Posts by D@v3

AWS key exposed in JavaScript may have lit way to Beacon's charity data

Lucky escape

We had a database with them, fortunately it was only filled with fake data, as we were using it to asses their viability as our new CRM. That's another one scratched off the list.

Microsoft remembers that taskbars used to move

ExplorerPatcher for Win 11

nifty bit of software has let me have my taskbar on the left on one screen and the right on another, amongst some other nifty little file explorer tweaks.(available on GitHub (Valinet), i have no connectoin other than being a happy customer)

BT unplugs plans to turn old cabinets into EV chargepoints

Wi-Fi connectivity challenge surrounding EVs

Sorry, but i thought that 5G was supposed to solve the connectivity challenges around EV's (amongst other things).

Admittedly that was before 5G was hijacked by the mobile networks, and we were subject to their half arsed implementation.

Techie's quick cure for a curious conflict caused a huge headache

@My-Handle

sounds eerily familiar.

Quite some time ago, when I was still green and a little wet behind the ears, I thought it would be a good idea to bring in a spare wi-fi router I had at home into the office, so we could get wi-fi. Plugged it into a spare network socket, and all worked quite well, until we started getting reports of devices dropping off the network. Sure enough, was acting as a rogue DHCP server. Lots of panic in IT office, i blushed, stuck my hand up and unplugged it. Problem caused, problem solved.

On the record: Apple bags patent for iDevice to play LPs

Re: Timecode Vinyl.

@msknight

I think the term you need is Timecode Vinyl

This might answer your questions (or it might not, who knows)

https://mixxx.org/news/2021-11-21-dvs-internals-pt1/

Aliens crash landed on Earth – and Uncle Sam is covering it up, this guy tells Congress

reverse engineered tech

For those saying "If the US had reverse engineered UFO tech....." who's to say they haven't and that the speed with which we have gone from having "desktop" computers the size of small filing cabinets to having computers in our pockets 'more powerful than the computers that put man on the moon' isn't the result?

Samsung’s midrange A54 is lovely, but users won't feel seen

facial recognition

I've got so used to Apple's FaceID being so good at recognising me (glasses, no glasses, polarized sunglasses, hat, toothbrush, various other accessories) that I am almost convinced that it doesn't work at all and just accepts anything that vaguely resembles a face, apart from the fact that I can demonstrate it does work by trying to get someone else to unlock it.

Compare this to the Samsung phones that we issue at work (A12 I think, admittedly a couple of years old), where the face unlock is so unreliable we don't set it up for people. I can be sat at my desk, unlocks with face once. Lock the device, try again, and it fails, with no environmental changes. we've had a few people try it, and have ended up locking themselves out of the phone (not sure how, but that's users for ya)

NASA 'quiet' supersonic jet is nearly ready for flight

Re: Concorde, so loud

Supersonic? Take off? I don't know.

I was quite young at the time. I lived in Kingston (not too far from Heathrow) from '89, I can't remember when I would have seen it, but I do have memories of what sounded like thunder from a near by storm, and being able to see Concorde soar overhead. Always got a kick out of it.

At the age I was at the time, i knew it was a supersonic craft, so just assumed it was the sonic boom, it may well have just been, as others have said, the extreme background noise.

The number’s up for 999. And 911. And 000. And 111

Re: I still have analog landlines.

One thing about POTS lines providing power to the phone. While technically true (which is of course the best kind of true), when was the last time you saw a home phone that was actually wired to the wall socket (and thus receiving power) and not a cordless job, sitting in a cradle, which is plugged into the mains, and not receiving power down the phone line?

Now, I appreciate that I may be talking to the wrong audience here, but I think the last time I saw a wired HOME phone, was around 20 years ago.

Office desk phones are a different thing, and ours are all PoE, but that is, as I say, a different thing.

Microsoft and GM deal means your next car might talk, lie, gaslight and manipulate you

Re: Speed cameras

Broadly 10%+2, yes, but that isn't hard and fast, I was reading about this recently

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-6954637/Speed-camera-tolerances-Britain-revealed.html

in most areas that is the case, but in the Met police area it is 10%+3, in other areas there was not confirmation that such a tolerance exists.

Apple preps for 'third-party iOS app stores' in Europe

Re: long support

I was reading something yesterday suggesting that iOS 15 security updates will be made available to devices not compatible with iOS16, i can't imagine there is a lot of that sort of behavior going on in Android country, where last years phone is dead in the water.

