Posts by Gavin Burnett

Go to L: A man of the cloth faces keyboard conundrum

Computer: Please enter the current date.

Priest types in MCMLXXXIV

Computer: Invalid date!

Rude awakening for O2 customers after network runs surprise test of emergency mobile alert system

Got a better test message

How about:

"This is a test of the emergency brodcast system. This is only a test. If this had been a real emergency, your phone would have melted by now."

As pandemic buying continues, Chromebook shipments soared 275% in Q1, says analyst

I got a reconditioned Chromebook during the first lockdown to educate and entertain my 7 year old son - and it did that job well.

I noticed last week that a pop up has appeared telling me that google will stop providing updates to ChromeOS in September.

ChromeOS does not seem to be afflicted with viruses/spyware/ransomware ; so I am wondering if I should just leave the outdated ChromeOS in place or wipe it and replace it with GalliumOS.

Time will tell!

To have one floppy failure is unlucky. To have 20 implies evil magic or a very silly user

5 inch floppies

Our IT teacher back in my school days of the BBC micro decided to give each of us a 5 inch floppy to put all our work on. So we did, and at the end of the lesson we all put our floppies in our school bags. Bags which then got piled up against radiators, thrown around on the bus home, carried home in the rain, and so on. Next weeks lesson came around - oh look - all the disks are corrupt.

It took our IT teacher a couple of weeks to work out why we all kept losing our work.

The soloution was we all had to write our names on labels so the disks could be stored in a cupboard in the computer room.

F-35 firmware patches to be rolled out 'like iPhone updates'

Ah well

At least the cylons will be happy to hear about this.

US border cops must get warrants to search citizens' gadgets – draft bipartisan law emerges

and the top travel tip for this summer is

Don't go to America!

Top tip: Unplug your WD My Cloud boxen – now

I Have One

Clicked through the setup pages when I bought it.

Saw that it could be logged into over the internet by default.

Turned that feature off straight away.

Am I safe?

Spies do spying, part 97: Shock horror as CIA turn phones, TVs, computers into surveillance bugs

sigh

Looks like the only way I can write a document in privacy is to get my Amiga 500 out of the attic and fire up workbench.

That should keep the cylons out.

The older something is, the more secure it is.

No super-kinky web smut please, we're British

Drat

I will have to go back to getting my porn from railway sidings like I did when I was 13.

Mobile first? Microsoft decides to kneecap its Android users instead

old vs new outlook android apps

The old app was dog slow, but was stable and nice and configurable.

The new app can hardly be configured at all, and crashes constantly when opening e-mails.

You can get around the crashes on opening by re opening the app and trying to open the same e-mail again - you will get it to open on about the third attempt.

I would suggest that everyone leaves a one star review on google play stating their displeasure!

not getting e-mail digest

not getting e-mail digest

Hello all.

I don't appear to be receiving my daily e-mail digest.

This has been happening for the last two days.

I have checked my account settings on this website, and my e-mail is set up fine as well.

Can anyone advise please?

daily digest e-mails not being recieved

Thanks for the reply.

Sounds good on the newsletter, and I no longer suspect my e-mail client / ISP of being up to no good.

daily digest e-mails not being recieved

hello all.

Happy new year!

I have not got my daily digest e-mails for the last few days.

I have not made any changes to my junk mail fitlers for months - indeed I have checked it, and it is set to allow: @list.theregister.co.uk

I have logged in and checked my settings and all seems fine.

Has the e-mailing list from address changed?

Stob on Quatermass: Was this British TV's finest sci-fi hour?

Nigel Keale

Also wrote the Stone Tape.

Scared the hell out of me when I was a kid - watched it alone one dark autumn night.

PEEEEEEETERRRRRR!!!!

Plastic that SELF-REPAIRS using light unleashed by prof

I for one

Welcome our self healing plastic overlords.

Beeb ordered to release TV licensing contract sweeteners

When I was a student

My mate Vivian used to eat the telly if the licence bloke (harry the bastard I think his name was) came round.

Worked a treat!

