Posts by David Austin

Samsung Galaxy S11 tipped to escalate the phone cam arms race with 108MP sensor

"felt fairly safe, with few standout features distinguishing it from their predecessors"

Outside the more avant garde stuff like folding phones and flexible screens, is that really a surprise? What more could you honestly add to a phone at this point? Even the budget end can surf the web, take an OK picture, stream a movie, and listen to music (Oh, and make the occasional phone call).

Don't take this as a negative: Since around the iPhone 4s/Galaxy S3 days, the pocket computers we all carry around have been so crammed with features, about all you can do is make the numbers bigger and faster

I'm excited to see what the next big leap forward is, but I'm glad I'm not the engineer or marketing bod that has to try to come up with what that is.

After 10 years, Google Cloud Print will finally be out of beta... straight into ad giant's graveyard

Re: Printing from Android tablets

Credit where credit's due: Airprint nails LAN mobile printing. Quick, simple... and nowhere near common knowledge. I've blown several people's minds by showing them they had an airprint capable printer, and throwing a document out from their iPad.

Android printing is better nowerdays, but still requires plugin apps and a lot more faff.

Universal standard would be nice, but I won't hold my breath.

Police confirm interview with UKFast boss Lawrence Jones

Given the type of allegations he faces, I'm not sure if having his wife as CEO is a very good or very bad thing for him...

Microsoft explains self-serve Power platform's bypassing of Office 365 admins to cries of 'are you completely insane?'

Re: "Microsoft will provide standard support for self-service purchasers."

So sfc /scannow ?

You better get a wiggle on then: BT said to be mulling switching off UK's copper internets by 2027

Unrealistic is my first thought

Maybe, as AIBailey suggested above, if they started tomorrow, they could get everyone on FTTC, only leaving last mile copper by 2027.

But Full copper replacement in 8 years? That's an unrealistic deadline, and that seems a way too low figure to do it that only makes sense if you lowball the delivery date.

While full fiber gigabit connections are definitely nice to have, I'd rather they focus on a universal 10/20 meg (Upstream AND Downstream) service, regardless of the technology: Across my clients, I have 2 central London, 6 provincial town, and 4 Exchange Line only business that are stuck on OK 8mb-12mb down, and abysmal 0.5mb up ADSLv1/v2 services: They are so hamstrung by the poor upload speeds, most have grit their teeth and paying hundreds every month for Leased Lines: Getting a "Works most of the time well enough" 40MB/20MB FTTC Service for 50 bucks a month would make a huge difference for them.

Thinking about processing a payment, Sage Group? Biz confirms mulling sale of Sage Pay

Why?

This.. just seems kinda odd.

Sage pay and Sage Accounts/Payroll compliment each other so well, reinforcing each other's products: I'm not paid nearly enough consultancy fees for anyone to listen to me, but I'd have thought taking the long term, consistent profit from that division over a one off chunk of cash is the better idea...

Biz forked out $115k to tout 'Time AI' crypto at Black Hat. Now it sues organizers because hackers heckled it

Why would you take that talk to BlackHat?

That would have probably done well at a middle manager or PHB conference (Much to the chagrin of their technical underlings that would have to implement it)... but why would you take that *Style* of talk to a bunch of highly technical users that have been trained through years of BOFH and atrocity archives to smell PR bullshit a mile off?

Giving them the benefit of the doubt that their technology actually works and isn't just buzzwords strung together, surely you'd tailor the talk to be nuts and bolts engineering, given the audience?

This sounds like the wrong talk to the wrong audience, and with this lawsuit, I predict they're about to do a Juicero and learn first hand about the Streisand effect...

Steam cleaned of zero-day security holes after Valve turned off by bug bounty snub outrage

Would not expect any less from Valve

I love the boys from Seattle, but they do have a talent for reacting too late to developing situations, and shooting themselves in the foot over something trivial to fix.

Samsung Note10+ torn apart to expose three 5G antennas: One has to pick up something

I thought non-expandable storage...

... was Apple's shtick.

Disappointed they've removed that from the standard Note.

Don't press the red b-... Windows Insiders' rings hit by surprise Microsoft emission

That's a brave UI Designer....

Clearly didn't have a chance to talk to their predecessor about how well the Windows 8.x Start menu redesign went...

London cop illegally used police database to monitor investigation into himself

I like the idea of the police giving him enough rope to hang himself... but I don't think I can credit them with that level of cunning.

Don't tell Alice and Bob: Security maven Bruce Schneier is leaving IBM

Probably for the best

Before IBM push him out the door via constructive dismissal for being too old.

