Posts by Anthony Hegedus

BT blames 'faulty router' for mega outage. Did they try turning it off and on again?

Re: 'Faulty Router'

BT "Hubs" are an abomination. They aren't fit for any purpose.

Cloud growth? Take a number, Microsoft. Two engines have stalled

Re: Two engines have stalled....

"Eventually enough people will use Linux in their private lives to become confident and Windows will eventually die in corporate environments."

- people are using Linux in their private lives - Android and iOS are linux derivates (or, well, Unix).

The OS is going to be irrelevant for most people. For most people, most of the time, all you need is access to documents you're working on, email, and web pages. And for that, the licence-checking-engine with bolted on operating system known as Windows isn't really necessary.

Brit censors endure 10-hour Paint Drying movie epic

Is it a "found footage" zom-rom-com mockumentary-style dramedy?

Folk shun UK.gov's 'expensive' subsidised satellite broadband

Re: Satellite Broadband?

So why did you write 10 Gb/s? It's 10Mb/s

Re: Satellite Broadband?

"I get 10 Gb/s on my fixed wireless connection* and 20 Gb/s on my 3G connection. Why is the latter "never broadband either"?"

Are you from a different planet?

Re: Satellite Broadband?

You'd be surprised how good 4G is. Latency can be 30-40ms on a good day. Satellite broadband has terrible latency or at least 500ms, usually almost double that.

BT dismisses MPs' calls to snap off Openreach as 'wrong-headed'

The real problem is that BT are still selling service over an ageing and outdated infrastructure. It's a 21st century necessity run over 19th century technology (copper cable).

Part of the problem is that most people probably think they have fibre. The BT "home hub" (a sort of crippled router) even has a socket marked "Fibre". The ads say "fibre". Everywhere, it's "fibre-enabled". Except it isn't. It's copper. But both BT and Virgin, continue, disingenuously in my view, to advertise their fastest offerings as Fibre, and as long as they do that, people won't realise that what they've got is a bodge. A bodge to make fast internet work over an increasingly tired old infrastructure.

In France, there is not FTTC, it's either ADSL or Fibre. Rather than investing money in the dead-end VDSL/FTTC, they're investing in real Fibre to the Premises.

But then BT and BT OpenRetch never could get it right.

BTC dev: 'Strangling' the blockchain will kill Bitcoin

Re: Bit bollocks more like

That was probably a bad example. Downloading illegal movies isn't that hard

Re: Bit bollocks more like

We started from scratch. We didn't have any account or wallet anywhere. We had no prior knowledge of how bit coin worked. It was just not clear. We couldn't work out where to buy bit coins from, at least quickly. It wasn't simple

Bit bollocks more like

Forget this technical and political crap around bitcoin. Even forget that its primary purpose is for crypto-locker type scam money-collecting. The main problem with Bitcoin is the sheer impenetrability of the whole thing.

I work in IT. I sat down with a colleague and tried to work out how to pay for something in Bitcoins. It's the most fiendishly complicated way of paying for anything that I've ever seen. It's completely obfuscated. For it to become useful, it has to become mainstream. Where's the software? Where's a definitive guide? It seems roughly as fiddly as trying to download illegal movies, and gives you the impression that you're doing something half-baked and half-legal. It left a foul taste in our mouths and I can't see how the developers of this thing ever though it could go mainstream the way it is now.

I DO see the benefits, but the implementation is complete toss

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

Re: Bah! MegaHertz are for chumps!

I think mean mean 1 microhertz?

Florida cuffee surprised by pills in vagina

Easy mistake to make. She probably keeps a spare set of house keys in a small cavity between her liver and her pancreas.

Trump's new thought bubble: Make Apple manufacture in the USA

One wonders how hitler got into power, with his ridiculous rhetoric and oppressive policies. Well, it started a little like this...

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

I once saw a Tiny brand PC that had been running for nearly six months without having a capacitor burst on the motherboard. Rare and unbelievable, I know.

