Posts by Franco

I want to buy a coffee with an app – how hard can it be?

Re: Another reason to keep on truckin' a WinPhone

I used the Greggs rewards website on Edge up until about 6 months ago and it was utterly reliable. It makes me wonder what it says about Greggs IT that it works on Edge though....

Greggs is the only one I am signed up to, given their lack of pretension. However that has rather changed lately as I have had free offers (unredeemed) lately for a caramel latte, a choice of premium "teas" (don't like tea at the best of times, never mind flavours that sound like shampoos) and last week a pumpkin spice latte.

Cue angry Denis Leary rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f_dxLiuXuw

Microsoft: You don't want to use Edge? Are you sure? Really sure?

Re: I bash google when possible

I'll grant you Microsoft have upped the ante here, but this sort of nonsense has been going on for years. Google with their pop-ups and drive-by downloads bundled with Adobe apps amongst others, and Apple have also had a try when they started pushing out Safari as a "recommended update" to iTunes.

I've also noticed on Android that certain apps will default to sending hyperlinks to Chrome, even though Firefox is my default browser there.

Post-silly season blues leave me bereft of autonomous robot limbs

Glad I'm not the only one thinking that James Gunn's "Awesome Mixes" aren't really that awesome, and giving David Hasselhoff a reprieve is almost reason enough to have him fired even before the tweet storm.

Still could have been worse. When people say to my how much better music was in the 80s I make them listen to Vanessa Paradis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulay2FvUEd8

Strewth! Aussie ISP gets eye-watering IPv4 bill, shifts to IPv6 addresses

Re: Has anyone truly made the switch?

"I've yet to work in a company that has used IPv6 internally."

Tried it once for a Server 2008 R2 DirectAccess implementation. It was less fun than drowning, although that was more to do with DA not working than IPv6. Lesson learnt, stay away from the bleeding edge and let some other poor sod do the heavy lifting.

Your Phone prematurely ejected, Skype texting on the way, and 900 more years of Windows

Re: Skype??

They used to love that feature "spun out in to a different product" press release. Removing IMs from Exchange 2003 for example, and the utter chaos they caused by trying to remove public folders from Exchange 2007 and forcing everyone to SharePoint with no direct or easy migration path.

Re: Been texting from Skype

I'm amazed anyone COULD use that, it spectacularly messed up my message backups before MS swiftly pulled the feature and went back to the standard messaging app.

Haven't tried it recently though, still have my Lumia 925 but it's battery life is approximately one half of 10 minutes ( (C) Strong Bad) these days.

When's a backdoor not a backdoor? When the Oz government says it isn't

A mate of mine is off to Australia for a month, so I'd better exchange OTPs with him before he goes lest his pictures of the Great Barrier Reef be interpreted as scouting an attack on it.

Only making jokes because Australia will most certainly not be the last country to try and get this kind of nonsense in to law.

Google keeps tracking you even when you specifically tell it not to: Maps, Search won't take no for an answer

And here was me thinking "opt-in" meant I would be asked if I wanted to share this data, I think they mean "opt-out if you can find the settings and translate the doublespeak"

I've done granular permission changes to pretty much every Android app on my phone, it's pretty scary how many of them "need" access to my contacts, phone calls and location. Google Play does occasionally throw up a message that it won't work without access to contacts, but it does.

UK taxman told: IR35 still isn't working in the public sector, and you want to take it private?

I did read and respond to HMRC's consultation document. It was utter nonsense, full of self-congratualatory twaddle about how great their public sector rollout has been.

MOO is ignored, use of work equipment is still considered an issue despite no IT department anywhere allowing BYOD except on guest networks and they continually lose in court, but they will still force this legislation through.

Facebook deletes 17 accounts, dusts off hands, beams: We've saved the 2018 elections

Zuck pats himself on the back for being marginally less useless than before.

I still can't decide what's worse, people thinking that Facebook is a valid source of news or Facebook themselves deciding that fake news isn't their problem

Span hits F#, LinkedIn gets mumbly, and UWP (yes, it's still clinging on) furnished with new toys

Re: Perfect...

"Why the hell would Microsoft drag their redundant platforms all the way to Blighty, to drop them off Brighton Pier?"

