Posts by Ian Ringrose

Run Windows on a Chromebook: All the details. Not so fast, home user...

Re: re: so that developers can test things

The issue with providing a windows laptop is that the user can't then run Chromebook software, hence stopping the company standardising on Cromebrook for all new software.

Greate if only a few staff need to run window apps

This of a large company who can run all the software that 85% of staff needs directly on Chromebook, but can't move all staff to Chromebook as a few staff still needs windows software. By enabling 100% of the staff to be moved to Chromebook, this "hack" provides a way to standardise on Chromebook before all the software have been rewritten.

This is where UK's Navy will park its 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers

A carrier unlike a sub has lots of resupply ships for food, jet fuel etc, therefore it can be supplied with oil at the same time.

A nuclear powered carrier has to be taken out of service to have the reactor refueled; this can take over a year, with only two carriers this becomes an issue. (Unlike the USA that has lots of carriers, so can be refueling one at a time.)

The calcs show that over the lifetime of the carrier a reactor would cost more then oil.

With a reactor, if it breaks down you got real problems; with oil you can have many separate generators.

XPoint: Leaked Intel specs reveal 'launch-ready' SSD – report

Great for write intensive database load….

Having writes (and reads) being so fast at a low queue depth should help databases complete transactions a lot quicker, so have lower locking overheads etc. When we will see some SqlServer benchmarks using it….

Microsoft foists fake file system for fat Git repos

Not that bad.

The lazy loading will very quickly get you all the code (and its history) you need for the task you are doing. At that point you can work of-line. (Git also make it easy to have 101 central servers that tack each other, and you only need one of them to be working.)

However a larger benefit of git is being able to have local branches etc and combine them with other peoples changes without “publishing” them to a central server.

Re: Proves Git is unsuitable for commercial dev work

I expect MS wanted all the benefits of GIT for the part of the source code the developer is working on, this could include files in many different folders. The build script will make use of prebuilt binaries for the 99.999% of windows the developers is not changing.

I expect that very quickly all the files the developer needs to work will be on their machine, so giving the benefits of a distributed system, while only distributing the subset of code the developer is using.

Oracle effectively doubles licence fees to run its stuff in AWS

With Oracle reads don’t block writes…..

Hence long running reports etc don't lead to deadlocks. However I would still be using SqlServer any day of the week.

Uber's self-driving cars can't handle bike lanes, forcing drivers to kill autonomous mode

The software has learned to drive like a taxi driver.....

The software seems to have learned how Uber drivers drive!

Microsoft puts Windows Updates on a diet with 'differential downloads'

Remember they have already told us that we can no longer cherry pick updates..

Remember they have already told us that we can no longer cherry pick updates therefore the system will only have to know the last month you updated the OS on, as everyone will have the same set of updates installed.

Windows Server 2016 persistent memory support supercharges storage IO

Maybe just like a AS400

As I understand on the AS400 apps are loaded into the virtual address space when they are installed, not when they are started.

Possible reprieve for the venerable A-10 Warthog

It was not allowed to fly low in Operation Desert Storm….

It was not allowed to fly low much in Operation Desert Storm due to the risks, also I think most of the kills were not with its gun.

Therefore maybe we need a replacement that can fly slow and remain over the solders for a long time, but can carry more missiles by not having such a large gun. Transport planes have also been converted with a large gun fixed on one door if you want the large gun.

The A-10 armor allowed it to fly low and not to be brought down with small arms, but if flying low is no longer an option…..

Too easy to shoot down with a hand hold missile

One issue is that the A10 is too easy to shoot down with a hand hold missile if it is flying low enough to use its gun. Hence in most operations it fly higher and then uses the same missiles as any other aircraft. Given that the gun takes up so much space and limits how many missiles the A10 can carry….

The F-35 is overpriced for what is needed today, but how many F-35 does the USA need for a “more advanced war”, and is it cheaper to then also use the same F-35 for operations that they are over speced for….

Here's how much HP's 3-in-1 PC replacement will cost you

Remember that all of Microsoft Office etc will run on the “phone”, hence it is only the odd custom corporate application that will need any of the 80 hours.

Then let assume that most corporate application applications have been moved to the web, so that only 1 in 5 numbers of staff need to use this service at all…..

