Posts by Gordon861

WFH with privacy? 85% of Brit bosses snoop on staff

I made up a few using a Pi Pico board during Covid for colleagues, they are still in use as far as I know.

Smart TVs are spying on everyone

Re: PiHole!

I've never had an issue with it blocking something I needed. I have pretty much just left mine alone doing its thing for ages now, probably should log in and update it really. There are also options on the admin page to pause operations for a set time or just turn it off.

For the cost, it is worth setting one up and just moving a few devices over at a time, rather than pointing your existing router at it. For mobile devices this probably means deleting the current wifi connection and then when you reconnect it you click advanced so that you can put the PiHole as the Gateway IP.

Linus Tech Tips (LTT) did a decent intro/setup video a few years back which should still be relevant.

Re: PiHole!

I thought the PiHole works by becoming an alternative Gateway to the web, so instead of setting the Gateway on the TV to 192.168.0.1 (or whatever you have) you set it to the PiHole IP and then let it do its stuff.

RAC duo busted for stealing and selling crash victims' data

150 Hours community Service

So how much did they make from this scheme to sell 30K lines of details?

Do they keep the money?

I doubt they were taking the risk for a £1 a contact, £5 might make the risk worth it, for 150 hours work afterwards.

Are you ready to back up your AI chatbot's promises? You'd better be

Disclaimer

Does this mean that all business chatbot/AIs will now have a disclaimer on the page saying that any answers should be confirmed and are not binding?

And will these disclaimers be legally enforceable if the bot does give out false information.

Dumping us into ad tier of Prime Video when we paid for ad-free is 'unfair' – lawsuit

If you must buy Chinese crap, just go straight to the source, AliExpress. They are cheaper than Amazon, and some suppliers offer fairly quick delivery.

Re: Query: the timing of ads

And often, if you know what you want, you can often get it elsewhere cheaper anyways.

Otherwise I just group stuff together and if I can't get enough for free delivery I just wait until I can.

Re: Idiots

"The problem is; Prime Memberships are paid up front and there is no way they are going to give you your money back. Not even a pro-rated amount."

I don't see how they can not return the money or keep you on an ad-free contract, at least in UK/EU, the US is a law unto itself.

I would be looking at the facility you used to pay for the subscription and get them involved. Initiate a chargeback, you have nothing to lose.

I did this with one of the Nerd-Box suppliers from the US when they kept delaying and never sending the monthly boxes. Just passed all the info over to Amex and they refunded the whole subscription, even for the ones I had received.

Would also be raising a complaint with your local Trading Standards and anyone else that might be relevant.

Plex gives fans a privacy complex after sharing viewing habits with friends by default

I recently put Jellyfin on my server PC (it's still running Plex to but rarely used).

My main use for it is audio streaming to my car via Android Auto and a VPN to home, it works well but the system needs some better playlist/playback options for audio files.

At home for video I just use a OMSC Vero V Kodi box.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

Same Footprint

Considering the Pi is moving further towards being a mini computer than a tinker board with every new version, why are they keeping the same footprint?

If they had increased the size by 1.5-2.0 times you could have the 3.5mm audio again, you could have full sized HDMI and negate the need for those damned adapter cables. You need a new case anyways, why not a slightly bigger one?

Your next PC should be a desktop – maybe even this Chinese mini machine

AliEpress - Maxtang Intel Elkhart Lake J6412, free delivery to UK

- (4GB RAM, 128GB SSD - ￡260.20)

- (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD - ￡305.07)

- (16GB RAM 512GB SSD - ￡349.94)

They don't have the barebones price on the page but do refer to it being available.

Amazon tells folks it will stop accepting UK Visa credit cards via weird empty email

Re: It appears we are just behind Australia

From that page "The ban on credit and debit card surcharges is effective across the EU from Saturday 13th January 2018, and will apply to all purchases made where the banks of the consumer and retailer are within the EEA."

So this could be the next Brexit sunny upland we've all been promised ...

Re: Will be interesting

According to the radio this morning, it sounds like VISA are charging the 1.5% on refunds as well as charges, so it is hitting Amazon twice on returns.