Legacy compatibility, there's a line of code hidden that requires disposal off that pier that's been there since Windows 3.11

Some of you really don't want Windows 10's April 2018 update on your rigs

I've had no issues with 1803 at home, what's ripping my mitten right now is the number of customisation options that have been changed since 1709. I'm in the middle of updating an SCCM task sequence for a client and most steps for setting default apps, removing store apps, customising layouts and adding corporate branding have changed with little to no notice or documentation.

Oh, and getting rid of Cortana is like playing whack-a-mole.

Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker

Where do you draw the line with advertising of the brands you have bought though? Clothing is one thing, but taking it to extremes you'd need to use a cover or tape over the logos on your phones and tablets, cover up the logo on the lid of your laptop and de-badge your car, the latter of which is only done (at least where I live) by people who have more power in decibels in the boot than they do in horses under the bonnet.

In Microsoft land, cloud comes to you! Office 365 stuff to be bled into on-prem Office 2019 Server

Re: Reality

They assume it is inevitable, as the average PHB loves buzzwords. They won't be using the cloud, they'll be leveraging an agile private cloud or some other such nonsense. They don't use technology, they integrate it in to their workflows.

If Microsoft could just get Blockchain in there as well they'd have a stampede to migrate...

Samsung’s new phone-as-desktop is slick, fast and ready for splash-down ... somewhere

Not the first attempt at such things and certainly won't be the last.

I remember a company we supported back in about 2010 insisting on BlackBerry devices so they could issue Redflys to their sales droids. Link below for those who don't remember or have never seen a Redfly. Could probably say the same about BlackBerry for some of our younger readers too...

https://www.pcworld.com/article/158820/redfly_review.html

Azure certifications are awful, Microsoft admits, so it has made new ones

Re: Not just Azure

PowerShell is (IMO/E) great for certain things, particularly bulk work. For example, due to licensing restrictions, I had to change the UPNs of selected users during an Office 365 migration rather than doing it at the Domain level. This would be incredibly tedious and time consuming on a per-user basis.

Day to day admin, it's not worth it though for me. Same thing with Server Core, it's a great idea in principle, but when it hits the fan you spend ages more time looking up the commands to fix things than doing it through the GUI.

Re: Really?

First MS Exam I sat was the XP client exam, and the answer for every single failure to boot scenario was "Use Last Known Good Configuration" which has worked precisely once that I have ever heard of, never mind seen.

The first 2008 exams were very big on ADFS as well, it's only in the last few years though with Office 365 SSO that it's seen significant uptake in my experience though.

No, seriously, why are you holding your phone like that?

Re: "The advantage of flip/slide mobiles"

"Well, we wouldn't want any sensitive bits that increase their length when used to be unprotected, now, would we?"

I heartily endorse the protection of sensitive bits. I surely can't be the only person who has jabbed themselves in the testicle with the stubby antenna on a Nokia 5110 back in the day? (note that this happened if not enough care was taken with where and how the phone sat in my pocket when sitting down, and was not an odd masochistic choice)

One two three... Go: Long Pig Microsoft avoids cannibalising Surface

Re: Does not run Fortnite?

I take your point, but Apple continually flout the accepted wisdom of cheaper, faster, better, usually in favour of shiner, more expensive, less features and get away with it.

I accept that Microsoft do not have the consumer brand awareness that allows Apple to get away with this however.

CEST la vie, IR35 workers: HMRC sets out stall for ignoring Mutuality of Obligation

Entirely typical of HMRC and their mobile goalposts.

Despite how it is used in practice (which is against individuals) IR35 was advertised as being designed to stop companies chucking people off the payroll and in to contracts to save themselves money, which funnily enough seems to be exactly what the BBC have been doing for years, yet it's the individuals and not the corporation getting hit.

Contractors, professional bodies and the courts consistently tell HMRC they're wrong on IR35 but it makes no difference.

Automated payment machines do NOT work the same all over the world – as I found out

Re: English?

I have also observed this phenomenom although it may be that the owners of the local watering holes are familiar with the drinking habits of Scots in hot weather and anticipating full coffers.

Happy birthday, you lumbering MS-DOS-based mess: Windows 98 turns 20 today

Ah, Windows 9x. The joys of writing PIFs to launch MSDOS games, having to reboot if you changed the screen resolution and having to pay extra for an upgrade from a 4X to an 8X CDROM drive.

