Posts by cosymart

Square-shaped hole in workers' wallets after payment system fails at peak tip time

High time companies paid their staff a decent wage and this fudal payment system was outlawed.

Ransomware victim Colonial Pipeline paid $5m to get oil pumping again, restored from backups anyway – report

Criminal to pay Criminals?

I thought that in most jurisdictions it's illegal to give criminals money especially for blackmail?

Japan to start stamping out rubber stamps and tearing up faxes as new digital agency given Sept. 1 start date

Electronic Banking

I volunteer with a small charity and we prefer cheques as we can bank these free, we are also happy with BACS payments. Any other type of transaction costs us money: Hire or purchase of card reader, % of transaction, connection to the internet. So why go digital?

Don't cross the team tasked with policing the surfing habits of California's teens

Where's The Story?

Read this waiting for the story/punch line.... Slow news day this week?

How to ensure your tech predictions catch on in a flash? Do the mash

Fireball XL5

Fireball XL5 had the best intro music: https://youtu.be/F8C8pyuOO5U

Website maker Wix embarks on weird WordPress-trashing campaign, sends 'influencer' users headphones from 'WP'

Exit Strategy

I toyed with using Wix for the sites I look after but didn't like the 100% tie in that they operate with no export option :-(

Forget GameStop: Keyboard warriors and electronic trading have never mixed well

Re: The illusion of real time

As the "oh SH*T" moment occurs an experienced climber pushes away from the rock face. This is to clear any nasty obstacles on the way down and hopefully encounter a grass slope rather than the boulders at the base of the cliff :-(

Oops moment

A colleague was adjusting a microwave link and prior to the tweak decided that it would be good to speak to his opposite number on the other tower via moble (cell) phone so they could synchronise their actions. They agreed a course of action: Switch off towers, make adjustments, affirm safe to switch back on via phone call. Bet you can't guess which tower was routing the phone signal.

My bad! So you're saying that redacting an on-screen PDF with Tipp-Ex won't work?

Re: HMRC still has wrong/internal .pdf version of SA100 tax return posted for year 2017

Your problem here was that you "reached out" to them. Had you simply contacted them Robert would have been your fathers brother long ago.

The Fat iPhone, 11 years on: The iPad's over a decade old and we're still not sure what it's for

Re: Seniors

The problem (is it a problem?) is that many people, especially the Seniors (hate this but it works) see the iPad as meaning tablet computer and many don't even know that there are alternatives :-( Getting to be a bit like Vacuum = Hoover.

Ministry of Defence's cyber warfare drive is helping burn a hole through its budget, warns UK's National Audit Office

The MOD needs "Cyber" you can count tanks, warships and planes. Try and count "Cyber" :-)

Solving a big, yellow IT problem: If it's not wearing hi-vis, I don't trust it

Data Entry

We were involved with a similar role out and hit the problem of preparing the system with existing data. Decided to call upon the services of the, soon to be made redundant, typing pool and they were brilliant! Once they got going and realised that each data sheet was identical and they had to tab through each field including null values the stuff was going in at fast rate. One problem, they were entering the data that fast and being touch typist they very rarely needed to look at the screen the screen refresh rate was struggling to keep up and the buffer could only cope with so much. We had to ask them to pause every 5min to allow the buffer to clear and the screens update :-)

The Huawei Mate 40 Pro would be the best Android flagship on the market – were it not for the US-China trade war

Re: Phone review?

Have more upvotes ^^^^^^^^^^

Business top brass are terrified their companies will simply be collateral damage in a future cyber-war

Any War

In all wars there is collateral damage, why should a cyber-war any different? The probable good thing about a cyber-war is that the collateral damage is less likely to kill people.

Be very afraid! British Army might scrap battle tanks for keyboard warriors – report

Costs Lots

Tanks are very expensive to purchase, maintain and operate. The Challengers are at least 30 years old technology and for some reason they are never in the right place. The next big battle/war is going to be fought where???? So the next MBT design needs to be capable of what??? Using what technology????? The lead time between concept to ready for action is 10 years+ minimum.

