throw tantrums about the change being forced on them and will claim (rightly or wrongly) to have several MS office-specific processes they rely on, a vital macro or template or suchlike.

Samba settings SNAFU lets any user change admin passwords

Rob Moir

So Java continues to be consistent across multiple platforms then?

Microsoft's Windows 10 Workstation adds killer feature: No Candy Crush

Rob Moir

I'm not sure they should be pre-installed at all.

One of the advantages of an app store built into the system is that it's trivially easy to add the stuff you want from the store. If someone wants to play solitaire they could easily find and add it in the app store.

Fact is, Microsoft don't have any confidence in their own store and the constant shovelling of this stuff onto PCs in the way they have been proves that.

Interestingly enough, they're putting more weight behind command-line accessible app repositories like chocolatey for installing apps.... another good idea 'borrowed' from Linux. (Just to be clear, Chocolatey isn't a Microsoft project, someone else started it a while ago, but Microsoft are adding support to make using it easier in newer versions of Windows.

It was quite nice to rebuild my PC last time by just doing the normal windows install then running a powershell script for all the apps (https://itsalwaysmyproblem.com/2017/09/09/easy-pc-rebuilds-with-chocolatey/)

Cortana. Whatever happened to world domination?

Rob Moir

Microsoft have done this countless times. "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" should be their new mission statement.

If nothing else, I'd say the "cortana" brand has also been massively harmed by association with the pathetic windows 10 search.

Parity: The bug that put $169m of Ethereum on ice? Yeah, it was on the todo list for months

Rob Moir

I'm sure that one day everything will be lovely and fluffy but this just proves that right now, the whole digital currency thing is a complete joke.

The Quantum of Firefox: Why is this one unlike any other Firefox?

Rob Moir

I switched to Pale Moon in light of Australis but actually think that the new version of FF is a big improvement on that in a lot of ways. Not sure where it's getting its settings from if this is different to what the rest of you are seeing but I'm seeing a much cleaner UI, and the browser itself seems pretty fast. It's also loaded my adblocker and password manager just fine. Still not sure I'll be switching back fro Pale Moon but that'll do me as a start.

First iPhone X fondlers struggle to admit that Face ID sort of sucks

Rob Moir

I'm really happy with my iPhone 8. It all works well, screen looks good to me, camera works great, system very quick.

I can't justify the money for an iPhone X to myself and I will freely admit to being an Apple enthusiast normally. There are some ideas in the X that might work really well one year but I'm not convinced that year is now. Next year isn't looking promising either. I just don't think I'd like Face ID very much, and I actually find Touch ID to work very well in all circumstances for me, and lets be honest, falling back to PIN is hardly the end of the world either.

What if the iPhone 8 turns out to be a better iPhone than the iPhone X. Given how Google seems to also have a few problems with the Pixel 2 (I helped my step-daughter buy a Google Pixel last year, lovely phone but I just don't like Android personally) and Samsung's recent problems, maybe the pace to keep up with each other on on systems that aren't about to have a fundamental change just yet isn't helping.

Malware hidden in vid app is so nasty, victims should wipe their Macs

Rob Moir

Re: A complete wipe?

I agree that you can't trust the OS itself afterwards, but with Linux at least it would be possible to...

And the 'average person' type who might typically be running Windows or OSX isn't going to know how to do that. It's arguably better to give them "over the top" advice which they can follow and which will result in a clean machine than something they won't understand and won't do anything with (having said that, I'm far from convinced that the 'average person' would wipe their machine no matter how simple it was...)

BOFH: Oh dear. Did someone get lost on the Audit Trail?

Rob Moir

Ahhh a return to form for the BOFH...

Man sues date for cinema texting fiasco, demands $17.31

Rob Moir

Exactly. From where I'm sitting, this guy and their partner just look equally rude and out of touch with appropriate behaviour.

Windows 10 S: Good, bad, and how this could get ugly for PC makers

Rob Moir

Windows store is useless for education

I work for a college and we're looking to finalise our W10 image for a rollout over the summer break.

We have two "windows store" apps in the image, one of which is the calculator app now they've abandoned the old calculator app.

