* Posts by Andrew Scaife

32 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Jun 2008

Remember SoftRAM 95? Compression app claimed to double memory in Windows but actually did nothing at all

Andrew Scaife

Reader, I used it

No, not SoftRAM, Ram Doubler for Windows 3.1, and it worked by compressing the GDI and User heaps. It worked well.

One click, one goal, one mission: To get a one-touch flush solution

Andrew Scaife
Happy

Skelf

You sure it's Skelf? Try saying my name three times and imagine I'm standing beside the defective dunny. I might materialise...my IT support aura might work on it the way it works on allegedly duff desktops. "It's not worki...oh, it's working now".

Or you could just use the long drop front-wall, fresh air orifice combined with a wide capacity gutter installation below. Or the rear wall installation for those more private privy moments.

A Windows 11 tsunami? No, more of a ripple as Microsoft's latest OS hits 5% PC market

Andrew Scaife

Re: Ha, ha, the bias is showing

And this is because? Hmm, Currys selling Linux ,actual Linux computers (not Android tablets or phones), Argos? When my family's Windows 10 machines start to go bad, they'll be getting flushed and converted to Linux. My new laptop came with FreeDOS, runs Kubuntu, and boots twice as fast as my work Windows 10 laptop received this year too. It's shocking, the difference. But then many people seem to believe whatever they're told.

Even in corporate land, we're moving away from proprietary software like Microsoft Office to open source. Why? Flexibility to deliver results. Office has been adding eyecandy and removing useful features for too long now to be relied upon.

MediaTek wants Windows 11 Arm PCs powered by its chips, not just Qualcomm's

Andrew Scaife
Mushroom

Never again

For years I bought phones with MediaTek chipsets and processors. Yeah, cheap. Then I bought one with Qualcomm. Gone is the shit Bluetooth performance among other things. You want to get in bed with Microsoft? Ahah. Ahahahaha. Go ahead, I for one welcome your new Redmond overlords. These are computers I will never buy!

Judging by the way your face lit up, my inbox just got more attractive

Andrew Scaife
Pint

Re: Quiet in here, isn't it?

I spent an hour earlier having someone remotely 'fix' my work laptop, after that 'character building' experience I came here for a rest...and refreshment.

Hitting underground pipes and cables costs the UK £2.4bn a year. We need a data platform for that, says government

Andrew Scaife
Joke

Re: Mark it on road signage

Phew, for a minute there I thought Bagger 293 had escaped from the opencast reserve where it lives on lignite! You wouldn't want that crossing the road in front of you...

Boeing's Starliner capsule corroded due to high humidity levels, NASA explains, and the spaceship won't fly this year

Andrew Scaife

Boeing, Boeing...

Bong. "Boeing Starliner!"*

*May require lubrication before reuse. Fnar, fnar...

Microsoft's problem child, Windows 11, is here. Will you run it? Can you run it? Do you even WANT to run it?

Andrew Scaife
Mushroom

Re: Want to run it?

Kubuntu. 20.04 Long Term Support. Watch out if your Windows 7 laptop is using UEFI instead of old-fashioned BIOS, you should be able to find advice online. I haven't kept Windows on hardware I've bought secondhand for years, and I'd never choose a new system now with a Windows pre-installed. Check before you jump that your printer will work.

Icon because you should take off and nuke Windows from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. While you're up there feel free to nuke Office 365 and everything Microsoft. I may have to use it for work but I would not miss it.

Logitech Bolt devices support secure Bluetooth Low Energy – but forget the 'Unifying Receiver'

Andrew Scaife
Thumb Down

No thanks

Much as I loved my old Trackman it eventually gave me de Quervain's, so now I use a RollerMouse. And that keyboard would not position correctly above it, so sorry Logitech. And yes, that icon would be painful...try the Finkelstein manoeuvre to test if you have de Quervain's, but gently or you'll be on the ceiling...

Wireless powersats promise clean, permanent, abundant energy. Sound familiar?

Andrew Scaife
Holmes

Who woke me up?

W.E.Johns, best known for Biggles, also wrote SF for adolescents, his "Kings Of Space" series that started in the mid-50s. My gateway drug.

Thales launches payment card with onboard fingerprint scanner

Andrew Scaife
Thumb Down

No.

