Posts by oceanhippie

Tabletop battle-toys purveyor Games Workshop again warns of risks in Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP project

Roll a d6?

The Nokia 3.2 is a phone your nan will love: One camera's more than enough, darling

I have a Nokia 5.1, recently upgraded, - it was Cheap $320 Aussie, I dropped it several times on hard floors no cover - yes it cracked but it still worked. The Charge port was getting dicky as well, but for the price I was dead impressed. Still use it as a house hold remote and don't-care-what-happes-to-it phone.

"Stock android", Screen and battery good fingerprint scanner OK. Given the price of smartphones these days it was bloody excellent.

Don't knock a cheap smartphone with 'vanilla' android on it - see current front page for budget phone story with pre installed malware.

The D in Systemd is for Directories: Poettering says his creation will phone /home in future

destroy the village in order to save it?

Hmm System D fixed some errr I don't know what it fixed. But in the processes it cause trouble for not the nerd but the humble user. E.G when I reboot or shutdown a system, I like it to actually do it systemd sometimes decides to get to "Reach Target Shutdown" and just sit there.

What ever Systemd "fixed" this is far more irritating.

the ability to hack around in a user folder that you can under stand that name of and location of far out ways the complexity of the bodged password system.

'I'm not a number - I'm a free man' I'd like my home folder not to be a number or . *sudders* a guid.

/systemd/home/syy/{d49cf921-bc70-4d78-a4e1-bf1c8df2d491}/user/{50210286-a14b-4989-bf22-8552c862fce0}

Press F to pay respects to the Windows 10 April Update casualties

I know I should have moved on but

I think it was this update that finally killed off Paint Shop Pro 9.

I've been fearing this for years it only ran aero disabled on 7 now it won't start.

:-)

First Wi-Fi box ever is chosen as Australia's best contribution to global history

Re: Just a short list... (not meant to be comprehensive)

Ok someone else may have invented the fridge but we put the beer in it. They probably used it for food or some such.

Want a Brexit? Promise you'll sort out UK universities' £1bn research cash loss

Re: The answer is...

Post Brexit the government could fund, but probably will cancel the funding and use it to give tax cuts to the rich.

New Firefox versions will make you activate all new add-ons – except one hacker favourite

Click to run - this was the default for a long time in Opera. I miss those days, It's settable in Vivaldi, therefore probably all chrome/chromium browsers.

I find this the perfect solution to flash - you only see what you right click and "run plugin" on.

It's almost a shame html5 video isn't a plugin. I did put in a feature request for Vivaldi not to autoplay videos. Meanwhile I have a plugin that stops HTML 5 vids from autoplaying

SpaceX adds Mars haulage to its price list

I wonder if it's El Reg's typo or Space x's? If it's Space X's book before they notice.

Sixty two bucks is a pretty good deal for Mars. Don't go over the weight limit or they'll put it up by 90 million.

Intel literally decimates workforce: 12,000 will be axed, CFO shifts to sales

Re: Profits over a billion and they cut staff?

"Good Enough Tech" - it's been a while since I had a PC that struggled. I remember my youf when I always wanted a more powerful pc. For the last decade I've bought second hand. My 4 years 2nd hand laptop runs Windows 10 like you wouldn't believe.

Apart from the really big boys something similar is probably happening in servers.

In both fields it's about quantity of data, or spinnng rust rather than CPU that holds the key.

Untlil storage catches up with CPU - either SSD or cloud storage at CPU bus speeds Intel can probably rest on it laurels a bit. Unless it can come up with killer and cheap storage.

No executive lost his (safe bet it's a man) bonus firing people.

Chrome add-ons just became less scary, security-wise

Presumably these will be rigorously enforced for any app that does ad blocking or YouTube downloading and ignored for all that display Google's ads?

Uninstall QuickTime for Windows: Apple will not patch its security bugs

The Nineties Called.

They say they want QuickTime back.

Windows 10 debuts Blue QR Code of Death – and why malware will love it

Share button

Surely this could be taken further, you could "share" your BSOD with Facebook, so your geek mates can be dragged into helping.

hashtagBSOD and all that.

Microsoft Office 365: You don't need 27 floppies, but there is desktop friction

Re: People need to be warned that Office 365 is not the same as Office 2016 ...

"No you don't. Just install it and it will remove / update the old version automatically."

You are kidding right? Office will happily install in a trully mind boggling array of FAIL. It will happily install 3 different versions of its self. Plus the the flogware shortcut welded to the PC. I've seen poor IT techs with 32bit and 64bit and a different build number of publisher all on the same machine. None would work or uninstall. And that was with out help from 365.

MS has a specail "Office Nuke" app for fixing really &$%$%&$ up installs. Though by this time it's usually too late. Bury the PC in a disued mine shaft interstate. Sell the customer a new one. Then check the tech into a new padded office to slowly wheen him off hold music and back onto solids.

Rum may also help at this point...