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Yes, but that response came from someone signing off as BS.

Typical. Crap weather halts work on subsea fibre-optic cable between UK and France

Tunnel

What's the diameter of the cable?

Isn't this the sort of thing that would have made sense to run along one of the existing tunnels rather than the sea bed?

WhatsApp pulls plug on Taliban helpline, shuts down official-looking accounts

Not Sure About This

Surely the fact that a form of encrypted communication was authorised by use to contact the Taliban, and by them, would also mean that it would be legal for everyone to have this communication system on their phones?

This would mean that as well as reporting to the Taliban local problems, it would also allow encrypted communications inside and outside the country.

Now that the software has been banned by the new 'government' there is nothing to stop them decreeing that no one may have it on their phone.

Apple: We didn't take commission on 90% of App Store sales and billings

Just Make it Physical

Instead of charging players for their in-game money sell them postcards that you actually send to the customers address.

Each postcard then comes with free in-game currency that we will email to you immediately, please enjoy your postcard.

Megabucks in funding, 28 years of research, and Boston Dynamics is to be 'sold to Hyundai' for 1/40th of an Arm

If/when they solve the power requirements and noise they could be used as a pack animal, but I always thought the idea of fitting one with a mortar for support fire would work well. Operator indicates position of the target from themselves and the unit calculates the trajectory and drops a shell on the target.

HP: That print-free-for-life deal we promised you? Well, now it's pay-per-month to continue using your printer ink

Chargeback

"Hello 'Creditcard Company' I signed up for a subscription lifetime deal and now the company has decided to withdraw it, here's the evidence, please recover my money."

Let them fight HP for you.

Remember when the keyboard was the computer? You can now relive those heady days with the Raspberry Pi 400

Probably better off with the compute module rather than the basic Pi4.

Re: E for effort

I expect that you will be better served once the Pi4 Compute Module reaches general circulation. With the EMMC options and the PCIE port I expect someone will bring out a fairly small all in one box with an M2 or SATA connection inside.

With this and the Pi Keyboard/Mouse it'll be a much better setup.

I really think the Pi400 missed a trick by not making the main board accept a Pi4 Compute Module, it would have opened many more options and they could have sold the main board as a unit for home building personalized Pi's.

Re: Configure as PiHole?

If you are making them a PiHole just get a Aluminium Armour - Heatsink Case for Pi4 and add TeamViewer Host to the setup so you can remote in as required.

Now Nvidia's monster GeForce RTX 3090 cards snaffled up by bots, scalpers – if only there had been a warning

The best thing Nvidia can do now is just keep drip feeding the stock into the supply chain slowly. If people see more cards becoming available over an extended period then they are less likely to pay the scalpers inflated prices and wait. Sooner or later the scalpers are going to run out of purchasing power and need to sell something.

They should also be limiting the number of cards going to any address/email too.

The way I see it, if I have 1000 units in stock and expect another 1000 in a month, the best way to sell is gradually release them to the market over the month. If I sell the whole lot in the first 24 hours customers are going to be desperate after not seeing any stock released for the rest of the month that they may pay over the price to scalpers. But if they know more are coming available all the time they are more likely to wait.

England's COVID-tracking app finally goes live after 6 months of work – including backpedal on how to handle data

Re: "wearing masks outdoors when moving"

Masks in taxis and mini cabs ... but no mask required if you can afford a chauffeur.

Apple takes another swing at Epic, says Unreal Engine could be a 'trojan horse' threatening security

Re: "Apple would face incalculable harm"

The problem with "But the review process also makes lots of abuses impossible" is that the review process blatantly failed to spot what Epic were doing until they'd already done it, so less secure than previously thought.

As an aside, do Apple users that downloaded the recent "don't pay Apple" version still have access to it and are they still able to avoid the ApplePay system?

Safety driver at the wheel of self-driving Uber car that killed a pedestrian is charged with negligent homicide

I also expect that part of the problem was that Uber didn't pay for what amounted to a Test Pilot and instead just paid someone with the same qualifications as their regular drivers.

The people responsible for driving these things on the road should be highly qualified.

