Posts by Mark 65

Betting on Box in a SkyDrive and Google Drive world

Re: All of these are useless for data you care about

@Hayden: add to that knowing the company will still be around in the future etc

Ten... two-bay Nas boxes

Smallnetbuilder nas charts should have the info

Micro Focus accuses NSW Police of software piracy

Investigations

"Craig says that means Micro Focus will pursue the claim in the courts, as he feels that the Police Force is not particularly interested in investigating itself."

Funny, they're happy to investigate themselves when it comes to any other form of misconduct or corrupt practices before signing off as "appropriate use of force etc"

Apple can't agree with Australian regulator on iPad 4G

Re: ooops!

Italy is also part of the EU, a very lucrative market even in its current state.

ISPs should get 'up to' full fee for 'up to' broadband

No, it probably means you should keep quiet around here.

NHS trust loses personal data of 600 maternity patients, kids

Re: Everyone should have one

Won't bitlocker do it? That obviously assumes not running XP which is probably the OS in use.

Re: It's all or nothing

Maybe some things like this should be mandated and funded by central Government where the shear scale should drive a much better licensing bargain rather than being left to trust where some have better scale/competence than others. Emphasis on the "should".

FBI track alleged Anon from unsanitised busty babe pic

Re: ROFL

Can't quite beat the expertise of the "hacker" that takes the photos with a device known to add the GPS coordinates and even tells you on screen it's using the GPS. Then you edit it in your no doubt cracked version of photoshop, as I doubt you spunked a grand on software, before saving it without minimising or checking what metadata has been embedded and posting it as a two finger salute to law enforcement. Geez there's some fucking stupid people out there.

US Trade Rep criticises tech trade barriers in Oz, NZ

Que?

"In particular, the USTR dislikes Australia’s proposed implementation of e-health, saying that legislation requiring onshore storage of citizens’ personally-controlled electronic health records (PCEHRs) “would pose a significant trade barrier for US information technology companies with data centers located in the United States or anywhere else outside of Australia”."

How about they play a quick game of "hide-and-go-f*ck-yourself"? Seriously, I am no proponent of the Australian Government but I absolutely back the logic of requiring onshore storage of any information requiring privacy controls. Should they just be storing it in a Google data centre instead? Christ the Americans get on my tits at times.

iPad to reign unchallenged as KING of FONDLESLABS

Re: BYOD

@TangD: Take your head out of the sand?

You might want to try not latching onto the latest Gartner puff-piece. There is no way any enterprise will allow BYOD unless they can completely control the configuration, security, updates etc of that device. The user will not want that. The enterprise do not want to have to support a myriad of devices - internal costs go through the roof just to scratch some managerial muppet's gadget itch and productivity goes down. It just does not make sense on any level.

Ten... Living Room Gadget Treats

Re: Are you shitting me?

Isn't it "for fuck sake" or perhaps "for fuck's sake"?

Anyway, in answer to the OP, I believe El Reg always quotes the RRP not the latest "street price" as the latter can be fleeting.

Google answers less than half of watchdog's privacy tweak questions

Big Corporation Ignorance

"Fleischer also fired a few questions back at CNIL, asking – among other things – what the "legal basis" was for the Article 29 Working Party to "act as a regulatory body"."

This epitomises how bully-boy companies like Google get off on the wrong foot with the EU. Microsoft used to do it too. Just because your local US authority would let you sell everyone's grandmother without asking first it doesn't mean that the EU will. Like it or not they wield plenty of power and they aren't afraid of using it when it suits them. Questioning their party/committee/quango's legal basis to oversee your potential breach of their laws will not gain you any favours and is more likely to result in a very large fine when the case goes against you just for being an arsehole. If they do not have the power it will just get passed on to someone who does. Just ask Microsoft for the details of how acting like a disinterested teenager pans out.

Anonymous plans DDoS attack on GCHQ in snoop law protest

Re: Script kiddies

@Chris Miller: It's a bit more complicated than that if you had to assemble the bot net first. Anyone who takes part using their own IP address is just a tool.

Forensic snoops: It doesn't take a Genius to break into an iPhone

Re: In the UK we have another solution...

@Peladon: I'm guessing that, as the current Government are finding out, most laws like this one fall foul of some facet of European law - they just haven't been tested yet in terms of the rinse repeat aspect. Two years? You might get away with that. Repeating the sentence for the same crime is unlikely to fly with the EU.

Re: Proving once more

Which leaves me wondering about how it works with a Blackberry? I thought these were supposed to be the one to get if you wanted a secure phone?

The tech jobs headhunters just can't fill

Basics

Me thinks Tenille doesn't understand basic Economics. If everyone with the skills is asking for too much money then it is likely that the end client is just not willing to pay the market rate. If these people aren't unemployed and their rate demand can therefore stay high then chances are you're just looking in the wrong pay bracket. Back to school for you miss.

