* Posts by Andy Barber

305 publicly visible posts • joined 23 May 2007

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BT and Phorm secretly tracked 18,000 customers in 2006

Andy Barber
Pirate

My MEP...

... has said he will raise this matter in the EU parliament.

Boeing faces jumbo problem over US aerial raygun fleet

Andy Barber
Thumb Up

Best Aircraft

The USAF will want the best aircraft, not refurbished second-hand 'rubbish' aircraft. If the new 747 (a 30+ year old design) obviously doesn't tick all the right boxes & a squeaky clean & new A380 does. It does not take a rocket scientist, to make the correct decision. The USAF chose Airbus A330 for the KC-45 tankers, OK so they will be made in Europe but they will be assembled & maintained in the USA by Northrop-Grumman.

Don't we want the world biggest Superpower to have the biggest (A380) & best that it can afford? Hey, ABL probably won't work anyway but try it on a European platform rather than a 30+ year old US platform.

Motorola cuts off gangrenous right arm

Andy Barber
Unhappy

Lost the plot

When they were dropped by Apple, for the CPU the Mac, surely that should have told them that they had lost the plot.

Yahoo! outsources! India's! giant! supercomputer!

Andy Barber
Boffin

Memory

When I was working as a telephone engineer back in 1982, I asked a customer what the whirring noise I could hear from their desk. The manager came in puffed out his chest & said "Oh, that the 10Mb Winchester Hard Disk." To which I said, "What on Earth do you need all that memory for?" I'd just bought a ZX81 with a 32kb ExpandeRam!

Mobile termination fees go to Competition Commission

Andy Barber
Coat

In the Stowger age...

... Post Office Telecommunication's (POT) used to have a suite of meters in every exchange, to charge other parts of POT for the trunk call usage!

Mine is the duff Dust Jacket 1A.

China has world's largest online population

Andy Barber
Boffin

@ Innovation?

Half of BT's 21c Network will be Chinese hardware!

@ Edison Chen. Edison Chen is a bloke so the PH comparison doesn't count!

Paranoid partners to get GPS snooper

Andy Barber
Thumb Down

Only seven day battery life...

... & at £4p/m. It's not very practicable is it?

New York's Freedom Tower to depend on RFID

Andy Barber
Coat

@ By b166er

I don't do Astrology any more so I no longer use an Ephemeris, so I can't tell you the exact moment. Google it.

Andy Barber
Coat

@ Tom Willis

\pedant

Spring starts on 21st March

\off pedant

Cisco hops onto patching treadmill

Andy Barber
Boffin

Linksys home router

What about my Linksys home router, which has Ciso Systems printed on the label. Is this covered or even upgradeable?

US.gov disappears European-owned Cuba websites

Andy Barber
Thumb Down

Hosting in the USA

It was a bit stupid of these companies to host these web sites with an American (.com) site & not a British (.co.uk) site

Yahoo! unveils third leg for managing mobile content

Andy Barber
Unhappy

Where's! the! exclamation! marks!...

...El Reg normally puts them in Yahoo! stories.

Apple sued over iPhone caller ID

Andy Barber
Boffin

BT own the patent on...

...URL's! Honest!

Google mounts Chewbacca defense in EU privacy debate

Andy Barber
Unhappy

What is...

... the Chewbacca defense?

Essex youth's cop headbutt heads for YouTube

Andy Barber

My son

I'd just put the phone down on my son, who said he had just finished his Community Service, for head butting a copper.

Dallas man accidentally shoots self in head

Andy Barber
Unhappy

@ Robert Moore

You have totally missed the point! Any society that allows its citizens to carry & own weapons that can KILL other citizens, (that includes knives,) is wrong. A gun is not for self-defence, it's an assault weapon; it's designed to KILL its target!

Andy Barber
Unhappy

US gun laws

To the outside world, (well from the UK,) the US gun laws seem crazy! At least one US citizen has proved that point!

Critics split over DDoS attacks on Scientology

Andy Barber
Happy

Jonior School

When I was FIVE years old, (living in East Grinstead, Sussex, UK; the home of Scientology in the UK,) I was told by a class mate that L R Hubbard WAS a GOD! Thankfully that idiot has prevented me becoming religious since then!

UK's number one router open to VoIP hijacking

Andy Barber
Unhappy

BT Home Hub

Come on on only TWO RJ-45 ports! What use is that? I still haven't un-boxed their HUGE & to me un-usable Alcatel kit. My Linksys router works, (with FOUR RJ-45's,) so I'm not going to fix it!

