Posts by Aaron 10

Windows Format dialog waited decades for UI revamp that never came

Have you seen...?

Have you seen the "Display Adapter Properties" screen? That is the same since Windows NT 4.0. There are many, many parts of Windows 11 that easily date back to NT 4.0 days and before.

MIT apologizes, permanently pulls offline huge dataset that taught AI systems to use racist, misogynistic slurs

Apparently they were using a system from IBM. Recently there was a press release from IBM that they were not allowing law enforcement agencies to use their software any more.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timbajarin/2020/06/18/why-it-matters-that-ibm-has-abandoned-its-facial-recognition-technology/

He He He: Seagate's gasbag Exos spinner surges up to 14TB

Re: 1PB of capacity in a rack

But... but they're filled with helium!

Spammy Google Home spouts audio ads without warning – now throw yours in the trash

Really?

This surprises you? WTF do you expect from a MARKETING COMPANY!?

Ad flog Plus: Adblock Plus now an advertising network, takes cash to broker web banners

Origin, here I come

Well, let's remove Ad Block Plus... done... and install Origin... done. Problem solved.

If we can't find a working SCSI cable, the company will close tomorrow

Cisco went TITSUP

The closest I can come to that is visiting a site that was having random errors all the time. I checked physical connections and all looked fine. I could attach my PowerBook G4 to the network and could get out and see the other computers.

After struggling for a bit, I decided a "tcpdump" (looking at the raw packets) might shed some light on the subject. After manually inspecting traffic for a bit, I would occasionally see a blurp of Cisco packets that seemed out of place.

I pulled out my trusty 4-port Linksys Ethernet hub from my backpack and swapped a few of the computers over to that connection. Sure enough things started working. The office had to deal with only a few terminals being available until I could get Cisco to replace the switch which had apparently gone TITSUP.

Oh yeah, there was another time I had to work on restoring a backup at a courthouse over a weekend, including being locked inside the building by the County Clerk. Although I eventually prevailed, that was a very long manual restore process. The error was our fault, so I explained it to the CC and she thanked me for not bullshitting her and taking care of the problem.

Man sues YET AGAIN for chance to marry his computer

C:?

The computer just wants the D:.

/I'll see myself out...

Dedupe, dedupe, dedupe dedupe dedupe... Who snuck in to attack Microsoft Edge?

Re: Awaiting a "fix" from MSFT...

What about ECC RAM?

Google found 760,935 compromised web sites in a year

I always try and determine who the admin is and email them when I find some new malware or phishing attempt. Of all the times I've emailed someone about their site being used to host badware, I've never once received a reply. Oh well, it's not my bandwidth bill.

Computer says: Stop using MacWrite II, human!

OS X Server

OS X Server brought a wonderful new world to Mac support: Netboot. You could either image the Mac by starting it holding down the N key, or get the entire Mac to boot from the server (slow). I didn't really care what students did with the Macs. Every semester (or when someone completely buggered the Mac) I would reimage the machines. Easy peasy.

The whole thing was so much easier than the PCs: Having to TFTP boot to Ghost and image the systems. Not that difficult but the Mac solution worked so much smoother.

Amazon crafts two more voice-controlled gizmos in its Echo chamber

I wonder if Amazon will have adverts about the new Echo family on TV. It would be funny if they pull a Microsoft and say on the commercial something with the Alexa keyword. (Microsoft did this with adverts that said, "Xbox On".)

Don't take a Leaf out of this book: Nissan electric car app has ZERO authentication

Dear Reg,

Please do some investigative work on electric cars before posting about them. You cannot "start an engine" on an electric car. There is no engine! The electric motor doesn't need to "idle" like a regular car, so a non-moving electric car takes little power at all.

Even if the API would support starting the electric car (which it doesn't), the car would sit there with its dash lights on and nothing else -- pulling less than 400W of power. It would take days to run the car's battery out.

Indeed the API does allow for turning on and off the aircon as well as starting (but NOT stopping) battery charging. It does NOT allow for control of steering, brakes, accelerator, or any mission-critical functionality.

That being said, Nissan should have known better. Using the API even returns the owner's email address! Marketers can now abuse this API to get LEAF owner's email addresses. Not cool.

Also, this does not affect the "S" model ("Visia" in the UK) since it does not have cellular connectivity.

