Posts by John 61 64 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
De La Rue have been around for donkeys years, and they're very good at printing stuff. During the War (WWII) they printed 5 franc billets which (according to my late father) no Frenchies accepted. They're upstairs somewhere, along with a lot of other De La Rue stuff. They don't like it up 'em.
Log in to a computer 4633.42 miles away for no reason... oops its down. Computer I want to log in to is right under my nose, but I can't log into it, as the computer 4633.42 miles away isn't working. A shufty round the innernets suggests reinstalling Windows. Good job, that's progress.
IMO it's cheaper to smoke cigarettes than vape (here in the UK at least). Legit refillable vapes cost around £25 and the cheap nasty ones are around £20. Rechargeable/refillables go for £40. Jury's still out on the long term effects, too. Still, at least they don't create that public toilet smell like they did in the olden days....
was the goal of Mr Berners-Lee's invention/agglomeration, but giving it away to the public was a bad idea. I remember saying to my sister (back in 1998) "all this will end in tears", which it has. Mr BL's intentions may have been good, but fraudsters and con persons in other countries having Auntie Ethel's bank login (and a direct connection enabling them to edit the HTML) wasn't quite what he had in mind...
Took me 1 3/4 hours to download and install, as well as another hour or so for Windows Update to do its blue screeny thing. Then there was the Windows Store updating programs thing which took another 15 minutes.
Took 5 hours in total on my sister's laptop as WU kept crashing (she went shopping as I babysat the computers). If you do decide to download and you're on a laptop, plug the damned thing in as you'll have no battery. It's 1.88Gb in size, and will take you to build 17763.1, and is nothing to write home about.
Oh, yes almost forgot, during installation on me sister's laptop it flip-flopped between "initializing" and "pending install". If this happens restart the machine and once rebooted run WU again and it should then carry on installing.
Back in 1999 I remember some bits of a conversation about a Motorola Razr 3.
"I can take pictures with it; I can browse the internet; I can do this, that and the other!"
"Can you make calls with it?"
Since then, remember the adverts for Surface laptops full of street dancing kids waving them about and not actually using them? People flying around (unaided) in operating system ads? Madonna/Rolling Stones? It's the same with phones. As other posters have mentioned, stuff like the Apprentice has encouraged silly poses as if their users are in some kind of awe of these devices.
Look at me, I am supremely important in my worship of my device, that is why I'm adopting such a strange pose. I've spent all this money on it! Look! I'm really dead dead important having a conversation about buying cheap sausages from Lidl. What is cash? Oy! Mr Mopedmugger… come back!
If this is on you PC (W10 home version) your Windows Update has broken at some time in the past. The Fall Creators update completely trashed my AMD machine, and I (to cut a long story short) created a new user profile and copied all the shortcuts/files from the broken profile across to the new one. *Everything* was copied across without reinstalling Windows. I then made sure that stuff was working in the new profile before deleting the old one. I also turned off the "fast boot" option. This took two weeks of testing.
All the stuff on support websites (including Microsoft) didn't work, as some programs fired up properly (whereas others didn't), the task bar was broken, but after several reboots it would work properly as if nothing happened. Then stuff would start going wrong again. A mish mash of anything I could find helpful actually worked. However, it has been fine since last year.
The April update has gone through with no problems and appears to be dribbling slowly out of Redmond, and my machine now boots faster. If you're having problems with WU, go here:
http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx
This will give you standalone installer versions and it runs like XP WU did. It is imperative that you match up the KBXXXXXXX with that of those detailed in WU. In my experience this fixes WU as it updates the update catalog. This also worked on my sister's laptop.
This reminds me of an old episode of The Outer Limits, where aliens work out how to communicate with humans utilising a satellite (funnily enough).
Military types decided that it was an act of war and that the aliens should stop immediately or face the consequences.
The aliens didn't quite understand what was going on and carried on.
The military types then destroyed the alien spacecraft, taking the satellite out as well.
Meanwhile, some bright spark had worked out what was said in the signal the aliens had transmitted. "You slow it down and apply filters to it - it's like it's underwater - IT'S IN ENGLISH!!"
"We mean you no harm, we're trying to establish contact with you..."
Bright Spark:(looking very worried): "Hang on, there's more..."
"This is our last transmission; we will now destroy you."
A massive alien spacecraft appears... Oops.