Leslie Nielsen dead at 84

My favourite scene

Would have to be when Drebin breaks into the villain’s office in the early hours of the morning. He sits at a desk, and holds a lighter under some documents to read them, and then loses concentration and accidentally sets fire to them. Drebin then throws the burning documents into a metal bin, and tries to stamp them out. He then gets his foot caught in the bin full of flaming paper, and tries to shake it off. While jumping up from the desk, he hits the automated play button on a piano; and then dances around the office with a flaming bin stuck to his foot while a cheerful ditty plays on the piano.

I had to stop the tape I was laughing so hard.

Flame icon of course!

Thieves jam key-fob lock signals in mystery car thefts

Call me paranoid

But after i lock my car with the remote I always tug on the door handle to make sure it has locked.

Burglars used social network status updates to select victims

Leave a light on? Nah!

I would rather use the trick in open all hours where there is a sound of a dog barking in the shop – cut to the storeroom at the back and you see a tape recorder playing.

Xmas kicks off on 2 August

pay attention all shop owners

The correct order is as follows:

Halloween.

Bonfire night.

Christmas.

You can only promote them in that order.

Rant over.

UK.gov may cut BBC licence fee in 2012

BBC programmes I watch

Dr.Who

Mock the week

Have I got news for you

erm - that's it.

Can I have my fee cut now please?

Cisco bugs surrender control of building's critical systems

Every wanabee BOFH in the world

Will be drooling at this!

Grenade icon for obvious reasons.

Ridley Scott talks up 'nasty' Alien prequel

hollywood and its bloody sequels

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.

Tories go nuclear, promise to prop up carbon price

Time to..

Install a log fire in my living room and buy a gas fired camping stove then!

Home Office: El Reg may be right on vetting figures

On the plus side

Perhaps I can refuse to give sweets to trick or treaters on the grounds that I have not been vetted.

< / Sarcasm mode off >

Auto thief foiled by guardian satellite

Reminds me of an old episode of Knight Rider.

Where someone tried to steal the car and KITT took him for a 150 MPH turbo charged ride; reducing him to a gibbering wreck.

DVLA pledges investigation over Castrol spy posters

Sigh

Minority Report here we come.

Nation's parents prepare to be vetted

A few questions

Every morning on my way to work I walk past a bus stop full of kids waiting to go to school. Sometimes they shout hello to me and I wave back.

Do I need to be vetted?

When I go to my local pub, sometimes my mates have their kids with them. Last week one kid complained he was bored, so I let him play Tetris on my PDA.

Do I need to be vetted?

One of my relatives has two kids, and sometimes when I visit I watch the Simpsons with them.

Do I need to be vetted?

BOFH: Hammer time!

School computers

Many years ago I worked as an IT technician in a comprehensive school.

During my first week on the job I was asked to take a look at a faulty PC in the woodwork room.

I popped the case open, and found that it was full of wood dust!

The flame icon for obvious reasons.

Apple threatens Palm chomp

Palm should say..

Apple to palm : see you in court.

palm to apple: Talk to the hand!

Killer Satnavs amok in 'Utah Polyhedron' phenomenon

Signals from outer space

The sontarans are coming!

Congress quizzes world+dog over data pimping

RE : RE: Regarding secure data

Use this:

https://ssl.scroogle.org/

Jobs a good 'un!

Boeing chuffed with latest raygun-jumbo ground tests

The big question is

Will the plane be able to fire photon torpedos?

Two top posts at NPfIT are still empty

technologically advanced my arse

I worked in the NHS for a year as a programmer.

I only lasted a year as the culture in the trust consisted of active resistance to new ideas and technology; for example I one proposed setting up an e-mail system to exchange doctors letters as a replacement for secretaries printing out mountains of paperwork and sending them in the internal post (the trust had secretaries whose sole job was to pull trolley loads of letters around all day).

I was told that “the trust has always exchanged letters this way and it works well, so we are not willing to change it”.

When I left on my last day I felt like I had been released from prison.

Paris, because she is more technologically advanced than my old trust.