Posts by Michael Souris

Sources: Misco sold to Hilco Capital, care home for the distressed

Pretty sure that Jessops was bought by Peter Jones, not Hilco Capital. Unless the two are related?

BOFH: Password HELL. For you, mate, not for me

Re: "I rarely get cold calls"

I get these calls promising me a better deal on my telephone account. I reply that I don't have a telephone. You can almost hear the gear whirring whilst they process that one. <click>

Adblock Plus blocks Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook ads

Re: Don't know what all the fuss is about.

The Register has adverts?

(Switches off Adblock Plus)

Blimey!

(Switches on Adblock Plus)

Dixons, UK's fifth 'emergency service', brushes off Brexit scare stories

And the fourth?

Taking their prestigious place right behind the fourth emergency service, Domino's pizza.

SCO vs. IBM looks like it's over for good

For 13 years...

I have been embarrassed to own a piece of perspex with "SCO Ace" emblazoned through it. But like Slartibartfast, if I threw it away I would be careful to make sure it landed somewhere soft.

Online retail giant Amazon GOES TITSUP ACROSS EUROPE

21:54 - still borked

Amazon.co.uk has been up and down like a whore's drawers this evening.

Suffering satellites! Goonhilly's ARTHUR REBORN for SPAAAACE

Nature Reserve Next Door

You can park up in the nature reserve right next door and walk down one side of the Goonhilly site - there are remains of the WW2 radar station with informational boards too.

Robots? What a bunch of workers...

GPO snoops

"What's in the parcel?"

"Mind your own damn business and show me the card. and if there's anything on the restricted list I'll tell you."

They haven't asked me since.

Enterprise giant SAP's systems take a probe to the wobbly bits - report

For clarity, "SAP Router" is software, not hardware, and should be sat behind an industrial-strength firewall. Anything else is pure incompetence and the SAP Basis responsible should be sacked.

Nasty BOFHses. It burns us! It burns...

Re: Right-angle poo

Usually a soil stack, but trade often refers to waste rather than soil. Strictly speaking, a soil stack is a collection of soil pipes and related fittings, which as the name suggests stack up to connect various sanitary ware to the sewer.

Windows 8.1: Here at last, but is it good enough?

Not really a U turn, more a wiggle in the road.

Microsoft are so arrogant that they couldn't even manage a U turn on the Start button; they fully realise that what everyone wants is a Start button that displays a start menu, i.e. the traditional list of programs and, if you must, apps. Classic Shell and half a dozen other add-ons do exactly this. But because that would look to the world like what it is, a full U turn in response to a botched UI project, they do what they think they can get away with in a futile attempt to preserve some dignity.

007 hardware: Gadgetry, spyware and things that make you go Boom

Q ≠ Armourer

'after guidance from a "Major Boothroyd", who would later be known simply as "Q"'

- only in the films, in the books no link is made between the armourer, Major Boothroyd, and Q branch (also referred to Q division).

James Bond doesn't do CGI: Inside 007's amazing real-world action

"as a test pilot you lean to stay with it until the situation is over" should read "as a test pilot you learn to stay with it until the situation is over"

Brighton marathon munchers banned from all-you-can-eat diner

Anybody posting a message supporting the porkers...

...should quote their own waist size.

NZ bloke gets eel stuck up jacksie

Well done

Well done Reg for "anguilline".

iPhone 5 adaptors goldrush begins

Re: "Keep feeding your £20 notes into the slot"...

That's the old style Elgar £20 note in the graphic, which is also now obsolete (but still only worth £20 at your bank, so not worth hanging on to).

Report: SAP exec charged with $1,000 LEGO bar-code caper

"Legos" is wrong

LEGO is either a proper noun, describing to the manufacturer, or an adjective - so Lego bricks, Lego sets, etc. are correct usage, but "Legos" is always wrong.

Pints under attack as Lord Howe demands metric-only UK

About bloody time

I too was educated in the metric system from 1971 - brand new rulers, clume measures, etc - and still we have to put up with silly sods who can't order beer in litres.

Ten... Bedroom Gadget Treats

Re: Missing item...

You forgot the mandatory "Goblin' Teas Maid" gag.

Google answers less than half of watchdog's privacy tweak questions

Correction

I think this should read "which was heavily trailed on many Google properties".

Will TWO next-gen iPads be unveiled at January's iWorld?

Free marketing

Apple insider starts rumor about product launch. Apple insider quickly denies rumor. Sources are not named.

It's deja vu.

Meh.

Oedipal shower romp wins crap sex award

Word order

Wouldn't that read better as "with too blunt a pin" ?

Japan, Russia in plan for elephant to birth CLONE MAMMOTH

Of course...

...I've heard of mammoth

Rooting Kindle Fire bricks videos

DRM gesture

Amazon have to make some gesture towards DRM, or the rights owners would pull their content. It's a sufficiently technical gesture to satisfy the rights owners and put the casual user off rooting the thing, yet easy enough to work around for the enthusiast. Perfect solution, I think.

Ten... mono laser printers

Save paper...

...by printing 2-Up or 4-Up and / or duplexing.

