Posts by Craig "Spuddleziz" Smith

Powershell Terminals

Re: NT kernel supports multiple OS flavors

I really don't want to start the whole Windows 10 debate but I do use it.

I used SUA and Cygwin a lot. Today SUA lives on in Windows 10 as Ubuntu on Windows. I then use MobaXterm (awesome tool) to access it. I don't actually really need it as I run Windows on KVM with GPU pass through alongside OS X (macOS, no thanks) on an Ubuntu host. I mostly use it if I'm doing windows development and dont want to resort to an SMB or NFS share for the code in order to work with it in Linux.

SUA was also the basis for allowing Windows Phone 10 to run Android Apps as it provided a subsystem for Android with certain calls to Google services replaced with the M$ equivalent. It was actually pretty quick (on my Lumia 640 no less) but was a battery hog and they changed their mind and dropped it in favour for the conversion tools we are seeing in Visual Studio now.

I should add that MboaXterm also comes with a bundled Cygwin instance and X Server. Definitely worth a look but not the prettiest application in the world. Compact mode recommended!

Snowden is FREE to ESCAPE FROM RUSSIA, say officials

In the words...

..of the late George Carlin

"They mention it's a nonstop flight. Well I don't care for that sort of thing. Call me old fashioned, but I insist my flight stop. Preferably at an airport."

Near miss is another one, dear old George also points out that it should *really* be a near hit!

What data recovery software would you suggest?

Personally I use anything thats on Hirens in an emergency - it's pretty good if the NTFS/FAT file system is intact.

If you have a properly fecked drive PhotoRec and its bigger badder brother TestDisk will pull almost anything off of anything. SpinRite also works wonders for repairing corrupted spinning rust.

If you have access to a linux system and KVM or some other virtualisation system I usually dd the drive to an image, mount that in KVM and do the recovery from there its not as fast but it means you can keep the drive there for posterity.

Boeing CEO says no more 'moonshots' after 787 Dreamliner ordeal

and not one single mention of the 747-8 family of aircraft, a lot of 787 tech was back ported for that to happen.

Just sayin.

Having flown on a 747-400 and a A380, I much prefer the American plane and look forward to flying in the newest variant as soon as I can.

The amazing .uk domain: Less .co and loads more whalesong

Re: what about Scotland?

This is an interesting point though, Scotland would need to be assigned a 2 letter country code. What would it be? sc is Seychelles. Ecosse could be a source for it but ec (Ecuador) and es (Spain) are both taken too.

Wonder what they would pick?

John Lewis to respray with coat of Oracle ERP: Don't worry, we won't be 'wall to wall' Larry

Re: Colour me dubious

As I say, if the data is compatible, then all good. And a 95% hit rate is good. All I am saying is that in moving sometimes information is lost.

If there are many systems involved sometimes we just cant copy everything.

I have done many a migration project with high levels of success too, its integration, mixed with migration, that I am worried about. Integration alone is one of the biggest challenges around today, and big data is supposed to solve it.

Again, colour me dubious as to whether JL can deliver it.

Re: Colour me dubious

Absolutely Agree.

I think this is the problem when you try and go RDBMS -> RDBMS in any type of project when there are incompatibilities between version or schema. All I was suggesting was a middle step of RDBMS (many) -> XML (or some other open, human readable, extensible format) -> RDBMS (destination).

The middle step being a normalised version and overarching index of the many allowing for easier understanding of existing information sets. It would be easier to import from here than from many RDBMS in one jump. It's also a good idea to talk to API's instead (in my experience) so as to get any application level goodness out with the data (some of the XML/JSON stitching may already be done for you too).

That sort of brings me back to your point about business need. Many of these ERP projects are undertaken with a view of being more efficient. A lot of process surrounds the use of these systems (of course sometimes the system dictates the process), my suggestion is always to understand what wealth of data is available before we even look at process and how it interacts with that data. If the ERP solution doesn't fit the data then your processes likely wont work with the ERP either.

Trying to bend either to the other will result in pain, scope creep and all the other goodness that comes with it. Just look at NHSpfIT and the integration projects that the UK Police Forces undertook. Incompatible schemas abound and normalising to SQL = absolute agony.

Just my $0.02

Colour me dubious

When introducing any system which replaces existing trusted, legacy systems problems are bound to appear.

