Posts by Sam Crawley

British Army finds a new eye in the sky after Watchkeeper woes

I think that's marketing speak for there being occasional firmware updates.

Retail giant Kingfisher rejects SAP ERP upgrade plan

Re: They can't migrate

That is supposedly what is coming down the line in the medium to long term - moving from SaaS and its price gouging to AI-created bespoke software for each individual role - so in theory no more big beast frameworks like SAP. Of course I'm sure the software houses will still find a way to monetise it.

UK government on the lookout for bargain-priced CTO

Re: Pay peanuts - get a monkey

Plus surely someone competent from the real world is going to be commanding well over the top end of that salary range, it's a very odd statement to make really...

Microsoft brings 365 suite on-prem as part of sovereign cloud push

On prem but cloud pricing

Of course the other aspect to this is you may have it on-prem but if on Stack you will be paying via an Azure subscription model, so it's not back to the old capex / predictable costs approach.

What will UK government workers do with an extra 26 minutes a day?

Meeting summaries can be useful, although we're still in a world where people are checking the output - presumably once you rely on it the manual checking goes and we just have to pray the accuracy is better! Although how accurate are people taking minutes and notes anyway?

What is genuinely interesting (and frightening, depending on your perspective!) is that O365 and CoPilot are rolling out capabilities where usage data is being used to produce recommendations where AI could automate roles, aka O365 is going to be telling HR which jobs it thinks it could eliminate! It's going to be a supercharged version of the productivity monitoring of the past, and I'm sure there will be some trip ups along the way. "According to CoPilot you've been doing nothing all day" ... "But I've been slaving away all hours, using this non-Microsoft application!". There will no doubt be some interesting test cases of contract law if or rather when AI accuses you of being a lazy bugger!

UK government overrules local council’s datacenter refusal on Green Belt land

Why not brownfield?

I do not understand why these cannot be built on brownfield industrial sites? These are likely to have the road infrastructure for construction traffic, will have decent power sources even if an upgrade may be required, will be suitably distanced from residential areas, need the jobs, and it probably doesn't matter if there is historical ground pollution if a large concrete platform will be stuck on it. Sticking them on actual green land close to London against locals wishes seems short-sighted, unnecessary and greedy - tell me there's not a suitable derelect site in, for example, the Tottenham / Lea Valley corridor that could be repurposed?

Datacenters near Heathrow seemingly stay up as substation fire closes airport

Re: Questions will doubtless be asked

Kudos to the wag that has flagged the substation as "Temporarily Closed" on Google Maps!

UK electrical utility seeks partner for £81M SAP overhaul as support deadline closes in

Re: Experiment

There's a good Freakonomics episode on why infrastructure projects always go horribly wrong / over budget. In summary the best guide as to how a project will go is how previous projects went. I wonder how NIE's ECC deployment project went 25 years ago. Anything in TheReg's archives?

SAP user group calls for support deadline reprieve amid hospital billing worries

Balance of power

It seems to me that the balance of power between SAP and their customers is in the wrong place. SAP kindly agreed to let their customers continue to use their software?! I suppose this is what happens when a market is broken in terms of there not being many enterprise-credible alternatives. There have been several articles on here lately about the "powerful" German SAP user group being upset about the direction in terms of forcing S/4 and cloud, but I haven't seen SAP change direction in the slightest... I guess that recurring cloudy revenue stream is just too compelling?

Switch and router sales surge, with 200/400 gigabit Ethernet kit growing fastest

Re: A glitch in the matrix

I struggle to see how this growth can be possible when it's so hard to source any kit!

Braking news: Cops slammed for spamming Waze to slow drivers down

Re: I think Waze should .....

Unless others are treating the app like you and feeding it false information.

End of the road for biz living off free G Suite legacy edition

As someone affected by this....

The issue is not the move from free to chargeable - I think the consensus on the forums was that this had been a good thing for a while but no one was surprised they reneged on their original stated promise (free forever - or rather the price is mining your data...) but the issue was the cost proposed was pretty significant, especially for non-commercial usage. I forget the exact numbers but with a family bigger than 3-4 people involved it was ending up significantly more than a similar O365 package. Also worth noting that I suspect the majority of affected users are really just Gmail users with a vanity domain, they're not taking advantage of whatever wonderful features the wider Workspace suite provides.

Intel demands $625m in interest from Europe on overturned antitrust fine

Re: Anti-Competitive or just stupid competitors

You're saying they just connect HAND to SHOULDER?

US must adopt USB-C charging standard like EU, senators urge

Re: USB-C connectors suck

Slightly O/T but I never fail to be slightly excited when I plug in my Samsung phones into a USB dock to charge and the whole rig fires up with a full desktop experience... who needs laptops :)

Testing for COVID with the sound of a cough? There’s an app for that

Re: tested on only 14 asymptomatic patients

That line made me laugh... app that works by analysing symptoms is never going to do well in cases where there are no symptoms!

