* Posts by Steven Davison

87 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Apr 2007

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No escape: Microsoft injects 'Get Windows 10' nagware into biz PCs

Steven Davison

The cake is a lie, just like 'Windows 10 is free'

@ Jeffy Poooh

Linux: "Good morning, only 15,473 software updates so far today. Shall we get started? By the way, your Master Boot Record was delicious."

I Read this in the Voice of GlaDOS. Was that intended? <WEG>

This is Sparta? No - it's Microsoft Edge, Son of Internet Explorer

Steven Davison

Re: "be available on one billion devices"

[Quote]

"be available on one billion devices"

Really?

Does he mean there are a billion devices out there that could run windows 10 and if they chose to install windows 10 could chose to run edge?

[/Quote]

Maybe they are counting on the Raspberry Pi 2 + to carry that number, since it is reported to be able to run Windows 10 in some fashion.

BT Home Hub SIP backdoor blunder blamed for VoIP fraud

Steven Davison

Re: Whats the point of home SIP anyway?

@ Boltar,

I can think of a few:-

1 ) Learning - how to install, setup, secure a SIP system

2 ) Call Handling - you can drop calls you don't want automatically, and redirect other calls elsewhere (like known friends to mobile etc)

3 ) Cheaper Call Rates - if you call internationally, it may be cheaper to use a sip service than a POTS.

4 ) voicemail - answer machine with more options than your average BT phone. (Voicemail to email etc)

5) multiple lines, single line rental - multiple DDI's for different things (personal & business etc)

I'm sure there are more reasons, too!

Pull up the Windows 10 duvet and pretend Win8 and Vista were BAD DREAMS

Steven Davison

Yes, you can setup a machine without one.

At the bottom of the page, click the 'Don't have a microsoft account' link, then again at the bottom of the page, click 'Sign in without a microsoft account'

very clearly laid out... NOT!

My HOUSE used to be a PUB: How to save the UK high street

Steven Davison

Peter Richardson - not a rushmoor resident?

Anyway, I've done some looking into this, and it does seem obsurd, in the costs to run a shop. We've had an entire area of a shopping centre completely empty for at least 5 years. Shops do occasionally open once in a while, but they never last.

the only shops that seem to stay are the bigger chains that do bring in enough to justify it, or just the ones who can bully the local council enough.

My suggestion would be to drop the rates/rent for these shops to a minimal amount (rather than stay at the extortionate rates they are now) and allow businesses to thrive. more shops mean more customers. More customers mean more profit... if a business is earning well, then they will stay and suddenly the council is making far more than they are now.... why is it so hard to see?

MOULDY DICK: France aims to snatch EXPLODING WHALE crown from U.S.

Steven Davison

Why can't they tow it into deep water with a few weights on it to sink it, and then let nature do what it would normally do to a dead whale???

Virgin Media DOUBLE-PUNCHED by BSkyB AND BT over ad fibs

Steven Davison

Re: Cable speed is good

Call me a cynic, but it's possible that VM(and the other ISP's) have cottoned on to such popular sites and are shaping the traffic to ensure good results...

Steven Davison

I'd still like someone to slap virgin media over their claims of a fibre optic broadband service... Just the same as BT's FTTC offering, the last mile is copper...

What the BLOCK? Microsoft to gobble Minecraft-maker 'for $2bn'

Steven Davison

Re: My only thought

My thoughts exactly. I've tweeted Notch about it. Hopefully there will be some kind of explanation.

The final score: Gramophones 1 – Glassholes 0

Steven Davison

RE : Photos photos

Because then it isn't nearly as useful as a data collector. Which is why Google want us to have it. The more 'data' Google has, the more it can sell...

Virgin Media goes titsup AGAIN. The cause? Yet MORE DNS strife

Steven Davison

One tip :- don't use the ISP's DNS servers.

Others are :-

OpenDNS

208.67.222.222

208.67.220.220

Google

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4

Brit celebs' homes VANISH from Google's Street View

Steven Davison

AMBxx

The bell box on the wall is not your alarm system... it's just the noisy thing on the outside. the system lives INSIDE the house... where it's harder to be tampered with.... *sigh*

Canada to Google: You can't have your borderless cake and eat it too

Steven Davison

Google was appealing the order it received to delist the websites globally, cos it didn't want to do that.

I don't think the case was brought directly to google's door, reading the article...

Yet another reason to skip commercials: Microsoft ad TURNS ON your Xbox One

Steven Davison

I think the overriding influence on this is Star Trek. All of the series post TNG have the computer listening all the time, and responding to commands as required. (yes, it even queries when some of the characters talk to themselves)

People love tech out of Sci-Fi... it's just not always that practical! (LCARS interface [google it!] - buttons and controls with little details on what each control does!)

California gives green light to test self-driving cars on public roads

Steven Davison

How can a human “assume control if the automation fails?

by having multiple layers of redundancy.

multiple, independent monitoring systems can be used to check and recheck all the system to ensure everything is working. If it is not, it reports to the ''driver", gets them to take control, and drive the vehicle to a place for checking and repair if required.