I think the major issue is incompatible schemas between legacy system 1..N and the destination system wether it be Oracle, OpenERP or SAP. The best example of this is how a name or an address is stored in the source and destination databases. It is very common to see differences in something so basic, so when you start talking about objects with much more complex relationships this problem is amplified several million times! This is why I think most of these rollouts result in delays and pain.

What is wrong with the legacy systems or the *schemas* which support them? Not fit for purpose anymore? Why not integrate them in a non-SQL like way?

Hundreds of folks ready to sue Bitcoin exchange MtGox

The numbers DO NOT add up. Surely, their liabilities would be any and all monies deposited by users. i.e. > $300m. Then again with the volatile nature of BTC/USD exchange rate this will go up and down.

Also given they have assets, liquid or not, the lawyers are probably eyeing up that figure. Suppose any "winnings" would be taxable too.

What a joke, somebody is sitting pretty with a lot of crypto coins and absolutely no way to convert them to real money.. oh wait, money isn't real, WTF!

Yes! New company smartphones! ... But I don't WANT one

Quite a quandry!

Its time for me to upgrade my phone too.

I went for the Xperia Z1 as an upgrade to my very battered and on-its-last-legs Note 2. We will see if it measures up, its battery life is meant to be good, screen is good too but I liked it because its solid and should last the 2 years I need to keep it, unlike my dying Note 2.

I've had many, many phones over the years and I am actually using a Lumia 625 waiting on the Z1 to arrive. Have to say I am VERY impressed. Smooth, functional, battery lasts ages, Nokia should make a phone that size, with a better spec screen and processor etc.

Had a look into Sailfish/Jolla and I think they could be on to a winner. Last mover advantage anyone?

Just my $0.02

Greenland glacier QUADRUPLES speed, swells seas

Re: I sea swelling

Whilst I cannot disagree with the fact that the earth is warming I am completely unsure that it is us who are causing it.

So, you might say "cause and effect". We have increased our output of CO2, and other harmful gasses into the atmosphere. Is Earth really that delicate? Did/can the planet survive?

"You say did?" I hear you ask. Well our planet was much more volatile in the past, probably due to increased volcanic activity, the sun having more fuel to burn perhaps and other stimuli which we probably dont even understand.

I once heard that cows produce a damn lot of methane and CO2 which is also harmful the environment. So much so that our large scale farming of these creatures causes as much CO2 as we do directly (correct me if im wrong). The greatest 2 contributors are the ocean and volcanoes. These 2 account for some massive percentage so again, I'm led to believe, are we right?

The beauty of science is that all science is fact until its been disproven by something else. I'm not saying we are wrong, but we could be, and perhaps we need a little more faith in the old girl that she will see us right. I mean she survived the dinosaurs right? Oh wait.... :S

But in all seriousness, I believe in the 70s climatologists were terrified the planet was cooling and encouraged the burning of fuels to generate CO2, think it had an effect?

Mankind has 3 things it needs to do:

1. Nuclear Fusion

2. Easy, accessible space travel for all

3. Flying cars (like Back to the Future, none of this propeller/winged nonsense)

Then there will be no CO2 to worry about.

</rant>

Pure boffinry: We peek inside Nokia's miracle cameraphone

Re: your arrogance remarkable .

Yup I see my vast number of mistakes in that post, apologies! So in essence what I'm describing has already happened?

I'm sure it still carries around quite a bit of legacy code though, despite their best efforts to remove it. You are in a better position than me to understand it so thanks for clearing it up for me. My point really was to say that MS should ditch the legacy portions completely in their next iteration, Hyper-V by default perhaps?

I will start using 2012 more, I've made a switch to Mac OS X / Linux recently, purely because of the work I've been doing.

I suppose drive lettering was a sensible option for users in CPM / DOS for simplicity instead of /dev/xxx and mounting. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I likely will be given my lack of sleep!

Facepalm due to my stupidity...

Re: your arrogance remarkable .

Im pretty sure unless you go into "recovery tools" and run cmd, you cannot format a boot partition as FAT32/exFAT on anything => Vista. Don't hold me to that and unless you were doing an upgrade it would probably complain about the existence of any FAT type partition... just my $0.02

Re: Android port?

Your "Android port" would not have the required drivers to make use of the hardware in the device. The article clearly stated that Nokia had to work with their hardware partners to get the PureView camera to talk to the GPU's and vice versa. Perhaps the guys at XDA could write their own port but you would be waiting a while (probably forever) given that there is no source to port.

