Posts by BenDwire

Microsoft confirms there will be no U-turn on Windows 11 hardware requirements

I think you misunderstand: Win 11 is not a factor here, just the cessation of W10 updates.

Tech support chap showed boss how to use a browser for a year – he still didn't get it

Re: Thermostats

Even easier is to remove the knob from the spindle and relocate it reading a few degess higher. Then use the internal set point to restrict the upper limit to 25C.

Everyone's a winner.

Re: Wow serious stuff

Excuse me? My last 2 jobs (1990 - 2018) had "Tannoy" systems to locate people who were away from their desk, the disadvantage of which was the sound of the machinery was often too loud to hear the announcement clearly. That resulted in at least 4 people with similar sounding names to call the receptionist simultaneously...

Anyway, I was in a similar position to "Bob" in that I was the highest ranking manager who actually knew how to use PCs, and I too was summoned to the big boss in mahogany row. The look of all the staff staring at me as I walked across the factory floor was straight out of Hitchcock film - we all thought I'd been summoned to receive my P45*

That actual problem? The MD needed Flight Simulator installing on his brand new PC, which was of course the most powerful machine on site.

BOFH's will be pleased to learn that another similarly powerful machine was soon delivered to my department as a 3D CAD workstation. Everyone has a price ...

* UK Tax paperwork given to ex-employees

Abandoned US Army 'city under the ice' imaged in serendipitous NASA find

R & D Trench

I was instantly drawn to the R&D Trench on that diagram. Initially I thought that he whole structure was vertical, thus putting all the R&D staff far, far underground. After cleaning my glasses, I now recognise my misunderstanding. But the word "Trench" is a very fitting description of the environment given the lack of recognition the average R&D type gets.

Microsoft flashes Win10 users with more full-screen ads for Windows 11

Re: Linux in the new year

If you really don't want to learn command-line stuff, then I would also recommend Linux Mint. Put it on a SSD if possible and it will fly in comparison to W10. I updated a 16 year old's computer to Mint and I haven't heard a moan since (well, not about that computer). He remains happy and uses it every day.

As for books, they all quickly go out of date. You could grab a few Linux magazines, but quite honestly the internet has all the help and information that you need.

Good luck

BOFH: The devil's in the contract details

Re: Telephone Systems

Indeed so. But the corpses should be left as a warning.

Re: Telephone Systems

That sounds like the antics of photocopier salesmen over the past decades too ... Carpet & Lime is far too good for them.

Whomp-whomp: AI PCs make users less productive

Maybe 56% of the respondents came from the Sales & Marketing departments ... ?

Re: Talking to computers

If only John Cleese was still doing his management traininng videos ... I would have loved to see him beating a computer with a tree branch

Steam cuts the cord for legacy Windows and macOS

I still have a Crossover Office licence, renewed annually, simply because it lets me run a couple of obscure programs on my Debian box. I know I don't *need* to keep it updated, but it's a way to give a bit back to the Wine project.

My own transition away from Windows was done in the same way; move over to open-source for most things, then taking the plunge is so much more straightforward. I have windows builds on various VMs that I fell back on in the early days but I rarely need to use them any more.

But yes, buy the best hardware you can and resist the temptation to run Linux on the oldest machine, because the resulting experience will be horrible!

UK energy watchdog slaps down Capita's £130M smart meter splurge

Re: The real reason the UK government wants smart meters

... you're specifically calling out government to go after you and make you cold...

Um, I think you'll find a lot of poorer pensioners agreeing with you there ...

Mozilla Foundation crumbles as third of staff cast off

CTRL+F opens a dialog(ue) in FF on my Debian 12 system. And I have NoScript installed too.

YMMV

Ford CEO admits he drives a Chinese electric vehicle and doesn't want to give it up

Re: Kryten

Helen Czerski you say? She's no Kristine Kochanski, but is a wonderful person nonetheless.

Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.

Kryten

I can't believe that no-one has mentioned the fact this is Kryten ( Robert Llewellyn ) doing the interview.

You've changed, El Reg. You've changed ...

Polish radio station ditches DJs, journalists for AI-generated college kids

There is a halfway house available, where the DJ only speaks after several tracks, and there are no adverts. I refer to the wonderful internet station Radio Paradise. They make a point of it being human curated, and long may it continue.

Linux admin asked savvy scientist for IT help and the boffin blew it

Re: Regomiser

Or Alan ?

Yes, your network is down – you annoyed us so much we crashed it

Re: Finance dept. are at the root of this issue

Just trust me on that one. They were lovely people, but ...

Now, I did work in a couple of Essex based factories decades ago, and some of the production girls were quite stunning. One of them used to sell skimpy underwear as a side hustle, and would unbutton her workwear to reveal said underware adorning her otherwise naked body. She once 'flashed' the production supervisor who was trying to disciplne her for not working, and the poor guy didn't know what to do. He elected to sit in my office for an hour to calm down. The fact that I'm no looker probably helped to dissipate his hormones.

