Posts by Dan Harris

Zen loses its chill: UK biz ISP falls offline for four hours and counting

Not BT apparently ...

But then they are being uncharacteristically cagey (not).

Virgin Media goes TITSUP* in South London due to painful piles

Astonishingly its back down after a few days of service, and they are predicting it will be down until Friday!

Re: You may want to aim a bit higher than the CEO, if you want it stopped.

No you mean Michael Fries, CEO of Liberty Global who own Virgin Media ...

Still Down 5 days later ...

Anecdotal reports suggest bits of their network are coming back online, but I appear to be in the unlucky camp ... no sign of any connectivity and my 4G hotspot has taken an expensive caning ... doubt VM will be recompensing me.

Women in IT: ‘If you want to be taken seriously, dress like a man’

Never ever had a female applicant for a job at my firm (I'm the MD), and often bemoan the fact as I suspect our team would be substantially improved by a great female team player, 90% of our work is customer service, not IT, and anyone who is willing to put their mind to it can do an excellent job.

3 Brits banged up for £300k VAT scam

3 out of 1000's

HMRC have no idea of the scale of this type of fraud - we see evidence of it regularly.

Apple is granted a patent on the rectangle. No, really

Re: Should be interesting (@Destroy All Monsters)

'Contrary to established manners' .... ie BAD MANNERS - brilliant band of the 80's!

Or were you just talking bollocks?

Dr No, Thunderball, Casino Royale? Vote now for the best Bond film

Skyfall

isn't an option?

I'm not sure I'd have picked it, although its certainly in my top 10 bond films of all time, but its' not going to get much of a look in when its not an option!

VeriFone takes on Square with cheaper iPhone-friendly kit

Chip n Pin?

It doesn't do Chip n Pin - surely thats a FAIL?

EMV is being pushed in the States and is supposed to be rolled out from April 13 I think I read somewhere else.

Visa shows off data centre 'moat'

Shhhhhhh

Obviously this is very secret - it wasn't reported in October last year by another journal as being

http://bit.ly/HcJUv5

El Reg - Fail

Dell flashes enhanced 12G racks of PowerEdge gear

But nowhere is the real number

What is the real current draw on these servers?

Apple Thunderbolt Display 27in monitor

I've had one for about a month

And love it ... but there is a glaring omission not noted here. I use it with my core i7 Macbook Air, and just wish it had a DVD drive as well.

UK broadband speeds crippled during 'rush hour'

Shock News - The Pope is a Catholic!

Uhh ... hello? Its called Contention. If you want an uncontended service, pay for it.

Natwest net and phone banking goes titsup

Government IT

Still down - and there was me going to transfer some money from one state organisation (Natwest) to another state organisation (HMRC) ... presumably I can reclaim the interest of the corp tax I couldn't pay today.

Apple Mac Mini 2011

If last year was a let-down ...

this is the death of the Mac Mini.

Lights go out at Telecity in London data outage

Not all of Telecity

In fact, not much really ... 2 floors at 6/7 Harbour Exchange apparently.

Meridian Gate, Sovereign House, 8/9 Harbour Exchange, Bonnington House, Prospect House, Olivers Yard, PowerGate ... now if that whole lot went down :-)

BTW - I am no apologists for the Telecity Group - I think they are money grabbing so and so's!

Apple Square sallies forth from stores

Totally useless for Chip 'n' Pin

Because it swipes the magnetic stripe the tech is totally useless anywhere that Chip n Pin is the standard ... the business model is therefore stalled.

Apple MacBook Pro 15in

Shiney plastic magsafe connector?

Not on my i7 15" - its a brushed aluminium connector and very easy to detach. Its actually a bit fiddly to attach as it doesn't orientate itself to the magsafe port as well as the old plastic design.

Orange to slash price of top iPhone plan

Includes Visual Voicemail?

I doubt it as Orange don't support Visual Voicemail, much to my chargrin.

Dell bars Win 7 refunds from Linux lovers

Surely Dell miss the point

If I buy the system from Dell with the OS pre-installed, and then when reading the Licence Agreement decide that I do not want be bound by the terms and reject the license agreement I am not rejecting the entire machine. Therefore you return the license to the retailer for a refund, not the whole machine.

O2 unveils small biz landline to mobile link

Don't get it

The first mobile operator? Definitely not the first operator to offer a call diversion facility!

We have the same system, and our 0207 number costs 99p a month, the calls when diverted to our (O2 & Vodafone) mobile phone group cost 12p a minute.

Hacked flight sim site in catastrophic crash and burn

Having met the poor unfortunate chap

All I can say is 'it couldn't have happened to a Nicer Guy'.

Olympic cock-up knocks East London off Internet

It is not just a fibre cable

BT state :-

"A large thrust borer being used by a third party construction contractor on work not related to BT‚s business penetrated one of our deep level tunnels in that area. The thrust borer has completely penetrated the tunnel and has caused material damage to both the copper and fibre cables in the tunnel.

BT engineers are working around the clock to restore service as soon as possible.

More than 70,000 PSTN customers were initially affected, though almost half of these have now been restored. Several thousand broadband lines, a large number of private circuits and Featurenet services have been impacted. Emergency and Police services were also affected but these services have been restored.

The tunnel is so badly damaged that it is not possible to work there pending structural support work and it is likely to be three days or more before that work can be completed and damage repair work undertaken. "

Chicago Bears fan hit for thirty grand for a bit of Slingbox

Has he made a profit

"and AT&T has credited Wayne with $27,776.66"

I think not - they may have issued a credit note but that's simply them fixing their internal accounts. He was never going to have to pay it

Why the IWF was right to ban a Wikipedia page

i couldn't agree more with most of your comments

Mr Robertson has been thoroughly lambasted for an ill considered and incomplete article based on his perverse view of a twisted world. I don't suppose we'll see a humiliating retraction like that of the IWF.

Maybe El Reg might reconsider syndicating such utter crap in the future!

Apple takes wraps off rumour-matching MacBook Pros

Significantly unimpressed

Where are the quad core chipsets? Still 2 USB ports where there could have been 4, and no HDMI compatibility - won't be hooking one up to my TV then to watch the occasional movie.

Don't like the look of the photo's either ... very disappointing really. The only upside is I was irritated that I had (beer / mac interface problem) to get a new MBP last month ... I'd been waiting for these - but am pleased I didn't wait.

MoD prays RAF disk thieves aren't data savvy

A5 size hard drives

Is this a new standard that is just a bit bigger than 3.5" Hard Drives?