We'll get you that Wi-Fi 7 laptop by 2024, Intel says

reliability

As others have said, speed isn't the issue.

Speed is not what it stopping us from moving (almost) everything to Wi-Fi. It's the fact that on any given day we can have a room with 10 identical laptops in, with an AP in the room, that only 8 of them will connect to.

We are running out of networking professionals who say that everything is set up and configured correctly and that it is just that wi-fi, is at times, just a bit shit. But you try explaining that to the users.....

Yeah, the patch panels in out comms cupboards resemble the Bayeux Tapestry, but I'd rather have that, than just random fluctuations and dead spots, any day.

Our Friends Electric: A pair of alternative options for getting around town

Re: Long trips are the exception

Agreed.

We both mostly cycle to work, local car journeys for a car boot full of shopping from the supermarket the other side of town (no, it won't fit on our bikes).

However, our parents live at opposite ends of the country, so visits to either are multi hour journeys, partly due to distance partly due to the congestion on various roads in either direction, and this is what is holding us back from diving into the EV deep end. We are toying with having an EV for normal use, and then just renting a petrol car for long journeys.

Re: Yep - And What About All Those Magic Roundabouts

There is an officially named "Scilly Isles Jct" just outside Thames Ditton. Not the same thing, but still quite a silly junction.

Windows 11 22H2 is almost here. Is it ready for the enterprise?

Re: Local account

I have just this week had to rebuild a machine, so clean install from media, not an upgrade, and wasn't given the option to have a local account. We do all have 'windows' accounts, but it's a pain having to link new devices to a 365 account, before you can join it to the domain, instead of just using a local account.

We are in the process of deploying a load of new hardware anyway, as it is time for a refresh, (laptops and some desktops), so we are taking advantage of that to phase a rollout of 11.

So far, very few issues. Some of our users are extremely technophobic, and many of them haven't even noticed the change, so I'm not sure what kind of people the article is expecting to need to retrain to use a slightly different GUI.

The biggest annoyance for us so far has been that 11 was delivered as an 'update' so the users are able to do it without our interaction. Fortunately very few have (so far).

California Right-to-Repair bill quietly killed in committee

Not ALL tech companies

As coincidence would have it, while i have been reading this, i have been working on a Dell laptop with a dodgy screen, made considerably easier by finding a 108 page service manual on their site.

Which is in stark contrast to my first experience of Dell hardware, which was a desktop whose insides were covered in warranty void stickers.

Re: The 1%

The American approach to freedom seems to be more focused on MY freedom to do what I want, regardless of how that impacts YOUR freedom to do what YOU want.

BOFH: Where do you think you are going with that toner cartridge?

Re: HP Laserjet 5

I think we still have an LJ4 knocking around here somewhere. Much more reliable than the sodding huge Ricoh MFD's that we have all over the place.

Version 251 of systemd coming soon to a Linux distro near you

Re: For a rock-bottom price bracket, cheap consumer laptop

While they may have started out as such, and can still be had for <£300, somewhere down the line they have spiraled out of control, and can cost as much as £1800 (Latitude 7410 Chrome)

The end of the iPod – last model available 'while supplies last'

iTunes.

i've said it before, and i will no doubt say it again. People who complain about iTunes clearly never used SonicStage.

Anyway.

I've always loved the iPod's, have had various as the capacity improved, starting i think with a 10Gb model, brough to take travelling instead of a mini disc player and a pocket full of discs. never felt the need to get a Mac to make it work properly, have always managed with iTunes on the PC, and still do, using it to manage the music on my iPhone.

As I'm sure with others here, i still like to by my music so that it is mine. I do now only have 1 CD 'player', but that is in the PC that i use to rip them to iTunes so i can listen to my music where ever i want.

Still have my 120GB classic in a draw at home, the battery isn't what it used to be, and seems to only charge with certain combinations of cables and plugs, but that's fine. Doesn't really get used anymore, but i can't think of anything worth while to do with it.

Only Microsoft can give open source the gift of NTFS. Only Microsoft needs to

Re: Even if they did...

no joke, there is a guy where i work, (he isn't in IT), and CONSTANTLY refers to them as MickySoft. Thinks he's really clever.

Microsoft's huge Patch Tuesday includes fix for bug under attack

i wonder if they have fixed the bug that we found, of users not being able to change their (expired) password on log in.

Not as 'Critical' or Important as these, but bloody annoying.

