* Posts by phuzz

6715 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Feb 2010

Look, pal, it’s YOUR password so it’s YOUR fault that it's gone AWOL

phuzz Silver badge

Re: Amen brudder!

If the place where you keep the paper is secure, then that's a pretty good way of storing a password. No hacker is going to be able to guess it, they'd have to break into your house/office to get hold of it, and if someone is going to those lengths, well...

EBay, you keep using the word 'SECURITY'. I do not think it means what you think it means

phuzz Silver badge

Try something like LastPass, KeePass or another password vault.

Just make sure your master password is as long and complex as possible, and ideally use two factor auth.

phuzz Silver badge
FAIL

Re: Tried to change password ..

And for your next challenge, try finding the 'Change Password' link on PayPal's site.

I ended up using the help system in the end, only to find that their help system was offline.

(it's in My Account > Profile > My Details).

Also, why do both PayPal and eBay have a 20 character limit on passwords?

Panda-monium as Google updates key search algorithm

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Re: All change!

It's not really manipulation, they got popular by offering a good service (their search), and then made loads of money by selling advertising. Then they created other products and put adverts on them, and made even more money.

E-cigarettes help you quit – but may not keep you alive

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Holmes

Re: e-Cigs are not for quitting

To be pedantic, e-cigs can be used as a way of giving up smoking, but they don't help to give up ones nicotine habit.

Still, if it's a choice between nicotine plus burning plant material, or just nicotine, The latter sounds preferable.

>>>>>>>>> surprised you can't get an e-cig shaped like a pipe

Space hackers prepare to reactivate antiquated spacecraft

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Re: Inspirational on a budget

^^^^ Good uncle/aunt skills right there.

Microsoft’s 'FIRST NOKIA' arrives at £89

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Re: One for Mrs Cornholio please

Several of my non-techy friends have bought a WinPho in the last year, and all seem to be getting on ok with it. Interestingly, I've heard less complaints about using Windows on a phone, than I have a bout Win8, despite them being pretty similar.

Perhaps people are more forgiving of learning a new interface on a phone?

Your mainframe's pegs not fitting in Amazon's elastic holes? Syncsort has a hammer for that

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Nice work to whoever came up with that headline, liking your work!

The sub heading not so much, TFM TLAs.

Achtung! Use maths to smash the German tank problem – and your rival

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Joke

Re: Not necessarily

Maybe the 2xxxxxx range is reserved for the stealth motorbikes.

US negotiators in Singapore to unblock TPP negotiations

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Big Brother

Nope! Nothing to see here citizens! There is nothing here you should concern yourself with. Go about your daily business and consume more! Pay no attention to the corporate interests behind the curtain.

Venus Express to get final acid bath before crashing to surface

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Mushroom

Re: Great terminology!

I've heard 'lithobraking' used by Kerbal Space Program players. A lot.

>>>>>> something else common in KSP

phuzz Silver badge

Re: The nutcase brigade would never allow a NASA mission to Venus

I think we can all agree that if humans somehow increased the percentage of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere to Venusian levels (96%+), that it would be bad.

On the other hand, studying Venus's atmosphere gives us a whole other set of data, which might be useful in making sense of the Earth's atmosphere.

Motorola Moto E: Brill budget blower with one bothersome blunder

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Re: Another one here

I'd never used the front camera on my phone until recently, when I ended up having a video chat with my niece on her birthday.

So while it's not a must have feature for me, I can start to see the attraction, if you have loved ones* who you'd like to see more often.

* "ambivalent ones" doesn't really have the same ring does it

Picture special: LOHAN makes fire in the sky at 15,000m

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Re: Uae the force...

If it moves, and it shouldn't, use gaffer tape.

If it doesn't move, and it should, use WD-40.

Cops crimp global perve-cam attacks

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Facepalm

Re: Blackshades NET3.6 User Guide

If you need a manual to use a bit of skiddy software then there's really no hope for you.

Cisco's Chambers to Obama: Stop fiddling with our routers

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Re: this is theatre

On their premises where? Most of their kit is manufactured outside the US.