RasPad 3.0 converts Raspberry Pi 4 to a tablet – be prepared for some quirks

Re: Just why

I always wonder why people are still putting crap resolution LCDs in kit when higher res cheap screens are out there.

We've heard some made-up stories but this is ridiculous: Microsoft Flight Simulator, Bing erect huge skyscraper out of bad data

Problems with MS FlightSim

From what I've seen in game so far the majority of the scenery is good, but the AI does seem overly keen on tree planting so if there's some trees in RL the area is full of trees.

My main problem with the sim is that my keyboard keeps unlisting as a controller when I start a flight, so I cannot end the sim other than closing the program from task manager. The keyboard becomes usable if I crash until I start a new flight again.

Very impressed with what they've done but there are some serious problems with the sim/game and support is very sketchy right now.

Laughing UK health secretary launches COVID-19 Test and Trace programme with glitchy website and no phone app

Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/28/nhs-will-keep-personal-data-of-people-with-coronavirus-for-20-years--uk-test-and-trace-programme

Telegraph (paywall so can't read it)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/05/28/nhs-fire-plans-store-track-trace-data-20-years/

New Statesman

https://tech.newstatesman.com/coronavirus/nhs-test-and-trace-privacy-doc-throws-doubt-on-apps-anonymity-claims

Expect to see The Register take on it soon.

So you get a positive result on a test, quick WhatsApp to your friends "Who wants another two weeks off on full pay?"

End up reading off a long list of names and numbers to the friendly NHS Ttrack and Trace person. Yes this will go well.

I also heard a report on the radio earlier that the plan is to hold onto all contacts data for 20 years for 'research purposes'.

Artful prankster creates Google Maps traffic jams by walking a cartful of old phones around Berlin

Re: I don't think this does as much as people think

That might have just been a reported incident. I often get a pop-up asking if the vehicle/mobil camera are still there.

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

Re: Suggestions please...

How about an old mobile phone, running something like Plex, with a 3.5mm jack plugged into a pair of speakers?

Use a tablet and you can have video too.

Dixons Carphone to London Stock Exchange: Yay, we grew 2% in the festive quarter. Oh, hang on, no we didn't

Re: Currys

Richer Sounds for TVs

What if everyone just said 'Nah' to tracking?

Re: But How ?

PiHole is very simple to setup and can stop a lot.

LTT did a video and tutorial on it last year, link for convenience below:

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1094810-pi-hole-setup-tutorial/

Re: But How ?

Another Pi-Hole fan here, been running it since LTT did a setup tutorial last year.

Built a second one and added it to my parents home network and have been slowly moving devices over to it over the last few weeks, in case it turns out to block something they 'need'. Android phones are a pain to change the DNS lookup though as they all seem to require you to delete the wifi connection and then re-add it with a new DNS rather than allowing you to edit the settings.

The only addition I would like to see to the Pi-Hole is a simple way to VPN into it so that a mobile phone could be connected to it when using data and still have the same protections.

Privacy activists beg Google to ban un-removable bloatware from Android

This is what's holding up my next upgrade right now, looking for a new Android One phone to replace my Xioami MiA1, the A2 is 18 months old now and for the recent A3 they have switched to a lower res screen for some reason.

UK's Virgin Media celebrates the end of 2019 with a good, old fashioned TITSUP*

I always make a point of talking to any engineers or digging teams that I see in my street just to get an idea of what they may be about to break or turn off.

Not normally a problem but if you do need to call customer services later it helps if you can let them know that their teams were in the area recently and what they said they were doing.

Amazon drops battery-powered Echo speaker so you can play Despacito on the go

Why?

My first thought when I saw a battery powered echo was WHY?

Surely most places you are going to use this you will already have access to power or your mobile phone can do everything this can do already. If you do want to use your Echo outside, but why not just plug it into a 10k mA power pack? Or just use a regular bluetooth speaker and slave it to your phone.

So again, what is the point of this?

UK ads watchdog slaps Amazon for UX dark arts after folk bought Prime subs they didn't want

Caught Out

I got caught by this last year just before Christmas. In some ways it worked out well because I cancelled right away and got any Christmas orders delivered free last year, but it's starting to again offer more free trials.