Most of the windows store posts I see from other Edu establishments on the likes of edugeek are all along the "how do I disable the #@!~%* store" line.

If Microsoft thinks education is keen to use the windows store then from where I'm standing they are in for a nasty surprise.

Make America, wait, what again? US Army may need foreign weapons to keep up

Rob Moir

Re: Military-industrial 101

IIRC we had some considerable assistance from the Polish with that.

But not the Americans.

Windows 10 networking bug derails Microsoft's own IPv6 rollout

Rob Moir

Re: It is not the backward, it is the forward bit which is the issue

If your network is small enough to be described as "my LAN" then its entirely possible that there are issues at large scale that you're not seeing on "my LAN", as Microsoft have quite a large, diverse and complex internal network.

It's also entirely possible that some of the coders at MS who worked on the network stack are idiots, in fairness.

My money's on a little of both.

Sysadmin told to spend 20+ hours changing user names, for no reason

Rob Moir

Re: Push back and automate

For better or worse, usually worse, it's common practice in large chunks of uk education. I've been trying to move my place away from using initials as usernames for years because it doesn't scale. There _are_ collisions and people do want to change their username/initials when they get married or divorced or whatever and it causes bedlam in many systems that link to AD account by username string instead of guid.

Ghost of DEC Alpha is why Windows is rubbish at file compression

Rob Moir

Re: Obvious bull

Because you couldn't have possibly included (de)compression code for both algorithms in all versions of the OS, and you couldn't have possibly used an extra bit or byte in the volume descriptor or in the directory entries of files to signal which particular method was used to compress them.

And get more complaints about "Windows bloat"? Especially when there's more than one CPU instruction set involved. Windows NT supported x86, PowerPC and Alpha around the NT 3.51/NT4 days iirc, and developments of that system subsequently went to to Itanium, x86-64 and ARM (windows RT)

Security bod to MSFT: PowerShell's admin-lite scheme is an open door

Rob Moir

Re: Something seems odd about this as a security hole.

Yes you can create your own DC. But you can't run a DC on my domain without already having credentials that allow you to promote a server to a DC and if you have those credentials already then you already own the network and don't need help from this kind of attack.

Rob Moir

Something seems odd about this as a security hole.

According to the write up here, you can get around JEA by having the machine you're attacking pull policies from a domain controller you control.

So for this to work you already need to be a domain admin on the domain concerned? If that's true, then sure it's a fault that needs fixing but I'm not convinced it's much of a security hole if you already need to be domain admin to use it. If I leave my car keys out in my house where anyone who lives here can take them, it might be something I need to stop doing if my kids become teenagers with a taste for joyriding, but it's not really a security issue with the car itself.

HR botches redundancy so chap scores year-long paid holiday

Rob Moir

Re: January 1st?

Quite a few of us over the years. You probably like having electricity, entertainment, water, etc. on New Years day, for a start.

Microsoft: Why we tore handy Store block out of Windows 10 Pro PCs

Rob Moir

Re: Hey Microsoft, keep up the good work!

I actually like Windows 10 so have no problems with installing it on my work or home PCs...

But I'm appalled at these kinds of choices that Microsoft seem to be making. Trying to trick / force people into installing the upgrade is idiotic. People who want it most likely already have it, and those who do not (or _can_ not due to compatibility issue say) are not going to be happy to find it has sneaked onto their machine.

Same applies to the store.

Microsoft rethinks the Windows application platform one more time

Rob Moir

Re: Be afraid!

A large part of their hopes from an improved bottom line from Windows 10 will come from moving everyone to the new platform and being able to do away with support for the older platforms.

As for the store, I've not seen a single Windows Store app that is actually any good. Microsoft's own attempts are anywhere between half-arsed and just plain terrible. Build a first-class system that will make people want to use it because of how well it meets their needs and watch the users and the money roll in of their own accord. It's not that difficult to figure that one out.

BOFH: This laptop has ceased to be. And it's pub o'clock soon

Rob Moir

Re: Oh, the PFY

It was better than Windows 8, but lets not get carried away here.

