Posts by DJV

Commercial repair shops caught snooping on customer data by canny Canadian research crew

Re: Bring back the days...

"Bring back the days where HDD's were easily removed, RAM upgrades was via a 2 screw slot at the bottom and batteries were not embedded within the guts of the machine."

Oh absolutely! I recently upgraded a small batch of HP laptops from HDD to SSD for a friend's organisation. Both the RAM and drives were accessible via a one-screw slot on the underside. As part of the payment, I was gifted one of the laptops, which I upgraded similarly, as well as upgrading the RAM. However, not long afterwards, I discovered it needed the CMOS battery replacing, and THAT required the laptop to be completely dismantled and the motherboard removed!

Ah well, 2 out of 3 wasn't too bad, I suppose...

Re: "looks" more dodgy

Ah, so you've managed to get onto the hard drive and seen the photos then?

GitHub's Copilot flies into its first open source copyright lawsuit

Is it "Copilot" or "CoPilot"?

The author of this piece appears to use both with reckless abandon!

All of the norths are about to align over Britain

Lots of planets have a north*

* spoken with northern accent

Qualcomm: Arm threatens to end CPU licensing, charge device makers instead

These puns are udderly terrible, please nip(ple) it in the bud right now!

Government by Gmail catches up with UK minister... who is reappointed anyway

Ah, the old, "when I nod my head, you hit it" routine!

I suspect that has already been done to her brain, especially given the crackpot ideas she and her predecessor came up with.

Firefox patches Windows 11 Ctrl+C hang, introduces new bug

Re: Bug, what bug?

Same here - I came here to post something similar but you beat me to it. Another useless, annoying "feature" that it's better to live without.

Oh, great. By peering into twilight, boffins find 'planet killer' asteroids in our system

Re: A cure to global warming?

But the undead Zuckerborg will still be promoting it to all and sundry.

Linux Lite 6.2: Latest release from distro with a misleading name

"the slightly confused (or confusing) identity of this distro"

Yep, it is definitely not "lite" as that screenshot appears to show it in dark mode!

Lash#Cat9: A radical new Linux UI for keyboard warriors

Re: That seems like a strange response to me

Sorry, but I, too, disagree. To paraphrase what the AC says, what I type is what I want - crap jumping up into my face is NOT intuitive, it's just bloody annoying.

Data loss prevention emergency tactic: keep your finger on the power button for the foreseeable future

Re: White box

But, did you then fit a Molly-Guard to prevent a second such occurrence?

Firefox points the way to eradicating one of the rudest words online: PDF

Re: HTML vs PDF

Or use something like uBlock Origin to chop out all the shit on a web page that you're just not interested in.

How I made a Chrome extension for converting Reg articles to UK spelling

I remember...

I remember when this was all fields.

I remember when a quid could buy you a full tank of petrol.

I remember when the streets were swept clean at least once a week and litter wasn't a problem.

I remember when politicians at least pretended to be honest.

I remember when El Reg was a UK-based publication and fun to read...

...sigh...

Gartner thinks enterprise IT will be immune to recession

"Gartner thinks enterprise IT will be immune to recession"

Well, given their accuracy record, that pretty much dooms "enterprise IT" to a quick death.

CEO told to die in a car crash after firing engineers who had two full-time jobs

Buffering.....

Of course, if there is a "camera on" policy and you really don't want to show your face/house or be involved at all, then there are always ways and means to achieve this without it appearing to be your "fault"!

https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-purposely-slow-down-the-Internet-connection-for-everyone-in-my-house-discreetly

Firefox 106 will let you type directly into browser PDFs

Re: Editing PDFs

Ah, I think I see what you're doing wrong.

What you need to do is edit ALL the PDFs that come your way so that the only text remaining inside them is: "Fsck you, I quit!"

Obviously, having another job lined up first might also be a good idea.

Tuxedo Computers releases version 1.0 of its Ubuntu remix

Re: Snap?

I love Snap as much as I love systemd...

Both should be nuked from space.

Rookie programmer's code goes up in flames ... kind of

Re: Was the update deployed? Or not?? If so, When?

Yes, they are probably trying to do two impossible (for them) things at the same time - such as think and breathe.

Juno what? Jovian moon Europa is looking rugged

Re: Looks like

I kept looking for the little yellow man to drag and drop in order to put it into Streetview mode.

Google Japan goes rogue with 5.4ft long keyboard

Checks date...

Nope, not April 1st...

Does that mean they are actually SERIOUS?

You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie

Great article...

...and one I will keep bookmarked (no, NOT "Favourited"*), to send to people when they ask me why I don't suck up to the commercial vendors.

* And definitely NOT "Favorited".

Gone in a day: Ethical hackers say it would take mere hours to empty your network

Re: "I do not blame the person who clicks in an email"

Absolutely! But there are some people who, no matter how many times they are told not to, will ALWAYS click the link and then spout some utter rubbish excuse like, "But it promised me lots of shiny stuff!"

Removing an obsolete AMD fix makes Linux kernel 6 quicker

Re: The older the OS...

Upvoted for the use of the "Þ" and knowing NOT to put a "Y" there instead.

ChromeLoader, what took you so long? Malvertising irritant now slings ransomware

Re: below even the level occupied by Tory MPs

Crikey, I didn't realise you could even get lower than that!

Been hit by LockerGoga ransomware? A free fix is now out

Ransomware punishment

The perpetrators of ransomware should be punished just like football hooligans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04clpd7h0b0

Internet Society recommends development of Solar-System-scale routing framework

I bet the minute it all gets set and is working absolutely fine, the Vogons will build a bypass right through the middle and bugger it up completely!

