Posts by John Crisp

Sysadmin Day 2017: Still time to get the beers in

Dream <on>

<brrrrring>

Ahhh I seee some bastard is awake then. I seem to have a problem with my computer....

Did you know it's sysadmin day?

Look don't give me that shit. I have this problem...

And it is the one day a year you should be nice to me?

Like I care. I need this report printed.... you people are all the same moaning and whining and needing your egos stroked and never fixing stuff....

Oh dear. Your 10p will be at reception where I'll leave it on my way to the pub. Please use your call wisely.

<click>... <slurp>

</on>

:-)

Microsoft: Get in, IT nerds, you're now using Insider builds and twice-annual Windows rollouts

Did we mention...

we are updating your machine this morning and you have no chance of doing anyway work until it is finished. Which is probably lunchtime.

Please send the bill for your lost time to someone who actually gives a fcuk. Because we don't.

Love, M$

Three: No fixed date yet for 4G services abroad

02 thieves

So I'm expected to pay more for 4G in my old home town in the UK when they can barely give you coverage for SMS, and then bar you completely from it when roaming.

Compared to my village in Spain population 2,700 which has had 4G for nearly 2 years (the rollout was amazingly fast) and for which I had instant access at zero extra cost. Interested to see what I get when I roam my ES mobile next time back.

02 are a bunch of thieves with the morals of alley cats, and the rest don't seem that far ahead.

The UK is the land of milk and honey for a lot of profiteers.

Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook blow massive amounts lobbying Trump administration

Re: Chump change...

Except the limits have now been easily bypassed with social media etc. with no accountability for ads on Goggle, Feckbook & the like which can coveniently be funded anonymously from overseas

UK law needs a complete rewrite.

.. ..-. / -.-- --- ..- / -.-. .- -. / .-. . .- -.. / - .... .. ... then a US Navy fondleslab just put you out of a job

Backup

Morse doesn't take that long to learn and they could teach it on board to save time/money.

Sextants & celestial nav are a tad more tricky and do take longer. With a sextant I could find my position anywhere on the planet within half a mile or so (fine in the middle of the oggin, and you have land & bearings for anything closer to shore). Never did really understand figures on the plane of the rational horizon and haversine proofs though, but my nav was accurate :-)

I have long thought that abandoning some of these systems is not always a great idea. GPS is clearly a good system to target to incapacitate your opposition so having some backup would be sensible.

Mines the bag with the Nories tables and a Nautical Almanac

Re: Fitzgerald?

If they had stuck to the Collision Regs as taught in college they wouldn't have needed to signal...

We were always taught to use the rules and never try to communicate with another ship when it came to making decisions on avoiding collisions as comms could be misconstrued.

Just use the rules Luke.

Stop this crazy crusade! Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon scold FCC over net neutrality

Squeeze the lemon

Not overly familiar with the status on the west side of the pond but I guess the ISPs will drop their investment if net neutrality is dropped.

There'll be no need for more expensive infrastructure as they can just limit usage of what they have already by charging more.

Infrastructure spending down. Consumption charges up.

Ohhhh. Double bubble! Shareholders will love that.

FREE wildcard HTTPS certs from Let's Encrypt for every Reg reader*

Handy

Simple bash a script

https://github.com/lukas2511/dehydrated

It's the thought that counts: Illinois emits 'no location stalking' law

From small acorns....

Though I doubt it will make much difference it is nice to see someone doing something.

Sick to death of apps wanting the size of my dick all the time, and refusing to install if I don't tell them. And even worse are the ones bundled in firmware that you cannot remove.

I wonder whether GDPR will have any bearing on the data slurping from phones?

Make sure your Skype is up to date because FYI there's a nasty hole in it

Acts of desperation

"It's got a flaw. Hurry, hurry, you'll be safer if you upgrade to our newer, shinier, cloud enabled, data slurping, more expensive (for business) PoS. And hopefully we can lock you into all our other cloud crap too."

Alternatively uninstall and try Rocket.Chat for some fun. Still very AlphaBeta, but works well for us. The data is (probably) all mine.

When we said don't link to the article, Google, we meant DON'T LINK TO THE ARTICLE!

Re: This will be tough...

