Posts by Phil W

TalkTalk website STILL down on day TWO

"Posted with the Acme Splaffer."

I'm not sure if you like The Register too much, BSD too much, or have to much time on your hands, or all of the above!

Made you jump! Space to give Earth an asteroid Halloween scare

Re: Suspiciously exact

It's a very exact figure for what is essentially an estimate, if you're saying it's "within x kilometres" (or kilmeters if you prefer) then you're saying it will be at that distance or closer.

It would be bizarre to give all estimates this way, "your broadband speed will be up to 76.18765298576 Mbps".

Or perhaps we should be more worried that, technically speaking, hitting us would also count as being within 498,896 kilometres.

Microsoft offers sneak peak of Hyper-V containers with Win 10 nested virtualisation

Re: Who cares?

Chances are that if you're running a large scale level of virtualisation then you're running your metal in a failover cluster anyway. Having to reboot the host OS to install patches isn't really an issue when you can live migrate the VMs off that node to in order to do so.

Also I'm fairly sure that ESXi, along with pretty much any other platform will at some point (ok, maybe less often than MS, but still occasionally) have an update that either requires a reboot or at least essential services to be restarted, meaning VM downtime if you're not running a clustered environment. It's pretty hard to update the core files of a service while they're being actively used.

US Treasury: How did ISIS get your trucks? Toyota: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Maybe, just maybe

I think it's possibly more a case of

"would be such a shame if you were still in it with your feet nailed to the floor when someone blows it up, instead of outside handing over the keys"

I don't think their tactics include "give us what we want and we'll leave you alone", but they might include "give us what we want and maybe we won't be quite as nasty to you".

How much do UK cops pay for Microsoft licences? £30 a head or £137? Both

I really don't understand why constabularies are negotiating their prices individually, other public sector organisations such as Universities have consortiums either regionally or nationally to negotiate pricing and account deals with suppliers.

Surely there's no reason this shouldn't be the case for the Police and any other public sector bodies. I'm sure the cost of staffing such a consortium would be less than the savings they would achieve.

Search engine can find the VPN that NUCLEAR PLANT boss DIDN'T KNOW was there - report

Re: Having Trident will keep us safe from attack

It'll blast our enemies into Orbit.

Woman makes app that lets people rate and review you, Yelp-style. Now SHE'S upset people are 'reviewing' her

Re: Irony

"IVF is not so much like GMO. It's more like buying a carrot which has been planter by a farmer instead of one which grew naturally."

Precisely what I meant, you just made it much simpler than I did :)

Re: Irony

I'm not opposed to GMO foods necessarily but IVF and GMO foods are not all that comparable. One involves modifying the structure and design of a life form, the other just involves replacing organic fertilization with a controlled medical/mechanical method.

Perhaps you should have suggested parents who have their foetus/child treated with gene therapy for a genetic disease.

How to build a server room: Back to basics

"Only 2 keys, one in my pocket and one locked away in the Finance department safe."

That only sounds OK if you can count on one hand, without using all your fingers, the number of people with access to the finance department safe.

Better still use an electronic access control system, either keypad or RFID based, so that not only do you control who has access but you can log who has been in and when.

I'd also say that

"11. A 1 Gbps uplink cannot feed 48 non-blocking 1 Gbps ports."

Is slightly misleading, a 1 Gbps uplink is fine for 48 1 Gbps ports, as long as you don't ever want or expect the total bandwidth in/out of the server room to exceed 1 Gbps.

Providing far higher uplink bandwidth than you're ever going to need at any one time can be very costly.

"12. Metered and managed PDUs will save your bacon one day. Buy them."

Similarly misleading, they're nice to have but if you do your maths correctly, document what's plugged in where, and load your PDUs with a reasonable overhead they're not exactly essential. They're also quite expensive, some good planning and installation management can save you a fortune here.

Both of my points kind of become their own:

17. Don't blow your budget by massively over specifying your build compared to what you actually need.

Robber loses heist case after 'evil twin' defence, gets 60 years

Re: Sixty years sounds about right...

Ah I see apologies it appeared as though the thick comment was aimed at me! I hereby sentence myself to 6 million years in prison for misunderstanding.

Re: Sixty years sounds about right...

"Hard to find folks as thick as you."

If by "thick" you mean "find it morally reprehensible to use the death penalty, especially for anything other murder or seriously violent crime" then actually no it's not hard to find people as "thick" as me, there's millions or even billions of us.

I do agree with you though that long jail sentences are a waste of taxpayers money. I also think that plain old incarceration in a lot of cases is pointless, as is calling a prison a "correctional facility" when it is does nothing to correct the behaviour. Hell, putting them into labour camps doing something productive for half the time they would have been in jail would probably work out far better all around.