Just buy an Android phone if you want android, or better yet, if you like the handset, give WinPho a shot! It is actually pretty good, honest.

Re: your arrogance remarkable .

Sure there are some legacy issues with any Windows family OS, its partitioning/drive lettering scheme and its boot drive layout. Its a bit whacky to a Unix/Linux/BSD/Mac (okay Mac is technically BSD) guy but its what they built and it made sense at the time.

I have said in the past it would be great to take the Win 8/Server2012 Kernel and rip out all of these legacy requirements (I suppose dropping 16bit support back in Windows 7 went some way to achieving this), this, I believe would create a lean mean OS fighting machine, make it extremely modular (ala Windows Emebedded) and put Hyper-V components on it. I think then you have a very different beast, upon which you can run any version of Windows/Linux but is a new genesis of Windows OS going forward.

I find the Unix style FS layout more sensible yes, but there is a reasoning behind drive lettering that also make sense. There are arguments for and against.

I am fairly sure NO ONE has ran into 0x5b boot errors on their mobiles, I mean please! If they have then their phone is likely borked.

The Modern UI is a bit *stupid* on the desktop but absolutely makes sense in a mobile platform, information literally at your fingertips. This is quite a difficult thing to achieve on android, HTC came close with BlinkFeed on the One though.

Now thats not to say there aren't faults with the platform, especially seeing as I dont even own a WinPho 8.x device YET.

However, you seem to be arguing against WinPho 8 as a Desktop OS or am I missing the point?

Re: I am most upset....

I have to agree with you pon that point, however, the 4th iPhone 4s I have just gotten rid of, was a replacement sent by Orange. The thing was *terrible*. Rebooted at random, WiFi didnt work, BT didn't work, the thing was a shambles. Now to be fair the one it replaced was misplaced! But, I had issues with the original too, and it too was a replacement for a problematic 4!

Now maybe I'm being a bit unfair to Apple (remember I'm a Macbook Pro user), but their hardware isn't really as good as it should be and I think they are rather stuck in the form factor and will really struggle to get out of it. iOS 7 looks terrible IMHO.

My Androids have a lot of problems too. For example my Note 2 needs a reboot sometimes after moving from a 3.5g to a 3g cell and it cant quite figure out what to do and my HTC One registered me on the network 00000 the other day! So thats 2 supposedly stable and mature mobile OS' doing weird things when they shouldn't.

I think we need to remember that WinPho 8.x is relatively young and these issues will be ironed out, but it is a fair point. Oh and before people start bashing me for my pro M$ stance I still don't own a WinPho handset, but I will be buying the 1020 and have played with a 920 extensively.

It is the way forward, trust me! *BRAIN SHOUTS: BRACE, BRACE*

I am most upset....

...no really I am, and not that anyone will care but heres why...

Microsoft may be a most hated of a company, I'm now an Apple Macbook Pro / OS X user because I like it. Now past self would hate me for this decision, but I still need Windows and Linux VM's to do what I need to do. This is not something I need in the mobile space, most of us just need a phone that works. It needs to make and receive calls, allow us to access our social networking sites and emails, texts and such.

Of course we also need access to the ubiquitous apps that now adorn our lives. Yes M$ are behind with their app ecosystem but damn they are *trying*. The OS is sublime, I have had MANY phones in my life, Symbian (every Nokia imaginable), Android (had a G1, now using an HTC One and a Galaxy Note 2 and have had loads of Androids in-between). Ive also been an iPhone user, and that is my most hated of phones from both a hardware and a software perspective.

So whats the point to all this, well I STILL haven't owned a WinPho 7.x/8.x device. Purely because the hardware I want isnt available with the OS I want. Shockingly if HTC shipped a One with WinPho 8 I would have picked it over the Android version and I'm pretty sure if they made it, and with the right marketing push, it'll capture the market. I think they may just have that with the 1020.

What gets right on my tits is the bashing of this rather wonderful OS. Its solid, built on a proven kernel and clearly the right direction for MS in the mobile space. Windows 8 is on the road to recovery, but I'd actually argue RT was a failure and they should have beefed up WinPho 8 for tablets and went down that route instead, no "split brain" TIKFAM/Desktop required. To the people who wouldn't buy it because of a hatred of WinCE/WinMobile. I totally get it, I've used HP Jornadas, HTC Tytn 2's the works (to be fair the Jornada was ahead of its time, if a bit useless), but, WinPho 8.x is NOT the much maligned OS of old. Try it for a week you may change your mind and don't be an arse about it when you are. Imagine its NOT an MS OS on it.