Electrician cuts wrong wire and downs 25,000 square foot data centre

Rob Moir

Re: Do you get paid the same money as a professional?

Yes - you need to talk to people in _their_ language when you absolutely positively need to be sure they've understood your point.

Keep that consumer browser tat away from our software says Oracle

Rob Moir

As much as I'd personally like to see IE die out tomorrow, if you're childish enough to think its that simple then believe me, it's YOUR opinion that does not count.

Another day, another Firefox: Version 31 is upon us ALREADY

Rob Moir

Re: "the latest version of Firefox has some great tools for web developers"

I have to say PaleMoon has been working really well for me. I don't use that many FF plugins and the like, but the ones I do use have worked perfectly.

Watch out! KILLER HP firmware update bricks ProLiant server mobos

Rob Moir

"who cares when a 1500-employee company is hit by a bug and calls Microsoft ? Certainly not the MS support department as all they'll say is please reboot all computers three times in 3 minute intervals and call us back"

Really? Last time I had to call them they said "We're ever so sorry sir, we'll get a patch sorted and out to you as soon as possible, should be end of this week. In the meantime we have a workaround which you can do yourself, or we can apply remotely if you wish."

Windows 8 BREAKS ITSELF after system restores

Rob Moir

Re: Stay with Win7

I'm actually using Windows 8 with StartIsBack. As long as you stay the hell out of metro then its not a bad set of improvements over Windows 7. We had no choice about upgrading at work because you can't (or couldn't at one point at least) use the remote admin tools for Windows 2012 without updating. There's no technical reason for this of course, it's just one more example of Microsoft trying to push 8 down everyone's throat.

Of course, MS don't want you to stay out of metro so you have to work at it, and if you stay out of metro then windows 8 is not much more than service pack 2 for Windows 7. But I'm comfortable with that.

GitHub probes worker's claims of hostile, sexist office culture

Rob Moir

Re: I don't like....

You're right. She should help the people who want to sweep things like this under the carpet. That's clearly the way to force them to change.

Rob Moir

Re: Hmm

Being treated with equality (note the different) does not equate to treating everyone the same. It means treating everyone with the same level of respect, opportunity, etc. I don't know why this is difficult to grasp.

For example, while you may be treating everyone on your team equally if you buy them all a bacon butty for breakfast every day, by doing so you are not treating any Jewish, Muslim or vegetablist members of your team with respect. It's a trivial example but I hope it helps illustrate the point.

Windows 8.1: Microsoft's reluctant upgrade has a split-screen personality

Rob Moir

Re: I suspect...

Indeed, as much as I heartily detest Windows 8 to the point where after trying my best with it for about 9 months I've just re-installed 7 on my home machine, I can't say I've seen _any_ microsoft operating system take a cavalier approach to user data.

Rob Moir

Re: Run As Administrator

Unless the only things you do besides browse the web and edit documents/pictures _are_ admin tasks then you're either talking bollocks or doing it wrong.

WIN a RockBLOCK Iridium satellite comms module

Rob Moir

MILEY

Mission

Inhbiiter

Lohan

EmergencY

The Old Reader evicts Google Reader refugees

Rob Moir

So you don't want to pay anyone anything for it and people who can't give you it for free are "hipster dickheads".

At no point in any of that does it occur to you that maybe it's *you* that are not worth the hassle does it?

Is the next-gen console war already One?

Rob Moir

It *is* impressive, imho and there's some clever stuff being done by people who are 'hacking' the kinect tech into other things.

But as a console add-on, it solves a problem that no one appears to actually have. If I want to take exercise then I'd rather do so outside in the fresh air. If I want to dance I'd rather go to a nightclub (not that i want to do either, these days, but still...).

ZX Spectrum cassette player lost? There's an app for that

Rob Moir

Re: Love it

I'm sure he'll be along as soon as he's worked out that Sinclair sold the spectrum without open-sourcing the rom contents.

Creative Suite cloud lurch crushes beret-wearers' cost-slash bid

Rob Moir
FAIL

Re: Skipping a version

@anonymous coward

In Peter48's defence he was replying to someone who had specifically mentioned skipping every other version.