Apple relents, doubles EU warranty (sort of)

Re: You have rights beyond any warranty.

@Annihilator: I believe this comes down to the "fit for purpose" aspect of legislation. If you sell me a washing machine with a 2 year manufacturers warranty and the thing burns out at 3 years then I would be entitled to redress as the item wasn't fit for purpose as a consumer wouldn't expect to replace a washing machine every 3 years. It's a bit vague but then it has to be to avoid being over-prescriptive - it is the reasonable person argument. The underlying principle is what matters. Same goes for TVs etc. - a reasonable person would expect them to have at least a 5+ year lifespan.

I think the Sony MP3 player comment is related to the fact their modern ones are drag-drop.

Capita poises axe over 1,000 staff - jobs headed to India

Re: Wrong name

I can re-use the C, T and S to better effect.

Re: any

Absolutely right. It makes no sense to give them tax-payer funds which they then feed to a sweatshop in India whilst the tax-payer then has to pay for the people that just lost their jobs.

At this moment in time Cameron or Clegg needs to get a spine and state categorically that any company touting for UK Govt. contracts (in the UK rather than ancillary overseas functions) will have to employ eligible workers within the UK else no deal.

IPv6 networking: Bad news for small biz

Re: Non-issue

"What is true is that IPv6 opens all sorts of new possibilities for home and small office networks. They haven't all been worked out yet."

The opportunity for all your direct connected devices to get owned? I'm sure that's been worked on well in advance.

HP offers contractors a choice: 5 per cent pay cut ... or 100 per cent

Given it is a contract renegotiation i.e. the old one is cancelled, could you not use the opportunity to contract direct (if the employer permitted) thus saving them more than 5%?

Re: Easy way to cut costs

The agencies don't just do payroll as P.Lee and others indicate. They undertake what is known as factoring - paying you within 7-10 days whilst waiting for ages for huge corporate to bother remunerating. Anyone who didn't get paid promptly probably had an agent working as a strict A to B middle man. However I can't see the logic of 10-15% commission on top of a daily rate when a company already runs payroll.

"Whatever happened to an employment contract?"

It's phrased like this...

You will:

1. Accept an x% cut to your contract rate, or

2. We hereby give the required (probably 4 week) notice period starting at date y.

In essence, choose your option but there are only 2. I don't agree with it and it often means all the talent leaves.

Quitting your job? Here's how not to do it

As saying "bad" things is now a legal mine field, you have to count the good points in a reference. A statement of fact like that is about as appealing as "X murdered Y but we were unable to prove it."

I'm afraid that sort of reference is all any financial house I've ever worked at will give. They will not say anything that is not an irrefutable fact. You're lucky if they even mention much about the nature of the position held. That's why interviews are there. I also agree with others in that verbal references are not allowed. Several of my previous employers expressly forbid such actions mainly, I would guess, in case they are misread as having the backing of the employer.

Cameron's attempt to cram a robot arm wearing a Rolex into his pristine bottom

Re: Same as pilot's watches

I'd argue that "in a modern airliner what the fuck does he need any precision watch for?"

Goldman Sachs in email muppet hunt

Re: So if they find an email along the lines of:

Und today vie poot de chicken in de poot

Oz regulator to Apple: Don’t call it 4G if you can’t connect

"Apple shouldn't be allowed to advertise the phone as 4G in the UK when there is no 4G network."

So, they make a device which is capable of working on the ITU 4G definition as it currently stands and just because no telco in your country can provide a 4G network because your Government hasn't got its finger out of its arse and sold the spectrum they shouldn't be able to advertise that it is 4G capable? What planet do you live on?

Re: Quibbling with semantics

@Steve Todd, I agree. What's more, this clearly shows that regulators should stick to what they understand as Apple's lawyers will have the case laughed out of court on that basis. Perhaps the ACCC should stick to what it does best i.e. investigating and finding that there is nothing untoward with a supermarket duopoly controlling over 70% of the food market and a similar amount of the booze market. Toothless twats thought they had a slam dunk.

Elgato Thunderbolt SSD

Re: Thunderbolt Fail

The reason for the single port was stated as well as it having to be the last item in the chain. Anything running off of the mains should have two ports. This does not run off of mains power, hence...

"There’s a single Thunderbolt connection on the back. Bus-powered Thunderbolt drives like this one must always be the last drive in a chain as they can’t pass the necessary 10W of power to a downstream port."

It is a fail for several reasons but this really isn't one of them.

Re: Latency

Now that's handy to know.

London fire brigade outsources 999 control centre to Capita

Re: Whenever I need to explain why privatisation is a bad idea...

"I simply cannot understand why anybody there would think privatisation is a good idea."

Probably because we've been conditioned by experience to believe that the Government is far worse. The problem is more one of "why privatise instead of just kicking some civil service arses until things improve", as the private sector can waste just as much money but add a profit margin on top.