Take for instance, a throttle position sensor. most cars have one for the ECU. an automated car should have 3 or even 4. At all times, the readings are compared from each sensor, if the readings don't match at any given point, the system goes into alarm, and alerts the driver to take control. (similar principal as the 4 Guidance Processors on the shuttle, IIRC)

Rubber-glove time: Italy to probe TripAdvisor over 'fake reviews'

Steven Davison

Obligatory XKCD comic - http://xkcd.com/958/

Brits: Wanna know how late your train is? Now you can slurp straight from the source for free

Steven Davison

The underlying issue with all public transport is that it is a revenue system, not a public service.

The service WILL NEVER EVER EVER get any better while in the hands of corporate organisations who only want to extract money from it.

Yes, the trains were founded by commercial investors looking to make a profit, but at that time, no alternative existed that could match them. Now, Road and Air compete, preventing the 'quick and dirty rail lines' from actually working.

In my opinion, the ONLY way things will get better is one of these two things happen

1 - The ENTIRE system is re-nationalised, and NO Contractors or Sub Contractors are used. (yes, that kills companies who only do rail contracting) The government then runs it as a public service, but income from the railways is NOT allowed to enter the public taxation pool, and thus most be invested back into the infrastructure, improving the system overall.

2 - The ENTIRE system is handed over to a non-governmental, non-profit company, to manage. The same applies as above. No profit, just money returned into the system.

This will allow more improvements to the infrastructure (HS2 for instance), the reduction of ticket prices, and the whole thing managed on a countrywide scale, improving efficiency.

Scoff ye not: Chap carves crunchy carrot-copter

Steven Davison

@ Cliff : I remember reading that story as a kid, but I don't recall it being a Roald Dahl story... interesting. :)

Google snaps up Divide to splice biz and personal phones together

Steven Davison

@Christoph, Is the personal side secure too?

It would depend on the back-end implementation. As far as I understand it, Divide focuses on the Email integration etc

On Secure Mobile/MobileIron, the device can be wiped by the remote end. The secure container can be removed in a separate process.

Feature-phones aren't dead, Moto – oldsters still need them

Steven Davison

Re: Background?

@ Alan Gauton

Might be my new glasses, but the black background looks green to me?

I think you might be trolling, but they mean the phone buttons, not the screen.

Revoke, reissue, invalidate: Stat! Security bods scramble to plug up Heartbleed

Steven Davison

Have a cookie for the XKCD Reference :- http://xkcd.com/1353/

3CX Phone System takes on the corporate mobiles

Steven Davison

Re: Mobile SIP Clients

Can I assume that they have got some kind of gateway to the mobile/POTS telephone system?

Whats the cost model on using that? do you pay for the sip call, and then for the ongoing call on the mobile network?

Nvidia uncloaks GeForce 800M GPU series for gaming notebooks

Steven Davison

"What are you using discrete graphics for under Linux?"

You mention it in your post... Steam.

It's a BLOCKBUSTER: Minecraft heads to the silver screen

Steven Davison

Re: @ Bye Bye Minecraft Videos ...

I'm guessing the theory is, once an official movie comes out, the studio that makes it would *possibly* be able to sue other minecraft films and shorts for infringement.

Don't know if that's actually true but it did float through my head as well. I hope it's wrong as there's some really good minecraft youtube videos. Slamacow springs to mind.

While possible, I'd like to beleive Notch has the nous to retain the rights on it, or to stipulate that fan made movies are allowed.

Additionally, they might have problems as as of ver 1.7.4, Minecraft has built in twitch streaming... .

HARD ONES: Three new PC games that are BLOODY DIFFICULT

Steven Davison

no MUD?

Wasn't death in the original MUD completely permanent?

WET SPOT found on MARS: NASA rover says 'high percentage'

Steven Davison

Re: Mars attacks

ugly, you missed ugly

ugly bags of mostly water.

First rigid airship since the Hindenburg cleared for outdoor flight trials

Steven Davison

Titanic

AFAIK, the main reason that Titanic wasn't as unsinkable as they thought was not the fact that multiple bulkheads were breached, but actually due to the fact the bulkheads did not reach the deck, and make fully watertight compartments.... http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_watertight_compartments.shtml

Hm, disk drive maker, what's that smell lingering around you?

Steven Davison
WTF?

Re: Reliability??

just for clarification,

Do you mean Hard Disk drives ("spinning rust"), rather than SATA?

Boffins FREEZE PHONES to crack Android on-device crypto

Steven Davison

Re: Perhaps a minus sign has escaped somewhere.

If the device has been running a while, it's likely its internal temperature is a fair deal higher than room temp, which might account for the hour to chill it down... i guess...

Sinclair ZX Spectrum FAILS latest radio noise rules SHOCK

Steven Davison

Rebuilding a Speccy...

If you did get the blueprints, i'd be interested in doing it as a project...

maybe with modern components behind it, it's EM output can be reduced to 'regulated' levels..