People commit crimes for a reason, sure in some cases a custodial sentence may be a useful punishment/deterrent, but fundamentally what needs to be done is to identify why they committed the crime and try to do something to correct that through education, or some form of training to adjust their attitude, psychological therapy etc. It would work out for cheaper than keeping them locked up twiddling their thumbs for decades.

Rather than locking someone up for stupid lengths of time (sentencing someone to more time than they could possibly live for as sometimes happens, wtf?) we should solve the problem, and try to make them into better people who are useful to society.

Re: Sixty years sounds about right...

"But then i live in an eye for an eye world."

"Execute/deport (dont care) them"

I think you have a misunderstanding of what "eye for an eye" means if you think execution is an equal punishment to deportation and an appropriate punishment for robbery.

Besides, based on the events of the trial, the guy is clearly mentally ill. Are you suggesting that executing people who commit crimes due to mental illness is the way to go?

11 MILLION VW cars used Dieselgate cheatware – what the clutch, Volkswagen?

Re: Sorry but how is this at all funny or appropriate?

The alterations will bring it in to line with the published emissions figures, but in doing so make the fuel economy and/or performance (which is what the consumer is more interested in, rather than emissions) noticeably worse than the figures published for those.

The consumers will then, quite legitimately, be seeking compensation from VW for selling them a car which is less fuel efficient and/or lower performance than they were sold.

IT Got me depressed

Re: My Dad was chatting to an IT manager socially....

"He also pointed out that anyone over that age was getting paid over the odds for skills they have accumulated which they would probably not use."

This is only a problem if you try and get paid based on the skills you have, not on the job that's required or the skills needed to do it.

I work in the public sector where pay scales are based on the role that's required and there is no negotiation which is fine by me, as far as I'm concerned if you're not happy with the pay don't take the job in the first place.

But I've met all to many private sector consultants who expect to be paid based on their wide array of knowledge and skills that have nothing to do with the task at hand, rather than based on what they've been asked to do.

Unfortunately the reality of a depressed and stagnant economy is that the majority of companies are not going to pay more than they absolutely have to to get a job done, even if it means inferior workmanship.

'I promise you I will win', says completely sane presidential candidate John McAfee

Not patching Yahoo messenger seems perfectly reasonable given only the 5 people who still use it are at risk.

Jolla chief quits: Fawning Putin lickspittles to take over?

Re: Errr

Ahhh, this gives me nostalgic feelings for when I had my N900 and it had to go back to Nokia under warranty because (as they frequently did) the USB port snapped off from the board.

They sent me back a replacement which was missing the keyboard, it was surprisingly difficult to convince them that they had sent it this way.

Spaniard trousers €60,000 bank error, proceeds directly to jail

Re: Rightfully his

Are you suggesting a member of the Nigerian Royal Family doesn't have enough money to send €60,000 to multiple people?

Back to school: Six of the smartest cheap 'n' cheerful laptops

Re: One modern trend to mention with Acer/Asus

Not having bottom panels to access the HDD and RAM isn't neccessarily the end of the world depending on the rest of the construction.

Admittedly some are a single bottom panel and assembled in such a way as to make it impossible to get in without doing damage. But my previous Dell XPS 15 (L501X) wasn't too bad, removing the cover around the keyboard to get to the HDD was simple a matter of taking the battery out and popping the first catch by pushing it up from the battery bay, the rest then came fairly easily.

Same with my cheap Toshiba I currently have, take out all the screws and pull out the optical drive (or in this case the blank plastic insert in the shape of an optical drive) then use the optical drive as some where to get your fingers in and start popping the catches around the edge.

In a lot of cases it's not especially difficult to get into them, it's just a matter of knowing the right technique to use for that model

Re: A quick search...

Quite so.

For the very budget conscious an interesting option might be the Toshiba Satellite C50-B-14D, currently £179.99 from Currys/PCWorld.

By no means a high spec machine, however for web browsing and word processing and other basic requirements of school work it performs perfectly acceptably. I have one and have even managed to play some Civ 5 on it (albeit with the graphics turned wayyyy down).

As a cheap laptop for web browsing and Office apps this is quite a decent option, especially for kids who's parents are wary of buying online and would rather shop at a high street store.

IBM tries to dodge $1bn sueball for deal won with 'ethical transgressions'

An unsettling one.

Windows 10 Media

Performing the free upgrade will get you a key, you may need to use some utility (google can help there) to find out what it is. Based on my experience, machines upgraded from oem pre-installed win 7/8 get one of a handful of generic keys, where as retail copies of 7/8 that get upgraded get unique keys.

You can create Windows 10 installation media for Home and Pro (but not Enterprise) from this page

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install

and use the key you have from the upgrade to install it.