Google to deep six dodgy download buttons

Errrr

I thought Google PROVIDED those fake buttons via its ads platform

Google Suicide Squad....

Zuck slapped down for privacy breaches in Germany again

I've hated this feature, for decade or more.

I hardly think Facebook were the first people to do this, the rape address book "feature" was around long ago.

It's an absolutely abhorrent practice. I've torn strips off my mates for doing it "how dare you give xxxxx.com my email address"

Sadly people still do it. You can tell by the linkedin invites I get. I should point out I'm a member of several professional social networks. A sailing club and a Rugby Club. Neither of those abuse my mates using my address book.

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

DOS

I was called out to East Arm Port, Darwin about 18months back. There were the broken remains of a Industrial PC running DOS 6.2. Not original - much bodged.

I managed to find an old ide 2.5inch drive which dos would see, remembered how to set sectors heads etc, reinstalled DOS.

Their "15 ton spanner" is a happily torqueing up oil rig drill rods again.

They sent me as the oldest in the office.

BBC encourages rebellious Welsh town to move offshore

The government only wants rich tax dodgers.

*sigh* a mix of incompetence and policy. The Govenmnet want tax dodging for the rich. After all they were mates at school and or they don't have the ability, political will, political capital and especially the election campaign fund capital to change the tax system.

There's a huge row in Australia right now about tax changes, and there's not even a proposal yet, though there is probably a hidden agenda.

Rich campaign doners and mates of the minister tax dodging is what the Govenmnet wants (secretly). What it does not want is ordinary people who don't have political connections to do it, they need to collect tax off the great unwashed. If everyone did the tax dodges then the country would go bankrupt.

Speaking on behalf of govenmnets everywhere: please don't use our inability to write coherant or even sane policy against us. Just cos we shlurp all your data doesn't mean you shoud use encryption, just cos we can't write a tax policy that a bogan couldn't drive a bus through doesn't mean you should drive a bus through it. "Please pay us your taxes, even if you don't have to, now where's that expenses chit, and accompanying VAT claimback form"

Cell networks' LTE-U will kill your Wi-Fi, say digital rights bods

Death by baby monitor.

WiFi @ 2.4GHz always had troubles with other non WiFi stuff from the local pound shop. A cheapy wireless security camera system in a tiny cafe once caused havoc over the whole Brighton Beach free wifi.

Fortunately the cafe owner preferred free internet to security and binned it.

There's all sorts of crap in that band already, moving to the Northern Territory Pop 230k, size 1,4M square km, where all the buildings are corrugated tin Faraday cages has alleviated the problem.

In normal cities who'd want to operate in that band? There's so many microwaves flying around already you can re-heat lasagna!

Windows 10: Major update on the Threshold as build 10586 hits Insiders

*Sigh* windows 10 is quite good for a given value of good.

Things like security, if you copy over notepad.exe (and who doesn't) you now have to go in and edit the permissions or it won't run.

From a malware point of view that's good. It's fast has hell, even on my old laptop running 10 out does my current one on 7.

BUT I still hate it, I hate the looks I hate the start thingy. I hate the loss of control, I hate the online.

My PC is mine, Its part of my personality, its customized the way I like it. I hate letting others use it (as its a thinkpad I disable the touchpad, that usually gets them)

The privacy/cloud/online accounts makes in not mine in some way? And even when I turned all that off it turned its self back on.

"I can't let you do that Dave"

Unfortunately this is the way everything is going, we can hold out in windows 7 for a few years, but then we the El Reg comentards can go Linux. But our mums will still be bewildered by MS, and we'll still have to help them. Even if we do bang our heads against the screen in frustration.

I'm going to sit in a corner and cry now.

Opera Jon's sparkling Vivaldi proves the browser isn't dead

Shut up and take my money!

I bought opera back in the day, the new version is a pale shadow* of the old opera.

For once I'm not out of touch either.

The world needs another browser, and new red chrome is not it.

Snakes in the aircon, killer crocs in the river, virtualisation for apps

Re: Indian in Oz

I've not tried the one on Sabine Rd. Will have to when I get back to Darwin.

The other comentator...

Ta!

El Reg - the best for Curry Reviews.

Get whimsical and win a Western Digital Black 6TB hard drive

you're holding it wrong!

Oh great a picture of my former habitat... thank you I'm touched.

Bite my shiny metal Ask: Java for OS X crapware storm brewing

.net

Microsoft will soon (5years plus wait for next update) rewrite it to use lync and .net instead...

World's largest ship swallows 900 MEGATINS of baked beans

Re: Shoe-rly shum mishtake!

Yeah how about 1 ft or 12 inches?

Reg Oz chaps plot deep desert comms upgrade

mikrotik

If your looking for a cheap, reliable and outback proof wifi. Take a look at mikrotik routers. They are cheap, have built in radius, hotspot and proxys. They're very very adaptable.

I made a hotspot/ticket system for a caravan park out bush in the NT, on satellite, a couple of years back which is still working fine and has not bankrupted them.

