* Posts by Thomas Martin

36 publicly visible posts • joined 25 May 2007

75% of enterprise coders will use AI helpers by 2028. We didn't say productively

Thomas Martin

This is the type of stuff that puts false information and expectations in people's and programmer's minds. Yes, AI can generate code but even if it works, the programmer may still yet have hundreds hours of debugging and customization and even then it still may not do what they want. I programmed 33 years and there is nothing like having humans do it. AI cannot work with people. I saw an advert on TV today hawking I* W*****X and showed it generating screens of code and a supposedly happy programmer taking off. It may generate something but as another someone said, things don't work and/or don't work together. It even may make inadvertent back doors. AI can generate, but can it police itself and find its errors and problems?

Something to think about...

Oracle closes $28.3b Cerner buy amid warnings of commercial challenges

Thomas Martin

It will be interesting to see what Oracle/Cerner does with the VA VistA EHR replacement

It has been in t news lately on several online blogs that Cerner has not done well with replacing the Veterans Administration VistA EHR. They appear to have missed deadlines and had many other problems, including their data systems going down on multiple occasions, creating an outage that affected many sites. But don't take my word, this news is available online. Now Oracle has inherited this debacle.

Meanwhile, VistA, which was voted best EHR in the USA, continues to be developed and continues to provide daily, dependable service to the Veterans. VistA had and is still estimated to have about a 99% uptime. VistA support personnel don't do dumb things like updating software with no contingency if it goes belly up.

Read:

https://ehrintelligence.com/news/cerner-system-upgrade-causes-period-of-ehr-downtime-at-az-hospital.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/va-cerner-to-testify-about-problems-regarding-its-ehr-rollout.html

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/congressman-rips-cerner-va-software-issues-demands-immediate-moves-to-remedy.html

https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2022/04/lawmakers-quiz-va-cerner-staff-major-ehr-problems/366191/

You will not read such things about VistA.

Also seen online is that Oracle/Cerner quoted the US government between 10 BILLION and 16 BILLION dollars and ten years to do all necessary to convert the VA sites to their "off-the-shelf" product. That term means you take it, load it and go with it. They have a LONG WAY TO GO to provide the special things Veterans require. IMHO there is NO SYSTEM worth that much.

I managed and programmed VistA for 33 years and my vote will be for it, hands down, for the best EHR, ad infinitum. VistA will be running the VA health care for a long time to come and running circles around you-know-who.

NASA's hefty Martian rover will use an AI brain on a robot arm to map out signs of ancient life on Red Planet

Thomas Martin

I hope they have learned about solar cells

I hope this rover will have something to automatically clean the solar panels of the Martian dust, something which the other two rovers did not appear to have. It would most likely be something that would benefit the rover and perhaps extend its operations.

Heatwave shmeatwave: Brit IT departments cool their racks – explicit pics

Thomas Martin

I would fire some employees

If our network wiring looked like that, I would fire the network manager. Heaven help you if you had to trace a cable. Whoever did that had no idea about network cabling.

Time to ditch the front door key? Nest's new wireless smart lock is surprisingly convenient

Thomas Martin

So what happens if you kick off the touch pad or otherwise dislodge or remove it? What does it expose? Something a wrench/spanner can manipulate? Something a screwdriver can turn? If someone wants to get in to your house, they can and this lock will not stop them nor possibly even slow them down.

Oh and most burglars don't come in the front door. Most likely they would use the other door, one they can drill or kick in as well. :(

Dear US taxpayers, 4.5 BEEELLION of your dollars were blown on unapproved IT projects

Thomas Martin

4,5 Billion is a drop in the bucket. The US Government has given a contract to Cerner to replace its VA EHR... and at a starting price of only 10 Billion. Someone please tell me what costs 10 billion for an EHR.

If NatWest texts you about online banking fraud, don't click the link

Thomas Martin

They are hitting Yahoo mail in the US as well.

Every single Internet Explorer at risk of drive-by hacks until Patch Tuesday

Thomas Martin
Unhappy

They need to either fix all the holes or get rid of MSIE

Every week, every month we get patches for MSIE. By now you would think Redmond would have gotten the message that MSIE is far from what we need and is very buggy and wide open to hackers. They need to either make a mass fix of all the problems or get rid of it. While Firefox has its problems, they are nowhere as paramount or serious as MSIE. And Google Chrome may beat them both.