Given how often phones and laptops I have had with fingerprint readers fail to recognise my registered digit(s), prompting the whole registration process yet again, I'm out. And no, I'm not burning them off, nor am I a MIB.

Flexispot Deskcise Pro V9: Half desk, half exercise bike, and you're all sweaty. How much does it cost again?

Andrew Scaife
Joke

So...

"In our view, it's only a workable alternative to a treadmill desk if you have limited computing needs."

Perfect for all manglers! Especially with a generator, but send the output to the company/entity supply so said entity gets something constructive out of them. No meetings to be chaired unless from the pedalling seat...

US Navy starts an earthquake to see how its newest carrier withstands combat conditions

Andrew Scaife

Re: boom.

Short-dated ordnance?

Tesla owners win legal fight after software update crippled older Model S batteries

Andrew Scaife

Re: Carbon neutral

FYI most modern ICE cars switch off the engine when stationary in neutral, then start up again when the driver taps the accelerator or whatever. Bigger capacity (or whatever, I am not a petrol head) battery allows fast restart. I doubt it's a huge saving on CO2 etcetera...but it's sold as such.

UK government gives Automated Lane Keeping Systems the green light for use on motorways

Andrew Scaife

Re: Naysayer

In many cases limiters and speed monitors use a camera and rely on the speed limit signs being fitted at every change of applicable limit. Where there's no sign, the limiter stays set to the last limit detected. Hence the many cars crawling along clear roads at 40 because they've emerged from a trading estate or whatever without a release to national speed limit sign. And if it's relying on GPS think yourself lucky it didn't drive you into a river or something: when I worked in an office (remember them?) Google thought I was in the river all day...

Andrew Scaife

Re: I have used this...

Lane Departure Warning beeps and jiggles the steering when you don't use the indicators. Audi driver?

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

Andrew Scaife
Paris Hilton

Re: You may remember...

There was a set of 3D ViewMaster reels for UFO...yes, the one shot of Lt. Ellis was ... impressive.

Honda sends first consumer Level 3 autonomous car into showrooms, but only to 100 lucky Japanese leasers

Andrew Scaife

Re: an extra 55,000 yen for picking a non standard colour

They've been playing this "extra cost unless it's black" one for a year in the UK. And yes, that small a selection of extra cost option colours. Interesting though, my Honda has the first of those "main tricks", although it's of limited value in the real world. I think it's up to Level 2 in the Society of Automotive Engineers scale.

ThinkPad T14s AMD Gen 1: Workhorse that does the business – and dares you to push that red button

Andrew Scaife

Re: AMD version of Thinkad ISNT!

Investigate RollerMouse. I was assessed through our workplace scheme after incapacitating RSI and 'prescribed' one it's fettled my RSI, in my case tennis elbow.

Andrew Scaife

Re: Terrible keyboard positioning

Er, not everyone. Office-based (remember them?) we were all switched to laptops from desktops some years ago (lower leccy use innit, greener innit) but we almost all used desktop keyboards. Some of us had the sense to use the big wristrests with them, even when the rubbery coating got a little bit sticky (thanks Lenovo).

Andrew Scaife
Holmes

Re: Red pointy thing

Thats a RollerMouse. I've never seen one combined with a keyboard, they're recommended for poor souls like me with "tennis elbow" (lateral epicondylitis) after years of using a conventional mouse. And once you get used to them they are fantastic. You can press the roller bar for left click but the first thing I did with mine was reduce the sensitivity to minimum, because it was driving me mad. They did take off but they're not something you'll find in PC World, they tend to be available from specialists in ergonomics.

MediaTek's latest Dimensity phone chippery is 25 per cent faster than its predecessor, supports 200MP cameras

Andrew Scaife

Pixels shmixels

Is the Bluetooth performance amy better? Cos I swore never to buy another MediaTek chipset phone after the last one.

I work therefore I ache: Logitech aims to ease WFH pains with Ergo M575 trackball mouse

Andrew Scaife
Happy

Contour Rollermouse FTW

Because the cursor movement is by your fingertips resting on a horizontal roller you move without moving your arms, and use with either both hands or whichever is your dominant. So you position a compact keyboard like a Bakker Elkhuizen toward the monitor(s) with the Rollermouse nearer you (and get the one with the deep wrist rest or you'll need to add one), and you move your hands forward and back just enough to use either device.

