Posts by Stuart Halliday

Struggling company pleads with landlords to slash rents as COVID-19 batters UK high street. The firm's name? Apple

Damn you commies

Apple has ever right to ask for a discount.

It didn't get to be a greed guts by giving money away.

Eventually it won't be able to increase it's profits and at that time stockholders will desert it in droves.

If you own one of these 45 Netgear devices, replace it: Kit maker won't patch vulnerable gear despite live proof-of-concept code

It would help enormously if product Reviewers asked this support question during the review.

Might make the manufacturers take it seriously.

Brave takes step closer to sensible business model by building subscription VPN into the iOS version of its browser

Matter of trust

How do you trust your chosen VPN?

I've yet to see any VPN provider who has a security certificate issued by a reputable company.

They say they don't keep logs. But at least one was caught with logs recently.

A reputable security company making surprised visits would go a long way towards trust...

PC printer problems and enraged execs: When the answer to 'Hand over that floppy disk' is 'No'

Reminded me of a battle I had when I worked at Maplin. Next door was PC World. Customer came to me to get a cable for their desktop PC as instructed by the PCWorld person.

I told the customer that such a cable didn't exist. So back to PCWorld he went for further instructions.

He came back with a piece of paper and once more I said, such a cable didn't exist.

This exchange went on about 6 times. Until I feeling pity for him went with him into PCWorld and looked at his PC myself.

I saw immediately that PCWorld technician was inventing cables. You can't get a 6 pin graphics card power cable to ATX 24 pin main board adapter. I of course sold the customer the correct PSU cable....

Made a change from telling the customer to refund their £90 HDMI cable from PCWorld and buy a £6 from us instead.

Russia drags NASA: Enjoy your expensive SpaceX capsule, our Soyuz is the cheap Kalashnikov of rockets

Nice to see someone knocking the shine off SpaceX and NASA.

The Americans don't care that the overall cost of a SpaceX launch is more expensive.

They just love wallowing in patriotic slime.

I've never seen a country so up its Ass with false Pride. Let's remember it's citizens enjoy killing each other over the slightest thing.

They've only gone and bloody done it! NASA, SpaceX send two fellas off to the International Space Station

Almost accident free

Did anyone else notice that the blond SpaceX Astronaut bumped his head and had to be handed a tissue to stop the bleeding?

'I wrote Task Manager': Ex-Microsoft programmer Dave Plummer spills the beans

If you're not using Sysinternals stuff, you're not a IT person....

Sky customers moan: Our broadband hubs are bricking it

Re: It's been years since . . . .

A lot of Sky Customers don't realise their Contract specifically states they can't use a 3rd party Router.

Elevating cost-cutting to a whole new level with million-dollar bar bills

Re: remote diagnostics

Probably the Leopard?

Billionaires showered with wealth as experts say global economy set for long and deep recession

We also are fully aware that rich people don't count their wealth until it's cashed in.

Scaleway disarms its ARM64 cloud, cites unreliable hardware as the reason

Bad Motherboard design or dodgy chip sets?

Mayday! Mayday! The next Windows 10 update is finally on approach to a PC near you

Can we get something useful added to 20H1? How about a spell checker for file explorer or decent image comparison software?

Oh Hell. Remember the glory days of Demon Internet? Well, now would be a good time to pick a new email address

Re: Ah memories...

I bought my surname as my domain name. Dead cheap and it works 20 years later....

Apollo 13 set off into space 50 years ago today. An ignored change order ensured it did not make it to the Moon...

WTF

How did the voltage change from 28V to 65V and no one noticed that the switch component couldn't withstand the increased current?

This is basic stuff.

Ethernet standards group leaves its name in the dust as it details new 800Gbps spec

So, a new connector will be required?

Remember Tapplock, the 'unbreakable' smart lock that was allergic to screwdrivers? The FTC just slapped it down for 'deceiving' folks

Just playing at being grownups....

Boeing 787s must be turned off and on every 51 days to prevent 'misleading data' being shown to pilots

Ask and you shall receive

So, next time I'm on one of these planes, I've to ask when the plane was last turned off?

FFS.

Samsung calls it a day on liquid-crystal display, says quantum dot is really hot

Douglas Adams will be turning in his Grave...

Cue Digital Watches....

Tupperware-dot-com has a live credit card skimmer on its payment page, warns Malwarebytes

Well, at least Malwarebytes customers will be protected I assume.

Grab a towel and pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is 42

Great times

I remember my first introduction to the radio series.

A certain Mouse Trainer was selling off plastic animation sheets from the book on the TV series. Got to see outtakes in Blackpool that were deleted forever a few months later. I'd never heard of the series at that point and so missed the opportunity to get Merch.

First episode later that week for me was the one where they're inside that marble cup. I was hooked.

Met Douglas himself a few months later doing book signing in Edinburgh. Only 3 of us there, so we got to ask lots of crazy questions. Later on, I was message boarding him on a London BBS. Sweet.

Like a Virgin, hacked for the very first time... UK broadband ISP spills 900,000 punters' records into wrong hands from insecure database

As if we would

As if anyone gives these services your true DOB, Mother's name....

You don't right?

Plonkers

Can we ask that Virgin takes it's own advice and uses strong passwords....

After 16 years of hype, graphene finally delivers on its promise – with a cosmetic face mask

Remove any grants from any company saying 'synergy'....

If you're wondering how Brit cops' live suspect-hunting facial-recog is going, it's cruising at 88% false positives

So improve the capture images?