Microsoft will explain only 'significant' Windows 10 updates

Please don't use our updates

This will prove interesting in enterprise environments using WSUS and/or SCCM to manage updates. Particularly if those organisations only publish updates if they know what they do and that they need them.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+: 4K-positive fun for ... vloggers?!

Re: No Galaxy Note 5 in the UK

Indeed, I have a Note 3 and my next upgrade would have been the Note 5. Now? I'll probably hang on to the 3 for quite a while longer.

Win10 Firewall

Re: Win10 Firewall

Which firewall were you using prior to the upgrade?

Presumably a third party one, not supported under Windows 10?

BT hands £129m back to UK.gov after beating rural broadband targets

Actual cashback may vary

BT are giving "up to £129m cashback" in much the same way as they provide up to 8/24/36/72 mbps broadband.

Unfortunately due to the quality of the banks through which the money is being transferred uk.gov will only receive £1 million

Microsoft to spoofed Skype users: Change your account passwords NOW

This has just happened to me despite having complex passwords and two-factor authentication turned on using the Android Microsoft Account app, rather than SMS.

The messages were all sent while I wasn't signed in to Outlook or Skype from anywhere (middle of the night, I was asleep) and there are no logins shown on my account activity. Wield.

Keep your stupid drones away from piloted aircraft, rages CAA

Consequences

"considering the likely outcome of a quadcopter's entrance into a jet engine at 700ft above ground level"

I'd actually be interested to know how a jet engine would cope with a quadcopter going into it. Don't they test engines for resistance to consuming birds etc? Obviously a quadcopter is potentially a bit more solid than a bird but not substantially so in most cases.

Sounds like a job for Mythbusters/Braniacs etc.

7/7 memories: I was on a helpdesk that day and one of my users died

Re: Also on a helpdesk

To be fair, I doubt you would have gotten in much trouble for it under those circumstances.

Lawyer brands client 'small penis asshole' before challenging him to a DUEL

Or kippers at midnight.

Account at HSBC? BAD LUCK, no iPhone bonk-banking for you

Re: No Coop / Smile ApplePay Support

"does my debit card connect to the internet whilst I touch it?"

Only if your finger is NFC enabled.

Android Wear 5.1: A more enduring wristjob for your pleasure

Improvements

I have a Sony Smartwatch 3, however I only got it after the 5.1.1 update was released so I'm not entirely sure of the feature changes.

One thing I believe was added in 5.1.1 is the ability to use Android Wear as a stand alone music player with Google Play Music. Pair bluetooth headphones with the watch and you can use it independently of the phones to listen to music you've download to the watch. Handy for runners or cyclists who do not want to carry a bulky smartphone with them on their route perhaps, may also be useful for swimmers with water resistant earphones, I plan to try this once I have the earphones.*

Also as for the Cloud Sync, it can be handy for the same reason, lack of bulk. I have a Note 3 so occasionally I want to take it out of my pocket for some activity but still want notifications. If you want to leave your phone behind, then use the mute option on the watch (swipe down from the watchface and tap the bell) and it won't interrupt.

*N.B. If you're thinking of trying this check the water resistance/IP rating of your watch first. Mine is IP68 rated, and while I'd prefer a proper ISO water resistance rating as used on normal watches IP68 is high enough that I'm willing to risk it. Many other Android Wear watches are only IP57 rated, I would not recommend swimming with these.

What do you MEAN, 'Click on the thing which looks like a Mondrian?'

I prefer your description Alistair, it's significantly more accurate. The icon (assuming your depiction is accurate) looks very little like tetris, it is totally lacking T and L shapes.

These days though many decent computer based video conferencing systems allow you to share screen content so surely showing them would be easier.

Two Corsair SSDs destroyed thanks to faulty PSU from Maplin

Ugh clearly that should have read "PSU from maplin"

Please tell me you only bought a P'S from mail in because it was convenient and the PSU was a major brand?

Rule one of system building which many many people ignore, never skimp on the PSU in order to save money for other components.

Boffin: Will I soon be able to CLONE a WOOLLY MAMMOTH? YES. Should I? Hell NO

Re: Hunting / Wrestling / Riding...

Or sneaking them across the border the border into neighbouring countries.

No wait, they're just volunteer mammoths.

Re: Let 'em loose in Russia

Or riding them.

German army fights underground Nazi war machine hidden in Kiel pensioner's cellar

Why don't you knock it off with the negative waves?!

*channels Donald Sutherland from the 1970's*

It's a beautiful tank!