FCC clicks off the safety, fires at America's great cable TV box rip-off

Why resist?

Cable companies should be ecstatic! No longer do they have to repair/replace/troubleshoot faulty cable boxes. They can get rid of the army of employees needed to maintain those boxes, not to mention all the shipping back-and-forth.

Now, cable companies can provide the content (which is relatively easy) and Internet service, and leave the difficult stuff of dealing with CPE (customer premise equipment) to third parties, who have to adhere to standards. Should really make things easier.

Is this the last ever Lumia?

If you figure that out, please tell someone at Microsoft's head office.

Shopping for PCs? This is what you'll be offered in 2016

1366x768

Can we finally -- FINALLY -- put the 1366x768 resolution to rest for laptops? Especially 15" laptops! Pixels so large I think I'm watching censored Japanese tentacle porn.

When asked 'What's a .CNT file?' there's a polite way to answer

Re: Linux

I did the same for my friend with... erm... amour des animaux... and completely pwned his Windows PC with spyware and viruses from those sites. I reloaded his computer, which lasted maybe a month.

I then installed Linux on his computer and he's been fine since.

Windows 10 will now automatically download and install on PCs

Screw you Micro$oft

Now I have to call my 83-year-old great-aunt and walk her through disabling automatic updates. She's already learned to close the "Upgrade to Windows 10!" pop-ups.

She's 83. She's not about to learn the new Windows 10 UI. This is madness.

Stop the music! Booby-trapped song carjacked vehicles – security prof

Remote updates

Unfortunately, the laws in the US prohibit the automaker from having remote upgrade access. Why? It would violate the dealership maintenance laws in place. These laws were originally designed to protect consumers from predatory manufacturers looking to gouge them with expensive repairs. The law put dealerships in place to do the repairs and work as the middle man between the customer and the manufacturer.

Unfortunately, the dealerships became the ones gouging the customer. The situation is worse than ever and many groups (including the FTC) are trying to get the laws changed.

These same laws are being used to prevent Tesla from opening stores and/or selling cars in specific US states, such as Texas and Michigan, since Tesla does not have dealerships.

Remote updates won't be available to any US manufacturer that has dealerships anytime soon... until the laws mandating dealerships go away, which ain't anytime soon.

Get whimsical and win a Western Digital Black 6TB hard drive

"I knew I should have gotten the iPhone 6+. I can't type at all on this small screen."

Nuke regulator hacked three times in three years

Where do I send my CV? I put some blame on the users, but more on the network admins.

Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid: The plug-in for plutocrats

"And of course you can now plug your Panamera into the mains as you can Toyota’s Plug-In Prius, a car particularly close to the new Panamera hybrid in spirit and engineering, if not performance and price."

Once again, El Reg has a writer who has no idea what a car is. How can you compare a Toyota PiP with 134HP (gas and electric power combined) to a Porsche Panamera with 416HP (gas and electric power combined). How is this anywhere close in performance?

Please do yourselves a favor, and stop writing car articles.

We got behind the wheel of a Tesla S electric car. We didn't hate it

This is NOT Top Gear!

I'm fucking done reading your reviews of electric cars. They constantly have errors and a distinct bias against these vehicles.

Since when does the Nissan LEAF have an odd quirk about being electric? Other than an unusually-styled shifter knob, how would one even know this car was electric? The i-MiEV has a standard shift knob. It's even less obvious that you're driving an electric car.

"You can, however, unlock the car from the app, meaning if someone steals your phone they can steal your car."

WRONG! They can unlock your car. That is not stealing the car. Driving the car away requires the actual Tesla car-shaped fob in your pocket.

I wish you would do some fucking research on these articles and stop trying to make electric vehicles look bad!

Want a cheap iMac? TOO BAD. But you can have a slow one for $1,099

CONSUMER GRADE machine

Why is everyone up at arms about a CONSUMER GRADE machine? This Mac is NOT made for The Reg readers. It's for grandma trying to receive emails or Facetime with the grandkids.

FFS, when did a 1.4GHz dual-core Core i5 become slow? It's PLENTY fast for everyday tasks. Consider the target audience.

AV for Mac

All her data is already backed up with Time Machine, right? (If not, you are at fault for not showing her this painless way to back up her files.)