I actually had a 98SE PC until about 6 months ago for playing games on, although DOSBOX can handle most things the PC had a 3DFX Voodoo3 in it so was seriously cutting edge for it's time. Made £100 on eBay too.

British egg producers saddened by Google salad emoji update

Re: Pointless emojis

I think it was Jeff in Rules of Engagement who said "That's not food. That's what food eats."

On a more on-topic note, enough with the emojis. We don't need one for every single thing. I almost feel nostalgic for the days we had to type them ourselves. ;-)

In defence of online ads: The 'net ain't free and you ain't paying

As I've said many times, I don't mind unobtrusive ads. E.g. I never think when I'm reading the Metro on the train that there are too many of them, but then the Metro doesn't follow me to work and show me what I was looking at on Amazon the previous night.

Whois? Whowas. So what's next for ICANN and its vast database of domain-name owners?

@David McCarthy. If you can't get anything at all from whois (my domain name, although my details are redacted by nominet, does still provide the tag of the registrant and the authoritative name servers) then you can try using nslookup or equivalent to find the SOA records and get the authoritative DNS servers from that which should point you to the registrant. Whether they will be any help or not is another matter....

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38021/how-do-i-find-the-authoritative-name-server-for-a-domain-name

No doubt in the post, he's been busy this week though with the Roseanne Barr nonsense and then getting upset because Samantha Bee called Ivanka a rude name.

Kill the blockchain! It'll make you fitter in the long run, honest

Re: A large consultancy at a tech conference this week

Pah, that'll never work without an agile cloud leveraging DevOps behind it.

Foolish foodies duped into thinking Greggs salads are posh nosh

Re: Wait a minute

When I was a student at the University of Strathclyde I walked through the Italian Centre in Glasgow's Merchant City every morning from the train station.

On a board outside the chip shop "Today's special, Fromage Frites"

I have to disagree with the chap slagging Gregg's coffee too, it's not great but price to taste ratio it's pretty good compared to most of the high street chains and when you're paying £2.25 or so for the coffee and a pastry or a doughnut it's pretty hard to complain.

The great wearables myth busted: Apps never, ever mattered

Re: The main reason for wearing a watch

I'd disagree to an extent, based on my own experience.

When I first started running I used my phone, as I had it, and didn't want to splash out on expensive kit for a hobby I might not keep up. However, to carry it you need either an armband (I sweat a lot when running, so uncomfortable for me) or a suitable pocket. That lead me to start buying Ronhill shorts, which although great, aren't cheap, purely for the large pockets at the rear waistband. Even at that, the phone is still heavy and moves around a bit.

I have 2 watches, a normal one for everyday use, and a TomTom runner 2 cardio + music that was a gift for exercise use. I like to listen to music when I run, and it's lighter and more convenient than my phone, and you can disable all the trackers so as not to turn in to one of those irritating toolbags who feel the need to tell everyone how many steps they've done that day.

Shame TomTom have exited the wearables market though.

High-end router flinger DrayTek admits to zero day in bunch of Vigor kit

Expensive but IME they're generally worth it. When I was on BT they admitted their kit was garbage but also wouldn't send me a new Home Hub for free, so I was stuck on the HH3 and the Huawei modem.

Seeing as I live in a flat I also wanted 5GHz WiFi so bought the 2860 and have carried that over to Origin fibre. Funnily enough all the issues I had with BT that they claimed were "my kit" have mysteriously disappeared....

Blood spilled from another US high school shooting has yet to dry – and video games are already being blamed

Exactly what I was going to say Lee.

We had a mass shooting in the UK at Hungerford in 1987 and gun laws were adjusted accordingly, and then again after the Dunblane massacre in 1996. We've only had one mass shooting in the UK since, in Cumbria in 2010.

Who in the hell can self-justify that it is legitimate to need to own automatic weapons simply because it's in a law that was written in 1791?

Want to know what an organisation is really like? Visit the restroom

Anyone asking why instructions are required in the toilets has never worked on either a building site or a building still being fitted out/refitted.

A few years ago now when I was starting out in IT, I took a contract to do some cabling work at a certain broadcast company moving offices. It was required to carry your own toilet paper and hand wipes, as each day what was in the toilets was either stolen or thrown whole down the loos whole along with copies of The Sun, Star or Sport. If you were really lucky you'd get a toilet that looked like 2 caged gorillas had a poo fight in it. I never saw any soap, don't know if it was stolen or the apes ate it.