I'll see your hydrogen and raise you a deuterium

:-)

Amazon and others sniffing around Slack

Re: overpriced

"They are actively looking for a similar app that isn't part of a company that slurps your data or tries to sell you stuff based upon what you are talking about."

Probably the kiss of death but....

https://rocket.chat

Does Microsoft have what it takes to topple Google Docs?

Data not Apps

FWIW our decision on what to use was dictated by who we wanted to be able to read all our emails, documents, and clients data etc.

So that crossed Microsoft and Google off the list immediately.

Mine's the email that says:

"docx, xlsx, pptpx not accepted here. Please save in an open standard file format"

:-)

'Major incident' at Capita data centre: Multiple services still knackered

"Backup data centre in Laindon"

That explains it. The backup gear had all been nicked.......

Faking incontinence and other ways to scare off tech support scammers

From the comfort of my terrace with a cold beer.

"I can't get your instructions to work"

"No problems sir. Just press the power switch to power off the computer, then press it to power it on"

"OK"

Wait....

"Hang on... there's smoke coming out of it"

"Pardon?"

"Smoke. From the box. What have you done?"

In panicking voice "Errrrr...."

"AND NOW THERE'S FLAMES...... you bastard"

"ERrrrrrrrrrrr.... click.... burrrrrr"

UK hospital meltdown after ransomware worm uses NSA vuln to raid IT

Windows are closed

Great comment from a friend

"All my Windows are closed. Should I draw the curtains?"

Thankfully neither of us run the worlds desktop of choice

Heart failure

NHS suffers 'heart' attack

Good luck to the patients

Mozilla to Thunderbird: You can stay here and we may give you cash, but as a couple, it's over

Re: Can someone give me an idea of what sort of money is involved?

Couldn't agree more. Spent some long while on the dev list and in the end gave up. They were right and everyone else was wrong.

They spent ages fecking about with shite gui updates and ignored broken features going back years. Idjuts. Bunch of small minded committee types.

The whole mess needs ripping out of Mozzies sweaty paws and giving to people who listen and care. Should have been done a long time ago.

There are a still a lot of users out there who hate webmail as much as I do, and they will be around for a long time to come.

LibreOffice may well be a good home.

Easier/more flexible contact sync would be the best improvement IMHO as Lightning serves well for calendaring.

BOFH: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back

More murders than...

The average Midsomer episode :-)

LinkedIn U-turns on Bluetooth-enabled 'Tinder for marketers'

Re: Apps, Apps, Apps

:Why does every Web site believe that I need or want a dedicated app to access their services?"

Cos they can slurp far more data via an app than a browser

With Skype, Microsoft's messaging strategy looks coherent at last (almost)

With, or better without

"With Skype, Microsoft's messaging strategy looks coherent at last (almost)"

And without it life returns to normal.

Finally dumped the unreliable turd. As my PFY pointed out, the only bit of software that we used that was flakey was owned by M$

It's become awful since they wrapped their tentacles round it and I'm glad to see the back of it.

Note... if you want to register a business email address and it blocks you with .co. uk or .com and refers you to the pay site you can still use things like .eu but you now get some stupid imposed handle.

So long, and all that stuff

Canonical preps security lifeboat, yells: Ubuntu 12.04 hold-outs, get in

init holdouts

Think they'll have even more of a struggle getting people off Trusty 14.04 as that entails jumping into the systemd swamp.

I've been sitting on the fence and weighing options on our next OS as I have until Apr 2019 to complete the move, but one decision I have already made is it will be to a non-systemd OS.

It's been interesting seeing who has gone which way, and the development of non-systemd systems. Still not sure on the best option as yet, though *bsd seems the way to go.

My view on systemd:

One Ring to rule them all,

One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all

and in the darkness bind them

Skype-on-Linux graduates from Alpha to Beta status

Moving on

As my PFY commented the other day - the only bit of software we have any issues with is the one by Microsoft..... We've voted with our feet and moved off Skype now.

Note that you now cannot register with a business email address - they want you to use Skype for Business, and then the hard sell for all their other cloudy crap (mycompany.co.uk was out but it failed to pickup mycompany.eu)

If you create a private account you don't seem to be able to pick a user name as far as I can see - you end up with some nonsense like live:bloggs4536 and then you don't appear to be able to login with the old linux cient - only via the web page.