Easier to win the lottery yet the MOD is expected get it right :-)

Backup a sec – is hard drive reliability improving? Annual failure rate from Backblaze comes in at its lowest yet

Lies, damn lies and Statisitics

The only way you can compare reliability is to place many samples of each drive in identical situations for a period of years. The current method of seeing how many complaints/comments each type of drive gets is flawed as we don't know things like sales. Seagates get lots of complaints but that might be because they sell twice as many? So overall they could be more reliable. IMHO :-)

'Get out of my office, you're being a pest!' Yes, son. Toymaker releases work-from-home-themed play sets

Naff

These look so naff they will probably sell like hot cakes :-)

What other icon could I use?

British Army does not Excel at spreadsheets: Soldiers' newly announced promotions are revoked after sorting snafu

Photo

Sent a correction :-)

Nokia 5310: Retro feature phone shamelessly panders to nostalgia, but is charming enough to be forgiven

Re: Cheap IMO

Had one of those, just about managed to last the 12 months of the contract before dying with a few near death experiences on the way. Crap and cheap :-(

Black hole destroys corona

Re: In Real Time?

I would have expected better from a member of the scientific community.

In Real Time?

“This seems to be the first time we’ve ever seen a corona first of all disappear, but then also rebuild itself, and we’re watching this in real-time,” Kara said. “ Real time? More like 100million years ago. This thing doesn't even exist now :-)

Oh sure, we'll just make a tiny little change in every source file without letting anyone know. What could go wrong?

Most Dangerous

The most dangerous button ever created "Reply to all" not helped by idiots who use the shotgun approach to sending out emails.

Hungry? Please enjoy this delicious NaN, courtesy of British Gas and Sainsbury's

Sainsburys Have It

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/dessert-mixes/birds-angel-delight--butterscotch-59g

What does London's number 65 bus have to hide? OS caught on camera setting fire to '22,000 illegal file(s)!!'

Too Busy

Still looking for the "Any Key" The old ones are best :-)

The bork on the sign goes round and round, round and round, round and round

Re: 256GB for a sign!

Probably a very good salesman "You really do need this much memory, cheap compared to the wraparound LCDs".

So you really didn't touch the settings at all, huh? Well, this print-out from my secret backup says otherwise

Re: Fear the

It seems The About has been updated by Chris Williams and both Dabbsy and Verity Stob are now ex-register employees :-(

Re: Fear the

According to the About bit he is still working here but there again this was last updated in 2019....

"About The Register

The Register is a leading global online tech publication, with more than nine million monthly unique browsers worldwide. The core audiences are the UK and US, accounting for more than six million. The bulk of the remaining readership are located in Canada, Australia and northern Europe.

Starting out in London in 1994 as an occasional email newsletter, The Register began publishing online daily in 1998. Today The Register is headquartered in London, San Francisco and Sydney and the sun never sets on its reporting team around the world.

Many Register readers are technology professionals but we're also read by technology enthusiasts, shed boffins, policy wonks and science fans around the globe. We cover hardware, software, AI, tech services and more, but The Register is also known for its "off-duty" articles, on science, tech culture, planes, trains, bridges and other feats of engineering. We also carry cult columnists such as the fiendish sysadmin BOFH, programming goddess Verity Stob and Something for the Weekend's Alistair Dabbs.

The Register and all its contents are copyright © 1998-2019, Situation Publishing. All rights reserved. All third-party trademarks are recognised. ®"

If Daddy doesn't want me to touch the buttons, why did they make them so colourful?

Re: I'll just leave this here.

Hands up all those who just had to look at the next definition :-)

Microsoft blocks Trend Micro code at center of driver 'cheatware' storm from Windows 10, rootkit detector product pulled from site

Re: Trend Micro

Presume you work for a company that goes for cheap rather than effective :-(

Far-right leader walks free from court after conviction for refusing to hand his phone passcode over to police

Was Miranda Read Her Rights?

OK I know that Miranda Rights are a USA thing but I found it amusing :-)

Mirror mirror on the wall, why will my mouse not work at all?

1st Computer

I had the task of putting together a procurement request for our very first office PC as one of our suppliers was now setting up an online ordering system. Our boss wanted to be in the forefront of this brave new world so muggins was summoned to the enclave and greeted with the comment "you've got one of these things at home we need one here, get it costed out" List duly drawn up I wondered back in to the enclave and the list was perused prior to approval. "what's this mouse thing?" (From memory the total cost was £2,000 and the mouse £15) You try and explain the function of a mouse to someone who has never seen one or seen anything other than a dumb terminal. I must have been convincing because the purchase was approved :-)

(The shenanigans of connecting the dial up modem using the internal phone system and shared lines etc. are a whole new story)

Britain has no idea how close it came to ATMs flooding the streets with free money thanks to some crap code, 1970s style

Acceptance Testing

We gave our acceptance testers specific instructions. "Try and break it!"