Beeb's iPlayer reaps streaming traffic dividends

Andy Barber
Happy

Project Kangaroo

When BBC2 launched in the UK didn't the adverts have a Kangaroo on it labelled BBC1& the Joey in the pouch labelled BBC2? What comes around, etc...

China link puts 3Com takeover in doubt

Andy Barber
Boffin

@ Lol Whibley

I don't know how much of UK telco network now is Huawei equipment but I guestimate 25% of ADSL is Huawei equipment. When 21Cnetwork comes in it will be 50%!

UK.gov New Year resolution: must build nuke powerplants

Andy Barber
Thumb Down

The Independant...

... stopped being a Broadsheet years ago when it went for the Tabloid size, at the time The Times went Tabloid. The only Broadsheet's left in the UK are the Financial Times & The Daily Torygraph (sorry Telegraph.)

BitTorrenters seek sanctuary in Pirate Bay

Andy Barber
Pirate

@ Dan

Oh OK, so they are not breaking a Swedish law. Are they not contravening EU law? EU law has precedence over 'local' law.

Andy Barber
Pirate

The Borg?

"Let us assure you that we are not worried, we are laughing our asses off at it! Cause we are the future and resistance is futile," they write.

They are not 'The Borg'. They are futile in their legal defence!

US switches off the incandescent lightbulb

Andy Barber
Happy

Incandescent bulbs

I thought that the UK had already passed such a bill. This makes the US a bit of a Jonny Come Lately but better late than never.

Brit workers: The Xmas skive starts today

Andy Barber
Boffin

Xmas eve Job

I was given a job to install a Plan 107 telephone system on XMAS EVE! The customer (Brit Gas) told me when I turned up at 10:00 that they were all off down the pub "soon, like 12:00!" I looked at want was wanted & said I'd finish it by then. There was much laughter & chuckling at 'the poor BT engineer actually working today!' I finished the job at 11:00 & then joined them in the pub & had free drinks all afternoon! I never worked so fast before; although I have done better than that but...

Toshiba tech paves way for 100Gb Flash chips

Andy Barber
Boffin

@ GB's and Gb's

OK so it's only 12Gb's. I have never filled up my 512Mb SD card on my camera even at 500Kb per picture the new drive will give me 24000 pictures. Enough for a whole holiday. Just think how long that would take to upload to my Flickr account. Last time I took 300 pictures it took twenty minutes, so do the maths. Hopefully by the time it comes out, we'll have ADSL2 at 24MB connection, as standard.

Tories call for mobile phone ban in schools

Andy Barber
Unhappy

@ Michael Parker

It's 40p for a payphone call

Ofcom stings ISP £30k for silent treatment

Andy Barber
Unhappy

Bulldog/Pipex/etc

It took THREE weeks for me to churn from Bulldog to BT! Bulldog still insisted I owed them money, after taking six months to upgrade my 1Mb to an 8Mb connection. I refused to pay but I still got churned to BT. If you have a bad ISP, churn to another ISP, then let the try to reclaim the money, for the survive, they didn't provide.

Is Sprint getting cold feet about Pivot and Xohm?

Andy Barber
Stop

Sounds like Bulldog

Bulldog in the UK offerered the fastest ADSL in the UK with a 'freephone calls' package. It took them six months for them to Import my number & this was only after an officall complaint to the telecom regulator, Ofcom.

Where are Buldog now then? First taken over by Pipex, who were the taken over by Tiscali.

I'm now back with BT. OK my ADSL is 0.1Mb slower but at least I have a reliable provider but my monthly bill is only just £8.00 lower until 08/08, when my 'contract' can change.

Giants carve up broadband punters

Andy Barber
Black Helicopters

@ 6 or is it less

As an Openreach engineer, who actually connects up you, the punter, to the Network; I can say that BT, Virgin Media, Carphone Warehouse, Tiscali, Orange, and Sky, all use different Networks.

[Virgin Media do not use the BT 'last mile' anyway.]

All the non BT companies have their own DSLAM's in the local exchanges. You will find AOL kit next to the Opal kit in an exchange, both CPW! Tiscalli is Tiscilli kit, Orange is Wanadoo kit, Sky is Easynet kit. Vodaphone will be BT kit, when they get there act together.

When I jumper up a customer from the Bar Pair, it doesn't worry me if the equipment side is BT or another Service Provider. The Service Provider is no always BT, even though the 'last mile' from the exchange to you is owned by BT.