Only 29% of techies truly want to stay in current job

Re: I'm thinking about a lot more than this

That's what bothers me about the pro-office arguments around human social contact and keeping city coffee shops open - being based at home now I'm interacting far more in my local community and using local shops, and in the long run this is bound to lead to a more balanced economy even if at the short term expense of a few sandwich shops in the big cities.

LG promises to make home appliance software upgradeable to take on new tasks

What I need to know is will this allow me to interrupt the washing machine cycle without having to stand like a lemon for several minutes with the one sock I forgot to put in until the software nanny decides it's safe to unlock the door?! If it doesn't, it's no use to me!

Google sours on legacy G Suite freeloaders, demands fee or flee

Google Home

Of course another unintended consequence the beancounters won't have modelled is that this will hit Google Home device investments, although to be honest the Home / Nest integration with GSuite services has always been a bit hit and miss. I was starting to hand out Google Displays to extended family to share photos from Google Photos but I will now look for another way to accomplish that.

I haven't been proactively notified either but go into the admin dashboard, subscriptions, there's a strapline saying something like "consider upgrading to premium" - click on "Learn more" and it will tell you that there's no "consider" about it...

Spot on, this is going to create a load of work for relatively technical users who are more likely to work in IT, and I suspect the bad blood and damage to trust will mean many consequential recommendations to drop Google Workplace in corporate environments.

Ransomware-hit law firm gets court order asking crooks not to publish the data they stole

It could strengthen protection rom future potential use of the leaked data by third parties within the UK and territories with aligned legal data laws?

NHS-backed org reacted to GitHub leak disclosure with legal threats and police call, complains IT pro

I get the impression (just from what's in the story) he held on to the copy temporarily in case they simply denied it happened and accused him of making it all up.

Cisco predicts sunlit uplands after COVID-19. For now, though, sales are flat

"revenue from software sold as subscriptions and/or cloud services continued to grow to pleasing proportions of all sales."

Well that's easy to explain - they've simply removed perpetual licences for most products!

Smart fridges are cool, but after a few short years you could be stuck with a big frosty brick in the kitchen

Broker services?

I don't think we can stem the tide of "smart" devices but these examples of obsolescence make the case for:

(a) requiring that devices are engineered so the the smart aspects fail 'cleanly' when they lose their central coordination - for example the smart fridge displaying some nice art or being able to switch off the screen completely rather than to have to live with certificate errors or code dumps etc..

(b) requiring that smart devices can be re-pointed to alternative services - perhaps a market will grow for subscription-based central services - after all the reason these things are being wound up after a few years is they cost money and are being offered out free aside from the initial capex, right?

(c) perhaps requiring that devices talk via subscription broker services to make it easier to do (b) - would also probably help with interop where sensible.

Not a Genius move after all: Apple must cough up $$$ in back pay for store staff forced to wait for bag searches

Re: Court

If you look carefully at what is said by company spokespeople they will often stand outside the court and say they are "planning to appeal" the unfavourable judgement. I suspect a lot of these cases then never go any further after they consult lawyers. In the UK you can't appeal against a judgement just because you don't like it, you have to show that there was an error in law or some critical new evidence wasn't before the original court. As I'm not a lawyer I don't know how often that happens but suspect it is a small minority of cases. Even then the appeal court will often just push the case back to the same level court to re-hear the case with the new evidence or with the correct law.

Re: In a recent announcement

Could be the grammar police!

BBC said it'll pull radio streams from TuneIn to slurp more of your data but nobody noticed till Amazon put its foot in it

Re: No.

On the same logic surely they should be switching off FM and DAB broadcasts as they aren't getting any data back?! Actually I shouldn't speak too soon...

Plot twist: Google's not spying on King's Cross with facial recognition tech, but its landlord is

Not central to the article, but AFAIK most larger companies or office buildings have their own postcode in London.

We checked and yup, it's no longer 2001. And yet you can pwn a Windows box via Notepad.exe

I thought the main purpose of notepad was to remove unwanted text formatting before pasting back into the 'smarter' application you are struggling with?!

Look at me. Look at me. I'm the El Capitan now: Cray to build US govt's $600m cray-cray exascale nuke app super

Which grump voted this down?! Have an up for knowledge and enthusiasm :)

UK watchdog slaps 'misleading' Voda ad: Gigafast... maybe so – but not for £23

Re: Seems to contradict the recent CityFibre judgement?

Fair points.. and is that high horse "CanterFast" or "GallopFast" capable?! :)

Seems to contradict the recent CityFibre judgement?

So punters can cope with "Fibre" in the name meaning faster broadband even if there's no fibre, but can't cope with "Giga" meaning even faster, even if it's not gigabit?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/15/asa_cityfibre_fibre_broadband_judicial_review/

Chemical burns, explosive fires, they all come free with Amazon power packs

Re: Made in China

Spot on - the algorithms currently suggest caring about quality is not profitable!

Beware VMware! Nutanix sprays all over Virtzilla's networking territory

Nutanix PR

Is someone on the Reg newsdesk mates with the Nutanix PR or are they buying the Vulture the requisite quantity of ale?! They seem to get a lot of "press-release-as-news" coverage here!