Since they have every routing protocol you can think of and a firewall based on iptables with a pretty neat interface, they make great point to point links.

Check out The Register's Google+ page

On google+ nobody can hear you Scream

I'm sure you have some kind of stats system on your web server - if not I'll do you a one line wonder in grep, cut and wc, but far more people read this post than went to to your google+ page.

Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2: Quick start guide for sysadmins

And reboot

Sums M$ up really.

Register SPB hacks mull chopping off feet

yes, know more

Knots/Nautical Miles, and especially the Beaufort scale, yes.

In the pub any unit, providing the sig figs and errors are smaller than the jesticulations of the speaker, are not only acceptable but preferred.

But for anything that matters, SI or interchageble eqivs, kg for weight, Celsius for Kelvin are just fine - nobody will mess them up.

Pints, just as soon as a self cooling pint glass, of comparable price and Northern Territories proof. In fact Territorian proof is

created, I will gladly revert to my Pinty instincts but till then I'll keep to smaller ones that stay cold longer.

Oh dear did I mention the mass/weight thing oops..

And they're off! Day one at the solar races

Missed oportunity

You missed the Daly Waters pub then, shame. Pop 5 is pretty big, Daly waters once hosted an international air port. Its never had a population in 3 figures.

Your not using unlocked UK mobiles with Telstra sim's are you? Telsta's three G is odd, its normal 3g net on a different frequency. In the big towns they usually work but out bush they can't do the 850 Mhz out bush.

Not that there's much signal on the Stewart Highway anyway. Think Tennats, Alice Coober Peedy Woomera and a few road houses till Port Augusta.

As for the most expensive Diesel, It will get worse I reckon, between Tenants Creek and The Alice.

As a Brit in Darwin, I'm getting to know the Northern Territories. Just for those who can't imagine I'm from Brighton Population: 256,600 (inc suburb of Hove) all crammed into 87Km2 its only recently been granted city status, for more perspective the whole uk is 241,590Km2 and what 60million people. The NT (not today, not tomorrow, not Tuesday, probably not Thursday either) has a Total population of 229,675 spread over 1.3 million km2.

Think 5 times the size of the UK and less people than Brighton and Hove.

And like you I love the NT news, even hungover in a greasy spoon I couldn't manage to enjoy Brighton's Evening Argus. NT news on the other hand.... crocs, sex on balconies, crashes, crocs, and today "I drank my own Urine" and probably more crocs.

Some of the stories in NT news are probably related to the NT's Drink problem, Territorians drink more than you can imagine. If they were a country they'ed top the league tables by a huge margin.

El Reg follows World Solar Challenge

Road Trains

As a recent traveller down the Stewart and and a good way back up it, yeah I reckon passing a road train going the other way doing 130 in a carbon fibre paper airplane with wheels will qualify as "interesting".

The Stewart is metalled but bumpy in places. The stop at 5pm should reduce the chance of hitting a roo, but cows... saw a lot of dead cows by the road. Wouldn't even slow a road train down but a carbon fibre pedle car covered in solar panels?

As a pom resident in Darwin, will be checking it out, met the Dutch team in their highly modified hire car support vehicle 2 weeks back, stayed mast on roof rack. Inverters, 12v ciggy sockets gaffer tape and cable tiles everywhere. Propper job! They talked us through the support car with its gps and monitors ending with:

"and that's a webcam so we can see the sky with all the screens in the back its tricky to see out of the windows"

With no air con in the cars how the hell do they keep their beer cold?

Faustian descent into backup hell: A play in two acts

Free me from ghost and arctronis or whatever its called.

We use these products a lot at work. I hate them, I have never built a pxe boot server before. I built one with fog (free opensource ghost) to which I'be added net boot of clonzilla, and the Linux vm it runs on and the frankenstine sever that that is the vm host in less time than I have wasted on one imaging attemt with the above God awful products.

Virgin Media 'overwhelmed' by broadband customers fleeing BT

There not Virgin they're NT Bloody L and they're cretins

Being the friendly neighbourhood geek much of my life I've been cleaning up after NTL (whatever they're paying beardy to cover it up) cock ups. Sufice to say their engineer's can't wire a cat 5 cable. Infact they can't get one wire in the same place at each end.Changing your TV pack's disconnects your internet. My telephone repeated cranked called some poor woman in the north west while I was at work.

My flatmates had it. 2 Meg on NTL = 0.1meg at 1 am... damn...

After trying to establish what contention they worked too and failing I finanly nobbled an Engineer in the street and asked him. He admitted they don't. They just connect more an more folks up and don't worry about wheather or not thers's any actuall badwidth.

Oh and their proxies suck.

A mate rented his house out. The NTL engineer (possibly Paris) his tenantes got in drilled straight through the main Seaboard cable into the house (before the fuse box). Taking out himself and the power. For those who've met NTL "Engineers" I think this is Darwinsim at work.