Bad UI killed the radio star

Re: So what happened in the end?

Yeah, I came here to post something similar. So, el Reg, WHAT HAPPENED TO LEE?

Former Reg vulture takes on Nominet – by running for board seat

I had been wondering why we hadn't heard much from Nominet recently. I hope Kieren manages to get on the board and survives the kicking the corrupt bastards are likely to hand(foot?) out and drag the whole shoddy thing back into the less-corrupt shape it used to be.

Open source databases: What are they and why do they matter?

Re: Free is, well, free

Hi Larry. Are you nearly out of yachts or something?

Internet pranksters send hundreds of cabs to Moscow street, cause gridlock

Algorithm

The company’s “algorithm for detecting and preventing such attacks has already been improved,” the spokesperson confidently predicted.

Hmmm, I bet the truth was probably closer to:

The company’s “algorithm for detecting and preventing such attacks has now been hastily written and implemented,” the spokesperson nervously stated.

P.S. == Bring Dabbsy back ! ==

Source: IBM disguised Watson Health layoffs as a 'redeployment initiative'

Re: Redeployment Initiative

It should have been called the Redeployment/Relocation Initiative Program - as the initials then refer to the health of the job!

== Bring us Dabbsy back ! == (thanks, Potemkine!)

James Webb Space Telescope finds first evidence of CO₂ in exoplanet atmosphere

Re: We come in peace ...

Thanks! It's been years since I read that (even though I knew what was coming).

The internet's edge routers are all so different. What if we unified them with software?

Yes, absolutely!

Let's create one new system to replace all of them! What can possibly go wrong?

/s

https://xkcd.com/927/

Doctor gave patients the wrong test results due to 'printer problems'

Re: car in reverse, but it was driving forward

I had one of those in the 1970s - it was a secondhand 1966 Ford Cortina automatic and the automatic gearing went wrong after I'd had it about 3 or 4 years. So, putting it in reverse made it go forwards. As I couldn't afford the cost of the repair at the time I just made sure I parked it in places where I could drive off forwards or was on a slope so that it would roll backwards without any problems!

In a time before calculators, going the extra mile at work sometimes didn't add up

Re: £sd

Citation required.

NASA uses occult means to spot tiny moon orbiting asteroid

3 miles? That's Clanger territory!

They'd better watch out for an iron chicken and listen for sounds of the soup dragon.

'I wonder what this cable does': How to tell thicknet from a thickhead

Re: adapter

Yep, the sort of "adapter" that Thor carries around.

Atari Video Computer System returns in Lego form

As it doesn't actually work then...

...does this mean it's been bricked?

Enough with the notifications! Focus Assist will shut them u… 'But I'm too important!'

Re: The scourge is real

Absolutely!

Lloyds bank insist upon sending me text messages informing me that "We have transferred £xxx from $ACCOUNT1 to $ACCOUNT2" usually a minimum of TWO FUCKING DAYS after the transfer has taken place (which I've already seen). And this is a transfer that I've usually initiated myself! AAAARRRRGGHHHH!

Be careful where you install software, and who installs it

Re: Linux Bros'

"no chance that it is useful to any admin user wanting to change the system configuration"

...which pretty much adheres to the Apple mantra of "you don't need to know".

Apple's secret car team tosses keys to Lamborghini lead

Yeah, but each will also have a notch.

Also, the driving computer will just need programming with your destination which, as it will use Apple Maps, means that you will arrive at the correct place only 97% of the time - those finding themselves in the remaining 3% will never be found again. Manual operation will occasionally throw up the error message: "You are driving it wrong" but won't elaborate any further on that. Internally, none of the USB connectors will be compatible with anything of non-Apple manufacture.

Computer glitches harmed 'nearly 150' patients after Oracle Cerner system go-live

fraught with problems

"Fraught with problems" and "Oracle" - all too frequent bedfellows.

Windows Start Menu not starting? You're not alone

Re: "its rich tradition of fixing one thing and breaking another"

I thought their usual rate was to fix one thing but break at least TWO others!

Outlook email users alerted to suspicious activity from Microsoft-owned IP address

Re: Dumbf***ery abound

I don't see adverts - I'm using uBlock Origin. Why aren't you?

After 40 years in tech, I see every innovation contains its dark opposite

Re: Agree, Agree ..... 1000 times agree !!!

I would have turned my phone completely off the moment I realised exactly what was going on!

I suspect that, if these sorts of devices are foisted on the general public, then many of them will be smashed wreckage within hours.

Re: Even other humans have trouble with Scots accents!

Regretfully, I have to agree with that. As a Vermin Media broadband customer here in the UK I've sometimes had to phone their customer abuse support. Mostly, it seems to be routed to somewhere on the Indian subcontinent and, while it's often hard to fully understand what they are saying, it has proved to be less hard than when the call is routed to one of their Scottish offices!

Is Microsoft going back to the future on release cadences?

Stability is something that has been missing from the Windows world for some time.

Some would probably argue that stability has always been missing from the Windows world. But W2000 was probably the peak of stability* after they'd mostly abandoned running on top of DOS (with only ME still to come).

* And with a FAR better and consistent user interface than the clusterfuck of badly nailed-together shit it has been since the Windows 8 disaster.

Amazon sues 10,000 Facebook Group admins for offering fake reviews

Re: 10,000 fake review broker groups

"Over 10,000 fake review broker groups have been reported to Meta, and half of these have been taken down, we're told."

The real question is: so, why haven't Meta taken down the other 5,000 as well?

Walmart-controlled flight booking service suffers substantial data leak

Multiplan, probably...