Posts by paulf

Another day, another British Airways systems screwup causes chaos

Re: I feel sorry

@Lee D Aaaaand breathe! :)

Also upvote for that rant as I completely agree. People mess up all the time, no one is perfect. What really counts is how you deal with the mess up. I will go back to a company that sorts things out well but not one that couldn't care less or deliberately antagonises me (as per the script monkeys you dealt with at B4Beds).

We bought a new AEG/Electrolux cooker hood from John Lewis and it was missing the mounting screws from inside the several layers of completely sealed packaging. An oopsie in the packing dept but needed sorting quickly as the installer was coming in a couple of days. Called JL who just routed the call to Electrolux as they already have my money thanks. Electrolux then spend about half an hour of my phone bill figuring out in detail which bits are missing then promising to send them out.

The installer came and went - he managed to get a tidy job done without the missing bits in question as he used some spares he had.

About 8 days later a large box arrived from Electrolux. It contained a complete new set of the manuals and bags of screws etc (the box was 20% full or 80% empty depending on your outlook). It was also missing the three required mounting screws I needed. Icon ->

The only thing Electrolux got right was quietly adding me to their Spam list so the email I created for them got deleted rather promptly after. A complete cluster fuck of arse spanners of an organisation.

You know what’s not so throttled at O2? UK sales. They're up 2.6%

Re: You know what else is going up at O2?

@Haku

One thing stood out in that price list:

"Using Circuit Switched WAP via 915000 or [phone] in the UK and the rest of our Europe Zone"

People are still using circuit switched WAP (i.e. mobile dialup) in large enough numbers to keep providing the service on PAYG? Huge if true! Where is the shocked icon?

Three: No fixed date yet for 4G services abroad

Re: Losing it soon anyway

It all depends on what nature "leave" takes when (if?) it happens. If we want to maintain access to the Single Market I imagine keeping regulations like this will be part of the new agreement struck with the EC/EU27.

There is a chance leave does happen and with us having no deal to keep access to the Single Market. In that case operators probably would be free to do away with these new roaming regulations unless HMG decide they want to keep them in some form. It could happen as we've been told that no deal is better than a bad deal, unless we're talking about Trumpistan where any deal is a good deal.

Intel loves the maker community so much it just axed its Arduino, Curie hardware. Ouch

Re: You can't afford a fickel company for long-lived products

@EveryTime, "When your company culture is such that a manager thinks "screw the rest of the company, this will hurt my profit numbers next quarter" and gets away with it, the decline has begun."

If you're starting development of new silicon (i.e. not a simple derivative of an existing product) it could take 3-5 years for that to move from initial idea to volume production and [hopefully] profit once it's paid off the R&D investment. If some PHB is worried what his numbers will be in 13 WEEKS time, rather than a few years out, then the decline is so deeply rooted the company is beyond help as those bean counting bonus weasels have infested the whole hierarchy. Exits are here and here - please remove and leave behind any well heeled shoes before jumping down the emergency slides.

Re: Group that came up with it is history

FTA: "[The New Technology Group] was formed in 2015 through the restructuring of Intel's New Devices Group."

I bet the PHB MBA who came up with that incredible group rebranding name change got a massive bonus for his/her efforts.

TalkTalk posts 3% sales drop, says Openreach should walk the WalkWalk

Re: TT's TV Adverts

Slightly OT. My nearby shopping centre is full of these sales droids now. Vermin Media and Murdoch telly are permanent fixtures (VM also have a store - closing soon) with BT and TalkTalk having a recurring guest appearances.

It all helps to make shopping that little bit more joyless but not as much as when the supermarket had people in the aisles pushing energy deals at commuters hurriedly grabbing a "Cry-wank meal for one".

Re: Perhaps

We need to put this in El Reg parlance:

If TalkTalk stop being ShitShit and getting HackedHacked their customer numbers may GrowGrow !

I've added a carefully slanted Yahoo! just for shits and giggles.

Western Digital wins California court skirmish against Toshiba

Re: A lesson to be learned here:

@ecarlseen "Don't sign contracts based on the people you're dealing with at the moment."