After-dinner Mint? Stylish desktop finale released as last of the 17 line

Re: Another highly satisfied Mint user here...

I installed Mint on an old computer and it's really rather good. All I had to do was put in a better video card so I could watch bbc iplayer, and an SSD so it would work fast enough. All my work is done in Google Drive/docs and it works perfectly fine on my linux box. Leads me to wonder what the point of differentiating between windows/mac/linux is any more. Having said that, there are a few things. We have data recovery software that'll only work on Windows, we have disk cloning software that works better in windows. Umm. Errm. That's about it. For email and document editing, Linux works every time. Perfectly.

Re: Exactly what an operating system should be (IMO)

"Dodgy mangled mess of spyware"? That's disingenuous to say the least. It's a fucking huge crock of steaming horseshit software that's not so much designed as congealed.

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

The thing is, I *like* windows 10 (much as I *like* not having to use windows xp) but that's not the point. Windows 10 is, in and of itself, more or less OK (apart from the usual microsoft crashes), BUT... it's the upgrade procedure that doesn't work. We've upgraded several machines and found problems in at least 50% of cases:

- old versions of Sage don't work

- search bar doesn't work

- control panel doesn't start

- Outlook doesn't work (come on MS, seriously?)

- "previous versions" which worked in win 7, doesn't work in win 10

Most of these are fixable, but when people realise that a) they might have any or all of the above problems (which are fixable, but again, that's beside the point) and b) it might take a couple of hours to do

It's totally disingenuous to make people upgrade to something when chances are it'll cause them problems. Perhaps if Microsoft actually wrote software than worked for a change, it would be OK. But seriously, I am so pissed off with everything from microsoft either being shrouded in unfathomable rules or just plain not working.

Take outlook 2013 and 2016. They don't work with IMAP accounts. They *look* like they will, but they don't sync all the folders all of the time on some installations.

The whole thing is abusive. I hope microsoft flounder this year too, like many other posters on here

Lovelace at 200: Celebrating the High Priestess to Babbage's machines

Re: She is an icon all right

Well yes, you have a point. What Lovelace did was way ahead of her time, but sadly forgotten, and was not used as the basis for other work. Without her, the field of computer science would be no better or worse off. Which is a shame. It doesn't take away from her her genius though. Nor does her vagina, or associated parts.

Aroused Lycra-clad cyclist prompts Manchester cop dragnet

it's a question of degree

I actually own a penis, and I can tell you that when I was younger, spontaneous tumescence was occasionally a problem. It didn't need a reason, if it wanted to, it would. Now that I'm nearly 50, thankfully those days are but a limp memory.

Don't the Manchester police force have any penis-owners who can testify that that's how they work: They get big. The go small. They go big again. Totally normal. No need to investigate.

Watch out, er, 'oven cleaners': ICO plans nuisance call crackdown in 2016

Re: Combi boilers...

No, it's not possible.

accidents

Accidents - yes, I wind them up. A few years ago, I had several calls from indian call centres, and I fed them a lot of useless information, such as:

Name: Adolf Eichmann

Address: 12 Tampon Road

One day they called me to discuss an "accident" and I recorded the whole conversation and put most of it up on youtube, along with subtitles. I led them along with my "decapitation injury".

That's how you waste their time, and have some fun doing it.

Here's the link: https://youtu.be/UakaSdXk8ZI

Free Wi-Fi for the NHS, promises health secretary Jeremy Hunt

My phone seems to be able to browse the internet perfectly well without wifi, Unless I'm in a basement.

In-flight 3G arrives, promises aerial internet at mobile roaming prices

I flew from London to LAX and back, and paid about US$20 for unlimited wifi the whole flight. Yes, ping times were awful, and streaming didn't work, But web browsing and facebook chat worked fine, and it was a damn sight more fun talking to my friends, doing some work and reading the register etc than watching a movie on a tiny screen.