Other helpful signs I have seen in loos.

At a large IT outsourcing company "Please do not put chewing gum in the urinals" which of course meant that the sign was the disposal location for chewing gum.

At a public sector organisation was a sign with what looked like a thermometer only the contents were urine in various shades and the sign asked you to check in case you were dehydrated judging from the colour of your urine. Sadly, especially as it was in the loo, the sign was printed unlaminated A4 so had gradually faded to the colour of urine itself.

HMRC opens consultation to crack down on off-payroll working in private sector

I may be unique in this, but I have found that the IR35 changes in the Public Sector have actually helped a little bit. Not when they were first introduced, as they were applied with a heavy hand due to poor communication from HMRC, but once the clarifications came out regarding no blanket classifications etc it meant (again, for me) a much more clearly defined contract scope which meant I wasn't getting whatever they felt like thrown at me.

Every contractor knows other contractors who take the piss (E.g. the Xmas party scam mentioned above, I know a few who claim subsistence to the max every single day regardless of location and so on) but the majority do it (again in my experience) because they like the freedom, the flexibility and the diversity of projects. However another consultation will only actually help anything if HMRC do what they didn't last time, which is actually listen to what people are saying.

Whois privacy shambles becomes last-minute mad data scramble

I'm glad ICANN are getting slapped in to place for their stupidity, just wish Ajit Pai was getting what's due to him. (Yes, I know that the vote to slap him down has passed the senate, but it's very unlikely to get past the house

You've got pr0n: Yes, smut by email is latest workaround for UK's looming cock block

Re: What's next?

If the state begins to control what the public is or isn't allowed to see, then how far away are we from a police state? (No doubt there are those that would argue we're not far away already). Where do you draw the line with pornography, as it is not something that every single person would agree on the definition of.

There is no easy answer to dealing with such issues as delinquency, but the continual heavy handed approach of punish all for the mistakes of the few is most certainly not the answer IMO.

Re: What's next?

Let us hope so, because the current generation will never know the sheer delight of a game of football abandoned for the reason "jazz mag stopped play".

I have no problem with attempts to stop children looking at porn, but this is the responsibility of the parents, not the government. Responsible parents (who may well like to look at a bit of porn themselves) will have web filters to stop their children looking at inappropriate content.

Responsible parents will also tell their children no, you can't live off sweets/crisps/pizza/burgers and feed them properly, rather than blaming the government for allowing the charlatans making this stuff to not only sell it but have the audacity to advertise it too.

It's not like our government don't have better things to spend their time on, there are one or two issues around after all.

Your software hates you and your devices think you're stupid

Re: I just found my old MP3 player in a drawer

Oh yes, follow-me printing. Sales droids love it, the purchasing managers lap it up, but no one tells you that the only thing harder than setting it up and testing it is keeping the bastard working for more than 5 minutes at a time.

I worked at a Bank for four months doing support for their XP to 7 migration. Every bloody call was about follow-me printing.

Re: There's an island somewhere...

Sounds like mine. Admittedly it does remember last track played and carry on from there, but there are 2 play options. Play All or Play Random. You can't change the criteria for ordering the tracks in any way that I have found, so it's alphabetical by artist. It will not, despite what the manual says, recognise any playlist format that VLC, Windows Media Player (that's what the manual says to use, not my choice) or any other media player I have tried can create, so listening to an album in the order that the artist intended is "tricky". The same device is supposed to allow voice commands to make calls and quite simply can't, at least not for anyone with Mc or Mac in their name and as I am Scottish, there's 1 or 2 of them.

Sometimes I miss the days when every media player had a pencil or a BIC Biro next to it, as an emergency tape winding tool.

Let's kick the tyres on Google's Android P... It's not an overheating wreck, but UX is tappy

Suffering this myself, 2 different versions on my (admittedly ancient) Nexus 7 and a new Nokia 6 so keep going to the wrong place on each device.

It's one of the more under the radar devices but I can definitely recommend the Nokia 6 (2018 version, also called the 6.1). Reasonably priced SIM free and well specced and part on the Android One program so should be supported for as long as any Android device possibly could be (think it's 2 years guaranteed but might be wrong....)