Quite right. I would suggest a modified form is also true: "Don't accept shitty legislation from the Gubbermint just because you like the current lot that are in, or they've offered huggy snuggly reasons for implementing laws that go further and wider than they need to achieve what they have proposed."

An example would be laws permitting blanket surveillance; an oft discussed topic here at El Reg. Just because the current lot claim they want to go after Terrorists and the like now, doesn't mean they won't be used in other self serving ways in the future by a different lot.

Bloke takes over every .io domain by snapping up crucial name servers

Re: Matthew Bryant

"The .io registry lists seven such name servers – and Bryant managed to take control of four of them for $95.99 apiece."

This enquiring mind would be interested to know if he got a refund on his $383.96, in addition to any bug bounty he may have qualified for.

'My dream job at Oracle left me homeless!' – A techie's relocation horror tale

Last time I moved jobs (over 10 years ago) it was within the UK and I was offered £900 as 3 monthly instalments. No conditions on what it could be used for, or requirements to put receipts through expenses. They gave me the money and let me figure out how best to use it towards finding somewhere to live and moving my various gubbins to my new location. In the end it covered all the expenses of moving and part of the deposit on my flat. If I was to do it today it'd cost more, partly because I have a lot more stuff to shift!

Moves are expensive so if you're offering people money to do it, give them the money and let them get on with it. Having to expense everything with receipts and conditions on what it can be put towards just makes them less likely to claim it. Oh, I get it now :)

Sysadmin bloodied by icicle that overheated airport data centre

"Not to mention the major university I worked for which did a failover test of the datacenter"

"Suffice to say there were a lot of people on site that weekend..."

It's a big enough risk to do "It's a small change - a five minute job" type things on a Friday. Are you saying they did a full on major disaster test on a Friday? Why is there no "Horrified" icon?

Google blows $800k on bots to flood the UK with 30,000 'articles' a month

Re: Fuck Google

@ Prst. V.Jeltz "It'll be nice when they finish those cars that can drive you home from the pub though"

You mean Taxis? I thought we already had those?

Re: Keep in mind journalists are not viewed with the same reverance they are in Trumpistan

Looking through that list I'm heartened by the inclusion of "Dennis Publishing, owner of various computing titles and other rags – €160,000". Dennis also publish Viz Comic. Frankly they have some of the highest journalistic integrity in the press today because they actually admit all their articles are completely made up.

"Our source, an outright and habitual liar, made the sensational claims that <famous celebrity> decided to have sex with a goat. "He just waded into a farm yard, grabbed the goat and got down to the business right there", he lied through his teeth, before continuing with more completely made up claims."

Brit prosecutors ask IT suppliers to fight over £3 USB cable tender

Re: @Christian Berger, re: stupid bills.

@ Shadow Systems "I once overpaid a utility bill by a few cents..."

Similar story but in reverse. Last time I moved I ended up a customer of Scottish Power for about 6 weeks until I could set up with my supplier of choice. For anyone not familiar they're a low rent (as in quality of service, not price) Gas+Elec supplier in the UK. It took them most of those 6 weeks to set up my account as their systems simply couldn't cope with signing me up - it thought the person who'd moved in was the person the former owners bought their new place from as by chance he was also a SP customer (seriously FFS!).

To cut a long story short - they took so long to generate my closing bill (2 years) they managed to send me two sets of bills with the same date - one promising a refund of the £40-odd I'd been charged in that 6 weeks (all of which I'd paid 2 years earlier) and another demanding I paid them a £0.02 shortfall. None of their calculations made any sense nor bore any resemblance to my own meter readings/calculations.

I figured it wasn't worth calling them up to claim the possible refund, nor leaving the £0.02 unpaid and facing the hassle of them pursuing me for it, so to make sure I didn't hear from them again I paid the £0.02. The woman in the Post Office seemed unsurprised when she checked the bill, and I paid by debit card in the hope it would cost them the most to process compared to the amount.

I didn't hear from them again - a total shower.

