Posts by joshimitsu

Ad network ransomware crook to flog £5k Rolex after court confiscates £270k in ill-gotten gains

Re: Almost there

For London, the 5k is a deposit for a tenancy agreement.

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

Re: Why would you update the firmware on headphone?

Atmos isn't an offshoot of DRM, it's a sound processing system that relies on DRM.

A stranger's TV went on spending spree with my Amazon account – and web giant did nothing about it for months

I can see my PS3 registered there, and phones running the Android apps for Kindle and Prime Video.

The list even includes a VM running under Bluestacks.

Amazon support should have pointed this out.

BTW I don't think TVs should be allowed to order stuff beyond movies - was this because of the Alexa integration? "Alexa order some more toilet roll".

Luke, I am your father... which is why I must eject from JEDI decision, says US Defense Sec

Re: The caption doesn't make sense

Only because the DHD crystal for the chap-a'ai was damaged.

The caption doesn't make sense

If he "beamed aboard", that means he joined the team. If he left, he beamed out.

And beaming tech doesn't even exist in Star Wars.

Any finger will do? Samsung Galaxy S10 with a screen protector reportedly easy to fool

I still have the original glass screen protector from when my phone was shipped 6 months ago, so my registration and verification was probably fine. But I've disabled fingerprint login for now just in case ...

Margin mugs: A bank paid how much for a 2m Ethernet cable? WTF!

Re: Not just business

So far in this thread there have been two people march back to the store for a refund, at some point we'll find out about the guy who marched out in protest over the installation / insurance / accessories upsell.

Wake me up before you Gogo ... so I can jump out: Kenyan MP takes on aeroplane flatulence

So isn't the climate system enough to circulate the polluted air out (for the occassional cough that is)

A serial producer would be offering a constant jet stream of brown air though, the people around them would keep suffering.

Asking for a friend.

Also I see these days they don't have adjustable blow jets on the ceiling any more, you're relying on a centralised air diffuser.

Cabin staff might need to keep a can of air freshener on hand for when you're one hour deep into a 13 hour non stop flight.

Vulture Central team welcomed to our new nest by crashed Ubuntu that's 3 years out of date

Langkawi airport:

Two check in counters for Air Asia - one queue is domestic, the other international.

The screen over both just shows the "Air Asia" logo, they're not showing a helpful indicator and instead rely on a member of staff to guide people to the right queue.

One screen rebooted to the Raspbian splash screen.

Might as well just have big cardboard signs up there.

He's coming for your floppy: Linus Torvalds is killing off support for legacy disk drive tech

I used to have an irrational dislike of desktops that had the floppy drive fitted sideways.

Techie was bigged up by boss… only to cause mass Microsoft Exchange outage

Re: Note to Microsoft

I think that feature was there in Server 2003 as well.

And Windows desktop had an "are you sure?" screen.

Finally. The palm-sized Palm phone is back. And it will, er, save you from your real smartphone

I'm looking for a small second phone

This would be perfect if it had a sim slot, smaller than a standard smartphone but with more features than a 3310i type of phone.

Spent your week box-ticking? It can't be as bad as the folk at this firm

Re: “were quoted a ridiculous price and told it would take four months”.

jumping ship to the customer, along with releasing sensitive information - isn't that covered by the non-compete clause?

UK chip and PIN readers fall ill: Don't switch off that terminal!

Re: Cash on the barrel head

There is a salad chain called "Tosser" (typo is on purpose) that only takes card or phone payments. Sometimes I leave my jacket in the office which contains phone and wallet, so count me out.

Overpriced even compared to the likes of Pod anyway.

Re: Cash on the barrel head

bit of an essay wasn't it. I just saw all that text and thought "yadda YADDA yadda yah eddie. Yadda yadda yadda EDDIE".

It walks, it talks, it falls over a bit. Windows 10 is three years old

Re: Not for me

Thanks for the tip.

I was originally able install to 1607 and it worked ok, but started freezing after the 1703 update.

I went to the compatibility matrix here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05195282

which said "EOS version 1703" from so I gave up after that.

I think I had at least BIOS 1.40 though, I can always just try it and roll back again!

Not for me

HP Probook 450 G1 from 2015, chipset is incompatible since Spring 17. I could have stayed on Autumn 16, but security patches would have stopped before Windows 7 end of life. So I rolled back to 7.

Swiss cops will 'tolerate' World Cup rabble-rousers – for 60 minutes

Does this allow for injury time?

Injury time, extra time, penalties... this could all affect the start time of this grace period?

Grab your lamp, you've pulled: Brits punt life-saving gravity-powered light

Retail should be around £20-£30?