Is that a typo? Oh, it's not a typo. Ampere really is touting an 80-core 64-bit 7nm Arm server processor dubbed Altra

Can we get RISC OS running on it please....?

How many times do we have to tell you? A Tesla isn't a self-driving car, say investigators after Apple man's fatal crash

When companies in America brought out devices to attach to your Tesla Steering Wheel to evade it's safety measures, then that's when the Driver is too stupid to live....

Yo, Imma let you finish, but for the 6,000 people still using that app on a daily basis ... we have a question: why?

Yo!

1

1

Might as well be current...

Oracle staff say Larry Ellison's fundraiser for Trump is against 'company ethics' – Oracle, ethics... what dimension have we fallen into?

Well, that'll lose Oracle some Share price I hope.

Call us immediately if your child uses Kali Linux, squawks West Mids Police

Please inform the Police if you see Process Explorer on your Child's computer.

It's obvious they're at hacking level...

Android owners – you'll want to get these latest security patches, especially for this nasty Bluetooth hijack flaw

What security updates?

I'm a Samsung owner, so I expect to wait another month...

There are already Chinese components in your pocket – so why fret about 5G gear?

Re: Manufacturing

Heard of WOL?

Wouldn't surprise me if there's a magic packet that turns on a dormant piece of silicon or simply kills it.

Re: Great piece, but...

Funny how no one minds when you buy an item from China and it costs you £1 to post it to you.

I fear most of our items are now supplied by China and when they stop supplying them, we'll get a serious wake up call as we realise we've no home market.

We need to create a new cheap production market. How about Africa?

Brit brainiacs say they've cracked non-volatile RAM that uses 100 times less power

Come back when there's a chip module wafer...

LastPass stores passwords so securely, not even its users can access them

Working

Had LP for over 3 years.

Never had any issues with it to date.

You're not Boeing to believe this: Yet another show-stopping software bug found in ill-fated 737 Max airplanes

Re: Those moneychangers...

Hey, right on the ball on why Maplin had to shut down. Accountants bled it dry.

Re: Isn't THIS why we've got to teach 2nd-graders how to "code", rather than how to think?

Had to take on a 16 year old on IT Work experience once. After a week I asked him what was his thoughts.

"Having to think".

Good result I thought.

Re: Isn't THIS why we've got to teach 2nd-graders how to "code", rather than how to think?

Err, you do realise the code for the LEM had to be manually altered by hand by an Astronaut via a dodgy low quality audio radio link?

Re: Isn't THIS why we've got to teach 2nd-graders how to "code", rather than how to think?

Absolutely. Bring back Lyon's Leo Programmers!

GSMA report: Sorry, handset makers, 5G is not going to save the smartphone market

Still can't get 4G in Supermarket car parks

As a husband sitting in my Car whilst my wife goes shopping, I want 4G at least whilst I wait for my dearest to return.

Why would anyone want 5G when it's not available for 99.9% of us?

Give us 99.9% 4G first.

Blackout Bug: Boeing 737 cockpit screens go blank if pilots land on specific runways

I guess another question to ask the Stewards when you board.

What firmware version is my plane at and is there know bugs?

LibreOffice 6.4 nearly done as open-source office software project prepares for 10th anniversary

Most people have no idea there is an alternative to MSOffice.

What we want is to open an MSOffice document and see it look exactly the same in LibreOffice.

A lot of Users know nothing about 'filetypes' and really don't care.

LibreOffice needs to advertise.

Want to live long and prosper? Avoid pirated, malware-laden Star Wars free vid streams – and pay to watch instead

Why the pictures of Star Trek?

Hate speech row: Fine or jail anyone who calls people boffins, geeks or eggheads, psychology nerd demands

Re: Labels are divisive

I was labelled a 'Scientist'.

Was that good or bad?

Yes, they've now got a Certificate.

I did the MENSA test and around 145. Wasn't interested in joining. But I was called Doc at Primary School and was bullied at School for being naive and trusting.

This went along at Work until I finally had to wise up and stop speaking.

Discovered I was high Autistic (Aspergers).

I was called Wizkid and didn't find that offensive at all. Then came along American Culture in the form of TV Shows and discovered that they disliked intelligent kids and called them Nerds and Geeks. These were derogatory terms in the 70/80s. Just didn't know what they meant!

The days when the Internet came along, I found myself in demand by the general public around me. So, I guess I ended up in the Black.

Why is the printer spouting nonsense... and who on earth tried to wire this plug?

Had an Electrican rewire the 19V end of a laptop power cable,only to find it still wasn't working.

On inspection I discovered he'd swapped the polarity over.

"Does polarity matter?" asked the innocent looking man.

I replied, "don't rewire anyone's house until you understand why it's a bad thing..."

$13m+ Swiss Army Knife of blenders biz collapses to fury of 20,000 unfulfilled punters

Check the CEO's car.

Probably top of the range something or another.

The Windows Phone keeps ringing but no one's home: Microsoft finally lets platform die

Will no one think of the billions spent on it?

Could have got rid of World hunger (probably).

If you want an example of how user concerns do not drive software development, check out this Google-backed API

Add an extra field in the API, the domain of the asking site. The Developer previously had registers that domain with the play store.

If the asking Web site isn't the registered domain, the request is denied.

Problem solved.

Just in case you were expecting 10Gbps, Wi-Fi 6 hits 700Mbps in real-world download tests

I have to have a minimum 72Hz monitor or a 100Hz TV. I can see flicker if it's 50-60Hz.

Went to see a Harry Potter film in the cinema , only to discover it was flickering like mad. Seemingly it was supposed to look 'ye oldie' style.