One of the few cases
where I'm cheerfully saying "ha ha" at both the "victim" and the perp. 'Cause they're all criminals.
546 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Apr 2007
Says a lot about either your tax system or your populace if most people aren't competent to file their own taxes...
I've lived in a couple of countries where the guvmint published its own tax software (or filing website). Quick and painless and free for everyone.
Requiring commercial parties to help people pay their taxes is not compatible with good government (e.g. ensuring the public understands the laws that apply to them)
Yes, to everyone who said that the RAID rebuild stresses the components yada yada. We're talking about a one-man shop here who didn't have the sense to back up his data. He doesn't need enterprise grade data protection.
The question, ultimately, is "what is good enough"? In my case, wat I have is 'good enough' and it's a damn sight better than what most people have :(
NAS is primary storage and should be at least RAID 5, so unless your disks all fail truly at once, your primary storage should remain intact. In my experience, disk failures within warranty are handled pretty well by the vendors, so you should be able to restore your redundancy within a week. If you're truly paranoid, add a hot spare. Mixing disk types in a RAID array is something I've always been advised against, though never tried.
Then - on top of the NAS - you need a backup, preferably off-site in case your home or office catches fire or is burgled. In my case, the backup is the "old" NAS disks repurposed to back up ONLY the truly critical data via a USB/SATA adapter.
It'd be interesting to know how that works exactly. I know other companies have a requirement that - if you want to come back - your previous manager has to approve your return. Sounds like Microsoft just formalised the process in case your previous manager leaves.
It's not a bad idea per se (I can think of more than one colleague I'd not want back) but of course - as is alleged here - it's subject to abuse.
Huge improvement over what? I hate the standard configuration of most triple 7s - just one long cabin front-to-back on teh -200s and a bulkhead or perhaps some lavatories breaking up teh endless tunnel on the -300s.
The 747 is infinitely preferable as a long-haul aircraft - more space, more visual variety, etc.
...of legislation lagging behind reality. Sigh.
Oh - and "notoriously difficult language"? No. The guttural aspects may be a bit challenging for english speakers, but Dutch itself isn't so hard. I would agree that the idiomatic aspects can be quite challenging though. IIRC, Dutch is unique in that it has something like 5000 swearwords, the majority of which are biological (including a rich selection of disease-related phrases)
I think the Ticwatch will work for people who really want to add a smart device to their wrist, but many people already have one - think devices like Suunto, Polar, Garmin and Fitbit. These are showing increasing signs of smartness, adding smart features (and better looks) to a device that is already very capable in terms of hardware capabilities (HR and GPS sensors, touch screens, etc).
Bought a new phone just before MS announced the death of the platform. Wonder if MS will sponsor a replacement handset for me (and the other guy still on the platform)?
Teams is a pity as it's one of the better-functioning O365 apps on mobile, and means I can do ad-hoc chat with colleagues in a completely separate space from Whatsapp...
I find it very hard to understand the reasoning of the US government on these things, and with the current administration, I tend towards "playing silly buggers" conclusions. (nb: if you're reading this in the US, you may disagree, but it's probably fairly representative of how the rest of the world views the current US government)
The argument against protectionism here is that the US doesn't have a significant capability to build (mobile) networks in-house. Cisco has capabilities, but nothing like the big scandinavian players and the chinese. The remaining argument against this being genuinely about punishing ZTE and securing the US against chinese state influence on critical infrastructure is that it's just part of a trade war game, either bargaining with china or appearing tough for domestic purposes.
All told, I think this could be explained in many ways, and we may never know why...
I beg to differ somewhat. Regulation is absolutely necessary, but the problem here isn't deregulation - it's in politics where (particularly in the US) corporations have so much sway that regulation has become twisted and complex to the point of being impossible to manage as politician after politician tries to right a perceived wrong while listening carefully to whoever is sponsoring their re-election campaign (or, in the case of Ajit Pai, their future employment) to ensure it's not righted "wrongly".
As soon as the electorate starts thinking with their head instead of responding blindly to whatever nonsense is being doled out by the likes of Cambridge Analytica and the Internet Research Agency, politics will start returning to government for the people rather than behaving like big business.
I'm not holding out much hope though...
Why not set it up as an email forwarding service for 12 months? Explain to people how to set up (insert favourite freemail provider here) accounts to automatically identify inbound email as having been sent to which.net so they can send a change of address notice. Perhaps a novel idea, but postal services have been doing this for decades...
GDPR requirements suddenly become much less onerous, the email service cost plummets and the punters get 12 months (rather than 2!) to migrate off the system.
I'll take a vulturecentral.com address also please.
I worked around that with a lot of batch file programming and a dozen or so different versions of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT that were swapped in and out depending on what it was I wanted to do. Games had their own copies, but there was also a set to back up the PC to my DittomaxPro and then reboot back into the default setup.
Good days...
There's a similarity to the VHS/Betamax war here - WinPho lost not on technical merit, but on commercial maneuvering and a lack of willpower on the part of Microsoft to really put some effort into it, such as releasing it under similar licensing conditions to Android and not providing a nice, simple piece of reference hardware.
The past five years have seen the destruction of a tremendous number of hardware and software platforms, largely due to ineptitude of the companies making them. Blackberry, Nokia, Symbian, Motorola, Microsoft and - probably - Sony.
It's sad, but I maintain hope that sooner or later something else will come along that gives IOS quality without the IOS pricetag and walled garden.
PS: Have an upvote ;)
Disagree - I'm on my third WinPho, and I'm going to miss it when it dies. The UI is great, the platform is stable, the merging of mailboxen and calendars and contacts from different sources without faffing about with dozens of third-party addons is fab. It doesn't seem to be near as leaky as Android, and you get good usability without paying the Cupertino idiot tax.
What's not to like? Well, lack of apps - even Microsoft's own (Dynamics) don't seem to be well-supported. Not a real problem for me, but perhaps I'm undemanding. Biggest worry is the fact that the platform is dying a slow death.
If I read the kracken website correctly, both clients and APs must be patched - patching only one end of the connection is not enough, so with the updates from Ubiquiti and Microsoft, the most critical parts of the network are now patched.
I have some hopes of the various Apple and Samsung/Huawei clients, but suspect the Withings scale, Netgem set top box and Squeezebox Radio will have to be relegated to the guest network...
Sorry, which privacy-slurping OS are we talking about here? Windows or iOS?
Sadly, it seems unavoidable that we will end up sacrificing privacy on mainstream OSes since you can't use a "store" without sacrificing your privacy and an increasing number of software vendors deliver software only through these storefronts.
And so privacy on the desktop goes the way of privacy on the mobile.
"I wonder how the citizens of living in the 'home of the brave' feel about how cowardly and paranoid their leaders are."
That's easy: they don't care, because it doesn't apply to them. In fact, a disturbingly large number of them probably think it's a great idea: just ask yourself "what would Trump think?"
Given the above, and the fact that the right-thinking part of the country probably doesn't care enough to stop this lunacy, I think us forunners are screwed if work or holiday takes us to the "Home of the Brave (but not enough to stand up to anyone in power)"(TM).