Posts by DJV

Microsoft 365 price rises are coming – pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

Pay up or opt out (if you can find the button)

I never opted in and never will do.

Spending watchdog blasts UK govt over sloth-like progress to shore up IT defenses

Air gap

The first thing that needs to be done is to immediately air-gap anything that doesn't need to be networked or public-facing. Those remaining then need to be investigated and resolved with high priority. Everything else can either stay air-gapped or only returned to full access once fully evaluated and any shortcomings fixed.

It shouldn't take them more than a couple of centuries...

Haiku Beta 5 / In tests it's (Fire)foxier / It pleases us well

Re: Bros was nice back and then

No, I never did like Matt and Luke Goss.

(Another victim of that damn 10-minute edit window!)

Look for the label: White House rolls out 'Cyber Trust Mark' for smart devices

I initially read that as...

US Cyber Musk Fart...

Nick Clegg steps down as Meta's top flack in favor of more Trump-friendly candidate

Brave Sir Cleggy...

...ran away.

[sings the ghost of Neil Innes]

Cruise robotaxis parked forever, as GM decides it can't compete and wants to cut costs

Re: I am reminded of the transport systems used in (IIRC) Logans Run

With a few small changes, I am reminded of the Docklands Light Railway!

Coder wrote a bug so bad security guards wanted a word when he arrived at work

Re: If I was in charge

Damn good job you're not, then!

BOFH: Don't sell The Boss a firewall. Sell him The Dream

A lovely BOFH Christmas present!

Ahh, as good as the PFY gets, he is still a long way from becoming a master!

Win a slice of XP cheese if you tell us where Microsoft should put Copilot next

Re: Here, let me do that for you.

Here, let me f*** that up for you.

FTFY

They would have to change the "READY" prompt message to "READY TO ANNOY YOU FURTHER".

Microsoft hits back at claims it slurps your Word, Excel files to train AI models

"You're probably using Connected Experiences"

Oh no, I'm bloody well not! LibreOffice all the way!

BOFH: The devil's in the contract details

Re: Feels like oracle

...after removing their vice-like grip from your short and curlies...

New York Times lawyers claim OpenAI accidentally deleted evidence in copyright case

How, um....

...convenient!

Accident? My arse!

BASIC co-creator Thomas Kurtz hits END at 96

BASIC was my first language as well

I had been into electronics and had been following the various electronics magazines (Practical Electronics, ETI, Elektor etc.) when they had started exploring microprocessors in the early 1970s before going on to develop their own systems. By the time I had my first hands-on experience with a computer (Commodore PET 2001-8) I could already understand BASIC programming. The first program I received payment for was a payroll system written for a PET with disk drives written for the PCB company I was working for.

After BASIC came 6502 assembler, some 6800 assembler, Pascal (when I moved on to programming Burroughs B20/25 systems), C, TurboBASIC, Modula-2 (for a later university degree), C++, Java (which I learned in order to move to a better job), Visual C++, HTML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP and countless others dabbled with. For a while, I had two broken Jupiter Ace machines from which I built a single working one. Forth was "interesting"!

Fun days!

Microsoft 365 Copilot trips over angle brackets, frustrating coders

a 'user' noted the issue

At least they weren't referred to as programmers.

Any programmer who has had to work on Microsoft's s%&t for more than 10 minutes would know better than to trust this dungheap* called Copilot.

* At least a dungheap is useful for fertilisation of the soil. Making Copilot landfill would just contaminate it!

Musk also wants to fight Microsoft in legal grudge match with OpenAI

What do you mean "going to go"?

That hardware will be more reliable if you stop stabbing it all day

Re: No, Mr Bond. I expect you to open the box!

Yeah, they did but the storage rooms kept burning down.

Admins can give thanks this November for dollops of Microsoft patches

Re: Unexpected addition of Copilot

It wouldn't surprise me!

Unexpected addition of Copilot

No one seems to be mentioning that there appeared to be an extra unwanted payload in this update.

I installed it on my one remaining Windows PC (Win 10) and suddenly found a Copilot icon appearing on my taskbar. WTF? I didn't ask for that crap!

At least there was an uninstall option in the app section of the settings abomination to get rid of it, which I promptly used.

Clues to Windows Intelligence found in Windows 11 builds

Re: staggering

You're absolutely right there! I have only one Windows machine left (for some software that's still not available on Linux - oi, Affinity, get on with it!). All my others are now running Linux in some form or fashion and, after being defenestrated, are no longer staggering along attempting to run Microsoft's turgid mess.

Windows Intelligence

Well, now there's an oxymoron if ever I saw one!

Gang of monkeys escape South Carolina biomedical research facility

Re: Don't leave paperclips lying around

Maybe they let them watch YouTube and they came across the Lock Picking Lawyer's videos.

Microsoft still not said anything about unexpected Windows Server 2025 installs

Another Month/Week/Day/Hour* (*delete as applicable)...

...another Microsoft cockup!

I have but one Windows machine left. My servers have been Ubuntu Linux for years. My laptops are Linux Mint. I just need Affinity to put their graphics suite onto Linux and then I am done with that Windows shit!

Hack Nintendo's alarm clock to show cat pics? Let's-a-go!

Re: message to hackers/crackers

I wrote some software for the Commodore 64 back in the 1980s for a little local company and decided to attempt to protect the disk version from being copied. I remember putting a deliberately corrupt sector on the disk which the loader could check for. If it wasn't found to be corrupted, the loader would then bail out of running the software there and then (probably with a disk read error message). The rest of the protection was (if I remember correctly) by EX-ORing the stream with string sequences one of which was a message that read something like: "THE ENCRYPTION IS 55 LEVELS DEEP" just to put the hackers off. Of course, it wasn't 55 levels deep - if it had been, there probably wouldn't have been room on the disk for the program itself! Fun times!