One teeensy little 13-minute power cut, and WD you look at the size of that chip supply cut!

Backup Power

I would have liked to think they had (tested) battery backups and onsite generators with enough fuel to last them though a 15 minute power cut, but after losing six extrabytes of capacity, I'm guessing that'll be fixed soon.

Better to bolt the stable door after the horse has bolted, than not at all, I guess...

Here's what Autonomy told its salesmen they were allowed to do

"Selling Products we don't sell"

Do.. Do sales people really need that one written down?

What a pain in the Azzz-ure: Microsoft Azure, SharePoint, etc knocked offline by DNS blunder

If in Doubt, blame DNS

I find that a normal good troubleshooting tip: For such a simple thing, it was so many varied and exciting ways to bugger up your network.

It's OK; I'm sure going to IPv6 where the recommendation is to always use DNS instead of Direct IP calls will make this mess a whole lot easier...

Daddy, are we there yet? How Mrs Gates got Bill to drive the kids to school

That's a great little story. I have a lot of time for Bill and Melinda, and everything they're trying to do with their foundation.

Remember Windows Media Center? Well, the SDK is now on GitHub to be poked at your leisure

I have a soft spot for Windows Media Centre and indeed, still use it on a Windows 7 Shuttle PC Connected to a TV, with an Xbox 360 working as an extender.

Still upset it got dropped from Windows 10, but writing was on the wall when i got my Playstation 3 to run network media better than the native 360...

IT sales star wins $660k lawsuit against Oracle in Qatar – but can't collect because the Oracle he sued suddenly vanished

What absolute cockweasels

They're going on the sneaky bastard cockweasels list along with BlackBerry as companies I won't touch with a barge pole: As a rule, if they can't treat their staff right, forget treating their customers decently.

Ex-Mozilla CTO: US border cops demanded I unlock my phone, laptop at SF airport – and I'm an American citizen

Would you *Really* want to be the person standing in front of the TSA Agent saying "Sorry, I don't have the encryption key for that"?

Re: Don't travel to the US.

I wish I could say you were being paranoid, but I keep a burner laptop for state visits, too.

After last year's sexism shambles, 2019's RSA infosec bash has upped its inclusivity game

- Can you go to a show, and see someone on stage that kinda sorta looks and acts like you.

and

- Can you wander around the show floor without getting inappropriate comments or harassed.

Seems a reasonable baseline to start from; let's get solidly to that point, then build on from there - Having attendees feel comfortable at your show, and a range of different viewpoints being heard seems like a good thing™

New claim dogs Oracle: After $11m of sales, I was unfairly axed before next big deal – because I am a 64yo woman

If this is how Oracle treats their employees

I'd dread to think how they treat their customers.

Hoping I never have to find out first hand...

'This collaboration is absolutely critical going forward'... One positive thing about Meltdown CPU hole? At least it put aside tech rivalries...

why people don't patch

I have two columns in front of me.

One of them is the time and costs spent across all my customers cleaning up viruses and malware caused by unpatched systems.

One of them is the time and costs spent across all my customers cleaning cleaning up messes caused by broken and misbehaving patches.

Guess which one is bigger.

Ever used VFEmail? No? Well, chances are you never will now: Hackers wipe servers, backups in 'catastrophic' attack

Re: Backups?

Amen to prying LTO out of my cold dead hands. Yes they are pricey at the SMB level, and getting Backup Exec to play nice is always a fun game, but the cartridges are cheep enough to keep full backups permanently every week/month for both DR and Compliance.

That, and I've never had trouble getting a customer that has previously lost data to budget for one to do them properly.

At that scale, Robotic tape libraries may become an out of hand cost but geeze, some kind of offline backup people! Imagine if they'd Cryptolocker'd their on network - did this scenario never occur to them?

Crypto exchange in court: It owes $190m to netizens after founder 'dies without telling anyone vault passwords'

Re: As we get older...

As a kid going through this right now; Please, please do this. Even just something in the Home office Safe with "Here's all the accounts i have" would be a big help

It's official. Microsoft pushes Google over the Edge, shifts browser to Chromium engine

I'm not a web developer, but with my end user and IT Support hats on, Edge always seemed like a nice rendering engine wrapped inside a half baked User Interface.

The incomplete status it launched in on the first few versions of Windows 10 (Probably up to around Anniversary Update) burnt users badly, and it got the reputation of not being very good that it just couldn't shake - about 30% of issues we saw with the RTM Windows 10 release were fixed by setting the default browser back to Internet Explorer or Chrome.