If they want you to use a web page/force use of Skype for Business then there are plenty of alternatives if you just want messaging (which is what we mainly use it for at work). We are using RocketChat now which, although under heavy development, has a lot of funky features that Skype doesn't. Plus the data is all mine, and not slurped.

Nice job by Microsoft once again. Take a perfectly reasonable functioning bit of kit and turn it into crap. I guess they are only interested in monetising the business side of it and everyone else can go to hell.

Ah well. So long, and thanks for all the fish :-)

One IP address, multiple SSL sites? Beating the great IPv4 squeeze

Re: Letsbecareful

So is dehydrated if you don't need/want the full fat client

https://github.com/lukas2511/dehydrated

Re: There are quite a few IP addresses if the corporates share

"Even if nothing needed to be done, it would cost squillions for the company in question to verify (to some level of confidence) that they could safely move away from a block of 16 million addresses. It would then cost even more to actually make the switch in an organisation that presumably runs 24/7 and doesn't want an awkward "transition period" even if that period is only a few hours long and can be scheduled over a public holiday."

So I presume they'll never be moving to IPv6 then.....

Yup, IPv6 is a clusterfsck.

'I'm innocent!' says IT contractor on trial after Office 365 bill row spiraled out of control

Who got who?

Sounds like he was 'got' bearing in mind he was cuffed and had to pay bail.

What happened to the directors if said org? Carried on at the 19th hole I guess.

Global IPv4 address drought: Seriously, we're done now. We're done

KISS

The problem with adoption is for the average grunt it isn't so simple, and lack of compatibility. It may seem simple if you are CCNA or whatever, but that doesn't apply to swarms of users.

IPv6 may be the coolest thing since sliced bread, but if they had wanted rapid adoption then it has to be made easy to do. It just isn't, plain and simple.

The issues with lack of IPv4 addresses can be skated around with NAT so there is no hard ceiling to force adoption.

And whilst large swathes of ISPs don't offer it, how can users try it? The ISPs will be the driver for change. If they don't offer it then you can't blame users for not adopting it.

My own big bug bear is I don't want to be beholden to my ISP running my dhcp for every client, which is what some seem to want to do, presumably so they can keep a closer eye on me.

Until ISPs convert fully and it is offered to everyone, and it is easier to migrate, this will continue to be a global mess and a lingering sore which we'll be moaning about for decades to come.

Brexploitation? Adobe gets creative with price hikes

Re: Vote for Bugxit

>Expunge every last trace of Adobe Software and rejoice in vastly improved system security.

Not always as easy as you think.... as I discovered years ago

http://computers-linux-other-nonsense.blogspot.com.es/2011/03/flexnet-sector-32.html?m=1

Brexit White Paper published: Broad strokes, light on detail

Re: Words fail me

>I'm sorry but you're wrong. The Referendum was a sign that democracy worked.

The answer is of course 42.

Unfortunately nobody really understood the question.

And then you get some "psychopathic politician" hell bent on revenge against those he felt had snubbed his brilliance.

https://dominiccummings.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/on-the-referendum-21-branching-histories-of-the-2016-referendum-and-the-frogs-before-the-storm-2/

A weak press who merely repeated press statements as 'facts' and queried nothing, and a public who had to google 'what is the EU' the day after, really doesn't make for a sound, honest, and wide ranging debate to produce a rational decision.

And that's 'democracy'. Hmmmm. I'd call it a lot of things, but barely that.

There may be good reasons to have a referendum. But I can't think of any right now.

Just lucky I live in Europe and can apply for a passport before the lunatics finish trashing the asylum. I feel sorry for the young, and all those abandoned, ignored, and pilloried, but sadly I am sincerely glad I don't have to live in the UK any more.

Proud to be a citizen of the world and Europe.

If only our British 4G were as good as, um, Albania's... UK.gov's telco tech report

My old home 50 miles from London on flat ground and frequently you can barely send an SMS (last week included)

Here in Spain I get pretty decent 4G wherever I go, and have had for 18 months or more. My village (pop. 2,700) has cable too......

