Posts by A Non e-mouse

Apple CEO: Fandroids are BINNING Android in favour of IPHONES

Sorry Cookie old son, your latest mega-multi-core monster device is just a bit overkill for me at the mo.

I think the top-of-the-range mega-multi-core monsters are overkill for almost everyone.

Where Apple is still not playing is in the low end market, with nothing to challenge the Landfill Androids, [...] and Cook said nothing about attempts to take a bite out of that territory.

Apple have never competed in the low end. They only do high end, high margin.

Wheeee! BT preps for FIVE HUNDRED MEGABIT broadband trial

FTTP

I idly looked into FTTP when moving into a new place. At the moment, when you pay for install (If it's available from your exchange), you're paying for the civil works to dig up the street and lay the fibre. Of course, once that's done, anyone downstream of you can use the same ducts at reduced rate :-/

ZX81 BEATEN at last as dev claims smallest Chess code crown

Although the ZX81 had 1KB RAM on board, not all of it was usable by programs. System variables and screen display took up some of that 1K. (If you used the full screen, you'd use 793 bytes of RAM!)

Oh, and that 1K ZX Chess was actually done in 672 bytes - using just over half of the ZX81's RAM.

Source: Wikipedia.

@ werdsmith - I agree with you on the chess front ;-)

Five years of Sun software under Oracle: Were the critics right?

Solaris was already loosing market share to Linux by the time Sun open sourced Solaris. It was almost a last throw of the dice to keep Solaris relevant (and alive)

Boffin finds formula for four-year-five-nines disk arrays

Re: I'm no storage king

I think you're confusing RAID 4, 5 & 6.

RAID 4 has a dedicated parity disc.

RAID 5 has 1 extra disc for storing parity data, but that parity data is spread across all the discs in the RAID group.

RAID 6 has 2 extra discs for storing parity data. Again, that parity data is spread across all the discs.

Costs

the cost of calling someone to replace a dead drive far outweighs the price of the disk

Someone's making the wrong comparison. You need to look at the cost of replacing the disc versus the value of the data on the disc. I suspect the disc is tiny in value, compared to that of the data it holds.

HMRC fails to plan for £10.4bn contract exit... because it's 'too risky'

You're leaving out the managers who take a lot more than £60 per hour. How many managers per engineer/programmer..?

Fraud Vs Incompetence

I always struggle to workout if public sector IT projects are a disaster due to people being on the take, or if it's everyone involved being incompetent. How can they repeatedly waste so much money on IT projects that fail?

The firm that swallowed the Sun: Is Oracle happy as Larry with hardware and systems?

Where Oracle is weak is in supplying public cloud providers and web-scale app service suppliers such as Amazon, Facebook and Google

To be fair to Oracle (Not something I'm comfortable doing) IBM, HP, Dell, Cisco, et al probably don't have much traction in that area either. Don't Facebook, Google, and I'm guessing Amazon, cut their own servers?

NASA greenlights SpaceX and Boeing to carry crew to ISS in 2017

Re: Playing the party line

It's little things: like invading an independent country

The Russians are just following the example set by Uncle Sam.

Welcome to Spartan, Microsoft's persuasive argument for... Chrome

Re: Microsoft web browsers...

But wow, I still hate Microsoft browsers, I often wondered if they did it on purpose, in an attempt to get developers to make it work on IE, but break it on others?

Yes they did.

But they also went one better. Their systems browser sniffed and sent CSS/HTML that displayed wrong on other browsers to suggest that IE was the only browser that worked correctly. ( www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/11/hakon_on_ms_interroperability/ )

Re: Sensible companies don't allow Chrome at all. Mozilla is far better.

Take Dell iDRAC - to run the remote console you can choose between ActiveX or having Java enabled in the browser - and you really don't know what is worst.

You should try Cisco's servers. They need both Flash and Java.

Should Google play carriers at their own game? There's never been a better time

Just as Apple has introduced the user-transferable SIM card

According to Wikipedia the iPhone came out in 2007 and the SIM card came out in 1991.

BOT AN ABOMINATION: Mechanical DRONE VAMPIRE spreads wings

Maybe they should give Nasa a call.

www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

Landlines: The tech that just won't die

I get no cold calls on my ADSL landline 'cause I don't have a phone plugged into it!

Line only

The thing is, is that BT Wholesale do have a copper-pair only service with no telephoney service (See here). It's a while since I've had to use one of these, so I don't know what the costs are nowadays.

Line installation

I recently moved into a new gaff. I was gob-smacked by the extortionate installation fee BT wanted to charge to re-connect the line. I think it was around £150. Fortunately, A&A charged a somewhat lower fee for their no-calls line ;-)

Re: Call filtering

I've had several NUMBER NOT AVAILABLE or WITHHELD displays on the phone that turned out to be important calls from hospitals or credit card companies.