Revealed: Full specs on Mars rover's nuclear laser heat ray

Thomas Martin

I hope they have something to clean the solar array

I hope they were smart enough to include something to get the dust off the solar array. Odd to think that engineers with that many smarts would not think of that, what with Mars being very dry and dusty. Made a problem on several occasions.

Google open sources flash-happy Chrome OS

Thomas Martin
FAIL

Business and off-line usefulness

I cannot say that I would want my confidential data stored on their Google servers, where someone could hack into them and get it. I do not have internet connections many times but yet still can work on my work documents and reports off line. I do not see the point of having to have one OS to work online quickly and another to work off line in the absence of a network.

Can you REALLY depend on the Google servers being up 100% of the time? And what about companies that are on private networks and which prohibit visitors from being on-line without an act of Parliament?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/fail_32.png on many accounts. Right now, in business, netbook or not, I do not see the true usefulness.

Three critical fixes in store for MS November Patch Tuesday

Thomas Martin

You gotta wonder

You gotta wonder how many more flaws there are in Windows, any version. They are like the Enegizer bunny, they just keep going and going !!

Microsoft issues emergency patch warning for IE

Thomas Martin
Alert

NO IE for me

These bugs are specifically why I do not use MSIE.

Microsoft delivers four critical updates

Thomas Martin
Unhappy

It makes you wonder . . .

You gotta wonder how many 'critical' updates Micro$oft can put out. They never seem to stop coming.

Hotmail dies on both sides of the Atlantic

Thomas Martin
Unhappy

No connect in Georgia (USA)

It's 4:30 AM in Georgia, USA, and still no connection. Must be something big.

Sun nails four buyers in 15 months with White Trash Data Center

Thomas Martin
Alert

Wifebeater comment

A wifebeater is commonly known as a muscle shirt.

Employee's silent rampage wipes out $2.5m worth of data

Thomas Martin
Alert

Good money

CNN said the man paid "good money" to get the data recovered. Undelete is such a good program . . . and cheaper than 2.5 million.

Brit violinist does a Radiohead

Thomas Martin

Hooray for her

I for one appreciate her giving away her music. That is a very generous gesture.

Now if only others felt so inclined to share.

US air force, Boeing press on with alternative jet fuel tests

Thomas Martin

It will serve them right

It will serve them right to choke on their oil. Every time the wind blows the price of oil goes up. Let 'em swim in it for a while.

Vista sets 2007 land-speed record for copying and deleting

Thomas Martin

My VistA upgrade

My VistA upgrade was to trash VistA and go back to XP. Haven't had a problem copying since. Micro$oft should give it up and go back to developing XP. It wasn't broke so it didn't need fixin'.

Microsoft spits out final XP service pack, beta version

Thomas Martin
Thumb Down

They'll have to pull XP from my cold, dead hands

XP does everything I need and it is compatible with all my software that I use for my job and my side company. Why in the world would I want Vista? There are so many bugs in it and with all the "security" I could never get anything done. Not to mention half my software did not work (was told to "update" my software to the tune of about US$1000) and devices did not work (aka "no drivers available" or "the driver will be released in two months").

"Windows XP SP3 does not bring significant portions of Windows Vista functionality to Windows XP."

If it did, I would have to go to Linux for my equipment. I have about as much chance of finding drivers there as in Vista. In fact, I would take Linux over Vista, no problem!!

Space brains resign over efforts to attract ET attention

Thomas Martin
Pirate

They wouldn't stay. . . .

Any extraterrestrial bunch coming here wouldn't stay. We have made too big a cock-up of our world and it would be too much for them to renovate it. Besides what we have done to our planet would most likely kill any extraterrestrials anyway. Of course, that just well may be why they stay away now...

Western Digital drive is DRM-crippled for your safety

Thomas Martin
Pirate

I have two, no problems !!

I have two of them and the first thing I did was to do a low-level format and give them a Windows drive letter. I share things and have no problems. Take that WD !! It is my stuff and I can share it with whom I please.

What a man can do, a man can un-do.