As we used to say back then, "it was all done in the best possible taste". (RIP Kenny)

Re: Finance dept. are at the root of this issue

In your case it was a lack of attention to detail, but there are enough non-English speaking natives around who might understandably confuse the spelling of similar sounding words. People who can speak in multiple languages astound me.

I worked with a good-looking French chap who sent an email with the phrase "You'll all have to bare with me while I sort this out" - I managed to inform him of his error before the production ladies started loosening their garments ...

BOFH: Boss's quest for AI-generated program ends where it should've begun

Re: Excel has a large() function!

It's in Libreoffice Calc too. Every day is a school day ...

After we fix that, how about we also accidentally break something important?

Re: hmm , am I a hoarder

You did a good job raising her. Well done!

Linus Torvalds declares war on the passive voice

Re: I'm British...

I even went to a grammar school, but wasn't taught English language at all. We did do compulsary Latin, but I completely zoned out as any normal 11 year old would. At O-Level, 30 out of 90 pupils had to retake the exam ...

Three, Voda promise £10-a-month or below mobile tariffs in bid to sway CMA on merger

I am on that tariff too, but only on my phone's second SIM which is used as the number delivery drivers *need* these days. Apart from that I only send one text every 6 months in order to keep it alive. I paid £10 three years ago and most of that balance is still there.

If that changes to £10 p/m then that's a huge increase for me. Admittedly no-one is making any profit off me, but I don't exactly cost them anything either.

Time will tell ... I doubt whether they'll miss me if I have to go elsewhere.

Apple ropes off at least 4 GB of iPhone storage to house AI

Re: The misses

Less Fewer cat videos.

FIFY

Re: The misses

...less space to store all the crap pictures on her phone as Apple may push AI

FTA

Initially, the capability of Apple Intelligence will be limited to:

Clean Up in Photos

...

Maybe the AI will be able to detect and delete all such crap photos, thus making more space for itself to use? Of couse 'Crap' is a subjective term, so who knows what may be erased.

_{I'm sure I've seen a documentary full of stars when the AI computer decided that 'he' knew best, and reduced the staff headcount. At least 'he' was sorry, Dave...}

Re: Cost Effective AI.

That form of sales and marketing has gone pear-shaped for many organisations.

Indeed so. None of them are that honest any more ...

/s

UK government's bank data sharing plan slammed as 'financial snoopers' charter'

I don't know how close to retirement you are, but you are showing great promise in achieving your obligatory curmudgeonly-old-man status!

I'm in complete agreement with you of course, but as I'm already drawing my pension I have some insights that you probably don't want to hear. Good luck with your mission to keep flying under the radar!

Beer, because I'm retired and can drink whenever I feel like it ...

Re: Seems a bit odd

Banks do know their customers, but there is no mechanism to report dodgy dealings - and I know this as MsDwire has recently retired as a senior bank manager. In their experience, customers often with non-anglicised names have several accounts, all based on a variation of their actual name. Monies are transferred between accounts to keep balances down to a non-suspicious level.

How will any snooping allow these accounts to be assigned to one person? Banking software in general expects names such as "John Smith" and doesn't allow the entry of names where the family name comes first. Apparently, the influx of foreign students each year was a nightmare as they just didn't know which part of their name went where on the form - and unfortunately the staff often didn't know either as there was little to no guidance. The banks need to "globalise" their identifiers to accommodate names correctly, otherwise it is all garbage-in, garbage out. That won't happen anytime soon as there are insufficient Cobol programmers left ...

Please note that I'm not implying "John Smith" can't be a benefit's cheat, nor that it's only "Johnny Foreigner" who's on the take. My point is that there is no mechanism to report any suspicious activity by customers that would help identify such cheats.

Capita wins £135M extension on much-delayed UK smart meter rollout

Re: Klystron

When I was a lad on work experience in the 1970's, I saw those transmitter valves being made and tested. Huge great copper things, the size of a dustbin, cooled by high pressure steam ... and yes, I said cooled. I was even given the job of modifying one of the test rigs on the production line, which unfortunately stopped working once I'd been inside. Thankfully a pair of wire-cutters removed the modifications I'd been told to add, and someone higher up went away to have a rethink.

Yes. I'm officially very, very old.

Muppet broke the datacenter every day, in its own weighty way

Re: 'larger than life' characters with a low center of gravity, ginger beard, and spectacles.

As Tim Minchin once wrote, "Only a ginger can call a ginger, Ginger"

BOFH: The Boss is right, the applications of AI are truly staggering

Re: Robot -- my boss is here...

A protection probe? Is that what you always tell them ... ?

If every PC is going to be an AI PC, they better be as good at all the things trad PCs can do

Re: In a way, no

amanfrommars ... is that you?

Re: But what...

I remember that ad well, given that I was a lad living in West London at the time.

Your post got me nostalgic for two reasons though; One being youthful memories of my educational years, but the other was for actually listening to ads on the radio. What a blast from the past!

I never do that these days as I almost exclusively listen to Radio Paradise . The music is far better than what is played on commercial radio these days (IMHO)

The amber glow of bork illuminates Brighton Station

Printed plank of wood ?

