* Posts by Chris Evans

624 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jun 2008

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Server, server in the rack, when's my disk drive going to crack?

Chris Evans

Wrong deductions. Year 0!

"After that, things get nasty: in year three a surviving disk has an 11.8 per cent AFR." WRONG!

The graph clearly shows that bottom of the trough is year THREE. it is AFTER year THREE things start to get nasty

Dodgy Kaspersky update borks THOUSANDS of NHS computers

Chris Evans

...apologise for THE' inconvenience. NOT 'ANY' inconvenience

That should be "Kaspersky Lab would like to apologise for THE inconvenience caused.".

Companies saying 'ANY really annoys me!.

WAIT! What's that sound? It's Intel stomping into the 'Internet of Things'

Chris Evans

Re: Stop......+1

Ironic given that Intel's first CPU the 4004 is regularly reported as being a washing machine controller!

4004 begat the 8008 which begat the 8086....

I do agree that a PIC would normally suffice, though being able to monitor it could be useful:

Fault finding.

Control to use off peak electricity etc

Logging usage (various uses)

I'm sure there must be more

Adobe users' purloined passwords were pathetic

Chris Evans

Adobe should NOT now insist on strong passwords

Adobe should NOT now insist on strong passwords, if they do some people will use the same as they use for their bank etc.

Chris Evans

Re: Unique passwords are easy.

O.K. So someone hacks El Reg and sees your password is say: passwter11ord they could easily spot your system and know that your paypal password is passwpal6ord

Vietnam jails man for Facebook freedom campaign

Chris Evans

Canned reporting

Is it a Vulture Tower rule that all statements are referred to as 'Canned'? It's getting rather tedious!

Mega-distie Ingram Micro takes knife to costs in 'very challenged' Europe

Chris Evans

S, G & A?

Why journalists use acronyms not in common use by their readers without expanding on first use, is bad journalism.

Via Google I got SG&A (alternately SGA or SAG) is an acronym used in accounting to refer to Selling, General and Administrative Expenses

ITU to Europe: One charger for all mobes good. One to rule them ALL? Better

Chris Evans

Won't we all be wireless charging soon?

Can anyone quote the efficiency reduction in using wireless charging?

I'd find it difficult to believe that it isn't significant!

Also won't the extra/replacement components weigh more?

It would be very convenient if it could done efficiently, power and weight but I doubt it is possible.

"Ye cannae change the laws of physics, captain"

Apple handed Samsung-busting nuke after Steve Jobs patent U-turn

Chris Evans

On the other hand see Trevor Baylis

On the one hand I like many find these sort of patents either absurd or obvious and don't think they should be granted a patent.

On the other hand one of the Sunday papers was reporting yesterday how Trevor Baylis has had to do an equity release from his house as many companies have circumvented his many patents.

The life of Pi: Intel to give away Arduino-friendly 'Galileo' tiny-puter

Chris Evans

No monitor or sound output!

I realise that there are many applications for headless units, but many of them make use of a display in development, testing , installation and support. I suspect they will also price it too high to really catch on.

Great Britain rebuilt - in Minecraft: Intern reveals 22-BEEELLION block map

Chris Evans

Credit where credit is due!

Whilst it appears that they've credited Joseph Braybrook in the press release, he gets no mention at:

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/innovate/developers/minecraft-map-britain.html

come on Ordnance Survey show some people skills!

Paypal not sure if its bargepole is long enough for crowdfunding

Chris Evans

Why use PayPal? Customers like it!

I buy services 10-20 times a month from websites that offer PayPal or Credit card.

if I use PayPal then I enter email address (Normally offered by browser so no typing) and then PayPal password. So easy and quick.

If I use the credit card option I need to enter a 16 digit number, xp date, CV2 then go through Verified By Visa or Master-cards equivalent.

Guess which option I choose?

I'd actually be willing to put a bit of effort in to not use PayPal as I know their fees are much higher than Card Merchant service providers but the time and effort required is too much.

But it's only wafer thin: Skinniest keyboard EVER is designed by Camby biz

Chris Evans

I prefer Tactile but...

I prefer Tactile normally but the Conductive Inkjet Technology CIT which comes from UK company Carclo is one to watch out for, it offers significant benefits over what most smart phones and pads currently use.

Google chap reverse engineers Sinclair Scientific Calculator

Chris Evans

My Dad bought me a non scientific calculator on HP!

I think it was in 1972 my Dad bought me a non scientific calculator on Hire Purchase from Dixons! Well it was £49.95!

IIRC it only did: add, subtract, multiply & divide.

Patent tank VirnetX fires 'secure domain name' design claim at Apple

Chris Evans

FRAND? "You've completely failed to understand what the veto did"

"Because the Samsung patents are FRAND"

AIUI only patents that form part of an agreed standard are FRAND. I didn't think an agreed standard was involved in this case, if it is which is the standard?