Restart her Mac folding Command-R and restore the computer from the Internet. Fresh OS, hard drive erased. After the install, restore the files from Time Machine. (Once again, automated and easy.) Done.

https://www.apple.com/osx/recovery/

How practical is an electric car in London?

Re: Can you afford $15K to replace the battery pack?

Where are you getting your $15K figure from? A 16kWh pack for the Volt is $3K. That's the same size as the i-MiEV. The LEAF is 1.5 times larger, so make that $4.5K. There are LEAF drivers with over 100,000 miles on their cars and they haven't had to replace their battery. Stop spreading FUD.

Bullocks

If you are having that many problem with your battery going flat, the problem isn't the car nor the infrastructure. IT'S YOUR INABILITY TO PLAN YOUR ROUTE EFFECTIVELY.

I have never run out of power, nor even come close, in a Mitsubishi i-MiEV. Why? Because I plan my route. I don't drive farther than I know the car can go.

I thought this was The Reg, not Top Gear.

Silent, spacious and... well, insipid: Citroën's electric C-Zero car

Re: What?

The C-Zero scored a 4 on the NCAP tests, like the Nissan LEAF.

Re: 145/65 front, 175/55 rear

The narrow front tyres are for less aerodynamic resistance. The C-Zero comes with a tyre repair kit, no spare. The tyres are not run-flat, though they are LRR.

Many cars comes with different sized tyres on the front and rear, however most tend to be for performance reasons rather than efficiency.

Another poorly-researched review?

A few days ago, I complained about the lack of research done on articles. Here's another.

The range indication is on the right-side of the dash. You must push the button (trip reset) several times through the 8 options to get the "range remaining". Like all EVs, the range remaining is incredibly inaccurate, so I rarely use it, instead choosing to display the outside temperature on the right and watching the battery gauge on the left.

Rear drum brakes mean little when your drivetrain is running the rear wheels. Regenerative braking makes rear discs unnecessary.

No climate control? Are you mad? There are three knobs in the middle of the dash!

Obvious cut 'n paste error: "Ecotricity has 150 charging stations that will charge a Leaf in 30 minutes but they are not compatible with the Tesla and the Leaf cannot be charged at Tesla stations". WHAT? The CHAdeMO standard works on the LEAF and the C-Zero (and Peugeot iOn and Mitsubishi i-MiEV). It's the Tesla (as your copy 'n paste error suggests) that is incompatible with these fast charging stations.

Do some research already!

Look inside ELON MUSK'S CAR! Tesla S wundervehicle has voom

Poorly researched reporting

Hey Reg: Not only are the gull wings of the Model X designed to work well in a crowded car park, the Nissan LEAF and Citroen C-Zero (and Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Peugeot iON) are all capable of charging via CHAdeMO, which will bring them to 80% charge in approximately 30 minutes. Try researching your topic before writing.

Über-secure Blackphone crypto-mobe spills its silicon guts

Secure?

Why have ultra-secure hardware with an ultra-insecure OS? Seriously! Android has over 99% of mobile malware (source: http://bgr.com/2014/01/21/android-mobile-malware-report/).

Furious MyCloud users descend on WD website as borkage continues

Layers of unnecessary shite. Run SSH/SFTP at home; use Filezilla or some other app to access it... done.

This changes everything: Microsoft slips WinXP holdouts $100 to buy new Windows 8 PCs

Re: Too little, too late.

That's not correct. Ironically, my elderly neighbors gave me a laptop sitting in their storage for somewhere around 13 years. It still had its initial Windows 98 install alive and working... though McAfee complained that its virus definitions were over 2000 days old.

I put Windows XP SP 3 on the computer, after putting a dusty 256MB DIMM into the computer's innards, and other than a 5 minute boot time, the computer works fine. I even have 2.5GB free on the 6GB hard drive. Oh, and the 256MB DIMM? Only 128MB of it was recognized. :)

My work-from-home setup's better than the office. It's GLORIOUS

Maybe your employer is a penny pincher, but mine ain't. The BASE workstation where I work has a 3.4GHz Core i7 with 16GB RAM and dual 24" monitors. It goes up from there.