Microsoft: Stop using Microsoft Silverlight. (Everyone else has)

Re: NHS

"Microsoft said it will continue to support Silverlight for out-of-browser applications for the dozen or so of you who are using it for that purpose"

"Try the several thousand mental health professionals in London NHS Trusts whom use RiO, provided by BT and running on Silverlight in IE."

Maybe I'm missing something here but surely using Silverlight in IE doesn't qualify as an "out-of-browser application"?

SMS delivery reports for international numbers

If you're trying MMS you could use Read Reports instead of/as well as delivery reports. I believe the Read Reports are sent from the receiving device so may be more useful, the downside of course being that MMS messages cost more to send.

Re: SMS delivery reports for international numbers

I'm assuming that you are using the built in "request delivery report" function on your phone?

Have you tried not using this, but starting your message with *0# instead. For me at least, this result in a text message from the SMS handling system telling me the status of the message. Where as the "request delivery report" function just puts a tick next to the message when the delivery report is returned and I've found that sometimes if the receiving phone was off when the message was sent I won't get the delivery report until hours after the phone was turned on again or sometimes not at all.

With the *0# approach, if the message couldn't be delivered I immediately get a report back saying it couldn't be delivered but further attempts will be made, once the receiving phone is turned on I get another message to say it has been delivered.

Not entirely sure what the difference is to be honest, or if the *0# function is universally supported, but may be worth a go.

Employees love their IT departments (almost very nearly true)

"equipment can be down for days when they schedule the MS updates for in hours"

In fairness to them Windows update can be unpredictable, I've had 2 identical server builds side by side that I've done clean Windows installs on and kicked off the exact same set of updates at the same time and had one finish in an hour and the other finish in 3 hours for no good reason.

I'm guessing if budget is non-existant they probably aren't paid to do the updates out of hours either.

YOU ARE THE DRONE in Amazon's rumoured new parcel delivery plan

Re: This sounds exactly like the UK 'Amazon Logistics' operation that delivers prime stuff

Not really anything like that from what the article says. The article implies any one at all who has an Amazon account, delivering a parcel because they feel like it.

In the UK parcels delivered by Amazon Logistics are generally delivered to you by one of three sets of people

A. A courier company employee in a liveried van

B. A contractor working for a courier company in a van, possibly liveried possibly not, which they rent or own (sometimes battered but usually ok, since they're contracting for a branded courier company)

C. An independent individual courier in their own van (more likely to be battered)

In all of the above cases though the person delivering to you is a professional courier (for a given value of professional) who do this for a living and will have insurance of one form or another.

"I'd probably limit it to long-term Amazon customers."

And just how would you define long-term customers?

If you just mean they've had an account for ages then I know plenty of people who've got dormant accounts because they haven't bought anything through Amazon in years. They're not going to be worried if Amazon cuts them off after 1 high value item went missing in their care.

If you stipulate that they have to have bought something in the last few months, fine, but there's plenty more who buy 1 or 2 very low value items every few months. They're not going to care about getting cut off either.

You could perhaps say they have to have spent a certain amount in the last 30/60 days and spread over a certain number of purchases, but their limits your potential human drones significantly.

Maybe just Amazon Prime customers? Even fewer, but at least these people are more likely to want to keep on good terms with Amazon.

Genuine questions here though. In the UK this would be a major problem from an insurance point of view, since by delivering parcels for Amazon for pay would invalidate any vehicle insurance that doesn't cover business use (most people don't bother and just stick with social, domestic, pleasure and commuting cover). Would a similar problem exist in the US?

Also what about parcels which rather than going missing, get damaged while in the care of the "human drone"? Who is responsible for that?

HMRC ditches Microsoft for Google, sends data offshore

Re: HMRC ditches Microsoft for Google, sends data to NSA

Or a return address, meaning that it will end up sat in a Royal Mail sorting office, forever.

Sysadmins rebel over GUI-free install for Windows Server 2016

Re: All of a sudden, my decision to learn Linux

unless you've been burnt to ash for being a heathen.

Re: Growing up is tough

You can fire up nano (or vi or emacs, if you are a masochist).

Sorry, couldn't¹ resist.

¹ Not that I tried at all.

Intel adopts 40Gb per SECOND USB-C plug for Thunderbolt 3.0

Re: Optical Networking?

I think the only intention of the fibre option is for long runs of cable, hence why the article mentions runs of up to 60 metres.

Fibre has some advantages, not least of which is massively increased range compared to copper. However the one problem it always has is latency, because at the end of the day the devices at each end have to convert photons on fibre to electrons on copper, and that's always going to take time not necessarily huge amounts but why bother unless you really need to.

Re: Square peg round hole

Hey I'm just going by the article

"Intel's sort of given up on the Thunderbolt interface - but it's also found a way to help increase its relevance by making it a superset of USB 3.1"