Appraisals are dishonest, waste of time

Thomas Martin

The whole process is a joke

I work for an office where "performance appraisals" are mandated to be given twice a year: mid-term and final. However, the mere fact it is mandated makes no difference since many of our workers don't get one at all. Many may get the final but no mid-term and some get finals. The whole process is a joke since the people who give them do not work with us and haven't a clue as to what we do in a year. They are people who stay on the phone and rarely join in daily activities.

I miss the days when I worked with a boss closely and he/she knew what I did and the job I did. As someone said, it is a check-box thing now, totally impersonal.

Rove investigator erases his PCs - to kill computer virus

Thomas Martin

What about backup records?

So what's the rub? Most everyone has things backed up to a server or there are backups of the data. Of course if there are none, that leaves the door open to the question about what was REALLY going on.

Facebook faces UK data probe

Thomas Martin
Unhappy

Data is never deleted

We all know data is never deleted. Once it is set on a computer, many copies will exist for any reason. The main reason is backup copies made daily. Our company has a year's worth of backups. Those can be copied into archives and those archives permanently archived. So in the end, we have over 1000 possible copies.

We as users of these "free" places should be aware that once we put out information, we lose the ability to know WHO sees it, who HAS it and WHERE in the universe it goes.

Deleting data went out years ago.

eBay glitch wipes out 11 year-old account without a trace

Thomas Martin

They should go to backup...

Every major data center in the world has backup records and so should eBay. I work for a major hospital system and we have backup records that go back a year. eBay should be able to find the missing records and restore them. If they don't have backup records, shame on them and they are flirting with disaster.

Windows XP repair disk kills automatic updates

Thomas Martin

I stopped updates years ago

I have blocked Micro$oft in my firewall for years. Anything that has microsoft in the resolved domain name is blocked. I review the patches at work and copy them to CDR and install the ones I want.

Micro$oft no longer has the privilege of touching my system.

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Thomas Martin

Who needs Vista?

Who would need an OS that won't run many of your proprietary programs or programs you use for work or even you favorite programs? They are forcing you to line the pockets of the software developers because your current software will not run or runs begrudgingly and you have to buy the Vista version.

I bought a new laptop with Vista and it stayed locked up more than I used it. I removed Vista and reloaded my XP disk.

Micro$oft can keep Vista.

tm

iPhone software-unlocked, easy-to-use tool to follow

Thomas Martin

Why not automation?

Why cannot the maker of the unlocking software provide an automated batch file to do all the steps?

Software developer sues to muzzle website users

Thomas Martin

The truth will set you free

I don't think they can prosecute for someone telling the truth and discussing the shortcomings of software. If it is blatant misrepresentation that is another story but actual findings and experiences cannot be prosecuted. If they could, as a developer and evaluator of software, I would be under the jail by now.

Maths might tell us how kids learn language

Thomas Martin

I am bilingual and never think about it

I speak English and Spanish and have since very young and I have never thought about why I can do it. I just thought it was my environment.

Burned by a MacBook

Thomas Martin

That is why I use Dell or HP laptops

This is explicitly why I use Dell or HP laptops. I have found them to be extremely reliable and when they need service it gets done and done correctly the first time.

No Macs for me.

MS Patch Tuesday to include trio of 'critical' fixes

Thomas Martin

I would switch to Linux in a minute !!

Give it up Micro$oft !! Your product is so full of holes it's like Swiss cheese! Even your new flagship, VistA is full of holes and now you have more to patch.

If Linux would ever get a full line of drivers and popular applications would port over to Linux, I would switch in a moment and say "byb-bye Micro$oft".

T.

The cheapest calling plan of all: Friends and Family on the company phone

Thomas Martin

What about those dialing plans?

What about those dialing plans where you buy 400 minutes a month let's say. If you don't use them they are wasted. Might as well use them instead of throwing them away. Anyway, I never wanted a company phone.

Strange spoofing technique evades anti-phishing filters

Thomas Martin

If you get in email, it is a spoof

How many times to people have to be told that organisations will never ask you for confidential and personal information in an email? That has been publicised too many times not to have everyone know it. I will never understand it.

I get phishing attempts regularly and just put them in the rubbish bin.

TM