The police have this annoying habit too for sending no number - ever. Why can't they at least send their main switchboard number? If it's coming from their main control room, why not get them to send 999 and enforce the telcos so that ONLY the police can send a 999 CLI?

At work I occasionally get calls to trace 999 calls from our system (usually just some Muppet not able to use a fax machine) The police give you bugger all information about themselves and the only way to prove it is the police is to call them back on 101. But they then take ages (15-20 minutes) to answer. And then they don't always recognise the reference they give you. Then they phone you back and complain that you didn't call them back!

The police really don't help themselves, do they?

Top US privacy bod: EU should STOP appeasing whiny consumers

The EU would say US companies can't do business here, and the US would say you can't fly to the US from the EU unless you give us every useless bit of information about each passenger.

It's stalemate.

UK Scouts database 'flaws' raise concerns

CRB

Every adult using the system will have been thoroughly vetted via a criminal records disclosure check

1 - It hasn't been called CRB for several years. It's now DBS. (Disclosure and Barring Service) Something the Scouts should plainly know.

2 - A clean CRB/DBS check does NOT mean the person is not a ne'er do well. All it means is that the person hasn't been noticed and recorded by the authorities yet. Ian Huntley anyone...?

Data Protection

"We have engaged highly regarded contractors and security experts to ensure that we comply with data protection legislation."

"We are looking to remove the ability for our managers to see data that is not directly relevant to their role"

Someone needs to re-read the basics of UK data protection law: ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/data-protection-principles/ - and fire their consultants.

Proper access control is a fundamental part of data protection and should have been baked in at the drawing board.

SPACE the FINAL FRONTIER: These are the images of COMET PROBE ROSETTA

Re: Pretty amazing pictures!

To be fair, this thing called the Internet came out of defense research funding...

Microsoft: Flunked our test? Fear not, techies...

Re: and yet . . .

Bad trainers just follow the vendors course material to the letter.

Good trainers say "${VENDOR} says it works like this. It reality, it actually works like this"

The scheme was started in 2005 and is revisited every now and again when Microsoft wants to <span class="strike">entice more techies to get back into the classroom</span> jack up income from training.

FTFY.

Will fondleslab's fickle finger of fate help Windows 10?

Re: How would they do that ?

A more germane question may be "why would they do that?"--That being effectively force a migration of data and operational profit to "the cloud."

Is this good for the end user? Probably not. Is it good for the financial bottom line? Yes, as it's predicable revenue. Microsoft have learned from XP. People loved it so much they stopped upgrading and so stopped giving MS money.

Look at Adobe who are taking it to the extreme. No more perpetual licenses, instead it's annual subscriptions all the way.

Increased gov spy powers are NOT the way to stay safe against terrorism

Too much data

Indeed, with the Charlie Hebdo murderers having been under surveillance that was later discontinued, it seems that we are seeing the rise of Big Brother states which cannot cope with the volumes of information they greedily seek access to.

We reached that years ago. The Americans knew about the Sept 11th terrorists. Same in the UK with the Lee Rigby murder.

This story on the BBC's More Or Less program deals with this exact problem: How to deal with all the information to spooks collect. In it, Stella Rimington (former head of MI5) says that even if they know every terrorist suspect, they can't monitor them all as it would require too much man power.

Another problem (as highlighted by Robin 12 above) is false positives. If you have too much data you're more likely to finger innocent people as terrorists.

The spooks don't need MORE data, they need to work smarter with the smaller amounts of data.

Google 'in talks' to buy THAT group, y'know, the one formerly known as ISIS

Re: It's out of this world....LOL...

Has amanfrommars changed his ID?

Boffins: It's EASY to make you GRASS YOURSELF UP for crimes you never did

I remember there was a study a few years ago where they planted false memories in children. (The false memory was of a holiday that never happened) It's quite chilling that this can be done to adults too.

BT bemoans 'misconceived' SUPERFAST broadband regs

Re: ugh just re-integrate BT and tell the rivals to build their own damn networks

The cable companies tried to do that: How may times did they all merge/go bankrupt trying to do so? How much of the UK have they cabled up?

Re: hang on

Did Ofcom just order BT to increase their prices to consumers in order to create a bigger gap?

Not quite. OFCOM are saying that the price BT Wholesale sell at mustn't be used to offset any prices by BT Retail. By doing so, other ISPs can't potentially compete with BT Retail so BT Retail gain a monopoly on the super-fast broadband service.

I thought this was already impossible as this was why BT became all these fragmented groups so they couldn't cross-subsidise.

VMware finds new post-paranoia RAM-saving tricks

No win..

VMWare are in a no-win situation here.

If they leave TPS on, people will say that they're being lax with default security. If they switch it off, people will complain that their servers now need more RAM.