My tablet was on and connected the whole time, except when we went through a few air pockets.

Now I seriously doubt that "roaming" onto their 3G network is going to be cheaper.

Man faces 37 years for sarcastic post insulting royal dog

Re: a Neal Stephenson novel

We have not improved much, no. It is often heard said that our distant forebears were just as clever as we are. I suggest that that statement needs turning around: We are just as fucking stupid as we were when we lived in caves.

Kids' TV show Rainbow in homosexual agenda shocker

Re: Sentenced to zippy.

Is that the same classification system that classified dolphins and squirrels as "grey animals", making the squirrel essentially just a dolphin with a bushy tail?

Or perhaps foxes and squirrels are both "bushy tailed animals"?

It's no more stupid than believing that a supernatural being did all those goddy things he's supposed to have done. This, from the same species that believes in astrology.

Mozilla: Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Thunderbirds are – gone

Re: Escape from Lemming Mode

Not been to impressed with emclient. It looks good, it smells good, but behaves buggily.

There's a new version out "soon" (v7).

We nearly lost a customer because emclient didn't behave like they liked. Partly that was due to customer stupidity. They wanted it to look and work just like outlook/exchange did but they had decided to get rid of their exchange 2003 server, so are now on IMAP. There were other factors too.

Having said that we have customers who absolutely love emclient.

And we have customers who won't touch tbird because "it's unfriendly" or some such shit

Ofcom spins out Wi-Fi checker app just in time for Christmas

Idiotic policies

3Mbps is NOT enough for a business to run properly, unless it's just one or two people. We support businesses who just can't get higher than 3 or so Mbps. No point in going for satellite, it's shit, we've tried it. No 4G signal either. So it's either pay £600 a month for a leased line or move office. Yes, for digital "inclusion", 3 megabits is fine, as long as it just involves ordering stuff on Amazon and doing your tax return. But 10mbps would seem to me to be the minimum required to even be able to do what most people do, and actually feel "included". I mean fuck it, a 28kbps modem would be enough to get the odd email and visit government websites, if you have all morning.

The fact is that every solution we seem to have is just a kludge. ADSL is a kludge to get fast bandwidth on a crappy copper wire. FTTC or "fibre" as the broadband providers disingenuously refer to it, is a kludge too. And virgin's "fibre" (which isn't fibre either) is just a better copper wire, only available to half the country.

Everyone knows the best technological solution is fibre to the premises. But that costs too much. About as much as taking 12 more years to build a high speed rail link they'll shave a life-changing 45 minutes off a journey from some northern town to some southern town.

And I know which one would bring the most benefit. Clue: it isn't a sodding train

Yahoo! Mail! is! still! a! thing!, tries! blocking! Adblock! users!

Re: It's not about spam, it's about /security/

You said Bing

isn't that about the same level of relevance as yahoo?

Ransomware-as-a-service surfaces, wants 10 percent profit cut

Re: Oh, THAT kind of ransomware

I fucking hate microsoft

One Bitcoin or lose your data, hacked Linux sysadmins told

Re: Well,

Bitcoins are the most fiendishly complex way of paying for anything the world has ever witnessed. You may as well have 8 Ningis to one Pu, where a Pu is a triangular rubber coin 6800 miles across.

I don't understand why this currency has any value whatsoever: it seems to be mainly used for scamming.

Let's get to the bottom of in-app purchases that go titsup

" it [SCART] must be the only connector capable of gradually expelling its own plug" - brilliant!

You can tell it's French. Only the french could design a connector system that causes the plugs to literally fall to bits, and whose inherent design means that the plugs pop out all the time. It will not go down in history as a good design, but having said that, it was a bloody good idea.

Re: great Article

When I want to watch a movie, I need to check first on Amazon Prime, then Sky Movies, then check it's not on netflix, then see if it's on Amazon for rental. Sometime you can only buy the movie outright (£10-15), sometimes it's £3.49 or £4.49 but a quid off for not watching it in HD. Sometimes it's less. Sometimes it's free.