Re: Not just restricted to governments

@ Christian Berger "Such things happen regularly at organisations. It's when people act according to rules. The German expression is "Dienst nach Vorschrift" which apparently translates as "work to rule"."

That reminds me of the saying, "Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the observance of fools".

Unfortunately the fools tend to be the middle management types who look scornfully on the knowledgeable people below them who are trying to get on with their jobs despite demands to follow the rules to the letter because they're not trusted to deviate a mm from them.

Inmarsat flings latest Wi-Fi-on-airliners satellite into orbit

Re: 13 hour flight to Tokyo last week

@Andy Prough "Man sitting next to me paid the $19 dollars for "wifi for the whole flight""

Sounds like they did what they promised and provided a Wifi connection for the whole flight. What they didn't mention was the WiFi AP would only have internet backhaul for part of the flight. If he'd read the T+Cs in full he would have found this explained clearly on page 263.

Dead serious: How to haunt people after you've gone... using your smartphone

Re: matchbx "That reminds of a Dilbert Cartoon......"

This is the Dilbert cartoon you're looking for.

DRAM! Micron rakes in dosh from bits and chips

Good news

I'm glad Micron are doing well I just hope they don't start messing about with their Crucial retail operation. I always buy memory from Crucial (in the UK) as they have good quick service and in some 20+ RAM modules I've only had one failure which was replaced promptly with no troubles.

(Not a Shill, just a happy customer).

Virgin Media cuts 250 jobs amid £3bn Project Lightning cockup fallout

Re: Well Perhaps

I was going to pile in with the their incessant "To The Owner" junk mail they're renowned for sending out (and the associated cost) but for once I can't. Vermin Media was connected to my house* but in the last 18 months I've had two, if that. In the few years before that I was getting at least 1 junk mail envelope every 6 weeks.

Either they've realised the blanket junk mailing isn't worth it or things are so tough they can't even afford it.

*When the previous occupants had VM the installer must have hijacked the BT cabling and routed the VM phone line through BT's cabling to the BT Master socket. When I moved in and switched back to an unbundled BT OR line, the BTOR installer grumbled and muttered something about "They're always bloody doing this" as he removed the VM cabling from the junction box on the BT cable in the porch (i.e. BT's property).

Re: No P.45/Pink Slip for the Directors?

"The managers probably got a promotion..."

And a bonus for the improvement in profits post-P.45s.

Fancy fixing your own mobile devices? Just take the display off carefu...CRUNCH !£$%!

Professionals

Microsoft told us: "As is the case with many products, Surface is built by professionals and is intended to be serviced by professionals."

Aw, schucks. That means if I want to repair my Surface I'd have to give up my Amateur status and lose my chance to compete in the Surface repairing Olympics?

It's the iPhone's 10th b'day or, as El Reg calls it, 'BILL RAY DAY'

Interesting that his profile at Gartner lists his time at El Reg as

"Situation Publishing, Wireless Correspondent, 8 years"

Yes, I know SitPub is parent of The Register but it's notable he didn't name Vulture central directly. Was he worried people may link him to his iPhone prediction of yesteryear?

Tory-commissioned call centres 'might have bent data protection laws'

Re: Hmmm

FTA: "A Conservative Party spokesman said: "Political parties of all colours pay for market research and direct marketing calls. All the scripts supplied by the party for these calls are compliant with data protection and information law." "

BS Translate-o-tron: "We didn't do it, and everyone else is doing it too."

Hotheaded Brussels civil servants issued with cool warning: Leak

I'd be more concerned about this offer, "...directors and heads of unit may allow those staff who so wish to leave early...".

Obligatory Dilbert on leaving early

Oops! Facebook outed its antiterror cops whilst they banned admins

Article quote with my emphasis to extract the Spokesdroid's actual message: "Facebook's technical fix, according to the company spokesperson, involves the creation of administrative accounts not associated with personal Facebook accounts, because personal information represents a security risk."

Currys PC World given a spanking for misleading laptop savings ads

"The company tried to get in touch with me for a tour of their factory, hinting at a give-away. I declined."