IMHO, VMWare should disable TPS for new installs and for upgrades either leave it on, or ask the admin if they want it switched on or off.

Suck on this, Larry: NoSQL pair hit the G-spot

Statistics, statistics, statistics

There has been plenty of talk about open-source databases growing faster than those belonging to tech dinosaurs like Oracle..

New open-source database sells one license in year 1, and two licenses in year 2. That's 100% growth in one year.

Oracle sells 1 million licenses in year one, and 1.1 million licenses in year two. Oracle "only" has a 10% growth.

March deadline nears for FAT, JUICY Euro Commish cloud service contracts

Re: Best comment ever.

I hope they also have a clause saying that the bidders must have no American presence as well.

Professor's BEAGLE lost for 10 years FOUND ON MARS

Re: Watching from afar

Probably for the same reason Hubble can't see the Apollo landing sites: hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq/answer.php.cat=topten&id=77.

Remember Corel? It's just entered .DLL hell

Re: 400,000 words a year can't be wrong

The best thing about WordPerfect was its Reveal Codes feature. It allowed you to see how all the formatting was structured under the bonnet. This allowed you to troubleshoot formatting problems really easily. You could even move the cursor between the formatting elements to ensure you got what you wanted.

I'm not aware that any word processor supports anything like that any more. And they call it progress....

According to that ever reliable source of Wikipedia, Corel Linux was based off of Debian.

Corel Linux may have been an early commercial distro of Linux, but it certainly wasn't one of the firsts. Debian, which Corel was based off, first came out in 1996. (It was announced in 1993) The earliest distributions came out in 1992. (Linus released his first kernel in 1991)

All details sourced from Wikipedia.

You go fast, but we go 'further' and 'deeper' – Voda tells 'Speedy' EE

500Mb/s on 2 x 20MHz?

I'm no R/F expert, but how can you get 500Mb/s throughput on 2 x 20MHz carriers?

FBI fingering Norks for Sony hack: The TRUTH – by the NSA's spyboss

Re: More Sanctions?

Maybe they're putting sanctions on the sanctions?

Erik Meijer: AGILE must be destroyed, once and for all

Unit tests

Unit tests aren't worthless: They're invaluable when you're refactoring code. Sure, people don't right enough tests to test failure scenarios. But even tests that only validate that your code produces the right output for certain valid inputs is better than no test.

Project Managers

The problem with any programing paradigm is that people like project managers throw the baby out with the bath water. They follow the paradigm too rigidly, instead of letting the users of the paradigm (e.g. coders) adapt to the situation.

There is no universal tool or technique for managing projects of every shape and size. A good manager will adapt/modify techniques to the situation as it develops.

Mock choc shock: 3D candy printer is good news for sweet-toothed swingbellies

But why wait for a fancy machine to take your precious chocolate* and make it into intricate shapes? Why not just scoff the chocolate instead of putting it into the machine? Chocolate satisfaction in much less time.

* I'm using the word "chocolate" in it's loosest sense here, as we're dealing with Hershey

UKIP website TAKES A KIP, but for why?

@Splodge

Why? They clearly don't employ any [proof readers]

Hence my application!

@Jim 59

But it would be nice if you could acknowledge corrections publicly.

Some public recognition would be nice, but I'd say about 75% of the time I, at least, get a reply back saying thank you from a sub-editor. (It would be nice if that was closer to 100%) The public recognition doesn't have to be a name anywhere. Maybe some extra up-votes? If we ask for too much El Reg will think we're biting the hand that bites the hand...

See that great big "send tips and corrections" link at the bottom of the article?

I frequently use that and often get a polite "Thank you" back. (I'm now thinking of applying as a proof reader for El Reg ;-) )

Samsung forks 4K with Tizen tellies

"Customers want the UHD experience," said Samsung EVP Joe Stinziano.

"We want to sell you UHD devices because 3D was a flop and now you've all got big LCD screens there's no other reason for you to replace them."

There, fixed that for you Mr. Stinziano.

VMware planning 'biggest launch' on Feb 2

@ 11was1rh

1 - The vCentre server that runs as a Linux appliance has less features and capacity than the full-blown Windows server based vCentre setup.

2 - If you've ever used the vCentre web interface for more than a few moments, you'll realise that it's a horrible piece of (Flash) software. Why they had to write it as Flash rather than HTML/Javascript application is beyond anyone who uses it. It's slow, buggy and klunky.

@Theodore Re: Biggest launch event?

"Maybe they've migrated the server and client applications to html5 so they will run."

There, corrected that for you.

US watchdog boss pencils in net neutrality February showdown – report

Lawyers

No matter what the FCC decides, the losing side will go to court claiming it's unfair.

Music fans FUME over PJ Harvey ticket CHAOS as Somerset House site buckles

Predictions...

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.