Then my son told me about Putlocker. I just choose the movie, and if it's available, I watch it on my iphone, which can mirror to my amazon tv stick with an app on the stick for Apple's "airplay" service.

And Putlocker costs £0.

Yes it's illegal, and I don't mind paying for movies (I already pay for sky, netflix, amazon etc anyway) but I do mind the inconvenience. I'll go for the path of least resistance, and if that means paying £3.49 for a movie rental, then I will. But if it means "stealing" a film using this putlocker thing, then I'll just do that. The film company won't get my money, because "you snooze you lose". If they had the movies I wanted when I wanted them, I'd pay.

Having said that, I've only ever watched one movie on putlocker and I didn't even like it that much.

I think I'll cancel my sky movies though. Waste of money.

Re: Old TVs

I remember that whine. Being 48 years old, such a beautiful sound will never pass my ears again. That, and the fact that I don't know where I'd find an old TV

Re: Sacrebleu

Americans pronounce "note dame" as "no-terr dayme"

Here's how TalkTalk ducked and dived over THAT gigantic hack

Re: Why Is Dido Harding Still in a Job?

That dildo woman should resign. She is a deceitful lying woman who is clearly not in proper control. Talktalk should "do right" by their customers by letting them leave. And she should get rid of the indian call centres.

fuck this makes me angry!

"No banking details have been taken that you wouldn't already be sharing when you write a cheque or give to someone so they can pay money into your account."

A few years ago, we rather foolishly left our account details on our website for people to pay us, and we had a dozen or so direct debits set up through our account. Scammers can use these details to order services, sell them to their marks, and then run off with the cash, whilst the mark realises a few days later that the service was never paid for.

No checks are done when setting up direct debits.

Hacked TalkTalk CEO: Dead as a Dido? Nope, she refuses to quit

She has to resign. She's a liar and a cheat. If she had said she'll release customers from their stupid contracts, then that would have redeemed her, but she has NO CLUE what she is talking about. The whole company only works because of their damned indian call centres, and if she ever thought of actually offering any customer service, they would lose money. I've lost track of the countless hours I've wasted dealing with that company's total lack of professionalism, total incompetency and disingenuous lies.

TalkTalk downplays extent of breach damage, gives extra details

She's not telling the truth

The truth is that the bank account details CAN easily be used by criminals; they just sell things like insurance policies from reputable companies to punters in a pub, at ultra cheap prices. The crims use the stolen bank account details to set up the direct debit, the insurance company sends out the policy to the unsuspecting punter, the punter pays the crims, and the crims run away and hide. A few days later the insurance company realise it's a fraud and cancel the agreement.

And the names and emails and phone numbers can be easily used to call up the customer and convince them that they're calling from talktalk. And because they're indian call centres, the customer won't suspect a thing - they sound just like talktalk's real call centres.

Now what talk talk should do is let ANYONE leave them without contract penalties and they should start to wind up their indian call centres. No less than that.

Why was the modem down? Let us count the ways. And phone lines

Re: Luxury

Don't knock it. In 1982 or so I had a Jupiter Ace Forth-based "computer". Actually it was a very clever design put in a cheap plastic case with the usual dead-flesh keys of the 80s, before we found ways of making keyboards for a quid. But I digress.

I wrote a program that allowed me to whistle morse code from across the room, and convert it to text on the fly. My mates were extremely impressed, because nobody had seen anything like that before. I had never even seen a modem, not that I'd have known what to do with it anyway.

Microsoft's 'Arrow' Android launcher flies into Play store

I hate anything from Microsoft but I'm willing to give them a chance

So it's a bit simplistic but hey, maybe I want simplistic. I'll give it a try and see how it goes. So far, it seems not to have crashed or blue screened or anything, which makes a change for my favourite junk software company. So far the only bug I've found is it won't work with my favourite texting app

We suck? No, James Dyson. It is you who suck – Bosch and Siemens

HUH?