No, I don't work for them, but my employer kindly paid for me to have a workplace assessment when lateral epicondylitis threatened my work capability, and this is the solution they provided. It worked for me (Yay! No more pain!), and when I retire in a few years Contour will get my money for a personal purchase, not Logitech, although I'll always have a soft spot for them.

Andrew Scaife
Holmes

Wrong

You certainly DO notice when your thumb tendons start to swell. That's what ended my love of my Trackman Marble and the next model I replaced it with. Three steroid injections into my thumb joint gave short-term relief. The fourth steroid injection into my thumb joint by a consultant, plus the hospital-moulded thumb spica splint cured my De Quervain's tenosynovitis, thankfully. Changing from arm movements of a mouse to thumb movements don't stop the wear and tear on your body, they just refocus it onto your thumb. I can recommend the Contour Rollermouse devices though: once you get used to rolling the equivalent of a pencil in the pen rest of an old-fashioned wooden desk, you can stop the pain of De Quervain's and the lateral epicondylitis, more commonly known as tennis elbow.

0ops. 1,OOO-plus parking fine refunds ordered after drivers typed 'O' instead of '0'

Andrew Scaife

Re: And this ladies and gentlemen...

Oh yes you do. Middle of mine is 0O, easy to see the difference here...

Ah lovely, here's something you can do with those Raspberry Pis, NUC PCs in the bottom of the drawer: Run Ubuntu Appliances on them

Andrew Scaife
Coat

No sale

Hmm. I currently have a VIA Mini ITX shoebox running Lubuntu from a USB stick as a printer server, and it locks up often enough that it's proctalgic, but this isn't selling me on replacing it. The Canonical link? Well, it's...a Canon laser printer. I'll get my coat.

If Fairphone can support a 5-year-old handset, the other vendors could too. Right?

Andrew Scaife
Linux

Re: oneplus is great

This+100. This also goes for laptops too. Lenovo do a charge limiting thing but guess what, Windows. I only ever dual boot into the Windows partition to run that, and it must be doing something in the BIOS as it survives rebooting into Kubuntu. Thanks for the AccuBattery tip.

Lenovo certifies all desktop and mobile workstations for Linux – and will even upstream driver updates

Andrew Scaife

Re: Lenovo will also upstream device drivers into the Linux kernel....

Phew, dodged that bullet with my old Flex2-14 and current G580. Now if they would just release the code that sets charge thresholds so Linux users could stop charging to 100% all the time that would be nice.

Not so G.fast: Hybrid fibre 'under review' as Openreach remembers it's all about FTTP now

Andrew Scaife
Thumb Down

Depends...

...on the market. In York we have the option of TalkTalk's UFO fttp in many areas for £27.50 a month for 24 months, and that's 'advertised' as over 900 Mb. Makes 330 Mb look poor. Mind you, all the pavements look poor after TalkTalk's groundworks have trenched all along them, looks like a big black slug trail everywhere. And have I switched? No, because TalkTalk! I expect BT, I beg your pardon, OpenReach will suddenly upgrade the area to fttp if UFO starts seriously affecting their market share.

Another chance to win a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive

Andrew Scaife

Six terabytes! Six terabytes! Not tarantula bites!

Portuguese open sourcers decry MS-only gov eProcurement

Andrew Scaife
Paris Hilton

Kneel before your anthropomorphic deity

Don't you know? The PC as we know it sprang fully-formed from the brow of William Gates! There were no personal computers BW (before Windows)! Funny how I remember using Wordstar and DBase, let alone administrating Unix servers. I can also recall the "massive" retraining required for users when migrating to Windows. Oh no, that's right, it wasn't massive, and nothing like the confusion reigning as a result of the introduction of Orifice 2007.

Typical tosh from the duty MS troll.

Paris because...(the rest of this statement is left as an exercise for the reader)

Spanish chanteuse strips for anti-bullfighting campaign

Andrew Scaife
Happy

¿A Quién le Importa? 8)

Any excuse, Lester...interesting to see the Spanish question their national sport like this, Zapatero is having some effect on the country. The skin might be Photoshopped but the "pechos" are genuine, from a quick check of her videos.

Now find an excuse for a pic of Mónica Naranjo, more my idea of guapa...