"A former Oracle DBA from a time before they got truly evil"
Ah, back when it was merely a full-time hobby for them...
Posts by DJV
2542 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Aug 2009
Page:
Oi! You got a loicence for that Java, mate? More devs turn to OpenJDK to swerve Oracle fee
Bada Bing, bada bork: Windows 10 is not happy, and Microsoft's search engine has something to do with it
Git takes baby steps towards swapping out vulnerable SHA-1 hashing algo for SHA-256
Wednesday 5th February 2020 13:11 GMT 
Re: Write only memory appears in the wild once again.
Oh, there's lots of write only stuff ("memory" or otherwise) about.
In fact, just about any time you read about backups failing to restore after a major hardware/ransomware/etc disaster because no one ever thought to actually test them once in a while!
Oh buoy. Rich yacht bods' job agency leaves 17,000 sailors' details exposed in AWS bucket
Who's got the WD-40? Owners of Motorola's rebooted Razr whinge about creaky hinge
Ah, night shift in the 1970s. Ciggies, hipflasks, ADVENT... and fault-prone disk drives the size of washing machines
Monday 3rd February 2020 19:04 GMT
Re: How to treat removable pack drives
Thanks for the link! Somehow the whole MiniScribe thing didn't hit my radar. I note that the article says "The company declared bankruptcy on 1 January 1990, and was quickly liquidated with Maxtor acquiring its assets in a $46 million cash and stock deal"
I wonder what Maxtor built with the bricks...
Universal Woe Platform: Microsoft shows UWP support – by yanking ad monetisation
Monday 3rd February 2020 13:56 GMT
"selection of fixes"
But NOT a fix the crappy replacement search in File Explorer! That thing is brain dead - I wish they'd bring back the one from Windows 7 which, at least, knows when you are wanting to search by modified date and pops up a handy calendar. Even in W10 (prior to 1909) the calendar is a bit finicky about opening. But 1909 and Insider - UGH!
iCloud hacker perv cops nearly 3 years in jail for stealing and sharing people's private, intimate pics
Apple finally clambers to top of phone market again as spider-eyed iPhone 11 lures fanatics out of the shadows
Saturday 1st February 2020 10:12 GMT
"fuck it we're going five cameras"
Ah yes, the same sort of bullshit that razor manufacturers went through with blades a few years ago. E.g. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/fashion-and-style/11921133/Introducing-the-seven-blade-razor-because-five-just-wasnt-enough.html.
So you locked your backups away for years, huh? Allow me to introduce my colleagues, Brute, Force and Ignorance
Friday 31st January 2020 09:27 GMT
Re: Seen in the wild
Yeah, my first hard drive was a Quantum 80MB for my Amiga 2000. After a few years it started to not boot after the computer had been off overnight. I had to whip the case off, pull out the card (which had the drive bolted onto it), give it a good shake, plonk it back in and it would usually start up again. When I could afford it, it got replaced by a "huge" 540MB drive.
Difficult season: Antivirus-flinger Avast decides to 'wind down' Jumpshot
Vendor-bender LibreOffice kicks out 6.4: Community project feel, though now with added auto-█████ tool
US govt 'told Germany that Chinese spies bug' Huawei 5G kit. It also told the world Iraq had WMDs ready to deploy...
Remember the Clipper chip? NSA's botched backdoor-for-Feds from 1993 still influences today's encryption debates
Tuesday 28th January 2020 11:49 GMT
"that's impossible, as any halfwit can see"
Well, that explains why every politician/minister etc. is only a quarterwit or, more likely, far less!
And, going by the complete numpties currently in power on both sides of the pond, it probably takes a collection of at least 6 of them combined together to accumulate as much as a tenthwit!
Everyone loves our new desktop web search design so much – the one with ads that look like links – that we're tweaking it, says Google
This episode of Black Mirror sucks: London cops boast that facial-recog creepycams will be on the streets this year
Chrome suddenly using Bing after installing Office 365 Pro Plus... Yeah, that might have been us, mumbles Microsoft
Thursday 23rd January 2020 11:56 GMT
Re: Adverts
Exactly.
It's funny, but, when people say things about the adverts on El Reg pages, I do a "what adverts?" thing before I remember I'm protected against that sort of filth. Sometimes I fire up a non-protected browser just to see what all the fuss is about. Then I shudder and go back to my cozy advert-less world.
Capita Education Services accidentally spaffs email addresses in Helpdesk snafu
From WordPad to WordAds: Microsoft caught sneaking nagging Office promos into venerable text editor beta
No backdoors needed: Apple ditched plans to fully encrypt iCloud backups after heavy pressure from FBI – claim
Looks like the party's over, folks: Global PC sales set to shrink as Windows 10 upgrade cycle tails off, says Gartner
US court rules: Just because you can extract teeth while riding a hoverboard doesn't mean you should
Tuesday 21st January 2020 14:19 GMT
I was once about to have a filling done...
...and the idiot dentist* managed to inject the anesthetic into the back of his hand instead of my mouth.
The way he managed to do that was that he was holding the syringe in his right hand and his left hand was resting on my chin, holding my mouth open. However, before doing the injection he was more interested in yakking about water skiing with the nurse. So, while he was waffling, he was gesticulating with the syringe holding hand and the back of his left hand happened to get in the way. At least he didn't poke the needle in me! Well, not until he'd replaced the bent needle and injected me in the correct place, anyway.
* He left the practice not long after - well, I was certainly going to let him treat me ever again. I suspect I wasn't the only victim who refused to be seen by him again!