This is a service for companies that are moving away from Win32 applications, but needs a short term solution for a small number of their workers. It is not a replacement for my laptop or your laptop!

I want to launch thousands of drones, says Facebook's flying Wi-Fi router chief

Not Bonkers

First you cover the complete mostly empty area with drone based large are coverage, yes it only support a low density of users, but there is only a low density of people.

Then put up cellular towers where there are more users, using the drones to do the back-hall, the towers can have dishes the automatically point at the correct drone.

Then you put fibre in to the areas that need it.

We are talking about villages with 20 people living in them, and 10 miles to the next village, not towns!

NetApp, storage class memory and hyperconvergence

It would save them money

Storage Class Memory would allow them to stop having their battery backedup ram that they use to store writes before the "disk" have responded.

Super Cali: Be realistic, 'autopilot' is bogus – even though the sound of it is something quite precocious

Autopilot on an aircraf.....

Autopilot on an aircraft is seen as an aid to the pilot, no pilot would think of going to sleep just because the autopilot is turned on to help with the easy bits of the pilot job. Yet people seem to think an autopilot can be trusted to drive a car without the driver being alert.

Autopilot is the correct name for a system that does not remove the responsibility from the driver!

Google rushes in where Akamai fears to tread, shields Krebs after world's-worst DDoS

Re: Premium Rate IP's

Just being redirected to a page explaining that to access the given website you must first log into your ISP billing system and confirm you wish to do so would help greatly.

Brits: Can banks do biometric security? We'd trust them before the government

I would like biometrics to be used whenever someone opens a new account, or gets a new credit card, so as to make it very hard for one person to have accounts in more than one name. Accounts that you can’t trace back to a person are used as part of most banking theft.

Biometrics is hard to use for ATMs or internet banking as a copy of someone’s finger could be used, but would be great if I lost my cards and passwords etc but needed to prove to a bank who I was to get emergency cash out.

Want a Windows 10 update? Don't go to Microsoft ... please

The ideal is that you may have a large network in say a university that is very fast but is split up into IP subnets. You can now up the windows updates from a PC on the fast local network without having to change anything.

I expect that if it is slower getting an update from your PC then Microsoft’s server, your PC will not be giving out much at all…..

Much better to set your “torrent killer” to slow down the outgoing pockets, so that all other network pockets can overtake them.

PS, the Microsoft update will still work, it will just get the update from Microsoft’s server in the normal way if it can get it from a “closer” PC faster.

Microsoft to overhaul Windows 10 UI – with a 3D Holographic Shell

It may work well for CAD as well as games. If it is usable for “normal” application, it could give a better way of using a small (phone sized) PC while away from your desk.

Ask me in 5 years time if it is a good ideal.....

Cortana expelled from Windows 10's new school editions

Application from the store can still be installed.....

I think you will find that using Active Directory “store” applications can still be installed for defined groups of users or machines. It is just someone sitting at the machine can’t install a store application.

UK employers still reluctant to hire recent CompSci grads

Re: Anything less than a 2:1 is a fail……

But how many grads with thirds to do you need to interview to find the "Very bright, rather lazy" one, and how do you know they will not be lazy in the job....

Anything less than a 2:1 is a fail……

If someone has less than a 2:1 in Comp Sci, it is likely they are not able to problem, yet it is still claimed they passed their degree.

Microsoft tweaks TCP stack in Windows Server and Windows 10

Re: "faster TCP slow start"

TCP starts sending packets slowly until it finds out how fast they can be sent without a router dropping them due to a slow network, or lack of buffer space etc. Therefore a short lived connection may never get up to full speed.

This has always been an issue in IP networks, as there is no central system to setup connections and decide what speed each computer can send data at….. This is also one of the reasons that IP networks scaled so well……

Re: Took their time

The Windows TCP stack used to be one of the best and most stable, but like everything else companies leaf fog each other, so once the windows TCP stack got overtaken, Microsoft setup a team to do everything possible to once again make it the best.

So for the next few years it may be the best, then it will taken overtaken again.

No company wants to be making small changes to their TCP stack all the time due to the cost of testing etc. Therefore a TCP stack will be frozen for many years, until there are enough large image changes to justify the cost of testing.