Microsoft reckons devs would like an AI Clippy to help them write code

Re: Ah the good old days of Microsoft

Skynet is a reality, it's a hidden easter egg in the soon to be released new version of Bob.

Google Pay heads for the desktop... and, we fear, an inevitable flop

I pretty much only use my phone to pay for things when it's a reward program (E.g. Greggs) and even then I use the QR code rather than tap-to-pay as you can call me paranoid if you like but I simply don't trust NFC. When my bank insisted that I had to have a card that supported contactless pay I immediately bought an RFID blocking wallet.

I only just switched to Android and when my phone got Google Pay installed as part of an OS upgrade it demanded some quite outrageous permissions just to run. So I uninstalled it.

BOFH: But I did log in to the portal, Dave

Re: I've been there

Never had an issue getting it on to USB, the issue I have is that you can enter proxy sever addresses but can't enter credentials, so it's completely useless behind an authenticated proxy.

And the sheer genius of HPE making you have a support contract before you can download it from their website, but leaving it free to download on their FTP site...

What could Facebook possibly do next to reassure privacy fears? Yup – make a dating app

I've never used Facebook.

Got my first 2 dating matches this morning though....

Royal Bank of Scotland decision to axe 160+ branches linked to botched IT gig – Unite

"How does a taxpayer funded institution spend £1.8bn on a failed IT project"

That is SOP in this country for taxpayer funded IT projects, they pretty much never end successfully or even close to budget.

UK Parliament roars: Oi! Zuck! Get in here for a grilling – or you'll get a Tower of London tour

it's a sad day

when Rupert Murdoch has the moral high ground over you.

It's largely for form as nothing will actually come of this, but even so if it starts people thinking about what they share with Facebook then it's a good thing.

Take-off crash 'n' burn didn't kill the Concorde, it was just too bloody expensive to maintain

I've been to East Fortune (Scotland's National Museum of Flight) which is home to another Concorde and it is well worth the trip. They also have a Vulcan, a Spitfire, a Harrier Jump Jet and various other commercial and military aircraft and some good interactive experiences for the kids (my 5 year old nephew absolutely loved it).

The crazy thing about Concorde is the disparity between the inside and the outside. From the outside it still looks modern, even futuristic. The cramped cabin and the insanely complicated cockpit reveal it's age

Can't log into your TSB account? Well, it's your own fault for trying

I wonder what all these people visiting bank branches are doing, I've had to go in about 2 times in five years. Once to my personal bank to pay in a cheque (the counter assistant was desperate to show me how I could do it at an ATM, till I pointed out that there is no chance I'll remember how to do it the next time I get a cheque in another 5 years) and once to my business bank to collect a new debit card as the first replacement was lost in the mail.

Anyway, if you want to see a truly bad film, watch Torque. As someone had the bright idea to take all the originality out of Point Break (not that there was a huge amount although it's an entertaining enough film) and remake it with cars as The Fast and The Furious, a second someone had the bright idea to remove even the vague semblance of plot in TFATF and remake it with motorcycles

Google Pixel 2 XL: Like paying Apple-tier prices then saying, hey, please help yourself to my data

You can use other apps rather than the google defaults, and can disable permissions to apps on a granular basis. I don't and never will use Google Pay for example. Don't use gmail or chrome either.

Haven't yet found a way to stop it nagging me that I've hamstrung it though....

Oh, and Google have limited wireless display to Chromecasts only which is annoying.

There's just one month left 'til the big day: May 25... but don't panic!

Re: The EU does have a sense of humour after all

They do spend the rest of the year reciting Vogon poetry, so not all good.

BEWARE OF THE LEOPARD!

Microsoft Lean's in: Slimmed-down Windows 10 OS option spotted

"If they're looking for things to remove, why not start with Cortana, Edge, Microsoft Store, and every other UWP "app" on the system? And with those gone, why not just get rid of the entire UWP subsystem?"

As posted above, they already have in the LTSB version.

The "trouble" with Windows is that it has to cater to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst everyone posting here is likely to be tech-savvy as a minimum and very possibly an IT professional, Joe Punter doesn't want to have to spend hours downloading web browsers and text editors and media players to the consumer laptop they bought from PC World.

Whilst many people here will be happy to use Linux Mint or whatever there favourite distro is and customise it with their choice of apps, imagine if Apple sold the iPhone without Safari or Chrome wasn't pre-installed on Android