When I was a callow youth at school, the computer room had several Electrons, Beebs (one being a Model A which was stolen; the better Model B wasn't), an IBM terminal and a TRS 80. I had an Electron at home so was used to how they worked (*FX 200,3 was used quite a lot). I was sat in front of one when it started behaving rather strangely; graphics mode changes, random triangles, text etc. I looked away from it and a conversation along these lines ensued:
Me: "Sir, this computer's broken"
Bearded Teacher (he was cracked):"What have you done to it?"
Me: "I haven't done anything to it; it's broken."
This continued for a few minutes or so and a smart arse kid (who seemed to have it in for me) shouted rather loudly "HE'S REPROGRAMMED THE ROM!!" Cue classmates looking at each other in bemusement.
Me (looking puzzled in front of the rest of the class)"How can I do that? It's ROM, READ ONLY memory. How can I reprogram it?"
Bearded Teacher (he was still cracked):"You must have done something to it."
Me (getting really exasperated):"I haven't done anything to it; it's broken, I haven't done anything to it."
To my amazement this was accepted seemingly as gospel by the beardy bloke (I didn't really like him at all) and I left school a "computer legend".
on later AMD processors as I couldn't get it to install. It then went into a download loop reporting different error numbers (0x8024a105 was one of them) as it went. A quick Bing of the error messages directed me to the relevant support pages which directed me elsewhere.
Disabling anti-virus software (before my 3rd attempt at download/installation) did the trick and I lived to tell this tale. In my case there were 2 updates in this package and restarting the computer twice installed the 2nd update after the 1st one (separately), anti-virus having no effect on the 2nd pass.
HTH.
would buy anything off the strength of a radio advert? What is the point of advertising on the radio anyway? Ywllntownthecar (in car sales adverts) is a phrase I hear often when I can hear the radio in the office. Most of the time it's drowned out by 10 printers, a massive shredder and a recently extended mailing machine. Serious heavy metal to fold bits of paper.
used to be on (a few years back) the Job Centre+ website 'til complaints got them removed. Going rate was £20 per hour which was more than double the min wage at the time. In some cases these "vacancies" paid even more. As another poster said about the 23 year old student getting the big house...
that my Acorn Electron can't access the internet, and that I've had the problem since 1991. Or "we don't need double glazing, thank you", then hang up. I've had the silent calls from a number in Falkirk (no doubt false) but I didn't really care as it wasn't me who was paying for the calls. They stopped a while ago.
Couldn't it be argued that *all* data (email or otherwise) on their servers belongs to the company? For example, if your job title is programmer or developer and you write an app for the BBC (for example) the Beeb has the copyright to it and not you. I'm told what I can and can't do in my contract.
not have everyone drive on straight roads. Oh, and there will be re-test fees when the sats aren't navving because the USA has switched the GPS off. Maybe they should teach drivers to drive whilst on mobile 'phones? I know it's illegal to do so, but a lot round here do it anyway. Do you like my nice roadsign?
My Electron is on the shelf as a constant reminder along with a Cumana disk drive, Slogger Disk Interface a PRES Plus 1 and a Viewsheet cartridge. I bought all the Input magazines (still have them somewhere) and read stories about older types who had bought houses by writing computer games. I wanted to get into this and do the same! Didn't happen though. I didn't leave enough time to complete my computer studies O level programs, so I had to borrow one. I flunked the exam by not documenting the programs properly. I also flunked my other exams, but used the electron until 2003 to do job applications and CV's, when the Star LC-10 printer finally packed up in March, shortly before my father died. It still works after 30 years, which is, I believe, a testament to it. It lives on along with all the games in a couple of emulators, where you can crank it up to the speed of a BBC B. Ransack (the only game I played on both machines) is absolutely nuts at 800% faster than normal!
Here in the UK patches pop up on Wednesay, so if a critically urgent patch is issued, we get it almost a day late. I suggested elsewhere on El Reg that servers could be based in Fiij (maybe not the best place with hindsight) or Australia, New Zealand so as the Earth rotates folk get their patches as they get up, instead of clogging up the whole network at 6pm Microsoft time.