For that price, are the early adopters subsidising free/discounted units for needy causes? (on top of the buy one/donate some scheme). Or it that going to the R&D element?

What's the advantage over the crank style ones anyway? I thought the "pull the chain" style mechanisms are suited to opening heavy doors/shutters etc, is this due to the dynamo having higher resistance?

I think the belt would wear out after a few years, like the drive belt in a scooter so there's still a maintenance element.

Amateur astronomer strikes it lucky with first glimpse of a Supernova

Re: My Precious...

He built an observatory tower on top of his house. That seems like he's near the top end of "hobbyist" to me.

http://www.newsweek.com/supernova-birth-photograph-amateur-815041

'The Queen' is showing Geneva how to be polite on public transport

On TFL Rail

and on other mainline trains, the problem is people not using the space: most passengers are headed to Stratford or LST so leaving exit channels shouldn't be an issue, and they don't load up efficiently enough - leaving others waiting on the platform for another ten minutes.

Retail serfs to vanish, all thanks to automation

Re: so they are saying

the Liberal Arts grad gets a place in management or marketing.

Biometric data stolen from corporate lunch rooms system

I was working on a similar system for schools ten years ago - USB based fingerprint reader which was sending our software the full image, which would then hash and register (if it's the registration console) or verify (if it's the kiosk).

Thinking back I suppose there was a risk of children's fingerprints being stolen before they were old enough to even understand data security!

PC rebooted every time user flushed the toilet

Dratted electric fields again

My company used to install account top-up machines, which worked with a cashless system for catering, etc.

One of the machines was mysteriously loading more money than it should, intermittently.

TL:DR it was installed next to a lift, and the electric field from the motors was triggering data pulses in a parallel ribbon cable that connected the coin counter to the control board. Those data pulses happened to mimic the signal for a £2 coin.

Solution: better shielding or use more upmarket components.

Re: A big job.

Computer admins have to deal with weird problems being dumped on them all the time.

Cheeky IT rival parks 'we're hiring' van outside 'vote Tory' firm Storm Technologies

Re: How would Storm know?

They might snoop on the staff social media accounts, to see if they've been posting anything for one party or another. Or listen in on water cooler conversations. Some people don't mind discussing their voting preference if they don't think it would cause any problems in their immediate environment.

eBay denies claims it's failing to thwart 'systematic fraud'

Wouldn't the paypal account be linked to a real bank account? Or is step one to create a bank account using a stolen identitfy?

Drunk user blow-dried laptop after dog lifted its leg over the keyboard

Another shaggy dog story

I too had a run in with a pet-mauled laptop: again this was a VIP in the organisation, and it was upmarket for its time: near desktop spec components in a sub-notebook. Very expensive.

But luckily, no excreta were involved: the guy's dog had been using it as a frisbee. It was covered in dents and bite marks, there was dog hair embedded all over the place, and the keys were missing.

The whole thing smelled of dog BO though - sweat or saliva? I don't know.

I can't remember what the actual job was, but I cleaned it was surface wipes before I touched it.

Re: Jim didn't pull the hard drive & try to save the data? - not my job!

Dealing with a urine-soaked item is going beyond reasonable call of duty, for sure. It goes up there with being expected to help fish a phone out of a toilet, just because of the IT angle.

Like with another comment, I'd offer the user the chance to extract the hard drive themselves in their own office, and handle the extracted hd with gloves, mask and overalls on.

Hell desk thought PC fire report was a first-day-on-the-job prank

Re: so..

suitable toolbags were probably available on request, if not already sitting in a cupboard. Like those zip up folders with pouches for CDs, screwdrivers, pliers, etc.

AT&T buys Time Warner for US$85.4bn or 1.25 Dell-EMCs

Why does it seems like TimeWarner can't make up their mind about owning a telecoms company: First the merger with AOL (dialup, somehow didn't keep up with the broadband era), then spun out TimeWarner Cable, then a new merger with AT&T, who cover cable, landline as well as mobile.

Brit ISP TalkTalk scraps line rental charges

Re: FFS not scrapped

The discount from paying in advance is much less these days, so it's not too bad to just pay full price until you can switch

300 million pelicans? Pah. What 6 billion plastic bags really weigh

I have to recheck the maths

At about 5 grams per bag, that's about 30 million kilos.

Making the weight of one pelican about a tenth of a kilo. Would that be a newly hatched pelican then?

Tupperware vehemently denies any link to storage containerisation

I don't see a problem in defending a registered trademark.

Not having run a large corporation though, I think the first contact should have come from the PR or Press department, before sending flaming arrows via Legal.

You can’t sit there, my IoT desk tells me

The Refold site is hilarious

So bad it's almost a spoof: "Low level stands are sold separately"... "Spillproof top sold separately"... "Only weighs 6.5kg"... (how will it balance on a micro scooter)?