"The 10-year agreement is expected to save the brigade £5m over its lifetime and is expected to go live later this year."

I think the suitable metric is how many lives are saved not a mere 500k per year that is probably an over-optimistic estimate anyhow. Will the calls be picked up in the UK or India?

Australia Post launches inbox and cloud storage for all

Re: Royal Mail please note

You might want to note that the AUS Post CEO mentions "parcel locker trials". This is how they envisage providing your "convenient, when you want it" deliveries i.e. you go to a centralised post office (local postal depot in UK terms) and collect the parcel from a secure locker you have signed up for. The trial involves 4 post offices in the (very large) country...

http://auspost.com.au/personal/trial-information.html

Given the space that such lockers take up - you can't just cater for small parcels, or half a dozen lockers - I think it unlikely to be rolled out universally. You can only use the facility once the original delivery has failed i.e. once it would be eligible to be collected from the local post office. They won't allow you to mark parcels for locker collection only as they won't have the facilities to cater for it. There's one small room of lockers in the Brisbane GPO and that's unlikely to be able to cater for "locker only" delivery for 2 million people.

Has virtualization really ended all your worries?

My 2 Cents

The advantages as I see it are: VMotion, hardware utilisation, multiple OS on one machine, ability to keep legacy systems running on modern hardware (the old "don't touch that server"), and convenience when replacing hardware. With regards needing better infrastructure (SANs etc) I think it is forcing you to do what you probably should be doing anyhow.

Hard-up Iceland plumps for cheaper open source

Re: License fee vs transfer costs

The BigYin: "This from the person who claimed there was no risk with making the wrong choice of commercial software! So not only are you deluded, but you are hypocritical too."

You do realise that it's not necessarily the same AC posting don't you?

Re: Open source

Open source is a laudable aim but I believe it is true open standards that are the better one first up. The ability to be compatible with others and switch out your provider upon them turning out to be useless tw@ts is far more important than someone having a huge pile of code they don't understand. Take the UK Government as a prime example.

Florida man 'fesses to naked Scarlett Johansson outrage

Re: The important thing above all else

Mitigating circumstances. Let's hope the jury's all-male.

Queensland Police go war driving

Re: Queensland Police spell it “Hi” not “High”...

XXXX is cat piss.

iPhone 5 gets a 5in screen

Re: i really hope not

Gary B, to paraphrase...

The nice thing about Apple phones is choice - 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or get f*cked.

Who said Steve didn't like to give you variety?

Brit LulzSec suspect charged over NHS, plod web attacks

DDoS

The thinking man's hack.

Belkin Dual-Band Travel Router

Re: wrong price point

It's also likely that the other device will be more reliable. I've found that Belkin devices on UK ADSL become a touch unstable with high throughput on LAN and WAN. The bigger issue is their handling of disconnects in that I always had to power cycle the device to get it to reconnect. Ditched it and replaced with a Draytek which was rock solid - not a single issue ever.

Re: Missing a second ethernet port

"On a normal trip, I'll be traveling with my iPhone, Windows laptop, Apple Macbook and my Vonage, along with cordless phone."

Dual boot or VM dude and save yourself a device.

Vendors smack Thunderbolt punters with massive pricing markup

Re: Depends

Spodula - you'll be needing internal SSD then. SATA3 will do. If you want to use thunderbolt then that's your choice but vendors will be lining you up to take a piece.

Re: Dead on arrival

FW800 easily good enough for non-raid or non-SSD external drives. Screw the thunderbolt premium.

Apple iPad 3 packs LAPTOP battery

Re: Overnight charge only?

"The Apple-supplied charger is rated at 2A * 5 = 20W."

I'm pretty sure that's a 10W charger.

Ten... FireWire 800 hard drives

Re: Why no mention of sound levels?

I'm wary of the WD studio drives as I found them to be using their green drives. The green controller of one went kaput and the device would go into a spiral of spin-up, spin-down when trying to access data before eventually falling silent. Took me nearly five whole evenings to get their data off of the 750GB sample. Never again. Always use a caddy and select the internal drive you use rather than potentially have the vendor shift their old stock.

iPad 3 benchmarked

Re: Display

Depending your SLR camera you may be disappointed as there is a megapixel limit on the size of photo that can be imported. Can't find the original story but believe the figure to be 19MP, so full frame users are not invited. Similar details here (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1335301)

Report: UK falls behind as smart meters rolled out across Europe

Re: UK Falls behind Europe in smart meter roll out.

I too failed to find any downside to the headline. They can be the guinea pigs.

IT pros lack recent skills

Re: Employers are so dumb about this.

My only statement would be that this sorry state of affairs is always to do with shite middle to upper management and seldom anything to do with the guys at the coalface.

Anchors away for Aus web hosties

“There is no other managed hosting provider in the Australian marketplace which is providing, high-quality, premium style managed services using data centers in America"

Probably because they don't want their entire business to come under US law.