Notepad Dark Mode and Android apps arrive on Windows 11

Re: version of Windows prior to Win8

Yeah, or, you could just untick the box that says 'show my taskbar on all displays'.

What i want to know is when they are going to let me pin m MY goddamn taskbar to the right hand side of my screen, like it has been for years.

Reality check: We should not expect our communications to remain private

difficult one to answer.

Should I be able to expect my communications to remain private ---- Yes

Do I expect my communications to remain private --- Unfortunately not.

Update 'designed to improve user experience' takes down the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal

i've enjoyed the opportunity

to explain to the management that this is what can happen when you rely on cloud systems.

Was a bit of a pain too.

Halo Infinite ups the nostalgia factor for fans of the originals, but it's not without limits

Re: Confession: I am a massive Halo fan

I've always been as massive Halo fan, playing 8 player CE LAN multiplayer was what made my get an xbox in the first place.

Currently working through the Master Chief collection (Reach, 1,2,3,4 and ODST) that I picked up from Steam for dead cheap, playing on legendary, should keep me going for a while. Tried LASO, but decided that gaming is supposed to be fun, so gave up.

God of War: How do you improve on perfection? You port it to PC, obviously

Re: PC vs console gaming

all sound like good solid ideas, and all things i have checked in the past.

task manager shows the game running at around 50-60% RAM, with a couple of gigs free and barely anything else running. The PC isn't used for much else than gaming these days, as i have enough of sitting in front of a screen all day.

when it does happen, it is as soon as the game loads, so not anything to do with the length of session. When it works, it's fine for hours, when it's not it's instant.

Not sure what AV i have on it, if any (if im honest) but seeing as i do no surfing or emailing on it, and the only internet it sees is the steam store and downloading game updates, i figure it is a fairly low risk, and there is nothing important on it anyway, so if it gets infected it's only re-downloading massive game files that will need to be done..

it's the sort of thing that is really annoying when it happens, and when it does i generally swear loudly at it, switch it off and go and read a book instead, so never get bothered by it enough to try to find the cause / solution.

PC vs console gaming

having been a console gamer for years, as my available time has changed, my inclination to spend hundreds of pounds on new consoles and then £50 for new games has diminished. As a result i have discovered the joys of Steam and the ability to play old games that i never got round to on console, on my not hugely specced out PC.

Mostly has been fine, apart from, for no reason that i can fathom, 1 in every 10 plays or so, on certain games, the frame rate seems to drop to about 1 frame every couple of seconds. completely unplayable. takes 2 minutes to even quit the game.

So, I shut it all down, leave it a couple of days, come back and it is all fine. Highly annoying, but largely the only issue I've had with PC gaming, (apart from stick drift on my cheap controller, which can be temporarily fixed by giving the controller a bit of a blow, which is fine as it brings back memories of blowing N64 cartridges to make them work)

Could BYOB (Bring Your Own Battery) offer a solution for charging electric vehicles? Microlino seems to think so

why do we need cars?

I have a bike, i cycle to work most days. Its a little over half an hour and 13km each way. In the winter months when it is dark on both journeys, often very cold and wet, sometimes at the same time, i occasionally choose to drive. Due to having to take a slightly less direct route (one way systems, no bike paths) this also takes about half an hour.

If i wanted to change that to a public transport journey, i have a couple of options,

i could walk 20 minutes, to get a bus for half an hour to the next town, to then get another bus for 20 minutes to the town in which i work, and walk 10-15 mins from the bus stop to the office. Not really an option when the reason i'm not on my bike is because it is cold and /or wet.

or, i could walk 20 minutes to the train station (next to the bus stop), get a train for 20 minutes (ish, im not certain, but it would be towards london), then another train (10-15mins) back out of london to get to the train station 'near' work and then a half hour or so walk from the station to the office.

Both of these options require more journey time each way, than i currently have both ways. Not to mention the cost of getting a train in and out of london twice a day.

For context, i live in a reasonably sized town south west of london. I fully expect for others that don't, this would be even less practical.

AI-enhanced frog stem cells start to replicate in entirely new ways

Do you want replicators?

Because this is how you get replicators.

James Webb Space Telescope may actually truly launch this century, says NASA

yeah, but it's hardly rocket science, is it.....

Zuckerberg wants to create a make-believe world in which you can hide from all the damage Facebook has done

Im

So

Meta

Even

This

Acronym

NFTs not annoying enough? Now they come with wallet-emptying malware

Re: Armed robot dogs

"manufacturers were at pains to point out that this is not autonomous in any way and a human always controls the trigger"

I'm sure I remember reading the same thing about Drone Strikes....