Why is it soo terrible? If someone gives me a proper and reasoned explanation for it ruining their lives over the likes of Android or iOS I'm happy to listen. Until then I await delivery of my new Nokia 1020, which I will use instead of my Note 2, which I love by the way, but the 1020 is what I *want*.

So thank you Nokia, thank you very much. You have made it back onto my "Must buy it NOW" list for the first time since the N93/N95 days.

Summary: M$/WinPho Haters, Shut the F*CK UP

</rant>

How can family sysadmins make a safe internet playground for kids?

@graham wilson

Spot on mate. We had ISDN in our house from 98 onwards and an NT4 server that my dad used for some mad exchange setup he had with a business partner (apparently Demon used to hold your mail for you and forward it to an SMTP port when you came online, off topic and overkill, I know).

I figured out I could dual channel this connection and get 128kbps. He and his business partner locked this machine down to the max, but I got round all of it, had my own freeserve account, the works. Set it up as a gateway and away I went on my own presumed non-internet pc. Oh the horror. Racked up a £600 bill in a quarter in 1999 or 2000 thanks to good old napster. Needless to say my dad figured out why his mail wasn't coming through as regularly as before.

I am amazed at how tech savvy my nieces and nephews are, and I have no doubt any child who has restrictions imposed on them and a desire to circumvent them, will.

Block the worst the internet has to offer, and hope for the best, I'm not sure making the block obvious is going to have a positive effect. Talk to them and maybe, just maybe, the curiosity wont kill the innocence!

Eleven - if you will - rocktastic music movies

What about...

....The Last Waltz: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077838/

.. i mean it comes up in big letters at the start "THIS SHOULD BE PLAYED VERY LOUD". Superb!

When Ellison goes, will he go gracefully?

Oracle buy HP???

Surely that can't happen! Christ, i'll eat my legs if it does!

Huawei gets charged with juicy Android handset

Motorola Atrix

has a 1930mAh battery - with Juice Defender on you can get just over 2 days - 3 if you disable everything.

Can you handle LOHAN's substantial globes?

How about?

putting the launch payload at the top of the balloon and having a stabilising weight at 15m below it?

Like this? http://www.clicknetworks.co.uk/balloon.png

Please forgive the crudity of my model, mspaint isnt my storng point.

Any aaSes in your organisation?

*Thumbs Up* @13bowsk1

Totally agree with you, I have embraced the whole SaaS/PaaS/IaaS model as I do think it is the future but only when the "cloud" can truly be connected to back office applications. This gives us the flexibility to offer customers what they need in the most cost effective manner.

There are a number of problems with this:

1. Broadband in this country is, well, crap! ADSL2+ isn't very good and Be* offering bonded 24Meg and saying its 48 is just ridiculous. I'm 3 miles from the exchange and have 24Meg. I sync at 6.

2. People are used to LAN speed connectivity to Email and files and to a certain extent some apps. Until point 1 is address this will never change. Imagine running sage in a cloud!?

3. So we end up at primarily web based technologies, basically what we already have but with the "Google" model attached to it.

I think one of the big problems in systems architecture is data storage and retrieval. Legacy apps are difficult to change because they have been designed from the database up. If your database schema needs changed, or the whole model requires re-normalisation, your legacy app is finished, time to start again.

Then again, with M$ we have SQL services in the cloud. Is this not just the same thing, but on a bigger scale and when things change its a whole new bigger problem to deal with.

The only way the "Cloud" will fly is if we embrace the Google model, flat and scalable is king, Native XML storage is the future and someone needs to realise it soon!

Craig

Clicknetworks

BT threatens to pull plug on better broadband

More like...

..they dont want to roll out a nationwide superfast network and lose all their ridonkulous leased line earnings. Oh and I can get Fibre up to 1GB to my door in scotland for some outrageous sum.. BTnet. Is this not part of 21CN and that the rollout is already underway. ADSL2+? Im in bloody scotland and I get all this, are they lying to us?

STOP cos i think were missing summet!