As you stare at the dead British Airways website, remember the hundreds of tech staff it laid off

Those who forget the past...

Looks like it's down again, receiving MSM coverage too, ba.com shows a 404 and according to the reports operations are affected, planes not leaving etc. Bank holiday weekend DB upgrade perchance?

Exploding femtocells: No need for a full recall, says Vodafone

It was me quoted, definitely not an EMP cannon although it did not feel like the "safe failure" that the CEO claims I experienced!

Doesn't work on corporate tariffs because <this is what we've been told by our account team> Vodagroan haven't worked out how to charge for the service on the corporate billing engine yet. Ignoring the point that you would only be using Wifi calling when their own network is insufficient in the first place.

GoDaddy DNS has gone diddy

Something on the mend..

Spam has started trickling through on one of my affected domains so maybe they're getting somewhere. Twitter and GD service status page are finally acknowledging the issue... maybe that's the only progress so far!

There are some really crap budget phones out there. Vodafone's Smart Ultra 7 isn't

These phones are excellent value if you're already on the network and don't want the hassle / worry of buying direct from China etc. They will be locked to Voda.

OnePlus One equals 'killer' new mobe running CyanogenMod

3G frequency support

If you're going to buy one of these watch out for the 3G frequency support - most phones from China use 850Mhz vs some of the UK operators like Voda use 900Mhz. Quick web search brings up plenty more information on this issue.

Galaxy S4 radiant, but has black holes

Re: FFS, when will they "get it"?

@TeeCee that is the perfect solution. Honestly I read this review thinking that it's a shame that I just won't even consider what is obviously a nice bit of tin because of the Samsung crapware that gets loaded on (and I can't be doing with the faff of rooting and applying custom roms). I hope someone in Samsung is getting this feedback - "Wake up! You are actually losing customers because of this"!

Inside the BBC's R&D Labs

Good work

When you think of the amount of money squandered on rubbish "prime time" shows and overpaid star presenters to compete with commercial TV on a Saturday evening, it's only things like this that restore my confidence in the Beeb. Up the funding I say!

Ice Cream Sandwich phone a no-show on Vodafone

Network problems..

..on Vodafone? That doesn't sound familiar at all! Maybe it's not the new handset, maybe it's their creaking shoddy network, have they considered this? Don't try to test data on the handset between 4pm and 7pm around King's Cross, you might get connectivity, but there will be ZERO THROUGHPUT!

And lol at all the comments above, why oh why do Vodafone feel the need to frig about with the stock build - anyone who has a modicum of techie in them will just then have to go to the hassle of reverting anyway - who wants to wait a year for each Google update rollup just so Vodafone can "evaluate" it - can they demonstrate one single time ever when this has been beneficial for customers?

NASA releases stunning new moon-landing snaps

Tracks from delivery bikes?

Domino's Pizzeria must be just off-camera?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/pizza_chain_plans_restaurant_on_the_moon/

Boris-Bike firm penalised by £5m over system hiccups

About time..

Love the scheme, try to use it every day subject to a bike being available at King's Cross at about 08:30 (answer if sunny = no, if rainy or cold = yes), but the implementation has been poor - as just a regular user I have repeatedly suffered ghost journeys, random charges on my accounts, dock consoles always crashing, entire docks malfunctioning repeatedly, and the latest I've noticed is the on-site staff during rush hours are slowly being withdrawn earlier and earlier in the evening leaving full docks, clearly just a cost-cutting measure. As I thought the scheme was modelled on Montreal I would have thought most of this would have been avoided. If this is largely Serco's responsibility then they are right to withhold payments.

Transport for London gobbles up Oyster

So does this mean...

..the squabbling between National Rail and TFL about the cut of the revenue will finally end such that we will be able to use Oystercard everywhere?

Call me a cynic... but I suspect not.

LINX failure slows UK net traffic

Eh?

"LINX acts as a main peering point for UK ISPs, allowing them to exchange traffic directly, which is cheaper than sending it over the public internet."

I'm no network person, but surely ISPs peering *is* the public internet??

Microsoft apes Spotify with ad-stuffed tune streaming

Ads every half an hour?

Me smells someone who hasn't used Spotify for a while...

"Hi, this is Robert from Spotify

Hi, this is Ro...

Hi, this is R

Hi

Hi.."

Doro PhoneEasy 338gsm

Excellent albeit pricy

Great idea, and this would have been perfect for my Grandfather (RIP) who used to struggle even with a basic Nokia. I remember when my Grandmother had had a mobile for several months, she rang us (on landline) to complain that it didn't seem to work any more. Have you charged it, we asked? What do you mean 'charge"?, she replied! That's low usage for you, eh?!

Google sued for 'stealing' Android name

Madness

The patent troll guy (and that's precisely what he is) seems to have trademarked "Android Data" not "Android".. does this mean that any component of trademarks is also restricted? Gillette have "The Best a Man Can Get".. no more using "Best" for any shaving gear anyone else?? Ridiculous...