Posts by Dave P 1

BOFH: I found a flying Dragonite on a Windows 2003 domain

Backup plan is the cattle prod and a stairwell; preferably from the top floor.

I need a new plan here because WIN 7 refuses to do any patches (except perhaps WIN 10), as I can see from the lack of internet activity and having 12 hours to do it.

It's 2016 and Windows lets crims poison your printer drivers

Updates

So, thanks to the article I knew there were some new, and important, patches. My WIN 7 machine did not know there were new updates, so sent to search for such. After 15 minutes or so it did find 13 new patches. Started the update procedure. After another 15 minutes it finally seemed to get started downloading. Did the patches, and informed me that 12 were not needed. Not believing that rubbish, I re-started the update procedure. Sure enough, those same 12 were installed this time. Not the first time Update has lied to me.

There's an epidemic of idiots who can't find power switches

Batteries?

I once bought a dual-CPU motherboard off of eBay, and got it very cheap because the company engineers could not get it to work. Upon receipt I found that it would not boot up either. A quick bit of servicing (replace the onboard coin cell battery) and everything was sorted. This board also required parity RAM which the previous owner did not realize.

A brand new computer was delivered to me, and thankfully I checked out the guts before running it. The CPU fan had a loop of wire though the blade preventing it from spinning. Also, the board had dual channel RAM capability, but the RAM had been installed improperly to enable this feature.

BOFH: The current value of our IT ASSets? Minus eleventy-seven...

Inventory time

This yarn is a great start to a long weekend. The hourly's get an extra two days off next week while inventory is counted. Years ago we counted everything, but now it is just the high value items. A bit easier this year since the $100,000 stock of lead acid batteries has been scrapped for a few $1000; that happens if you leave them sit in stock for 5 years without maintenance. Planning? Nah, just a waste of managerial time.

Ten classic electronic calculators from the 1970s and 1980s

The TI-59

Before the calculator I used a slip-stick in high school. It was followed by one of the first scientific calculators. In university I purchased a TI-59. It was wonderful. It came with one subroutine module, but several others were available for specialized purposes. I believe there were also pre-programmed cards available. The memory set-up may have been unique to the TI-5x family; the memory was banked as data or program, and you were able to divide the memory as you wished. So depending on you needs at the moment you could re-partition the memory to increase data space at the expense of program space or vice versa. Marvelous! With the optional printer as shown in the photo, you did not need to worry about battery life, and you could print out results. I remember writing an iterative program that successively honed in on a set of values for a simulation. While most students would do a few iterations manually, I set it to run overnight with a few hundred iterations, printing out the results of each iteration. It could be used as a mini computer. I don't recall any other calculator that was as capable as the TI-59, nor do I recall ever programming scientific routines on anything but a mainframe (using Fortran) after that.

Rise of the Machines: How computers took over the stock market

Time to revert back?

Perhaps it is time to revert back to a paper system. Print out a buy/sell order and submit it to be posted. Pay for your purchase; no margins, it will be cash on the line. You either own the asset outright, or you do not; keep it simple and no short-selling. Buy for the long term; not milliseconds. Sure this will ruin the industry. But it is an industry that adds no value.

China's internet security giant Qihoo planning global domination

SECURE?

Comes complete with backdoor, I'd bet.

I watched Excel meet 1-2-3, and beat it fair and square

I still use Lotus 123 as a primary spreadsheet, and Quattro Pro for my personal use. Excel is for instances where: "oh my gawd! if there is absolutely NO other way" . Have you ever tried plotting with Excel; it sucks BIG time. Yes it can be done, but who in their right mind would ever bother.

Supernovae blasts shape climate, life on Earth, reckons boffin

Quite intriguing, and a game changer.

BOFH: Every silver lining has a cloud

Classic

An order has been placed for the 100 watt iron. Obviously the 25 & 45 watt irons I have will not do.

Hole punches: check!

Microsoft resuscitates 'I'm a PC' ads to fight Apple

Windows 7 : BAH!

I needed a couple of new machines; the hard drive died on my Pentium 133/ WIN95 machine, and the video card kept dieing on my WIN2K machine. So the IT guy bought me two shiny WIN7 machines. Too bad that the company cannot afford the $20,000 to replace the software that will no longer run on WIN7. The hardware is nice, but the OS SUCKS!

Van driver follows satnav up goat-track, gets stuck on mountain

The GPS is wonderful

But highly over-rated. One took me across a field, and while it worked out well I was amazed at what it considered an acceptable route. I was on some back country roads, and did not want to go down a couple of gravel roads, so I would try an alternative. I was being a bit adventurous anyway, so it didn't bother me.

It does make you wonder about the competence of the person that entered the data into the GPS maps when they decided to include a footpath to nowhere. It takes two to create this mess, one to provide a bogus route, and another to follow it.

The other possibility is that the satnav unit was lost, and that is not a comforting thought either.

DIMENSIONAL PORTAL INCURSION AT THE LHC!

No Problem

Just send in the BOFH and the PFY with their roll of carpet, a spade, and that cattle-prod type thingy. That job will be taken care of quickly, and lots of time for a few pints afterward.

BOFH: The PFY Chronicles part 2

Ah, Friday and the BOFH

Well, I now know what a VT52 is ... a very nasty bit of kit.