We ain't in 1996 anymore, Dorothy: SQL Server 2016 proves it

Re: I propose a challenge

Firstly a lot depends on the skill set of the staff and what is already in use…….

Then it depends on how many copies of the application will be in use, e.g. if the application is sold to 50 customers a lot more can be spend in development cost to reduce license costs.

I rather expect that if “in memory tables” and/or data warehouse functions of SQL server benefits the application a lot, that the savings in development costs will make MS SQL Server 2016 win. Otherwise I expect it will come down to what the developers/admin already know, e.g. the cost in time of them getting up to speed on a “free” database may be more then the licence costs saved unless they already have these skills.

CityFibre takes on Ofcom over pledge to open BT ducts and poles

Do you want lots of companies damaging the BT cable in the duct that your broadband runs over? If not be careful what you ask for.....

Extension to blue light services' Airwave network is on the cards

Who said the network will be public! It will use 4G so that equipment does not need to be custom designed. A bit like what the railways have done using GSM on a different frequency.

Opera cries foul over Microsoft Edge power-slurping claims

Let them call foul….

Provided it makes all browser programmers think about power usage.

Microsoft, Google cosy up in the Skia lodge: 2D lib added to build tools

If this had been done by Microsoft 5 years ago……

These days the fist choose must be HTML based UI even in apps, much that I hate the mess that the "standards" are.

Woah: NetApp is number two in the all-flash market, says IDC

This excludes server vendors that have on board raid controllers and often space for at least 10 SDS drives. I expect that DELL,HP,etc would be way up on the charge if servers USED as 100% flush storage were included.

SWIFT finally pushes two-factor auth in banks – it only took several multimillion-dollar thefts

Given that this is often a inside job

As this is often a inside job, the issue then becomes how to protect the "two factors" from the people that need to access it to do their job.

Victims stranded as ID thieves raid Aussie driver licences

The “permanent ID number” should not be used as part of a ID check

It is OK to use the “permanent ID number” as a key in a database, however it should not be used to confirm someone ID, as so many people know it. Likewise a physical driving licence should never be used to confirm someone ID unless the phone is confirmed to match the person.

GM crops are good for you and the planet, reckon boffins

So I will have to pay more taxes to the EU, so they pay the farmers not to grow too many crops…

At first sight, increasing farm output seems good. But the EU props up farmers that should be allowed to fail, pays minimal prices to framers for crops, then pays to destroy over production.

Therefore I don’t see how “normal people” in the EU will benefit form GM crops.

Also given how Monsanto has behaved in the past, I think only “open source” GM crops should be allowed.

Boffins bust biometrics with inkjet printer

Fingerprint readers are only as good as the person that is monitoring there usage. So for example they can be secure for checking ID at immigration, as there is a person that checks a real finger is being used.

Paying a PoS*, USA? Your chip-and-PIN means your money's safer...

Very few stolen cards are used, as there is a risk the card has already been reported stolen. The chip makes it nearly impossible for someone to clone a card. Therefore just using the chip of “chip and pin” gives most of the benefits.

Is Microsoft's Office dev platform ready to go mainstream?

By the time that 90% of the customers of any independent software vendor have version of office that support this new API, Microsoft will have released a version of Office that replaces it with yet another API.

I have never seen any integration with office end well, if it requires “tanking” to a copy of office…..

Microsoft rethinks the Windows application platform one more time

Remember that my next laptop will convert into a tablet, be used with touch while in tablet mode on my lap in the living room, but have a mouse and full keyboard when in my study.

Therefore having metro on the laptop makes sense for at least some apps.

Is the risk worth it…

The reason my wife installs apps on her IPad but not her laptop, is that we trust that apps from the Apple app store will not destroy all the data on her IPad.

I was hoping that within a few years, it would be possible to put new software on our laptops without having to take an unacceptable risk.

Microsoft shelves 'suicidal' Android-on-Windows plan

Re: Project Westminster

Sometimes someone has to be able to get work done where there is no internet connection, but you don’t want to provide a different “on line” and “off line” UI. So an “on-line” application that can be built from the source code of your website can be a good option.