UK coverage just sucks

Look out, Brussels: Google's moving the goalposts, barks price comparison rival

Ads on Google (if I ever use their awful 'service'). Really ? Never see any :-)

Actually, despite relevant blocking, what you do see are quite clearly sponsored/paid for 'links' aka results, most of which are irrelevant.

And hence why I only use Google when I am desperate, knowing I'll have to wade through pages of crap in the hope of finding something relevant. All a far cry from their glory days.

They really do need a good slap.

Higher tech prices ARE here to stay. It's Mr Farage's new Britain

Re: Brexit means brexit.

>and voted for sovereignty.

I call UKIP FUD.

For those who do not understand, parliament has always had the ultimate last say, but chosen not to exercise it

If they had really 'lost control' how could they ever remove the UK from the EU?

And leaving the EU, or whatever it is they decide they want, means they'll have even less control. The UK will have to toe the line on EU legislation if they want market access. And they will have absolutely no say in what those laws will be.

Regrettably, successive governments have blamed Europe for their own homemade disasters, never admitting how much influence the UK actually had in Europe (a lot), and that they were in part responsible. Hoist on their own petard methinks.

Now what was it someone said (if immigration is your concern) about the >50% of immigrants that come from outside the EU that your government has always had control of and actually done errr.... nothing about ?

Had control. Forgot to use it. And you trust them to make Brexit a success? Good luck with that.

I'm off to watch Trump throw more Crocs in the swamp.

Microsoft's cmd.exe deposed by PowerShell in Windows 10 preview

Re: Yet another Windows 10 annoyance

"'KDE 4? Gnome 3? It's not for nothing that Mint was born - there were simply enough people fed up with having "cool stuff" shoved down their throats that they neither wanted nor needed.'

I'm not sure I recognize that situation."

I do with Gnome. When they decided to go all single pane crap and dropped split pane in Nautilus (they could have left it as an option but didn't). Despite lots of complaints their answer was 'our way or the highway'. It was the final straw for me and I put on my walking shoes. I'm sure I wasn't alone.

Fortunately Mint forked Nautiless into Nemo (though I don't use Mint myself) and the world kept turning.

Apple admits the iPhone 6 Plus has 'Touch Disease'

My son had this recently. If I was in the UK I'd have argued that it is a design fault and up to them to fix it.

"Fit for purpose" it the key.

It's about your expectations. I expect the non moving guts of a phone to last a good few years without issue. I expect the phone to survive a few knocks and bangs. Equally I expect the screen is fragile and may not last/survive as long.

My guess is that they'd have to show the 'design parameters' and that you exceeded them.

Certainly, from the number of issues reported, the weight of evidence that it is probably a design defect is on your side.

Unfortunately my Spanish, though good, is not quite as good as my English... certainly not on a legal level.

I'm the one with no extended warranties and a 5 year old fan oven that has had the fan replaced 3 times free of charge.....

British politicians sign off on surveillance law, now it's over to the Queen

Big Bruvver

Sucks. Period.

Ah well. VPN to the rescue as ever.

Getting to the bottom of the cloud debate

Cloud. Only on rainy days

Sorry your superfast 10mb internet connection has failed. We promise to get you an engineer to look at it within 48 working hours (Mon-Fri 9-5 only).

After we have got the permits from the electricity board to do the work as the line is within 100 metres of a pylon.

And the electricity board has then trained and certified our engineers to work near said electricity cables.

We'd dig up the road, but you know how long that will take with council permissions

(I jest slightly but had something like this recently and the fix took 6 months)

You can't work? Is that meant to be our problem?

Of course you can get another provider. They'll still have to use the same cruddy 100 year old copper that we supply and can't be arsed to replace.

Fibre? ROFLMAO.

FTC? This century? Are you a gambling man? This is 21st century Brexit Britain. You aren't in a galaxy far far away......

Cloud... all well and good if you can connect to the damn thing....

Not throwing out my metal boxes just yet..... saved my life countless times

NB... they HAVE to fix a standard POTS phone line PDQ. But ADSL has different rules and is supplied solely on an 'as and when convenient' to them basis with no guarantees, and that is a 'business' service.....

Windows Insiders are so passé, Microsoft now has Skype Insiders

Skype got dumped. Started looking the momemt M$ announced their intentions.