A cosy relationship with (eg) DHL or Fedex would be much more useful to the US government. It's not just Cisco stuff they'd like to be able to get their hands on, and just think how many embassies probably use commercial couriers to move things around.

Titsup Russian rocket EXPLODES, destroys $275m telly satellite

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Re: Attn: Trajectory boffins

I'm not a trajectory boffin, but a quick look at a map show that's very unlikely. Most likely the bits ended up spread over Mongolia and China.

Smash 'n' grab: Fighting GODZILLA in your lounge? Read this first

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Re: No need for anyone to make "the next Rampage".

You can play the Atari 7800 version in your browser here:

https://archive.org/stream/Rampage_1989_Activision_NTSC/Rampage_1989_Activision_NTSC.a78?module=a7800&scale=2

Or the Sega (Master System?) version:

https://archive.org/stream/segasms_Rampage_1988_Midway_-_Sega/Rampage_1988_Midway_-_Sega.bin?module=sms&scale=2

thanks to the good people at the Internet Archive and the JMESS project.

NASA agonizes over plan for Mars rock sample return mission

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Go

For an in depth look at previous ideas for Mars sample return, may I suggest the Beyond Apollo blog.

For example:

http://www.wired.com/2013/02/mars-sample-recovery-quarantine-1985/

http://www.wired.com/2012/12/jpljsc-mars-sample-return-study-ii-1986/

http://www.wired.com/2013/04/mars-tethered-sample-return-1989/

http://www.wired.com/2013/08/vive-retour-dechantillons-martiens-1999/

This seems to be a mission that NASA/JPL have been wanting to do for a long time now.

>>>>>> we need a rocket/space icon.

HGST and Seagate go head-to-head with Ethernet disk drives

phuzz Silver badge

What does ethernet on a disk offer over SATA/SAS?

Feature-phones aren't dead, Moto – oldsters still need them

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Re: Not a feature phone

My mum (in her 60's) loves her android phone, and rarely puts it down. My dad (65) has never got the hang of any mobile phone dumb/feature or smart.

It's not just about age, it's personality as well.

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Re: Dumbphone /= featurephone

The first mobile I ever owned (Nokia 7110) had internet access, as has every phone since.

And yet most of the time I use my phone for texts and phone calls, although having email is very handy.

How to catch a fraudster – using 'top cop' Benford and the power of maths

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Facepalm

Re: Quibbles

(re-)Read the sentence before the one you quoted. The graph shows the frequency distribution of the leading digit of the numbers found in the magazine.

NHS chiefs' claims exposed: GP-data-grab boss claimed fattest expenses of the lot

phuzz Silver badge

Re: Accomodation + food = £20k . About right.

You're claiming for £500 a week, he 's claimed for £370 per day, ie he was spending more than three times what you have been.

Do you use NAS drives? For work? One just LEAKED secret cash-machine blueprints

phuzz Silver badge

The NAS will open it's own holes in the firewall on your router automatically using UPnP, to 'help you' access your files remotely. See for example the WD My Cloud line of home NASs.

This is why many people recommend turning UPnP off on your router, otherwise any device on your network can ask for an outward facing port to be opened to it.

LA air traffic meltdown: System simply 'RAN OUT OF MEMORY'

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Re: The Spiral of Deaaaath!

Although someone had marked the flight as being at 60,000 feet, because it was manually entered the program ignored it and tried to predict it at all possible heights.

Scientists warn of FOUR-FOOT sea level rise from GLACIER melt

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Re: "Scientists warn of four-foot sea level rise as West Antarctic glaciers melt"

Yeah, well, if they keep showing more and more data maybe people will believe them by the time the water is up round their ankles.

Powershell terminal sucks. Is there a better choice?

phuzz Silver badge
Stop

If I want a *nix style terminal on my windows machine, I don't install cywin, I just use Putty to SSH to a linux machine and use it there. Windows is for windows-y stuff, and Linux is for linuxy stuff, each tool has a preferred use.