Tempted to sign up for another free trial this year and buy lots of minimum spend items and see how many deliveries I can get done in one month. Might also work as a bonus for the drivers as I expect they get paid per item rather than per address.

Traffic lights worldwide set to change after Swedish engineer saw red over getting a ticket

Re: Would someone explain

I got the impression, maybe wrongly, that in the US the whole junction is covered by the lights. Meaning that if you are still in the junction when the lights have changed then you get a ticket. As opposed to in the UK where the only bit covered by the red light is the stop line so if you have passed the stop line and are still within the junction when they change you are still legal.

The argument is that if you have already slowed to make another manoeuvre then the time that the yellow light is lit is not sufficient to clear the junction.

Here's that hippie, pro-privacy, pro-freedom Apple y'all so love: Hong Kong protest safety app banned from iOS store

Re: Context is everything

I think I saw video of the incident on C4 News last week, it was how you described it. When I saw the footage I thought that the cop was within his rights to fire.

Not that this in any way condones the other punishment beatings that appear to being handed out by the police elsewhere.

Behold the perils of trying to turn the family and friends support line into a sideline

My parents keep offering to pass on their old, really old, laptops to family members and I keep persuading them that they will not be doing them any favours and that I will not be responsible for providing any help if they do so.

I'm having a hard enough time just trying to get them to move on from an eight year old Win7 machine that is really starting to show its age. I expect a lot of panic and stress over christmas when they finally come around to the idea of upgrading.

Re: "there was an error message and I clicked on it, what was it?"?

I've managed to get my parents to take a picture of the screen whenever they get an error message that they don't recognise before clearing it.

Re: you've never tried to connect wifi/bluetooth to devices

Last night I spent hours trying to get a wireless Xbox controller to pair with a PC.

Just needs a Bluetooth dongle, bollocks, the computer can see the controller it just won't pair, keeps asking for a PIN number, tried the standard 0000 or 1111 etc no luck. Further searching on the web suggests updating the firmware, nope all up to date. The last thing I found before giving up was, it needs Bluetooth 4 to work, oh great buy another dongle in the hope it might work, or just give up and run it from a cable.

Went for option 3, took it back to Currys for a refund.

Fitbit fitness fans furious following flummoxing flawed firmware float, fleeting feedback, failed fixes

I've had a lot of problems syncing with my phone for a while (Xiaomi M1A1), now just sync with my tablet and the phone gets the info from there.

But not at all impressed with the new layout of the software.

UK.gov's smart meter cost-benefit analysis for 2019 goes big on cost, easy on the benefits

Re: In-House Displays

I have an in-house display from my old OWL meter reader amongst all the other junk near my computer, very good for telling when the oven is up to temp as the power draw will drop suddenly. They can be useful once you establish a baseline, just don't get too obsessive about trying to get too low.

UK Home Office primes Brexit spam cannon for a million texts reminding folk to check passports

Passport Renewal

My passport ran out last week, normally I'd be right on it and would have renewed it already, but I have no plans to go anywhere right now

The problem is that I feel my passport has been turned into a political symbol of Brexit, it has been hijacked in a similar way that the flag in the past was hijacked by thugs and racists.

Bus pass or bus ass? Hackers peeved about public transport claim to have reverse engineered ticket app for free rides

Obvious Mistake?

So if I understand this right, they have done what game devs have realised years ago, if you let the user control their inventory on the client side there is a very good chance that they will change some settings and give themselves a gun with super damage or make them run faster.

GIMP open source image editor forked to fix 'problematic' name

Re: Divide and rule

I work at a local authority and needed some form of image tool, Photoshop was out of the question due to cost and they suggested Paint. It took a while for them to eventually allow GIMP to be installed, the IT Team were fine, it was the middle management that needed to authorise the installation of a program called GIMP.

Also, the idea of improving the interface "yes please", coming from using Photoshop for years I often feel like I am fighting the interface on GIMP.

Chrome add-on warns netizens when they use a leaked password. Sometimes, they even bother to change it

Re: *Shrug*

I think the 2FA has been a great improvement, only worry is if eventually that'll be 'broken' but if it does we're all screwed anyways.