Dutch cops pwn the Redline and Meta infostealers, leak 'VIP' aliases

Meta? But Farcebook is still up and running!

(Yeah, I know - different "Meta", but I couldn't resist.)

WordPress forces user conf organizers to share social media credentials, arousing suspicions

The Shitshow Goes On!

Time to buy shares in the popcorn industry...

Western Digital wasn't the only one - Windows 24H2 update bluescreens Asus systems

Re: a company that makes great systems

Not sure about "systems" but I've got a Microsoft Internet Pro keyboard. Bloody brilliant and it's now around 25 years old.

But as for their software... meh!

I wonder

I wonder if Microsoft has one of those "X days since last THING" notices on the wall where X is always zero and THING is two words with the last one being "UP".

Wipro orders hybrid work as other tech giants make full-time pants-wearing mandatory

"Fifteen days can be taken for those who are unwell"

So, if you're ill you're expected to go home and work as opposed to taking sick leave to rest and recuperate - am I reading that right?

Pentagon stumped by mystery drone swarm flying over Langley Air Force Base

Re: You haven't experienced a Scottish division complete with bagpipes charging at you!

The Kamikaze Scotsmen are the worst - there's no stopping them!

One-year countdown to 'biggest Ctrl-Alt-Delete in history' as Windows 10 approaches end of support

Re: Making the decision for me --

Soylent Green...

Windows 11 24H2 hoards 8.63 GB of junk you can't delete

Re: There is a corrections link on each comments page

Yes, the last place you expect it to be. I used to report issues to El Reg but after getting "told off" by one of their staff writers when I complained about it going missing, I just haven't bothered.

After 3 years, Windows 11 has more than half Windows 10's market share

Re: But why not just make 10 better?

Ha ha! Make 10 better? Where have you been? Microsoft have been spending years making Windows worse at each iteration!

Recall the Recall recall? Microsoft thinks it can make that Windows feature palatable

Re: "until is is not, which will happen sooner or later!"

... until is is not, which will happen sooner!

FTFY

OS/2 expert channeled a higher power to dispel digital doom vortex

Re: I have no idea where the book went

Try looking down the back of your sofa - you know, the one impossibly jammed in your hallway.

Some US Kaspersky customers find their security software replaced by 'UltraAV'

Re: even Windows Defender would work better

Yes, of course it would. And it certainly won't start eating your desktop icons and then delete the associated programs off your computer will it! Nope, absolutely not and it never, ever has done either... oh and please don't click any link that might happen to be below.

https://www.techspot.com/news/97275-microsoft-defender-update-kills-start-menu-shortcuts-program.html

Re: Please don't swear in this august community.

Or even in this September community.

Amazon, Tesla, Meta considered harmful to democracy

Well...

...colour me surprised...

not.

Chinese server-maker Inspur claims it's on track for better liquid cooling with 'railway sleeper' design

New IT Helpdesk Response

Sorry, your computer is running slow because of a points failure between the memory modules.

Google dodges €1.5B EU ads antitrust fine after appeal win

One word...

Bugger!

I don't know what pressing Delete will do, but it seems safe enough!

Re: and apparently still working

Ah yes, that's what it wants you to think.

But, behind the scenes, it is waiting patiently... a gleeful and malevolent expression plastered across its digital face... just waiting...

UK watchdog fears Voda-Three merger will balloon phone bills for customers

Re: "Two strong players and two weak players"

I left Vodafone because of their bullshit support (I knew far more than the idiots I spoke to in their support dept - and I know almost bugger all!). After a short stint with EE I ended up with Three. So, I'm hoping this merger gets completely canned.

Microsoft decides it's a good time for bad UI to die

"it is many things, none of them good"

Oh right, so the mess that is the Settings App is better, is it?

Utter bullshit.

If Microcrap really decided that the "bad UI" should die, we'd be back on the Windows 7 interface immediately with none of the crappy leftovers from the awful Windows 8 debacle.

Canadian artist wants Anthropic AI lawsuit corrected

Boucher using Claude to write 97 books in less than a year

If that's true then he isn't a writer at all. 97 books in one year works out at less than 4 days for each one.

As someone who has several books published whose content all came from my own hand (with absolutely no AI involvement, whatsoever) I know how long it can take to properly write and edit a book, and it's far in excess of 4 days! My latest book, which is currently being printed, had its germination back in October 2022.

So, a pox on all those who call themselves authors but are really no more than manipulators of AI.

Sweet 16 and making mistakes: More of the computing industry's biggest fails

Yes, the first Spectrum Plusses certainly had that issue. I was working in a small computer shop in Norwich when the first model arrived. While unpacking it, I turned it over to remove part of the packaging underneath and, when I righted it, many of the keys were still lying on the table!

Gentoo Linux to drop Itanium support as Funtoo fork enters 'Hobby Mode'

Re: 'Windows From Scratch'

Well, that should have been ReactOS - but the chasm between what that supports versus the current version of Windows unfortunately seems to get larger every day.

Microsoft tweaks fine print to warn everyone not to take its AI seriously

I haven't taken Microsoft seriously for years!

Microsoft patches scary wormable hijack-my-box-via-IPv6 security bug and others

hijack-my-box-via-IPv6 security bug

Well, that's all us Vermin Media cable users safe then... sigh...

Vermin Media: IPv6 - um, yeah, we've heard of it.

Report: Tech misconceptions plague the IT world

Re: Incognito

Glasses work quite well, too

Re: Say what?

You were lucky - we had to chisel our zeros and ones onto stone tablets. Clay tablets are the work of the devil, I tell you!