I think this may be the little talked about downside of releasing early and often to the general populace.

Sysadmin running a Mac fleet? IBM has just thrown you a lifeline

3551 devices per administrator

That's an interesting number to have: I'd love to see how that compares to the *nix and Windows "Devices per administrator", both at IBM, and across different companies and sectors.

Microsoft points to a golden future where you can make Windows 10 your own

I Will Fucking Murder Mail

The moment it's back is turned: Fed up of Microsoft's helpful default app updates knocking Outlook out as it's not the Windows 10 Recommended app.

Your RSS is grass: Mozilla euthanizes feed reader, Atom code in Firefox browser, claims it's old and unloved

Done with Firefox

Over the last year, I've fallen out of love with Firefox: Ever since they launched Quantum with an incomplete API set so a whole subset of simple extensions (coincidentally, all the ones I use) just can't be made.

It's been one year since the code switch, and toolbars are still on the "TBD" List

Then they pulled that little Mr. Robot stunt.

Then they scooped up testers DNS Results

Then they caved to Symantec on the certificate removal

All the while removing every USP (Customisation, Add-Ons, Privacy) their browser has, and turning it into a Knock-off version of Chrome.

At this point, a mix of Chrome and Edge provide a much more stable, pleasant web experience; After 14 years of use, time to say a not so fond farewell to Firefox.

Mozilla grants distrusted Symantec certs a stay of execution, claims many sites yet to make switch

dissapointing

I was expecting the browser makers to play hardball: Users can still click through to get to the sites, and the "Not Secure" message being shown to everyone is a nice public incentive to fix it.

Still, as Google's the no. 1 web browser by a large margin, They'll still have to fix it, so Firefox's stance, if done in isolation, is a moot point.

Screwed SAP salesman scores $660,000 jury award

Re: Hard to know what to think here...

Somewhere, right now, an old SCO salesman just got a little warm glow in whatever passes for their heart.

Windows Server 2019 Essentials incoming – but cheapo product's days are numbered

Re: Print server?

Aww man - you've got me all nostalgic for Windows NT's Print Manager

Apple's dark-horse macOS Mojave is out (and it's already pwned)

Re: Lame name :(

I had the exact same problem;

I used to do tech for a legal firm where all the computers were named after cats (Lion, Jaguar, etc.) It was fine when they were in a single office, but by the time I left, there were in three buildings, and putting a new system on the network normally involved a frantic trawl through Wikipedia (Caracal, Toyger...) or IMDB (TopCat, SnagglePuss...).

That was before going to the user, and making sure the name didn't upset them (The new HR Hire was *Not* happy getting Bigglesworth...)

The grand-plus iPhone is the new normal – this is no place for paupers

Hoping SE2 Comes later...

Probably just put on the site without an event or much fanfare; I like the 4 inch form factor, although I recognise I'm in the minority with that one (along with a desire for an iPad mini 5; In my mind, Bigger is not always better)

However, not having an air quote "Budget" iPhone seems a bit remiss; £449 for a starting price (As opposed to an almost-reasonable £359 for the SE) is basically cutting price conscious customers off from jumping into the Apple ecosystem, and tempt them to upgrade later.

Still, I don't run a trillion doller company, so I'm sure Apple have a solid gameplan. I just don't fully get it, right now...

Vodafone cops ads rap over Martin Freeman's vanishing spaceship

I understand why they did it

I wouldn't like to be responsible for promising X megabits/second will make it through a SuperHub 3 unscathed, either...

UK-based Veritas appliance support is being killed off

Backup Exec exit routes

Anyone got recommendations for a good product to manage getting data onto a local tape drive for if/when this goes South? Hoping it's a contingency plan, as not even Symantec's best effort managed to kill it off

Every time I've looked around, not found a suitable replacement for BE.

Microsoft takes another whack at killing off Windows Phone 8.x

Why would you buy a phone from Microsoft ever again?

I've actually lost count of the number of mobile phone platforms they've ungracefully killed with no upgrade path.

Do they honestly expect us to buy the ever-rumoured Surface Phones at this point, when evidence points to them getting bored and killing the platform 18 months later? You've had your (several) shots at the phone market; just give up and move on.

Google Spectre whizz kicked out of Caesars, blocked from DEF CON over hack 'attack' tweet

"A scumbag whose name isn’t worth remembering"

I'm glad to see The Register supporting the Some Asshole Initiative.

http://nonadventures.com/2015/06/20/the-some-of-all-fears/

'Can you just pop in to the office and hit the power button?' 'Not really... the G8 is on'

London Riots

Back in the 2011 London Riots, I had the fun of doing an overnight server upgrade on a little business on a North London high street.