Time to burst out graphing: Get the Windows Insider experience... by taping a calculator to your monitor
Saturday 18th January 2020 10:45 GMT
@boltar
No, you twat. Read what I wrote.
Here's a longer explanation for boltar and anyone else in the "hard of thinking" camp: My MAIN PC that I use for work updated itself from 1903 to 1909 which broke the File Explorer search so I reverted back to 1903 (and have set it to NOT upgrade for as long as possible). I also have a TEST PC which I use to test the latest Insider install in order to make sure that software I write still works on the latest version and also to report errors to MS when things break. The File Explorer search has been broken since the 1909 update and, despite MS having been informed about this since last September has completely failed to do anything about it. Don't believe me? Try this search and see how many hits it gets:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=1909+File+Explorer+search+broken
Friday 17th January 2020 16:13 GMT
new "improved" search functionality
Yeah, I "downgraded" from 1909 back to 1903 on my main PC because that complete pile of crap. I have a test PC running the latest insider and fire of feedback every so often about the crappiness of File Explorer search. I wish, whenever MS introduce something new/improved, that's give us a tick box that enabled us to put the old (and often still working) version back in. Any feedback from people's use of that switch would be worth keeping the telemetry switched on for!
Unlocking news: We decrypt those cryptic headlines about Scottish cops bypassing smartphone encryption
Friday 17th January 2020 16:02 GMT
@Teiwaz
A cat my family had in the 1960s* used to sit on an outside window sill and continuously scrape his claws down the window when he wanted to be let in. The sound it made was almost as bad as chalk on a blackboard - you just HAD to let him in to make the noise go away.
(* and long before installing catflaps was a "thing" in the UK)
Help! I'm trapped on Schrodinger's runaway train! Or am I..?
Spanking the pirates of corporate security? Try a Plimsoll
Thursday 16th January 2020 10:34 GMT
Absolutely.
And make it something that needs to be regularly reported on to make sure it's up to date - e.g. a bit like updating regular company accounting to Companies House in the UK. If the report is missing/late then alarm bells should start ringing.
Maybe someone (maybe yourself, Rupert?) with access to an intelligent politician (there must be at least ONE around, Shirley!) should attempt to get something moving on having this implemented.
AppSheet. Gesundheit! Oh, we see – it's Google pulling no-code development into a cloudy embrace
Wednesday 15th January 2020 16:26 GMT
Re: This is an application!
Oh yes, I remember reading about "The Last One" - some people called it "The Fast One" as "pulling a fast one".
Its notoriety can still be seen around the web in places:
https://modeling-languages.com/last-one-code-generator-basic-1981/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_One_(software)
Apple calls BS on FBI, AG: We're totally not dragging our feet in murder probe iPhone decryption. PS: No backdoors
Are you getting it? Yes, armageddon it: Mass hysteria takes hold as the Windows 7 axe falls
It's your walkie-talkie Teams mate, over. 'You don't have to say Over, over'. Copy that. Stop making the static noise, over and out
Tea tipplers are more likely to live longer, healthier lives than you triple venti pumpkin-syrup soy-milk latte-swilling fiends
Is it a make-up mirror? Is it a tiny frisbee? No, it's the bonkers Cyrcle Phone, with its TWO headphone jacks
Friday 10th January 2020 23:04 GMT
"Roll"
Yep, I bet it will roll fantastically.
Now, instead of the age-old tedium of dropping your phone onto the pavement/sidewalk and instantly smashing the screen, you will now have the delightful choice of outcomes where you drop it and watch it continue to roll:
a) into the road, where it will miraculously escape all the thundering traffic wheels - though you, chasing it in a panic, won't.
b) into the road and straight down a drain - I wonder if those dual headphone sockets are waterproof...
c) into the road where it will come to rest (wedged more like) in some tram tracks totally unharmed, though you, of course, will be unable to unwedge it before the oncoming tram reduces it (and possibly you as well) to its (and your) component molecules.
d) off the pathway in the local park and onto the grass in front of the man driving the motorised mowing machine. The man is, of course, oblivious to your shouting as he is wearing headphones and listening to a very old Genesis song, yum de dum de dum.
e) off the pathway in the local park and onto the grass before coming to an abrupt halt in a fresh and only partially concealed doggie "present" that the dog's owner couldn't be arsed to bag up and dispose of properly.
f) after its sharper than expected edge has sliced off at least one of your toes as you were stupid enough to wear sandals.
Shhh! It's us, Microsoft. Yes, it's 2020. We're here with a new build of Windows 10
Thursday 9th January 2020 17:08 GMT
Re: XP Home Edition!
Telemetry, broken File Explorer search (since 1909 and insider releases, and MS totally failing to do anything about even though they've known about it since at least September 2019), forced updates (pausing is NO substitute for full control), more telemetry, complete lack of testing by MS (1809 and other problems), an uncustomisable Start Menu (thank goodness for OpenShell!), Explorer random crashes (ok, so that one's been around for ages but THEY STILL HAVEN'T FUCKING WELL FIXED IT!), updates that reset various things I've set up...
...shall I go on?
Dixons fined £500,000 by ICO for crap security that exposed 5.6 million customers' payment cards
Thursday 9th January 2020 18:29 GMT
Appeal
"Baldock added that the company is “disappointed” in some of the ICO’s “key findings” it had previously challenged and “continue to dispute”. He didn’t specify particular areas but is “considering our ground for appeal”."
Yep, let's see them appeal and then get hit with a even bigger fine for being complete twats when they lose!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