I want a discreet program, not more browser bloat..and it has become much more buggy and unreliable since the move to the cloud. As my PFY said "the only program we have an issue with at work is the one program we still use from M$" He's learning fast :-)

RocketChat is interesting if you want to try bleeding edge. No idea if it will fly but it's an adventure to try.

Brexflation: Lenovo, HPE and Walkers crisps all set for double-digit hike

Re: I can't help but feel this is the calm before the (shit) storm.

"....don't you think to claim that 17.4 million people could all vote the same way for the same reason and this being completely antithetical to the other 17 million"

It's more than antiethical.

17.4 million voted to Leave. 29 million either voted for the status quo, or didn't vote at all.

Contrary to Mrs Mays recent statement during her reality check trip to India that "the majority of the British public voted to Leave"

No, they didn't.

Who said something like "Never hold a referendum on maintaining the status quo. Only have one if you want to change something" ?

EU announces common corporate tax plan

Re: Well

"Seems the commission (unelected)"

Seems the commission (selected by your democratically elected governments)

FTFY

iPhone fatigue and fading Samsung. This planet is bored with big brand phones

Re: Right

"largely a semi-objective way of teaching eager engineers that the majority of the market doesn't share their dreams at all, and that they'd best just get down to the boring stuff like making it reliable, durable, etc."

Shame a few software engineers don't learn this lesson in the never ending push for rapid release.....

Today the web was broken by countless hacked devices – your 60-second summary

Campaign required

Maybe El Reg can start a campaign a la 'Daily Fail' and then claim the credit if this monumental trip to Cockup City ever gets fixed :-)

Google Pixel: Devices are a dangerous distraction from the new AI interface

Assistance...

Where's the off button ?

Internet of Things botnets: You ain’t seen nothing yet

....and then came IPv6.

The End.

:-)

Skype for Linux users can crash-test video calls in v1.10 Alpha

The takeover by M$ and rush to the cloud has totally buggered a previously reasonable service. We used it 99% of the time for messaging, with occasional video.

Now have more issues than you can shake a stick at with our Linux clients. As they are the predominant users, time to move on to a less crap service.

Like every other M$ OS/program/service we had, we're bailing out pronto. Shame, but such is life. Plenty more fish in the sea.

Apple's Breaxit scandal: Frenchman smashes up €50,000 of iThings with his big metal balls

No such thing as bad news....

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

–Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Amazing this happens just as the i7 gets released. Apple must be getting desperate for publicity :-)

Portsmouth bomb about to be detonated

AFAIAA (according to my now deceased grandad) munitions can go one of two ways. Safe as putty. Or not.

Living on the coast just up from the Thames the amount of stuff still dragged up is amazing. Some of it still fizzes.....

Biggest problem is the good ship SS Richard Montgomery.... might make a mess of a few surrounding properties (would the destruction of Canvey Island be considered a loss ?) if it's found to be the touchy feely type :-)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ss-richard-montgomery-information-and-survey-reports

I was trying to find an equivalent explosive force or some such.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions

Let's Encrypt won its Comodo trademark battle – but now fan tools must rename

Re: doesn't make sense

I agree... it's nuts, and been a pain to rename everything.

Clearly I'll have to rename feckFacebook.sh and screwGoogle.pl :-)

Two Sundays wrecked by boss who couldn't use a calendar

Re: At least make sure your contract include TOIL

"When it comes to work there is one unbreakable rule

NEVER work for free"

Try telling my boss that.

Divorce would undoubtedly follow.

Now there's a thought........

:-)

Did you know iOS 10, macOS Sierra has a problem with crappy VPNs? You do now

Rare praise

I rarely praise Apple for much but this is certainly a good move.

How long til Microsoft get off their butts and drop support?

It isn't as if there haven't been other options available for years.

I suppose it is typical of companies & organisations who can't be arsed to change and will only do so when forced.

Or has there been pressure applied to keep it to make some peoples lives easier ?

So, Gov.UK infosec in 2015. 'Chaotic'. Cost £300m. NINE THOUSAND data breaches...

Sounds to me like marketing bull from Microsoft/Google/whoever...

1. Announce the system is crap

A short time later...

2. Announce fantastic, new, better value, secure replacement