I noticed a huge billboard ad proclaiming "The Web is now available FULL ON" in huge letters. In the top right hand corner was the Microsoft logo and the bottom left corner "Internet Explorer 9 and the e" along with a link to a promotional website. I've seen two of these so far, but can't remember the link. Hum.
to my fellow posters for giving me a huge laugh. I hate sport for what it has become. I take my nephews on the park with a football bought from the pound shop. They're quite happy with that. When you think about all the costs involved why didn't they build an enterpirse zone (like the Germans do) and housing? Then again people would benefit from that. I heard a comedian on the radio a year or so ago who said "There's a Bangladeshi community in East London just aching for an Equine Centre" (I forget his name), which sums it up.
time server to set the clock on the pile of junk in front of me as time.windows.com doesn't work any more. ntp1.npl.co.uk or ntp2.npl.co.uk or if they pack up you can go across the pond with time.nist.gov (no punctuation so they work) Just key/paste the lot in to the drop down box and have all three. If eLORAN is adopted it will have to be backward compatible with MSF as me (and no doubt others) radio controlled clock will pack up. People should remember the old GIGO principle of computing as that applies to maps too. Use of eyes and brains should get you where you want to go. I read elsewhere on the interweb that the Olympic "village" and surrounding streets are in the current A to Z of London, despite not being built yet. Ancient types used the stars, but that's only good at night if you ain't got the Hubble telescope.
I live near 7 or 8 (one of which is diseased, right outside the front door) (non native) trees and the conkers are coming along quite nicely. I've been playing since I was five years old, and supplied then entire primary school with them too. Later it become the secondary school. I've *NEVER* been short of the things. Even now I'm 40, the trees are still providing them by the carrier bagful and that includes the diseased one. I suggest Mr Flett should come up north, as they are still on the trees here. Another two weeks and they'll fall off by themselves. No need for kids to throw stuff (including their younger friends) at them as the wind is now getting up. Early October is the best time.
Coat, cos I'll be off soon to get me nephews some.
Chances are your (recyclcing) bins (like in old England) have mountings for such devices. That way they can be weighed, checked, folded spindled or mutilated (something council workers are good at), which would be bad for me as local undesirables decide to fling their plastic bottles of cheap alcohol (having consumed the contents and leaving the lids on) in my bin. Littering is also a problem and I suspect I won't have to wait long for the vomiting to start. Anyway, I'm digressing.
The problem in my part of the world is that they only recycle stuff that is bottle shaped, marked PET(E) and/or a triangle with a 1 or 2 (or marked HDPE) on it. Plastic trays made of the same stuff are not accepted. However, some bottles are maked with 5 (or PP, food grade such as ketchup bottles or fruit containers), so this leaves me in a dilemma of whether I fling it in the recyclables or the normal trash. Not only that, some stuff is marked with a 6 (or other) or even a 7 (or other) which they won't recycle either. As for stuff marked with a 3 or 4 (polythene bags) they don't do them either, so they go in another plastic bag for trash day. They also don't do the lids off bottles, but some lids are maked with a 1 or 2 so they are rightly or wrongly flung in Fortunately glass bottles, jars and cans are recycled. Ths could place me in the strange situation of having a recyclable lid on a non-recyclabe bottle.
As far as I can gather, Germany and the rest of Europe (and Japan too) have been doing all the lot since the 1990's and we started in 2007, so we have a long way to go. I'm due a 3rd bin in October for non-recyclables.
A nice triangle as I'm confused.
Isn't bad as a wordprocessor, but when you want to mailmerge a database (e.g sending out appointment letters) on a windows box, it tends to crash a lot, nor is it easy to get data into a database compared with, say, Access 97+ as data has to be pasted into each field separately. I'll ignore the blank line problem too. It's also not bad as a spreadsheet (many functions are the same as early Excel), but the database component isn't very good as it is rather buggy. They would run it on widows boxes, so maybe it's time the penguin paid a visit...
What did they expect? I've made this point on this site and others too, so I'll keep it short, but it is pertinent to the thread. After years of plugging the internet (and Mr Brown has another re-announced 50p BB campaign starting today to get *everyone* online), it's all gone horribly wrong. I agree with a lot of the other posters on here and what they say. Next up I suppose will be www.yourisp.com/index-big-panic-button.html legisliation. Out of curiosity though, maybe there is a story here that El Reg could pursue. The effectiveness of the CEOP button and its use, such as people "protected" from harm or how many false alarms. The BBC is running a get online campaign too, but these "taster courses" are too simplistic. It takes more than this to educate users - as they don't cover virus scanning/removal, updating drivers, software patches, registry editing to fix broken entries, etc etc. When I did voluntary work showing senior citizens how to use a computer it only went as far as using the mouse, keyboard and the internet. A lot wanted tech support, which was something I was capable of, but unable to demonstrate. New users, more problems.
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