What I took from that is it looks like the ASA share the personal details of the complainant with the the alleged perpetrator. As much fun as it is causing problems for companies that think the law and regulation is optional for them I'm not sure I'd like to have my details on file with that many companies all wanting an inexpensive and messy revenge as AIBailey suggests...

Congressman drafts COVFEFE Act to preserve Trump's Twitter tantrums

Re: Huffington Post, Tech addition.

With the handle "zx122982685" you might as well have an "Egg" as your icon.

@DrewC, May I respectfully suggest the forum mods get the ability to block the "[Comment] Withdrawal" option on absurd posts like that from "zx122982685"? Your response cheered me up and it would be a shame to lose the context.

Re: It's a good idea

@ Doctor Syntax "...Yes Minister was entertainment (or maybe we should class it as infotainment)..."

Yes, [Prime] Minister was a documentary. It should be mandatory viewing in schools as a self contained course explaining how Government and Politics work in the UK.

Wowee, it's Samsung's next me-too AI gizmo: The Apple HomePod

Re: Why the Paranoia Without Verification of a Threat?

@ DerekCurrie "I for one have never welcomed our citizen surveillance overlords. That's one reason I've stuck with Apple."

@ DougS "Apple has plenty of incentive to maintain that privacy - it is one of their unique selling points that Google and Amazon can't match due to their business models."

I agree with you both on this - privacy is a key selling point for Apple that Google (definitely) and Amazon cannot match, demonstrated most clearly by the granular privacy settings on the iPhone compared to the all or nothing approach in Android.

My background concern is that Apple go rogue on privacy at some point in the future after the much predicted peak Apple occurs and things start drifting downwards to the point Cook either starts looking at how to make more money from what they have or Cook gets booted out and his replacement does the same. That's the point all that data Apple have starts looking very vulnerable and valuable.

Dixons Carphone: Brexit not a factor as Brits' gadget lust holds strong

@vilemaster

I suspect it's a result of marketing. DSG are happy for you to think they're the only gig in town whether they are or not as that is to their benefit (although it being true is definitely not as that attracts attention as a potential monopoly).. It took a while to think up that list without straying into duplication (Other department stores like Debenhams and HoF sell electricals to some extent) and avoiding stores like Brighthouse which are even bigger pirates than DSG.

@Richard Boyce

You're right about buying online - if nothing else your statutory rights are stronger when you buy online than in store due to the distance selling regulations.

Depends what you are after.

John Lewis: Tellies, white goods and kitchen appliances, computers, cameras and the like

Richer Sounds: Tellies, HiFis

Maplin: Gadgets, adaptors, cables, computer stuff

All the mobile networks have their own high street stores for mobile phones and accessories.

There may be others that I can't think of - it's been a long day.

I'm not offering an opinion on how good/bad/suitable those options may be, but to say there is NO alternative to DSG on the high street isn't quite correct.

Seb James quote

"...we anticipate no let-up in their - very rational - view that price and service are critical factors in deciding where to shop,” said James. ®"

Price and service are both critical factors in my tech buying decisions - and that's why I never shop at any DSG owned store/website.

IT firms guilty of blasting customers with soul-numbing canned music

Re: Halifax are another bunch with ****ing vivaldi....

@ sabroni "Press *0 to skip the a

IME the key combination is "*0#" and it works on other phone systems too, not just Halifax. On a phone system that doesn't specifically recognise "*0#" as the "speak to a person" shortcut, it just treats it as an erroneous response - do it enough and it gives up and routes your call to a meat bag.

Netgear 'fixes' router by adding phone-home features that record your IP and MAC address

Re: Ok, they spy on their clients

@ Killhippie "Its actually opt in, not opt out, and there are also now options for auto update too., seems it was a slow day."

That just shows the info gathering option set to disabled - it doesn't necessarily confirm it is opt-in or opt-out. Same goes for the auto-update option.

Re: Their old Sparc based NAS boxes...

@AC "Their old Sparc based NAS boxes... Weren't Netgear - they bought a company called "Infrant" who designed the ReadNAS [sic] product range."