Netflix FREEZES prices for existing UK users to stop them quitting vid-streaming service

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Pirate

As a friend of mine put it; "Netflix? That's a bit like the pirate bay but with less choice right?"

Practically a ringing endorsement from today's youth.

Quick Q: How many FLOPPIES do I need for 16 MILLION image files?

phuzz Silver badge

The amount of time it takes to upgrade to a new storage medium is: The amount of data to be copied, divided by the smallest out of the read speed of the old medium, or the write speed of the new.

It's that simple.

I'm not sure the lifespan of storage media is getting shorter either, I started out with 3.5" disks on the Amiga (still entirely readable now with about £50 of equipment), and then moved to the luxury which was an IDE harddrive, which I could read in my current PC if I still had it.

Since then harddrives have switched to SATA, and increased in capacity by about 40 times, but all my important files have come along for the ride.

I see it as a problem that is only going to get better. Interfaces are much more standardised now than they used to be eg a FAT formatted USB disk will work in just about any modern computer, (including my phone), whereas the 3.5" disk my Amiga took, was only readable by other Amigas. Transfer speeds have increased, so that 16 page document can be on the other side of the world in the blink of an eye, and capacities have increased so much, that it's inconsequential to have multiple copies of your data across a wide variety of different media.

Data is only useful if you can use it, and having something sat on a shelf is only useful as long as you're in that room.

Vinyl-fetish hipsters might just have a point

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Meh

Alas, I am unable to hear the sublime differences between vinyl and digital music, even a low bit rate mp3, due to years of listening to live music.

If only I'd know how badly this was affecting me when I was a youngster, nowadays I can't even see the point in spending more than a tenner on speaker cables. Oh the shame!

Brit chap weaves silver bullet for wireless health scare bollocks

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Facepalm

Re: Shielding Effectiveness only quoted for the fabric...

I'm guessing that the people behind this are assuming that the holes for one's torso and legs don't matter, as they are plugged by the user's body.

Which implies that the user's body does an equally good job of blocking this "evil EM radiation" as the silver pants do.

But if the human body blocks this radiation already WHAT'S THE BLOODY POINT OF THE PANTS?!

phuzz Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Fake Snake oil

Turns out tin foil hats actually *amplify* certain EM frequencies. Specifically two frequencies which are classed by the FCC as being for government use.

http://www.mozai.com/writing/not_mine/aluminium_helmets_research.pdf

I look forward to the law suits as men find that wearing tin foil undies actually fries their genitals.

Look out, sysadmins - HOT FOREIGN SPIES are targeting you

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Trollface

Nah, that would show too much independence. They'd only do it if the yanks told them to.

SpaceX wins court injunction to block US Air Force buying Russian rockets

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Re: national security

Pretty much ever country in the world buys military gear from other countries.

How are those Harriers working out for you?

Microsoft: You know we said NO MORE XP PATCHES? Well ...

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Re: This of Course has...

You can use IE to download Ninite and install Chrome, and Firefox and everything else from one installer.

Seriously, Ninite has saved me so much time when installing a new computer. (not as much as WDS, but it doesn't require weeks of setup)

BSkyB broadband growth chopped in HALF

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Facepalm

I'm surprised by how many people jumped ship when Be was sold to Sky.

We left when they got bought by O2.

SpaceX: We NAILED the Falcon 9 landing! The video, on the other hand...

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Flame

Re: Get the SPB on the case...

Or more on topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjWqQPWmsY

An earlier test of the Falcon 9(R). Note the size of the containers near it's landing pad, that thing is HUGE!

Go ahead and un-install .Net, but you'll CRIPPLE Windows Server 2012

phuzz Silver badge

I'm sure this'll get me some downvotes, but PowerShell is my favourite shell on any platform.

Mind you, second place would be the Amiga shell, optional case sensitivity on a file by file basis needs to come back.

FCC seeks $48K fine from mobile phone-jamming driver

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Facepalm

Re: Arrested? He deserves a reward

Well I'm sure they stopped talking on their phones, instead they would have been staring at their phone, wondering why it wasn't working, maybe prodding buttons/fondling screens.

