Posts by dark1here

MtGox: Yup, we're pretty sure your Bitcoin were stolen. Sorry about that.

Cashed oit of Gox in November/December 2013. What was supposed to take a week took 6 weeks. Not convinced about any of this, clearly even back then they had severe cash flow problems, or then had been robbed blind for a long time and were so badly run they did not know it

Hong Kong's data centres stay high and dry amid Typhoon Usagi

If the wind speeds were only Force 8, 40 knots, then a bit barn in a barn would have been quite enough to prevent any outage

New York State to investigate 'Wild West' Bitcoin industry

When the Cyprus Govenment, part of the Eurozone currencies group "sequestrated" = stole 30% of savers hard earned savings, I started to wonder about Bitcoin, as it has no national boundaries, and no central bank to "control= devalue it, by calling it quantitive easing.

US$ now worth 21.2% less than in 2006, due to quantitive easing or printing more bucks as it is generally known, as the fiscal last resort of banana republics. Live on Bitcoin, you are no worse than the others

PayPal's fizzog-based payments app rubbished over reliability worries

20 years ago was working with Datacard on picture on card credit cards. Their conclusion was that no shop assistant worth their salt would risk their lives for the then $50 bounty on a card where the photo did not match the offerer of the card.... many shop assistant were being attacked.

Nothing has changed from the later 1980s,, Paypal have alreadsy lost that one

Which qualifications are worthwhile?

Whick qualifications

My son got ME when 15 years old, spent 5 years in bed. Computers and the internet were his only outlet.

No GCse, A Levels. He started on a Helpdesk for Microsoft Office products mainly Excel and Word.

He started doind MCSE qualification with Microsoft on line, and Now has 18 including MCTP s. Having donea lot of network work, he got on the BP team. running their worldwide VPN. From there he took Citrix and Cisco exams. He now is a valued techie with majors on commercial contracts with Major worldwide banks.

He says that IT graduates, tend to be generally out of date when they leave university, and they have to learn the same sort of stuff as he has, so why end up with a £40K millstone round their neck?

Mother of All Whistlers: Virgin Media superhub. Listen to recordings

VM PSU problems

Having been in the computer indsutry for over 30 years, most pSU problems, switch mode or otherwise are designed for 110/220 volts, at 240 are overcooked, and where I live the voltage can be as much as 255

Opps VM problems

Regret that I did not read the Superhub instructions and hence plugged it into a very old Cisco supplied PSU, running at 6 volts. Hence I dont have a whistle to contend with.

I do have a long term stability tested Superhub PSU still in its box if anyone wants to try it

Did your iPhone 'just stop working' - or did you drop it in your BEER?

Drat my Swiss watch is waterproof. Why did they not take out a patent to prove the watch got wet?

Alternatively, make the kit water resistant Apple, or is that too hard?

'Dated and cheesy' Aero ripped from Windows 8

Aero interface

Theres me using Vista and the W7, and did not know I had an Aero interface. I thought Aero was a chocolate bar with bubbles in it.

Maybe bubbles are banned in Win8, along with the start button. All the corporates I have spoken to have said that they are not prepared to pay the mega bucks needed to retrain to use Win8, which means it may have the same uptake as Vista

Tame the gas monster with sensors, suckers and a spiffy new fan

Ground source heat pump

Unfortunately salesmen tend to gloss over the downsides. A heat pump producing hot water is 300% less efficient that one producing heat at 35 degrees C. A ground source heat pump will produce a COP of 5:1, which means 1 unit of leccy produces 5 units of heat sourced from the ground coils. (Cheap rate tariff 10:1)

To re jig the house to use a temperature of 35 degrees rather than the CH temperatures of 65-80 degrees, means new heat exchangers usually under the floor, so the cost becomes very expensive.

If you rely on an existing radiator system, the heat pump will run at apalling COP levels and thus not save either the money or CO2.

Unfortunately the system needs so be fitted to new builds, or where a major renovation is needed

My home is bugged ... with temp sensors to save me cash

Under your floor, assuming it is supended floor there should b airbricks to ensure the circulation of air, to prevent the decay in the floorboard and joists. Block these bricks at your peril.

If you feel the need to insulate, you need mineral wool bats or similar between the floor joists. I used flame retardent polystyrene

Crime-fighting Seattle superhero unmasked, fired

Glad to see that in the US you are guilty until proven innocent

Galaxy Tab remains illegal in Germany

Samsung Galaxy I pad lookalike??

My father used to collect old cigarette cases. Many were smooth metal. Many were from Germany between WW1 and WW2. Should I sue Apple because their smooth looking case looks like my old Mans prewar German cigarette case?

New UK 'leccy meters remotely run via Voda 2G

Switch off the freezer?

I bet the insurance companies are going to love all the claims " The leccy company told my freezer to switch off"

Ten... budget Android tablets

Reply from the author

Contacted Kogan Uk, and they confirmed the fault which occurs in " some samples" and tech service are working on it. In Oz, they tried "flight mode" but that also failed, so there must be a serious fault in the firmware> Until such time that it is fixed it is a no no.

If you had a car that switched itself on every 10 minutes to check if there was air in the tyres, i dont think you would buy it

Kogan Agora 7

Australian reviews of this tablet complain of poor battery life and bad display.

The battery life problems is due to the tablet waking up every 10 minutes to look for a 3G signal, except that it has not got 3G! This constant power up - power down reduces battery life by 50% and the question is..........was this "feature" in the review tablet or has the fault been fixed??

Windows 7 upgrades Vista laptops to lower battery life

Lower battery life

My Toshiba does similar. Is there any way of shutting off this useless feature, as the BIOS is quite capable of shutting it down when needed. I have heard of premature ejaculation but premature capitulation is new to me!

BT reveals faster broadband pricing

On the inside track

The reason for the low levels of download rates is for two reasons. Firstly, the persons who did this have degrees in social science and do not understand broadband or the internet.The second reason is so that they can sell a separate "film" service by broadband. I understand that 20 Gb a month equates to a couple of episodes of Corrie and a couple of films.

We would not want the internet to be used as a TV channel would we?

Google countersues in Android Specht-spat

Google and Android

Google lawyers are saying that the claim that Android is not prior art and the action is frivilous. Funny that..... the US patent office rejected the filing, and that they launched two unsuccessful appeals. Seems that they protest too much

Lloyds TSB's online banking system shows no love for Firefox

Firefox compatibility

I have had the same problem with an on line stockbroker, which only supports IE. I have made a formal complaint to the EU. There is absolutely no point in forcing Microsoft to unbundle IE from Windows 7, if competitor browsers are not allowed. I suspect that their code is suspect so that it is not robust

Google shuts down bank snafu Gmail account

Google snafu

as now seems both in th Uk and the US, you are guilty until proven innocent, and this case in just another on the list. I sincerely hope that the innocent parties including Google sue for abuse of process, including the judge and the legal team in the case. Such evidence in this case should have been investigated before coming to court, and the court case should never have taken place... worse the judge has compounded his incompetence by failing to lift the embargo. I hope it costs them $ millions