Samsung ML3710ND is £169 + VAT at Printerbase, and currently Samsung will give you £130 cashback or 5 years warretny on this printer - which must make it the best value as well as the Editor's choice?

I bought 2, both with 1/2 price additional paper tray, stunning output quality.

US Marine gets date with Meg Griffin on YouTube

Him and Mila Kunis?

...batting well above his average...

The Cube: Apple's daftest, strangest romance

As lovingly described in...

... William Gibson's 2003 novel Pattern Recognition.

You have to have standards – or do you?

Pate?

Really? Scalps by the livre, or do you mean pâté?

Alpha.gov.uk preps for beta, prays for funding

What a monumental pile of crap

Doesn't render on my IE9

On FF3.6 at 640x480 (yes, they still exist, reason why left as an exercise for the reader) it gets its knickers in a knot when scrolling. Can't leave feedback on the site for same reason.

Final insult; its sets Google Analytics cookies without the user's prior consent. Somebody in .gov.uk not keeping up with new legislation!

Google will throw open lid on music locker service today

Steaming mode?

Steaming mode? Do you mean streaming mode? Or stealing mode?

Powerline networking pops up in Parliament

Radio 7?

I think that you will find that it is now called Radio 4 Extra.

BOFH: People get annoyed when you try to debug them

Meh

Reads like the setup lines in many of the previous BOFH episodes just cut & pasted into a new story. No decent pay-off.

Nothing to see here, move along...

So, what's the best sci-fi film never made?

Heinlein

Well, Friday has been touted around Hollywood before, but how about Heinelin's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"?

One basket only? Proceed to self service

CPiO? Don't make me laugh

Sadly CPiO are the buffoons that brought Scolmore's original Sage implementation in at around 30% over-budget and nearly cost the decision maker his job.

As early as 2000 we (CPiO) were able to provide e-Commerce integration to what was then called Tetra Chameleon in Manufacturing, but the sales clowns were unable to do anything other than "give it away" in a rush to close a deal at any cost.

Sound familiar?

Apple iPad 2

@Steve Evans

You can display your pics on an iPad via the Shuttersnitch app and an Eye-Fi wireless SD card. Unfortunately, if you are using CF (I'm guessing that you have a Canon) then you'll need a CF-SD adapter, ideally one with all of the metal removed.

Street View Terminator warps into Dublin

You can see him just outside the door too.

I suspect that Google have developed a high tech solution for photographing interiors and footpaths - they push the camera rig around on a tea trolley.

Government flies kite for VAT changes

About time too

It is about time that LVCR was terminated; it no longer assists the cut flower trade, and only serves to rack up mileage on low value consumer goods sold in the UK.

The good denizens of the Channel Islands seem to want their cake and to eat it - lower Income Tax, no VAT on low value exports, and demands for zero VAT on imports.

Don't like it? Stop being a British dependency and join the French.

Inventor of the Workmate dies

Sawing through a chair

If I could level one criticism of the workmate, it is that if you do saw through it (or between the wooden clamps) then your saw hits the metal framework and instantly becomes fit for sawing only butter - something that isn't true of a wooden saw horse.

But a true inventor, and should be better represented in the Design Museum.

Mexican woman gets litigious on Top Gear's ass

From whihc we can conclude...

...that rather than being lazy, feckless, flatulent, etc. the Mexican people are instead litigious, money grabbing, opportunistic, and share the same lack of understand of irony as their northern neighbors?

Playboy on iPad will be 'uncensored', says Hefner

One big benefit...

... no staples in the middle of the centrefold.

Bond 23 back on track for 2012

Plot

***Spoiler alert***

Bond assigned to kill bad guy.

Bond meets beautiful woman. Bond shags beautiful woman, who it then transpires is in some way associated with bad guy.

Bond captured by bad guy.

Bond escapes bad guy, kills bad guy, optionally blows up secret lair.

Bond reunited with now redeemed beautiful woman and fully expects to shag her during closing credits.

Civil servants touted ID cards to friends, family as flop loomed

Refund?

They want a refund of £30 when it cost the rest of us over £22,000 to issue each card? I think not.

Hacker warning over internet-connected HDTVs

Samsung

Reading the PDF, it's a Skype capable TV with the manufacturer redacted to Xxxxxxx. So that'll be Samsung then.

FBI 'planted backdoor' in OpenBSD

Digital Fortress

Hmm. Reminds me of the "plot" of Dan brown's Digital Fortress. That was badly written bollocks, too.

Seagate DeLorean: World's priciest hard drive?

Pronunciation

That's pronounced Jigawatts, of course, see http://www.deloreanmotorcar.com/ec/jigawatts.htm

Distressed cock whipped out of wheelie bin

And the IT angle is?

Presumably the opportunity to put the word "cock" in a headline...

Pirate Bay resurfaces after German legal depth-charge

Back already

Piratebay.org is back already / still online at 10:10 BST.

Monty launches frantic 'save MySQL' web campaign

It's used in a hell of a lot of ecommerce solutions...

And I have never experienced it losing a row of data, with tables containing millions of rows.

BMW uncloaks ActiveE

Tomorrow Never Dies

A BMW you can remote control with a phone? If you can drive it around a multi-storey car park and "park" it in an Avis rental office, I want one...