As far as I can tell he just made the road MORE dangerous.

It's spade sellers who REALLY make a killing in a gold rush: It's OVER for graphics card mining

phuzz Silver badge
Meh

Re: I may be wrong but...

"Yup - because they are nowhere nearly as good as Nvidia at most other things."

Well, on price they're about as good as nVidia for gaming, which is the usual use for a graphics card. It depends if there's any deals on, and exactly which segment you look at (from cheap up to to of the line cards), but they're generally quite evenly matched.

I think currently nVidia make the fastest single graphics card, which is important for the few people who can afford to spend £500+ on one, but for the rest of us it's less clear cut.

(I tend to alternate between 'team red' and 'team green' each time I upgrade)

Elon Musk wants SpaceX to launch spy sats – and will sue US gov to do so

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Flame

To be fair, the RD-180 is a pretty good engine.

Privateers race to capture forgotten NASA space probe using crowdsourced cash

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Facepalm

Re: $125K

I'd have given them some cash but signing up looked to be a right faff.

OnePlus One equals 'killer' new mobe running CyanogenMod

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Re: Normal Person Here

I think it's unlikely I'd fill 16GB as well, but if an upgrade to 64GB is only another £50, that's another matter.

Although if you live in the US it's only $50 more, which is a bit of a con.

OpenBSD founder wants to bin buggy OpenSSL library, launches fork

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Facepalm

Re: More than just Eyes

Except of course Coverity didn't pick up the Heartbleed bug, until a couple of programmers went through and added tests for it by hand.

Although that might mean they'll pick up similar bugs in the future, it's still very much bolting the stable door:

http://blog.coverity.com/2014/04/14/coverity-heartbleed/

Happy 25th birthday, Game Boy!

phuzz Silver badge

My nephew was playing Pokemon on his (newer, colour) one all weekend.

LOHAN and the amazing technicolor spaceplane

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IT Angle

No mention of the Roland SP540 printer used to print onto the vinyl??

(I don't work for them any more so I feel I can give them a plug)

Leaked photos may indicate slimmer next-generation iPad

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Trollface

Re: 2x the thickness

NO! iPads should be thin enough to cut bread/their owners/air molecules that drift too close, in exactly the same way that what people really want is phones with screens so big you can hang them on the wall to hide your TV.

(A friend got a Sony Z1 'Compact' the other day, it's as big as her old iPhone, I dread to think how big the Z1 is.)

Opportunity selfie: Martian winds have given the spunky ol' rover a spring cleaning

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Facepalm

Re: No one seems...

It might have been a better troll if you'd pointed to the amount of water that is used to clean solar panels on Earth, which is indeed a problem in some areas.

Best files system for a USB drive?

phuzz Silver badge

Best files system for a USB drive?

I've just bought a tiny 64GB USB 3 thumb drive, which was formatted as FAT32. Today I had to move some massive PST files (a rant for another day), when I ran into the 4GB file limit of FAT32.

Going to reformat it I found I could use exFAT, which is designed for the task, and worked fine until I tried to copy the files onto Windows XP, and had to install an update, after which it again worked fine.

Which has all got me thinking, it used to be that FAT32 was the default format for a USB stick, because everything could read and write to it, and a 4GB+ USB drive was science fiction.

Now, with much larger capacities available for not much money FAT32 is a bit constrained.

NTFS is quite a good choice, it copes with large files and drives, and nowadays most things read it, but not many write to it.

exFAT is purpose built for flash storage, and is supported for r/w by a lot of things, Windows obviously, and apparently it works fine on recent Macs as well. However on Linux you need a FUSE install, and it's not supported on the Xbox 360 or PS3 (or the XBone or PS4 I think, not much info online).

This is a problem if you want to watch a video larger than 4GB on a console, although apparently the XBox 360 can read HFS+ partitions which is fairly ironic.

I don't have a Mac so HFS is out, and EXT2/3/4 requires a bit of messing about to read/write on Windows.

So, which format do you use on your USB stick? Have I missed an obvious choice?