I did hear about that after purchase and it does explain why they're uncharacteristically (for Netgear) well built. That said the boxes I bought had Netgear badges on the front, therefore my original point is technically true (i.e. they're Netgear).

Re: Ok, they spy on their clients

I guess that monitoring your "customer's" every damned move is now a case of "Everyone does it because everyone does it".

It's an achievement those router owners even got an update (yes, I know that's not the point). I swore off Netgear several years ago when my top of the range wireless ADSL router (DGND3700v1) was EOL'd 12 months after launch (i.e. 6-9 months after purchase) despite them knowing the firmware was still full of fundamental ADSL breaking bugs. The fixes only went into the v2 hardware. The only reason I got passable performance was because Support sent me three Engineering Beta versions of the firmware which resolved most of the ADSL problems. These updates were never released properly so I can only suspect they were made available on a "Keep people quiet who complain to support" basis but not released generally to ensure most people bought a new one to get the fixes.

I've not touched Netgear since. Their old Sparc based NAS boxes were pretty good (and still getting very occasional updates 5+ years later) but the current stuff is just junk.

Hi! I’m Foxy! It looks like you want to run Flash. Do you need help?

Re: Dear BBC,

@AC

"It appears that the BBC are being a bit naughty with their mandatory login to iPlayer. The login persists across their other pages too - and they appear to intend to use it to automatically "personalise" news and tv programme pages unless you untick a lot of boxes. Shades of Facebook."

Their web pages (anything on bbc.co.uk domain) suddenly started demanding location info about a month or so ago. I've blocked it (Desktop Firefox) but I'm sure most won't because they've "got nothing to hide" and "ooh, it means I get my local news and weather and all that".

Re: Dear BBC,

@ Charlie Clark

PS - This will also help our suddenly renewed war on get_iplayer; as used by people who rejected Flash long ago.

Blighty bloke: PC World lost my Mac Mini – and trolled my blog!

"Walkman" somewhat dates your comment. I had a Casio music keyboard thingy back in the late 1980s which had a minor fault and Dixons were doing the same back then - pop it in the back of the shop's store room for a fortnight to pretend it's "been sent away for repair" then return to the customer in exactly the same state as when it was brought in.

I wouldn't trust them to sell me an AA battery without it going wrong within a week despite them ensuring I bought Norton for it, a 5 year warranty (that costs almost as much as the battery and doesn't cover this *particular* fault) and a fucking [incompatible] gold plated monster cable.

Credit to you for being persistent in getting your money back though.

Re: Quite simple...

@Sir Alien "Bought online.... no product received.... contact bank and reverse charge."

AIUI if you get a Debit card chargeback or a Credit Card S75 refund, the bank uses their own money to pay you the refund then pursues the merchant to get their money back. If they can't get it back from the merchant the bank loses out. Banks don't like being deprived of money, even for a short period, and like losing money even less. If you can justify it because a company hasn't delivered an item (or it's damaged) and you've made reasonable efforts to get it resolved without success (i.e. contacted them at least twice) go for the Bank. Do this without delay as there's a 120 day limit on DC chargebacks. A merchant that causes the bank repeated grief like this won't go unnoticed!

Re: i have a wonderful support call story about dixons.

Frankly, the thing I took from AC's comment is Dixons are gullible enough to pay out money to keep people silent about their shitty service experiences, like it's some massive secret that has to be kept under wraps at any cost. I was going to say anyone who doesn't know they're the most egregious bunch of customer shafting (icon) sharks must have been living under a rock for the last 40 years but seeing they're still in business I guess some people STILL don't realise this (or there's a lot of people taking a calculated risk in buying from them).

Re: PC World

If an item fails in the first 28 days you prejudice your own statutory rights (in the UK) by accepting a repair as it means you are surrendering your right to a replacement or refund while placing implicit trust the retailer will actually fix the problem properly (and not just return it untouched 3 weeks later or make it worse). For that reason AC is correct - never accept a repair on an item that breaks immediately (well, within 28 days after purchase).