Red Hat, Novell sued for patent infringment

Andy Barber
Pirate

Patents

Didn't Post Office Telecommunications, aka Prestel, aka BT plc, aka BTGroup plc; try to claim hyperlinks, aka URL's as their own Intellectual Property & failed?

RM readies Linux sub-laptop... for £169

Andy Barber
Thumb Up

O/S

If it runs SuSE it will run Ubuntu. I want half a dozen!

Intel asks EC to relax deadline

Andy Barber
Thumb Down

The driving engine of IT

Ok so Itel created the x86 processor, which is now the dominant CPU used in PC's & Mac's.

Just as the Benz petrol engine dominate most road vercials now, are the EU trying to say that we must have Motorola & Zilog in the playing field, as well as Deisel engines & Steam power.

The words, 'Horse,' 'Door' & 'Bolted' spring to mind!

Sprint Nextel and Verizon jury trials have Vonage on the brink

Andy Barber
Thumb Down

VoIP To PSTN interconnect

So now that BT is going to install VoIP over the whole UK network; does this mean that Sprint Nextel and Verizon will refuse all calls to/from BT; or is BT using a different Patent?

Yahoo! Teams! With! eBay! And! PayPal! To! End! Phishing!

Andy Barber

@ Bl**dy time too!

At least one the biggest email shifters is getting in the act.

Just because a company (Yahoo!) has developed a technology to actually tackle spam, why knock it before it's been implemented?

Opportunity goes panoramic on Victoria

Andy Barber

Feet or Metres

Why use comparisons of size with Feet & Meters in the same sentence? Why can't they stick to one standard?

Radiohead lets fans price new CD

Andy Barber

Bedwetters

Not all bed-wetters are bourgeois!

Hospital's brand new '£1m' server room goes up in smoke

Andy Barber

Overheating

I remember installing a Plessey digital PBX exchange in Croydon Council way back when they were 'new'. Someone decided to put the air-con on full as the room felt a bit warm. The next morning, all the air-cons were covered in snow, preventing any air cooling & the temperature was over 50C. The switch didn't crash though.

Three Gorges Dam an 'environmental catastrophe'

Andy Barber

Yangtze Dolphin

Oh, so now that they have made the Yangtze Dolphin extinct, they realize there might be something wrong!!

What's 77.1 x 850? Don't ask Excel 2007

Andy Barber

I still can't...

... see the Paris Hilton link!

Ad agency pays Paddington to ditch marmalade for Marmite

Andy Barber

@ Efros

As an ex-vegetarian I must say that crunchy peanut butter AND Marmite in Granary bread is just heaven!

Andy

Andy Barber

@ Paul Crawford

Peanut butter & Marmite are both Vegetarian!

Yahoo! tops! Google! on! customer! satisfaction! survey!

Andy Barber

Yahoo! #1!

I have used Yahoo! for e-mail since the day it launched an e-mail service.

I have seldom used it's 'so-called' search engine, as in the early days (>95,) the results were just poor.

Yahoo! rocks for email & Calender but for search I use Google.

NASA preps robots for future fake moon landings

Andy Barber

New money

Why use 'old money' terms like Feet & Acres? Surely the Reg could have converted the 'old money' terms into 19/20th century language. NASA have already destroyed two European devices because they have a basic non-understanding of Metric.

Brit fumes over Wikipedia, lava lamps

Andy Barber

My comment on Concorde

When I posted an article, saying that the Concorde aircraft was once "considered" as a supersonic replacement to the RAF V Bomber fleet, my article was scrubbed in 15 minutes. When I complained, I was told to put up some proof, which I did, with three 'artist impressions' of RAF Concorde's with three Blue Steel's & the URL's . These were also scrubbed. I then sent an 'artist impression' & URL of a RAF transport version of the Concorde. This was also scrubbed!

DHS forgets to mention border WiFi spy tower bungle

Andy Barber

Title

..."and the miscreants will be manacled and on their way south again"... If the miscreants were Canadian, they wanted to go south in the first place!

Jock Stirrup: Eco apocalypse will mean more wars

Andy Barber

Stating the bleeding...

...obvious!

UK Gov seeks 'scientific' basis for nationality

Andy Barber

Borders

The words "Bolting", "Doors" & "Horse" spring to mind!

Microsoft strips Office from charity PC scheme

Andy Barber

Nowt wrong with...

...Works. It works!

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