Ballmer: 'Microsoft would have a stronger position if I could redo the last TEN YEARS'

10 Years?

Ballmer didn't see that Apple's integration of hardware and software made for a wonderful user experience? Instead, he uses the unholy matrimony between Android and Samsung as an example? Wow, he really was oblivious.

I think he needs to go back much farther than 10 years.

We test Intel's 730 480GB SSD Skulltrail scorcher

Intel 320

"...you can expect a certain level of reliability that accompanies the Intel logo."

That's what I thought until I purchased a 160GB Intel 320 SSD. Within a week it did the whole "your partition is now 8MB" thing. Fortunately I found instructions to fix it and waited for updated firmware to appear and fix the problem. Haven't had a problem since, but the first taste was pretty sour.

Boeing going ... GONE: Black phone will SELF-DESTRUCT in 30 secs

It is important to remember that Google's head of Android was recently on the record as saying that Android was built to be open, NOT secure. Why is Boeing using Android? Why not BlackBerry OS? Why not an OS of their own design? I know OSes take a long time to design, test, and build, but of all the available mobile OSes, why Android?

Angela Merkel: Let US spies keep their internet. The EU will build its own

We'll build our own Internet... with hookers and blackjack!

WD My Cloud EX4 four-bay NAS

The read/write speed isn't much faster than my first-gen Drobo on USB 2.0. What gives, WD?

Apple stores? Samsung says two can play at that game

Re: Re. Not a bad idea

Wow! You're a patent lawyer? Tell us more?

What can Microsoft learn from 'discontinued operations' at Nokia?

Windows Phone is a decent enough platform. It makes phone calls. It plays games. For many people, it's "good enough". The difference here is that Android makes cheaper kit. For a majority of punters, the cheapest option is the best option. They don't care about RAM, CPU speeds, screen resolution... as long as it is £0, they're happy.

Google's Nest gobble: Soon ALL your HOME are BELONG to US

Re: Internet of American Things

But what about those who already purchased one?

MANIC MINERS: Ten Bitcoin generating machines

Re: Buyer Beware

Don't deal with Butterfly Labs. I ordered one last year in March with an expected delivery date of June. I waited until September and still wasn't getting anywhere. Their support personnel just said, "we are making them as fast as we can", yet their support site didn't show delivery of a single one of the model I requested, nor the most expensive model.

It was quite challenging getting my money back from them. Fortunately I paid through PayPal on a "Pay It Later" account. I was able to do a chargeback and get my money back. Most people aren't so fortunate.

Sega’s Out Run: Even better than the wheel thing

I loved the Sega R360 systems. They were amazing! To be able and play After Burner and actually do a loop in real life was incredible.

I get motion sickness quite easily, but even doing inversions on the R360 didn't get me sick. There was a connect between the action on-screen and how the game was rotating the canopy. Amazing stuff.

http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=9217

Wait, that's no moon 21.5-inch monitor, it's an all-in-one LG Chromebase PC

Re: cheap iMac clone?

Maybe design-wise, but performance-wise, the iMac leaves this in the dust. The iMac costs more, of course, but you get what you pay for.

Re: It's not the concept, it's the vendor ...

You misspelled "Samsung".

Apple fanbois warned: No, Cupertino HASN'T built a Bitcoin mining function into Macs

Pwn n00bs

One particular 4chan thread made me laugh. Someone was trolling about how he could hack anyone's computer. One anon gave him his IP address: 127.214.56.12. The troll told the thread how he was able to see "this guy's" files -- not realizing they were his own! He was so happy to be able to delete the \windows\system32 folder on the "remote" system. We didn't see any more posts from him...

New FCC supremo: Sort out your cell unlocking, mobe giants - OR ELSE

Re: FCC Speed Test app

There was an FCC Speed Test app many moons ago on iOS. I guess they're having a second go at it.

Dell ‘xpands XPS line with 'WORLD-FIRST' MEGA-RESOLUTION laptops

Re: samsung does the same in 13.3"

OS X does not lock retina displays to a 1x or 2x mode. In the System Preferences, you choose the "virtual resolution" you want and all the elements scale to that resolution. It's quite impressive hands-on.

First look: Apple iPhone 5S and 5C

The first 64-bit mobile phone is just "meh"? With the first fingerprint reader that doesn't make you want to throw the phone against the wall? With CPU and graphics performance that beat all Android phones AND tablets currently on the market? Are you mad?