Windows 11 in detail: Incremental upgrade spoilt by onerous system requirements and usability mis-steps

Re: "design paradigms from those devices could successfully carry over into a new Start"

if you're making an Old Fashioned, I'll have one, cheers.

Re: Not a pangram

maybe they have a problem rendering an S and were hoping no one would notice

Re: Windows versions

Remember. Every other (major) windows release is shit.

(11), 10, (8), 7, (Vista) XP, (ME) 98

(I know some people on here would say EVERY, but that's another argument for another day)

Macmillan best-biscuit list unexpectedly promotes breakfast cereal to treat status

just a couple of things

mainly here to agree with everyone else about the severe misclassification of ginger nuts.

also, bourbons are (slightly) better than digestives because a huge pack of reasonable quality bourbons is considerably cheaper than a normal size pack of reasonable quality digestives. and, bourbons are great.

where are the plain chocolate hobnobs?

Jaffa cakes are not biscuits, and either way, are vile and need to be destroyed by fire.

Re: Tunnock's caramel wafers

oooo, haven't had one of them in a while. Good shout.

THX Onyx: A do-it-all DAC for the travelling audiophile

65DaysOfStatic

Mines the one with the algorithmically generated soundtrack to No Mans Sky in the pocket

Today I shall explain how dual monitors work using the medium of interpretive dance

Re:photos of screenshots

we get that all the time. Sometimes it makes sense, for example email on PC isn't working, or network connection is borked.

what is a shame is that the photos are taken with 20 mega pixel cameras, so the attachments that come through are huge.

Which is almost as bad as people who send a full screen grab (on dual high rez monitors) for a small error box in the middle of one screen.

Japan to send ‘transforming robot’ to the Moon in 2022

This is not the transforming robot i was hoping for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGuGSbExIC4

Are you ready to take a stand? Flexispot E7 motorised desk should handle whatever you dump on it – but it's not cheap

Re: Cable management

We had an office refurb not too long ago. Had a load of nice new desks put in, with monitor arms, PCs mounted under desks, built in cable trays for the made to measure power cables. Very nice.

It was later decided that for one office worker who has 'special workplace requirements' that their desk would be replaced with a standing desk. Being a desk, and nothing to do with computers, IT were not consulted.

The desks were switched over, and on the first test of raising it up, the desk promptly pulled the made to measure power cables out of their very carefully measured sockets.

.

US declares emergency after ransomware shuts oil pipeline that pumps 100 million gallons a day

Re: Presumably the fuckwits in charge ...

I know far too many places, where a statement such as..

"UNLESS we re-design The Internet from the ground up, from scratch!"

would be met with, "jolly good idea, get on with it"....

Google will make you use two-step verification to login

66 per cent of Americans admit to...

and what, 30% do it but don't admit to it, would be my guess

Apple, you've AirDrop'd the ball: Academics detail ways to leak contact info of nearby iThings for spear-phishing

defeating encryption

I've been doing some studying recently, and from more than one source I have seen references to a 'rubber hose attack' which can be effective in defeating encryption.

Makes me think of that xkcd, which in turn, makes me chuckle.

Smart doorbells on business premises make your property more attractive to burglars, warns researcher

Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.

or, one that i used to see on my paper round.

i shoot every third salesman, and the second has just left

Watch this space: Apple offers free repairs for the self-bricking Apple Watch SE and Series 5 wearables

Re: 18 hours is Apple butt covering

I have regularly found my apple watch lasting into a third day.

Bill Gates on climate change: Planting trees is not the answer, emissions need to be zeroed out to avoid disaster

Re: Bitcoin

I've seen something a couple of times recently that was suggesting that the amount of energy being used to mine bitcoin has reach the same level as the energy being used by Switzerland.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48853230

LastPass to limit fans of free password manager to one device type only – computer or mobile – from next month

Re: KeePass

I was using KeePass for a while, and while it is quite good ( i still use it on a single device), i was getting frustrated by the manual synch i needed to do every time i updated my database to keep things working across many devices. Have moved to BitWarden a little over a year ago and have had no problems with it, mostly just seems to work and is still free. Not sure what the paid for version might give you.

No ports, no borders, no hope: Xiaomi's cool but impractical all-screen concept phone

Re: Nokia 3310

Best way to ruin a perfectly good sledgehammer