According to a documentary I saw last week ( Secrets Of The London Underground - at about 24 minutes in) those were not printed planks, but hand painted. They even had a metal edging where it was inserted into the post to prevent wear. All this from an age where we made things to last.

For interested younger readers who don't remember the mechanical departure boards, search for "Split Flap Displays" or "Solari" boards.

Mine's the anorak with my notebook in the pocket --->

A nice cup of tea rewired the datacenter and got things working again

My first CAD system ran on a single 5¼" drive ... 360k IIRC. Dasoft 16 anyone?

And that 10 minute pause will also give a little time to make sure that the supply is stable, and not about to go back down when the original fault resurfaces.

Even my trusty old APC UPS waits for a while before restarting after a controlled shutdown. Admittedly that's more to do with getting a bit of charge into the cells, but it's quite effective at allowing thought processes to reboot too.

BOFH: Videoconferencing for special dummies

Re: So true to life

We used to nick the screws so that the desks fell apart when sat on!

Re: So true to life

It was actually in Chelmsford - but I would assume all Latin teachers were equally sadistic ...

Icon 'cos he looked like that when cross ---->

A long life has taught me that reading BOFH is a nil-by-mouth experience, unless you want a change of clothes/keyboard/desk.

Re: So true to life

When I was at school then the major risk was from the board rubber* being hurled at one's forehead from the Latin teacher. Back in the 1970's they preferred to use the "Short, Sharp Shock" treatment. Didn't do us any harm ... < twitch >

* a substantial wooden block with a felt insert that was used to clean the chalkboards (as they weren't called back then)

Ex-Microsoft engineer resurrects PDP-11 from junkyard parts

Re: Ex-Microsoft engineer

The 6809 was a great processor, and I was taught to use it while at university, and used it in my final year project. I still have the Lance Leventhal 6809 book around somewhere ...

Raspberry Pi 5 slims down for cut-price 2 GB RAM version

Re: Headphone socket missing though

I run piCorePlayer on a couple of Pi3Bs, and they use HDMI as an output. I have no problems playing from my media server or the FLAC stream from Radio Paradise though my Yamaha AV amp.

However, *some* versions of the board don't play very well, and the release notes allude to some issues that others have experienced.

BOFH: The true gravity of the Boss and the 3-coffee problem

There's always a grain of truth in most cynical statements, so while there is an enforced change of lifesyte there is no call for a replacement as yet.

Always remember, the liver is evil and must be punished.

You forgot your icon ...

My last job was a 7 coffee problem - 7 coffees every day, for almost 20 years. And then a bottle of red wine before bedtime.

That only stopped when I did. Can't say more now, I'm just off to the hospital for yet another round of tests ...

WordStar 7, the last ever DOS version, is re-released for free

Re: +1

Quattro Pro was simply the best spreadsheet around at that time, and looked great when put into its graphic mode on a colour EGA monitor. I seem to recall running the GEM desktop at one point, and I'm fairly sure that Quattro Pro was one of the few programs that seemed to integrate well. Of course I may have got my neurons mixed up (I was also running a Sun Sparcstation at that time) but those days were a blur of innovation.

Re: Speed

Given that Slashdot has linked to this story, perhaps Slashdot did the Slashdotting !

IIRC my Z80 was clocked at 1MHz, and a 4.77MHz IBM XT ran at light speed in comparison. I could still only type at the same speed though (and probably faster than I can type in my advancing years ...)

Speed

But is there a way to make it run as slowly as it did on my Z80 based CP/M machine? Only then will I be able to relive the experience of the early eighties ...

Yes, I am being intolerably smug – because I ignored you and saved the project

The good reason was what preceded them: Three different sizes of round-pinned plugs, depending on the current rating. No fuses. That led to rooms having different types of sockets scattered everywhere, often resulting in horribly overloaded circuits with multiple adaptors. We even had pugs (and Y-shaped adaptors) to power appliances from the lighting circuit. Whach an old B&W film and you might spot the lady of the house* doing the ironing with the cable dropping from above.

I am old enough, and lived in a lot of very old houses, to know all of this first hand.

So yes, the square-pinned plug revolutionised our lives and made everything so much safer. Feeling smug for a reason.

* I know. That's just how it was, back in the day.

Re: As a nod to my advancing years.....

This thead is developing into a self-help group. We're all so different to normal people, but so similar to the rest of us.

Time for beer ...

50 years ago, CP/M started the microcomputer revolution

Re: CP/M Gets AC From Idiot To Mostly Competent!!!!

We had a couple of Superbrains tucked away in room adjacent to the design lab, and they both ran Wordstar for us engineers to write up reports. Being young, ernest and skint, I bought a "Matmos PC" from the back pages of a computer magazine for about £200. Twin floppy discs, one Z80 and a very odd keyboard all running CP/M. Originally made by the German typewriter company, Triumph Adler, they were sold off cheap as they were so slow.

However, I managed to PIP Wordstar from a Superbrain via the serial port to my Matmos, and that was officially my first dodgy copy of any software. Slow as molasses, but at least it worked well enough until I could afford something better.