I managed to get in for the early evening before things kicked off, then put the metal shutters down, turned the lights out, hid in the back office with a brand new 2012 Foundation Server. One of the most tense nights of working I've had, and not just because I had to make a Symantec product behave...

Skype Classic headed for the chopping block on September 1

*Looks up from Discord*

That's nice honey...

*Goes back to enjoying talking to people*

Amazon scam trio primed for prison stretch after million-dollar fraud

I know all the bad things Amazon do (Especially to suppliers and the poor warehouse workers), but they tilt the deck so far in the customer's favour, and really work with you to make sure you're happy: I've yet to have an Amazon issue that was not resolved to my satisfaction.

Most recent one was a £50 battery pack I bought that manufacturer said could do X, but could only half do X: Amazon initially arranged a free return for refund, but Post office wouldn't accept it as a "Defective" Lithium battery. Amazon said keep it and refunded it anyway.

I've (Half-jokingly) said it many times before: Amazon are evil, but they're convenient evil.

New Windows Servers are like buses: None for ages, then two at once!

Re: In-place upgrade?

Speaking about extinct SKU's, can we get some love for Foundation Server? (Almost) everything Standard server could do, none of the extra stuff that can cause problems in Essentials/SBS, pre-licensed for 15 users, and in place upgradable to Standard once you reach that point.

It was the perfect "My First Server" for SMB Customers.

The world is becoming a computer, says CEO of worldwide computer company Microsoft

Deep Thought

This is nothing new; Douglas Adams told us the earth is a computer back in the 70's.

Bill Gates declined offer to serve as Donald Trump's science advisor

In this case, “not a good use of my time” may be a euphemism, but I honestly believe it to be true;

Like it or loath it, Bill's work at Microsoft changed the world.

I genuinely believe his work at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is even more important, and will have even more impact in the long term (And eradicating polio is probably going to be more popular than Windows Me).

Firefox to feature sponsored content as of next week

Fallen out of Love with FireFox

Been using it as my main browser Since 2003 when Blaster struck (Back on my Win98/XP Dual Booter), and until last year, I loved it.

Their push to kill XUL extensions before the WebExtentions API's were finished meant the six plugins I used to make the web work the way I wanted all stopped; spent the last two months trying to replicate the functionality with modern extensions, but it's just not possible (Protip; Not having a frikkin' toolbar API tells you everything you need to know about their attitude to portability, flexibility, and legacy)

So: If it looks like Chrome, serves ads like Chrome, and has less extensions than Chrome... why not just use Chrome?

Or even better, Palemoon or Waterfox, which is the decision I'm currently trying to make.

Oh dear... Netizens think 'private' browsing really means totally private

Naming Confusion?

Another version of the "Tesla Autopilot" issue?

Google accidentally reveals new swipe-happy Android UI

Reminder:

A user interface is like a joke - If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.

Swipes trade off usability for discoverability: If there's no on-screen clues, then the less technical users will be stuck high and dry. Not impossible to do, but it takes a level of UI Designer not seen that often nowerdays...

HP is turning off 'Always On' data deals but won't say why

Re: Won't ever buy anything HP again

A very rare "In defence of HP" post from me, here;

if it was about 10 years ago, that would have been in the Intel Centrino era; a stipulation Intel put on to get Centrino certified and that lovely logo on the box meant the laptop had to not boot if it had a non Intel Wireless card (Or Chipset or processor, but obviously less of an issue)

This wasn't a HP thing, it was across the board with Intel Centrino. A bit of a dick move on Intel's part, but partly in their defence, the Intel Centrino logo was a mark of quality; it was the first wireless systems you could buy that "Just Worked" without any of the normal compatibility headaches; this was intel protecting the platform integrity, and you got caught in the crossfire of it.

Re: Three Data sims

I think you missed the point Lee; I don't use data regularly; just in bursts. I don't want to pay that every month - One payment of £40 sets me up for the year.

Most of the Sim deals expire after a month or two, so 12 Months *or* 12GB is perfect.

Three Data sims

I need busts of data when onsite during outages and on the road, so I was after a big chunk of data that didn't expire.

The last few years, the Three Data only SIMS have been the best deal I can find;

12 GB Data or 12 Months, whichever comes first, for £40, and often discounted lower.

As a bonus, three give you free roaming in a load of other countries, including most of Europe and United states - was handy for my last holiday.

Only downside is there's no way to top them up (They go to rolling monthly), so every year I just eject the old sim, and slap a new one in.