Something I personally would have checked for before racing to call him not very bright, because y'know, now you don't look very bright.

British bookworms deem Amazon 'evil'

Rob Moir
Facepalm

Re: What sort of cretin buys a Amazon Swindle anyway?

THEN they discover they've bought into proprietary DRM-saturated Hell.

Oh no, my device is working exactly as described. What kind of hell is this I find myself in.

-- said by no one, ever.

I can't help thinking that the majority of people who buy into a [closed / walled garden / DRM-saturated hell] type device will be perfectly happy with it. It's only us techies who expect to root our devices who might be unhappy, or those who are miss-sold devices on a false basis who will be unhappy.

Rob Moir
Happy

Re: What sort of cretin buys a Amazon Swindle anyway?

What sort of cretin buys a Amazon Swindle anyway?

Oh I see what you did there. How... clever... of you.

I've got a Kindle and I'm perfectly comfortable with the decision to purchase it, thank you. I'm considering trading up to a 'paperwhite' or Fire HD model too. Much like the iDevice (yep, own them too), I'm far too busy enjoying the fact that it works very well for its intended purpose to even notice the spluttering about "lock in" from people like yourself.

You and I are both happy with our choices, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, your need to characterise people who disagree with you as having "devolved" in some way says a lot more about you than it does about 'us'...

ASA says 'unlimited' broadband can have 'moderate' limits on it

Rob Moir

Re: "...the watchdog believes punters will expect "moderate restrictions"..."

Exactly. I've got no problems with services that are 'limited' or 'restricted' but I think that products should be described accurately. This is further proof that the ASA don't know their ass from their elbow.

Google+ architect: What was so great about Reader anyway?

Rob Moir

Not to be harsh or anything but welcome to the real world.

Companies exist to further their interests, and those of their owners and shareholders. Not yours as a customer. Not mine as a customer. Their own. Always have. **We're their customers, not their friends**.

With free products like those from Google, where do you stand? Are those freebies the sprat to catch a mackeral, essentially a loss leader? Are they a way of gathering users and turning data on those users into something that can be sold to other businesses? Where do products like reader stand in this?

This is why I've always been so suspicious of the Google "Don't be evil" thing, because sooner or later that was always going to be overtaken by "sorry, but there's profit to be had".

People sneer at Apple and Microsoft, but at least they've always been relatively honest and up front about the relationship. If we give them money, they'll give us hardware and software and services. At least with those guys you always knew where you stood.

Touch screens and greasy mitts: All you need is glove

Rob Moir
Coat

"Disney Research – yes, such a thing exists – has been working on a project called Revel that sends an electric current through your body to your fingertips"

I'm pretty sure another el reg columnist has had working prototypes of this for some time now. Paging Mr Travaglia to the Mickey-Mouse shaped courtesy phone!

Amazon yanks SimCity download from store

Rob Moir

hmm

"Unless of course their live chat staff are completely inconsistent in the way they handle customer requests."

You're saying that the live chat staff don't know what they're doing. As they work for EA what do you think the chances are? I'll take that bet.

Redmond slashing Win8, Office OEM rates for small devices

Rob Moir

Re: ..verry funny article...

The point is that if you *have* to spend five minutes on google to figure out how to do basic tasks because the interface is so user-hostile, then that's a problem.

Rob Moir

Re: Windows RT has not exactly been a resounding success...

The domain thing surprised the heck out of me. Microsoft are playing catch-up and by throwing away domain membership and the manageability that comes with it, they're throwing away one of the areas where they hold an advantage with business and education customers. This product was designed to fail.

Rob Moir

Re: despite Microsoft offering customers deep discounts on Windows 8 upgrades

Yes, this is clearly the first time in the history of computing that a TLA has been recycled so it's perfectly reasonable to jump into the stance you've picked with both feet </sarcasm>

PC World ordered to rip up promo for next-day repair promise

Rob Moir

Re: How is PC world still in business?

They're better than Maplins, but then that's like winning an award for being more truthful than a politician.

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