Who gives a toss? It's a fucking hoover. You buy it because it looks nice, it sucks, and it costs an amount that is less than your ability to pay. Is anybody really going to choose Bosch because it has AAAA rating whilst Dyson may not? I mean for fucks sake does it make any difference? The sort of people who can afford Bosch or Dyson are the sort of people for whom saving less than a quid a year on electricity is probably not important

TalkTalk attack: UK digi minister recommends security badges for websites

I once left talktalk (home) supposedly out of contract (I just left my contract after some annoying indian chap at wankwank phoned me and promised me lower phone bills and they ended up being double!), When their "solicitors" phoned me I told them I will not pay them a penny under any circumstances ever, because they broke the contract. I never heard from them again after that (about 5 years ago).

More recently my company cancelled 50 broadband lines with them because of their incompetence, and they kept chasing us for money. They gave up after a couple of years.

They are just an incredibly incompetent bunch of crooks. I wouldn't trust that dildo woman to pour piss our of a boot with the instructions written on the heel. She would graciously allow some people to break their contracts?!? Fuck that, people should leave in droves. They won't be able to cope!

well obviously, you can't put the kitemark on your site unless you've got the correct certifications. Malware website designers will be trembling at this news - there's no way they'll get the kitemark so nobody will go to their websites. Problem solved. Why hasn't this been done before?

In other news, only genuine goods are allowed to have the word "genuine" on them, and only non-burglars are allowed to wear non-black-and-white-striped tops.

TalkTalk: Hackers may have nicked personal, banking info on 4 million Brits

Re: Extract of email sent to TalkTalk 26.8.15

Yes, somewhere in an organisation which uses indian call centres, there's someone who steals information. Really? No shit. Talktalk, you need to close down your call centres, you bunch of tossers!

This probably sums it up http://newsthump.com/2015/10/23/talktalk-customers-to-learn-about-hack-next-time-they-manage-to-get-on-internet/

wankwank

We should never be outsourcing customer support to foreign nations where the call centre droids probably work as scammers in the evenings. Because greed.

Don't tell me that some of this wasn't an inside job.

When you say their pop/iap has not been working correctly, I take it you mean it suddenly starts delivering mail within a minute of it being received, or some such weirdness?

Talktalk certainly scammed us when we re-sold their business broadband.... nothing wrong with the broadband itself but their billing systems were so crap as to defy belief.

Reclothed BlackBerry Passport launched as Silver Edition

I don't doubt that the BB10 is sophisticated, but... 35 years ahead of anyone? Really? How do you come to that figure? And the only smartphone running a real time operating system... what's a "real time OS" if it isn't the kind of OS that's installed on Android and Apple phones, and even Microsoft phones?

Don't get me wrong, I've had a little play with the Passport and I like it. It's the right shape and size (even if it looks odd) and the UI, though unusual, was quick to learn (unlike Microsoft's windows 8 on a phone thing, which I found hard to get used to). The UI on BB10 was very responsive and seemed to be geared to actually getting things done. But the real dealbreaker for me was that I couldn't get google apps to work. I want to be able to edit google docs in real time like I can on android/ios. And the selection of apps is relatively poor. It reminded me of the older blackberries. Plenty of really obscure, badly designed and pointless apps. I know that it's supposed to run android apps. I believe google docs is an android app and it was nowhere to be found.

I would actually buy and android version of the passport

IoT's sub-GHz 802.11ah Wi-Fi will be dead on arrival, warn analysts

Re: But.. but..

From the species that gave us the wifi kettle, controlling your mood lighting from anywhere except the fucking lightswitch seems eminently sensible

Twitter reduces BBC hacks to tears with redundancy notice

What does twitter do exactly? who do they make money from? I have looked at my tweet thingy on my iphone and I just see a load of bollocks that means nothing to me. None of it looks like an advert. I don't recall paying for twitter. How exactly is their company actually worth anything?