The height looks way too low - you have to crane your neck down or stoop down, and hold your wrists at the wrong angle to use it.

Oh and the top can be seen bending while the guy is standing on it.

My work from home setup when I don't get kicked out of this chair: http://www.houzz.com/photos/8940076/Berkley-Outdoor-Swinging-Egg-Chair-contemporary-hammocks-and-swing-chairs

is to stand up in front of a 5 tier chest of drawers, just high enough to comfortably type on.

Forget YouTube – meet ChewTube: Strangers watching millennials eat

Re: I'm thinking of starting a channel as well.

Live streaming of somebody streaming already exists: where somebody watches a film and their audience watches their reactions. Or they're even reacting to their own videos.

Then there's gogglebox which has made its way to terrestrial tv...

Inside Electric Mountain: Britain's biggest rechargeable battery

Re: Great article

There was a bit of a debate regarding this definition - I meant it had the function of a capacitor in terms of smoothing out the balance between supply and demand.

Great article

I would say the facility is more like a capacitor than a battery though.

Those Xbox Fitness vids you 'bought'? Look up the meaning of the word 'rent'

Re: The race to $0

Wuaki are the worst - you only get access to a film "purchase" for three years. And it's only 720p and stereo sound, but priced the same as other places.

All these services should be calling it lease, not buy.

'I urge everyone to fight back' – woman wins $10k from Microsoft over Windows 10 misery

Re: Let the lawsuits begin

They spent hours trying to revert her back to Win7 but failed, because they'd screwed up the PC so badly.

Fresh hell for TalkTalk customers: TeamView trap unleashed

Re: Blame the customer

I've had a broadband company put an account default notice on me, after I forced them to close the contract.

I was able to make them cancel the debt collection and remove the note from my credit history as well - their excuse was that one part of the company did not get the update.

But yes, it is a bit of a hassle.

Mushroom farm PC left in the dark and fed … you know the rest

Re: Fast Typing is a MUST.

You have to tap dance in rhythm to your typing then.

Home Office declares: Detained immigrants shall have internet

Re: Magical thinking

shouldn't they also be able to download forms and information relating to the asylum process and settling in etc. to print out and fill in or read offline - since the terminals will be in high demand?

Android Pay debuts in UK

Re: Just activated here in the UK...

I doubt it - I think phone pay takes longer than using a contactless card.

I saw a guy faffing about unlocking his iPhone at the train gates - get thousands of these and you could have some slowdown to throughput.

Furious customers tear into 123-reg after firm's mass deletion woes

Maybe it's a hoax

On a much larger scale than what this guy did:

http://meta.serverfault.com/questions/8696/what-to-do-with-the-rm-rf-hoax-question

Original post where he pretends to delete everything:

http://serverfault.com/questions/587102/monday-morning-mistake-sudo-rm-rf-no-preserve-root

Is 123-reg a "you gets what you pays for" company? (i.e. rock-bottom)

I beg you, please don't back up that secret directory full of photos!

Re: Unprofessional

If you got a cleaner in your house, is it their job to start sniffing for drugs in the cupboards under the sink, or illegal weapons while they vacuum under the bed?

Or you get a builder to build a summer house at the end of the garden: is he supposed to look out for buried bodies or leave a hidden camera in case you plan to use the place to store kidnap victims?

I think a technician should stick to the system and program files or whatever their anti-malware programs find, and stay out of drives marked "PERSONAL".

Big-screen Skype gets small farewell note

Re: Ahead of the Curve

Same here - my Samsung is a midrange unit from 2009 and the only thing I miss out on is maybe LED backlighting. I can keep it up to date by added £50 Roku/Android boxes, which works out cheaper than the £100 or so premium they were asking for smart features.

I've used smart TVs and found the interface to be laggy and fiddly for basic things like switching between Sky, game console and streaming box.

Solus: A welcome ground-up break from the Linux herd

Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

the directory system still confuses me even after a few years of lightweight experience of it. Seems like binaries, libraries, logs, and config files are scattered around at random sometimes.

'Boss, I've got a bug fix: Nuke the whole thing from orbit, rewrite it all'

I hate Americanization (sic)

Writing extensions for ERP software - it's American so it has data object fields "CostCenter".

Most other extensions also use the spelling "CostCenter" except the one I worked on this week... Two days later I found out I was trying to call "CostCenter" when I should have been looking for "CostCentre".

Triple-murderer prisoner keeps mobile phone in his butt for a week

He'd have to take care not to butt-dial anyone,

lest he be proven guilty.

This topic has proved to be a hilarious cause of poo-chat around the office.