AMD's newest chip: Another step toward 'transformation'

Chris Evans

Re: eleventy squillion x86 developers?

Your talking from a Software perspective.

How about the number of x86 Hardware developers?

n.b. I don't know the answer.

Boffins flip optics to make booster-free superfast fibre

Chris Evans

I wonder how does it does the inversion, with only passives?

I wonder how does it does the inversion, with only passives?

If it was digital it could A to D the shape of the phase change and then D to A in reverse order.

As it has to start outputting the end form of the wave how does it store the middle and start information so it can then output them? All with passives!

Not my field but I'm intrigued

Brits' HSBC bank cards, net access goes TITSUP

Chris Evans
Thumb Down

"We are sorry for ANY impact"

It always annoys me when company say something like:

"We are sorry for ANY impact"

Surely it should be

"We are sorry for THE impact"

Is it only me?

I'd have thought this would be apologies 101!

Next Tidbinbilla deep space antenna ready for hoist

Chris Evans

Strops in place ready for tomorrow!

As title

ESA retires Herschel space telescope as too hot to handle

Chris Evans

Oops sorry ESA!

Sorry my excuse is I wasn't paying attention and I'd looked up 'Lagrangian points' which the Herschel uses and ended up at NASA:

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/observatory_l2.html

Very interesting and understandable article. I'm in the UK so don't blame our American cousins this time!

Anyway congratulations ESA.

Chris Evans

A premature death?

I looked in the article to find if it was a premature death but couldn't see that info.

According to Wikipedia it had a life expectancy of 3.5 years so survived over 10% longer than anticipated.

Well done NASA.

Black-eyed Pies reel from BeagleBoard's $45 Linux micro blow

Chris Evans

Re: I'll see your ARM core and raise you a SATA port. ;-)

Errr I would expect an SSD in a USB caddy to be faster than an HD in a USB Caddy!

Also I would expect any SATA interface on a motherboard to be connected to the SOC not via USB

Big Blue to embiggen itself even more on your big data

Chris Evans

embiggen = not read!

When I come to that ugly useless word embiggen I stop and think do I really want read what a person that uses such a word thinks. I would have to be very interested in the subject to get past it.

Rid yourself of Adobe: New Firefox 19.0 gets JAVASCRIPT PDF viewer

Chris Evans

Memory? better or worse?

Using the adobe plug in eats memory on my xP system.

How is this new built in reader for memory useage?

3 million Freesat receivers now out there, and boxes to get YouTube

Chris Evans

Viewing free to air channels not in the FreeSat EPG?

If anyone can tell me how to View free to air channels not in the FreeSat EPG without losing the EPG my wife will be over the moon if she can watch Horse and Country!

Antivirus update broke our interwebs, howl Win XP users

Chris Evans

"apologise for any inconvenience" NO it is "for THE inconvenience"

"Kaspersky Lab would like to apologise for any inconvenience" Statements like this really annoy me!

It should be

"Kaspersky Lab would like to apologise for THE inconvenience"

My wife nearly threw her laptop out of the Window it was so infuriating!

Embiggened x86 servers help Super Micro set revenue records

Chris Evans

Embiggened that is one ugly word.

Embiggened that is one ugly word. I couldn't bring myself to actually read the story.

Seems like I was not alone!

Reader input required: review our reviews

Chris Evans

More relevant links please. Use of Jargon

Can I request again more relevant links please. Things have improved a bit on what it was like a year or more ago. But I still often have to track down the relevant website / webpages myself!

I understand you have to use technical jargon on the site but an unexplained jargon word is often the main point of an article. Readers are often expert in their own area but total novices in other areas covered by your site, so a little help would be very useful.

Hold it! Don't back up to a cloud until you've eyed up these figures

Chris Evans
FAIL

"business ADSL with 2.5Mbps not hard to find in most developed nations!" 3rd world UK here!

"business ADSL with 2.5Mbps upstream ....(not hard to find in urban areas in most developed nations) "

BT can only give me 900K upstream in a large UK town. No BT Infinity here.

'undeveloped' UK!

Google rolls out new, cheaper Chromebooks 'for everyone'

Chris Evans
Happy

I'd love one with RISC OS on it

'Kill switch' flaw found in top web weapon, victims sigh with relief

Chris Evans

Correct course!

Priorities

Try to find who's behind it [1]

Get the servers DNS entries removed

Hacking the server will only temporarily cover up the real problem.

If Hacking the servers can be done without compromising the higher aims, then yes do so, but don't publicize it!

[1] Follow the money! Most/Many such servers have a traceable financial motive

Fraudsters nick BILLIONS from China's e-commerce Wild West

Chris Evans
FAIL

UK Police no better

We often get dodgy looking orders to our online shop and almost always spot them I've tried reporting some of these attempted fraud when they are using a UK delivery address and think there is enough evidence for the Police do something. But they are not interested, often telling me no crime has been committed which I find hard to see is true!

