Posts by Charles Smith 345 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Apr 2008
Openreach's build date for Fibre on our road has been flickering on and off like dodgy fluorescent tube light for the past few years.
However 1 day before Virgin Media install FTTP in our house, scheduled for next month, I'll expect to see an OpenReach van in the street close to our house hurriedly unwinding a cable reel.
One of my systems, written in compiled Cobol, running on a PC (Intel 486) with 512 KB of memory served the trading activities of 100+ Foreign exchange traders. As things have progressed with "modern" languages the processor power, memory sizes have all bloated morphing into racks of servers consuming more power and generating more heat. Now the Officialdom wants programming to migrate to even less efficient programming methods, that require even more processing power to operate.
Maybe we can get AI to do the task of migrating the C and C++ to some form of modern grossero coding. :-)
I used to buy HP products when they were well designed and engineered, even though they were a bit pricier than alternatives. Now that the suits, marketers and bean counters control the castle I refuse to buy their products and their associated nasty tricks. So I won't be eligible for, or indeed want, any compo from HP.
As Chairman of this progress meeting I now call on our suppliers Project Director to report on project progress.
Capitsu: "We've started our planned activities. There are some questions that may require Variation Notices to be signed off."
Chair: "So, it's all going to schedule?"
Capitsu: "There's no recorded delays and activities are in progress."
Good morning Farmer Brown, I'm Alexa. Customer support have noticed you've not changed your hydraulic oil on schedule. But not to worry I've ordered the required amount for you. Our delivery driver will arrive tomorrow, if you're not in we'll leave the oil with a neighbour. Unfortunately that means your credit level on this tractor is too low to start your engine. Please tap the card reader by the steering wheel with a valid credit card of your choosing, and we'll be on our way to the fields.
"Minister, you asked me to produce a paper on reducing the burden of Civil Service pensions."
"Yes Sir Humphrey, and you are a year late."
"I much regret that Minister, but we had to weigh the pro's and con's to produce a balanced solution. It entailed much research."
"So, you had lunch at Club, Sir Humphey?"
"Quite Minister, but the answer is brilliantly simple. Even you could grasp it. We merely transfer the Civil Service personnel to an external organisation. They'll take on the pensions responsibility."
"Won't that be expensive Sir Humphrey?"
"Oh no Minister, my contacts have assured me that it will not increase costs of current services."
".and nothing can go wrong?"
"Oh no Minister. We retain the services of those transferred out, and the Supplier provides additional technical experience."
This time the great destroyer of good computer supplies companies won't be able to lay the blame for poor figures on a UK software company. The overpaid and greedy executives are heading for a Budweiser moment as the bad news exceeds their marketing capabilities. I steer clear of the two letter company as it repeatedly tries subscription lock-ins. I'd not allow their printers in-house even if they had a negative price.
As Elon say's; if you want to use SkyNet cut down the trees in your garden. This is just another way to avoid laying fibre to deliver Internet. The problem arises when Russia/China/USA decides to take out the LEO satellite network and triggers a Kessler Syndrome event.
Microsoft decided that my perfectly good Intel hearted PC was not good enough for their Win 11 product. Apparently to regain their favour I have to buy a new PC.
I've always supported the view that developers should be forced to test their latest release on five year old PCs.
5G is essentially an urban network technology with the need for many masts given its limited range and poor penetration of structures. Starlink is more of a rural network needing few if any ground masts, more suited to open landscape. In effect they are complimentary technologies rather than competing.
I was once on the receiving end of opposition from a bitter orange in a telecommunications project. Very nasty, fortunately I'd developed a good customer relationship and he saw the rotten fruit for what it was. It seems like Elon is suffering a pelting on a larger scale. No doubt the Third Estate living in the Bocage will get used to 700ms.
I used to use Kaspersky on my PCs at home and in my small business. I liked the software and its performance, though at times it was a resource hog. At one point I worked in Moscow in a building across the street from the Kaspersky offices. However when Putin invaded the Crimea and also visited Salisbury I decided that Russia was still the USSR but in fashionable clothing. Despite the protestations of the executives at Kaspersky I was always reminded that an assault rifle loaded with 7.62 rounds can be decisive in formulating company policy.
I de-installed the Kaspersky anti-virus from all machines and replaced it with Sophos. Interestingly when I scanned the file archives with the new AV I found some old virus programs that KAV had missed on my son's gaming PC
My small company has used Xero for several years now. It is usually reliable, so we're not going to squeal foul because of one outage. As for the VAT you have a whole month to prepare the VAT returns and submit payment to HMRC. If you leave this to the last moment you are asking for trouble. Anyone met Murphy with his JCB digging next to your data line?
Xero does need to look at its major outage procedures and how customers are kept up to date. Lessons to be learned.
The whole process was deleterious to the Health and Safety of the Postmasters as a direct consequence of the negligence of the Post Office executive. Let's see some heavy corporate fines and maybe with a taste of jail time for the key decision makers. All nicely topped up with substantial compensation for those affected.
I run an AdBlocker to tidy the dross, but Google does manage to slip some stuff by those controls. In those cases where the content consistently repeats I always (repeatedly) click on the link to bring up the ad on a different browser tab. It's a click and will have cost the advertisers a dollar or two for each click. For the worst offenders I let them know they are wasting money.
The more that people sting the Ads, the sooner Google will change it's tune. Sure it gives an initial boost to Google's wallet, but as the advertisers become to realise it is wasted money...
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