Forget tabs – the new war is commas versus spaces: Web heads urged by browser devs to embrace modern CSS

Fuddy

I am waiting for colour and Roman numerals, bah humbug!

Iran military manages to keep a straight face while waggling miracle widget that 'can detect coronavirus from 100m away'

These Goons

These goons can be dangerous, don't forget that in January they managed to shoot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner that had just taken off from Iran: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51073621 Who knows what other unreported stupidity lurks within :-(

This hurts a ton-80: British darts champ knocked out of home tourney by lousy internet connection

Re: Actually ...

... one of the things that has been highlighted during this crisis is just how many people have really substandard internet connections (and webcams). - Fixed it for you :-)

BT Openreach prepares to declare UK MBORCed* as all new phone line installations halted over coronavirus

Optional - Really :-)

I thought the home visits were insisted upon by BT et-al to justify their installation fee. So any new installations are now free?

One whole day: That's how long Facebook's COVID-19 content moderation went without a mess

Wow

Godwin is an actual person and is still alive - Kudos

Motorola bounds out the G8 with a harder, better, faster smartphone for the thrifty

No NFC

Just looked at the spec on the website and there is a big NO next to NFC, that's sad. I find a phone great for contactless payments.

Sure, check through my background records… but why are you looking at my record collection?

Buzz Words

Getting through interviews is a bit like the advice given to me by an examiner for business studies. You need lots of ticks (not the ones found in the fields). Just download your brain on to the exam paper, the examiner is looking for key words and each one gets a tick the more key words the higher the mark. The HR droid doesn't have a clue about the work but they have a list of key words (job spec) supplied by the dept looking for the minion. Get loads of key word out and Robert is your uncle :-)

BAE Systems tosses its contractors a blanket... ban on off-payroll working under upcoming IR35 tax reforms

Issues...

"Or they could hire those contractors the same way as they hire, say electrical contractors to do a wiring job."

There are issues with this: 1) The company will need to fully spec the work to be done and 2) The contractor will need to fully spec how they intend to carry out the work.

Might make for interesting conversations on both sides :-)

Another week, another bunch of Windows 10 machines punched by a patch

Re: Anybody else tired of having their Windows 10 system wake up in the middle of the night for....?

There's your problem right there: "put my box to sleep". I do a shut down, no chance of shenanigans from Microsoft or any one else :-)

Meet Clippy 9000: Microsoft brags about building Earth's largest AI language model, refuses to let it out of the lab

Re: Hello

I can't recall ever writing a letter before that irritating bit of bent wire popped up and said that I was. To be honest I can't recall the bloody thing ever suggesting anything else before it was binned.

Clippy managed to put to death any suggestions of user assistance in any format and in all applications from that period hence. So on reflection it was a good thing :-)

BOFH: When was the last time someone said these exact words to you: You are the sunshine of my life?

Hmmm

Not up to the normal BOFH as I got bored half way through and wondered how come the PFY is still a PFY given the years this series has been going and surly by now he is a POG (Pockmarked Old Git).

Step away from that Windows 7 machine, order UK cyber-cops: It's not safe for managing your cash digitally

# Me Too

Flying taxis? That'll be AFTER you've launched light sabres and anti-gravity skateboards

" Since the election, Johnson's visibility has plummeted" You state this as being a bad thing?

Can't you hear me knocking? But I installed a smart knocker

Re: And what about key fobs....

"An elastic band allows me to keep it with me while swimming" All you are wearing is a pair of swimming trucks so you attach the elastic band to what?? Hope the water is warm :-)

Don't miss this patch: Bad Intel drivers give hackers a backdoor to the Windows kernel

What we need is a computer sized condom especially when poking strange things :-)

What's that, Skippy? A sad-faced Microsoft engineer has arrived with an axe? Skippy?

Re: Skippy-speak

There's no need to train management as according to management, they are perfectly happy with the skills they had 10 years ago doing a different job. Plus those expensive junkets have used up the budget.

Socket to the energy bill: 5-bed home with stupid number of power outlets leaves us asking... why?

Re: Seems fine to me

So how many studs does your mother have?

I thought the icon entirely appropriate :-)