O2 dropped the ball in Olympic cycle race Twitter fiasco

Chris Evans

I was at the junction of the A3 and the A244 to Esher. I got the best information from another spectator using an FM radio. No capacity worries there!

Beeb stuffs $21tn into Olympic-sized swimming pools

Chris Evans

An 'Olympic Size swimming pool' has a set length (50m) and Width (25m) but only a minimum depth (2m) so any use volumetrically is stupid!

Much of China still has rubbish net connections, stats show

Chris Evans

"invest in a content delivery service." Why

If it had been "invest in a bandwidth efficient content delivery service." I could understand the last comment but without something like "bandwidth efficient " in there, what does it mean?

Raspberry Pi used as flight computer aboard black-sky balloon

Chris Evans

switching regulators

Hi Dave great work. Do you have the make and part no.s for the switching regulators to hand?

Olympics security cockup down to software errors - report

Chris Evans

Shooting the wrong Person! Re: Yeah ... riiight

"hopefully they go bankrupt." ... and thousands of innocents would suffer, workers, shareholders etc (and you may be a shareholder indirectly via any pension or investment you have.) The government would also probably be left out of pocket in many ways. Senior managers heads should and will roll.

Raspberry Pi sales limits lifted

Chris Evans

I'll be replacing my Desktop with a Pi!

I'll be replacing with a Pi, I run RISC OS...

My Desktop PC is a 233MHz 128MB StrongARM RiscPC and I store most of my files on our server (Another Acorn RiscPC)

Sony, Samsung trade body to push HbbTV to Brits

Chris Evans

Option to play from say a NAS

I realise that because of DRM they don't want you to transfer the data off their 'secure' system, but couldn't a way be found to allow unprotected data stored on your network to be played?

Ethiopia to send Skype users to the slammer

Chris Evans
Thumb Down

Caleb missed the obvoius point

He said "It wouldn't be the first time a country has blocked VoIP" (China) but didn't follow up with reporting if it was successful or not!

Strong ARM: The Acorn Archimedes is 25

Chris Evans
Happy

I made money out A310 Archimedes

With the A310 only having 1MB people were soon crying out for more RAM. We (CJE Micro's) designed a memory upgrade that could take them to 2MB or 4MB. To fit it, eight memory chips and one decoder needed unsoldered, sockets put in their place and the removed chips fitted to our daughter board. Because of the work involved we used to arrange collection by courier, fitting and return. IIRC 1 to 2 MB was about £300 and going to a full 4MB a mere £450. I've still got a few in stock, I'm prepared to discount them!

We're now doing Raspberry Pi addons and Accessories. We won't be doing a memory upgrade though!

Barclays Online Offline again

Chris Evans
FAIL

Old Site

The old site wasn't much more reliable but it was much more useable!

Some things you used to be able to do are either impossible or much more awkward. Don't they test these sites with real usewrs before going live?

SAP hopes to embiggen its cloud with Ariba slurp

Chris Evans

'embiggen' what a horrible word!

'embiggen' is a horrible word, what is wrong with 'Enlarge' it means the same?

Email cock-up blamed in Check Point domain expiry snafu

Chris Evans

Multiple slip ups then they try to pass the buck!

As has been pointed out Check Point just weren't on the ball, and now they try and pass the blame... Best avoided!

Raspberry Pi supplier coughs to ship date delay glitch

Chris Evans

Re: And so the nostalgia trip is complete.

Sinclair delays were 6-9 months, so the R-Pi will have to be delayed a lot longer to be in the same league!

Chris Evans

Errr not often

I've posted critical and complementary postings and seen many postings I would delete if I was a moderator language, wild accusations etc, they appear to be very lenient.

Chris Evans

Not paying attention!

They did think of it but as the plan was to sell a small quantity to a bunch of developers, it wasn't needed ahead of the Educational' launch, but then the massive reaction moved the goalposts, and RS/Farnell havn't helped by agreeing to distribute it without CE certification then backtracking when the penpushers got involved.

Chris Evans

Because it does!

Because it does takes a lot more than about 10 minutes for someone at RS or farnell suitably armed with a scope!

In fact I don't think a scope is one of the pieces of testing equipment used.

Thousands of Brits bombarded in caller spoofing riddle

Chris Evans

Simple solution?

When the call is routed into the UK if it has a fake caller ID (i.e. a UK number) why not just block it?

World's Raspberry Pi supply jammed in factory blunder

Chris Evans

Re: The hand of Sinclair..... Not the same as 1980's

A week or two's delay isn't in the same league as the 1980's home micro fiasco.

The foundation would have to delay things for four months to come close.

Acorn started accepting orders in September 1981 there were unconfirmed reports of a handfull of BBC Model A's being received the week before Christmas but it was well into January for confirmed deliveries.. I'd ordered a BB Model B in September and recieved it on Saturday April 10th 1982 SEVEN MONTHS later

The Sinclair computers took even longer to ship and nearly a year to clear the backlog.

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