Otherwise you have an application (e.g. stair design software) that you wish a lot of people to be able to access over the internet, but a few people need to be able to send the design to the machine (that is connected to a local PC) to make the stairs that is connected to a local PC.

Another example is that hospital x-rays are normally accessed var an internal website, but you always want a PC directly connected to the x-ray machine, so you can view a x-ray if the network is not working. Project Westminster allows the reuse of the lot of the website code, on the local directly connected viewing PC.

So stop thinking of it as “implement a website”, think if it more as integrate the website into an applicant.

TalkTalk attack: 'No legal obligation to encrypt customer bank details', says chief

Re: First contact from TalkTalk

What makes you think the contract was from TalkTalk.

Even dialing random phone numbers, and pretending to be from TalkTalk saying you need to confirm some personal details would result in getting a lot of information for most members of the public.

The caller hanging up makes me thing it was not TalkTalk calling you.

A complete change in how we do banking is needed….

Anyone that has a copy of the form I fill in for a credit check can open a bank account in my name!

Anyone that has the information to set up a DD on my account had all the information that is needed for someone else to setup the DD.

There will ALWAYS been data beaches, therefore the data that must be stored and process for each customer should be such that it is not a great issue if it gets stolen.

Encryption does not help, as the key needs to be accessible to the system.

The credit check data has to be kept by Talk Talk, as otherwise they can’t improve their risk control systems when taking on new customers. (Likewise a landlord has to keep it, so they can trace a none paying tenant that has just left the property.)

We need a quality ID checking system, but yet, we are not allowed to have ID cards as the public does not like the concept!!!!

Traditional enterprise workloads on an all-flash array? WHY WOULD I BOTHER?

Firstly if staff every have to wait for the computer, they will not feel as good, so may become slower themselves. Making the computer respond in 1 second instead of 20, so the member of staff does not start to think about something else, has a much bigger effect that any logic will say.

I have personally spend far too long at the Screwfix trade counter due to the computer being so slow processing returns, I bet any cost/benefit review speeding the system up, did not take into account the risk of the person behind me in the queue going to Toolstation next time…

Also flush is a lot more predictable, one application move the disk head about does not slow down other applications in an unpredictable way.

No, the application may be SQL server doing the replication, without the need for a shared storage system connected to by both servers.

Likewise a message queue store all incoming requests as well as sending them to the application is a lot safer, then any block level replication. As if there is a bug in the application, the messages can be replay, but all the block level replication will have just replicated bad data.

Got Windows 8.1 Update yet? Get ready for YET ANOTHER ONE – rumor

Will windows be “free” if you don’t wish to use desktop apps?

I can believe that Microsoft will make windows free for anyone that gets all the applications from the Microsoft App Store.

Enterprise storage will die just like tape did, say chaps with graphs

PCI is the new network…..

SANs provide lots of value in backup, snapshots etc, they just can’t move data fast enough between themselves and the servers.

So put the SAN in the same box as the server and use a PCI bus to connect them together.

Then expend the PCI bus outside of the box, so they just have to be in the same rack….

EU: Let's cost financial traders $400m a day, because EVIL BANKERS. Right?

What a waste of skilled programmers…

Today a lot of programmers spend their life getting rich writing the software for HFT.

Thank how much better off we would be if these programmer were doing something of benefit to the world. E.g. better usage of resources, cutting down on the time governments take to process forms etc.

In the UK the top university students go to work for the banks, they don’t create much employment for “normal” people. In other part of the EU, the top students go to work for engineering companies that make products and employ a lot of “normal” people. The UK bankers then spend their money buying these top quality products….

Inside the Hekaton: SQL Server 2014's database engine deconstructed

-> “SQL Server's in-memory database engine is fully integrated into the core product, and at no additional cost”

WRONG, it costs a lot more unless you need the most expensive edition of SQL server for some other reason.

Windows XP still has 27 per cent market share on its deathbed

Re: It's not the OS you have to worry about

I don’t think so, a large number of government Windows NT machines are still in use due to internal “websites” that only work with IE6.

Then there are the consumers that just don’t understand, I know a few people that are still using XP that cannot understand what a OS is, yet alone that you may have to upgrade one. They have whatever software that come with their PC.