GCHQ lines up BAE and pals for 'Cyber Incident Response'

Steven Davison
Facepalm

"What active service do these guys provide?"

www.detica.com

Bond fans: Test your 007 trivia, now!

Steven Davison

"I mean, knowing the exact punctuation of the numberplate of the Goldfinger Aston? Blimey."

BBC Iplayer has a feature from top gear on bond cars... ;)

Virgin Media spanked for 'we've already cabled up your house' mailshot

Steven Davison

What gets me is the fact Vermin Media are allowed to use the phrase "Fibre Optic Broadband', when the last portion of the cabling is RG59 or equivalent coaxial copper!

PLT chair: UK Radio Society is 'living in a dream world'

Steven Davison
FAIL

Re: Erm... exactly why do we need PLT anyway?

Where you live in a property where you cannot lay Cat5. (Renting etc) and the walls/structure of the building prevent reliable WiFi Transmission....

hardly difficult that one!

Disney sitcom says open source is insecure

Steven Davison
Headmaster

Re: That reminds me of some dumb programme...

Not just a bus....

it's a PCI Bus they are going on about. (They also harp on about RISC architecture changing everything...)

Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver Universal Remote Control review

Steven Davison

Try these for explaining the English language...

http://theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar

:)

NASA's $2.5bn Curiosity rover: An Apple PowerBook on wheels

Steven Davison
Joke

Actually, I think it's supposed to be a joke....

Jackson’s Hobbit becomes a trilogy

Steven Davison

Correction to my inital post "it's the dog's bloody name!"

@ AC : 08:17 - No, I don't believe any word is a 'bad' word. Words become bad based on the context in which they are used...

@ Mr Lion - I'm not sure what you are attempting to say here. I didn't mention anything about colour. Please elaborate.

Steven Davison

Longer wait for Dambusters then? lets hope so

To change the subject entirely....

You *cannot* have a Dambusters film without Nigger the dog.

I don't care if it's a bad word to some people, but it's the dog bloody name!

Natwest, RBS: When will bank glitch be fixed? Probably not today

Steven Davison
Joke

Re: Trendy Wine Bar

Same happened in Aldershot.... (Where for a number of years they had two branches opposite each other)

The older building was closed, and sold.... remained empty for a while, until it reopened, as a said trendy wine bar... :P

Softphones strangled by smartphone battery life

Steven Davison
WTF?

Hardphones FTW

I'm with the others here on this one.... don't use softphones where you have the deskspace to put a VOIP hardphone... cabling is not an issue now as many SIP compatible phones have switches built in... and can also be run off PoE... (Linksys SPA922 is a prime example). If you are a truly 'mobile' worker, get a quality Bluetooth handsfree and pair that with your laptop..., rather than faff with a cabled headset...

and definitely DON'T get a propriety SIP based offering from anyone.... get an expert in to set-up a Asterisk based system , and benefit from choosing hardware and software that suits your needs (rather than something that is almost there, or wildly overspecced, without having to pay the nose and ear for it... if your expert is good enough, and gives you the correct advice, you won't regret it...

Peter Molyneux parts with Microsoft and Lionhead

Steven Davison
Thumb Up

if you want to play Transport Tycoon... go play this...

http://www.openttd.org/en/

Got Coat... Gone!

GiffGaff boots freetards off mobile network

Steven Davison

It can't be that difficult to regulate speed someone gets... T Mobile's new tariffs are 'unlimited' in the same way. You get X amount of Meg, go over that, and your speed disappears.

This change forced Tesco to change all their marketing for TMobile to show the fair use figure as the data allowance, to prevent them giving misleading information to customers...

My suggestion to GiffGaff is to :-

Publish how much data the individuals in the 1% are using....

Publish their 'fair use' limits

Allow users to *easily* see how much data they are using...

Meanwhile, someone (Ofcom, OfFT, whoever) should start looking into the disproportionate (IMHO) costs for Broadband usage over the mobile network... surely bandwidth is not that expensive these days...

Microsoft copies Google with silent browser updates

Steven Davison
FAIL

Not tosh...

The item you posted is an OEM Licence, which cannot legally be used on a machine that isn't *new*...

If he's got vista on it, it's not new...

Revealed: Full specs on Mars rover's nuclear laser heat ray

Steven Davison
Coat

Could this new Rover go and blast the dust off the other two and make them useful again? (I know one of them had a failed drive....)

Ten... remastered videogame classics

Steven Davison
Meh

Hear Hear!

@ Stuart Halliday - Yes, I agree... but Ian and David won't be able to agree on the rights for it, so it's never gonna happen... Elite 4 is still in development, apparently... longer than Duke Nukem:Forever maybe?.

Intel ships six-core desktop 'Extremes'

Steven Davison
Joke

Title is optional?

Great Scott!

Don't buy your iPad in a McDonald's car park

Steven Davison
Joke

Coat, Door, I know!

I hope she logged it with the correct authorities..

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