(Usual I am not a Lawyer disclaimer applies)

Vodafone loses €6bn mainly due to Indian biz writeoff

Not to mention their latest iOS app that demands location data otherwise it doesn't work. All to check network quality and offer the best customer experience natch (and not at all to monetise your location for ads).

I like their network, which has had tangible improvements in the last year or so in the places I go (no, not London, YMMV etc) but this whole monetising data stuff is, frankly disturbing. Unfortunately the banks are also getting into it; optionally for now, but the incentive to join early will soon become a surcharge for not participating as time goes on (remember getting a discount for paying by Direct Debit?). It's one thing when you buy a toaster from amazon and they then want to sell you five more different ones but when your phone provider(s) and bank want to sell their much more intimate+detailed information about you to the highest paying marketing droid scumbag. Then when we're all forced onto those useless fucking smart meters the utilities will also be able to join the information selling party ("anonymised", of course!).

For now I'm reluctant to leave Vodascum as when I last renewed my SIM only deal I was given an unexpected half price discount for 27 months so it's time to investigate a VPN I think :(

Uber red-faced from Waymo legal row judge's repeated slapping

Re: Whoops!

Whoops indeed as there's repeated spelling mistakes in the article. Continued references to "Uber developing LiDAR technology" don't seem right as LiDAR has acquired a superfluous "D".

Try not to scream: Ads are coming to Amazon's Alexa – and VR goggles

@Shadmeister

A good point; there were some great adverts, well written and entertaining making them more of an amusing short with integral product placement than a typical "Buy our shit" advert.

The ones I remember date back to the 80s and 90s when (among other examples) a calamity prone and balding Gregor Fisher was flogging cigars. There was a lot of crap telly about then (we were so short of game show formats we had to licence 3-2-1 from Spain to keep Ted Rogers gainfully employed). There was also good telly but IME the good adverts tended to be better than the programming they were inserted into.

The problem now is the adverts have been racing the programming in a chase to the bottom, via the obstacle course of in program product placement, plus sponsorship book ending the ad breaks. And don't start me on those bloody radio adverts where two people are having a completely genuine conversation over coffee about a new type of roofing felt.

Re: Audio Ads

What caught my eye is that they'd dangle a pair of Nike shoes in a VR shop window, or a can of Cuke on a table. Is there anyone in the western world (or other parts of the world for that matter) that aren't aware of things like Nike shoes and Cuke's caffeinated sugar water? Apparently the most widely known word in the world is "OK", the second is "Coca-cola" (but that may be apocryphal).

Presumably he's saying the only people who can afford to advertise on his platform is the very brands that have likely already reached saturation in their advertising reach.

How will it be ruined? FTA: "VoiceLabs claims the messages will be the first "voice-first" advertising that people will love" [my emphasis]. You're going to love these adverts! Oh yes you will. You will, oh go on. </sarc>

People don't love adverts. At best they tolerate them (through gritted teeth) if they place more value on what they're getting in exchange for enduring the adverts (e.g. telly, radio, magazines) than on the time they spend on viewing/listening/skipping/blocking the adverts themselves. If this guy thinks people will "love" his adverts it'll be the first time people have ever loved any adverts. That seems quite unlikely (outside of his reality distortion field) so for that reason I will remain sceptical about his claims.

Someone is sending propaganda texts to Ukrainian soldiers

Re: I doubt it's the BBC

Sigh. It's a good job the BBC has lots of TV channels and Radio stations otherwise they'd struggle to find enough air time for all the left wing clap trap they get accused of broadcasting because they're normally so busy putting out all that right wing propaganda.

Apologies if I've missed an implicit </sarcasm> - it's been a long week and I'm waiting for beer o'clock.

IBM: Customer visit costing £75 in travel? Kill it with extreme prejudice

@ ps2os2 "IBM came withing [sic] an inch to [sic] loosing [sic] a sale over that."

Frankly, the reason IBM did all that shenanigans and pissing about is it didn't change the eventual outcome - they still got the sale no matter how close it may have been.