Posts by Noel Morgan

I can fix this PC, boss, but I’ll need to play games for hours to do it

Re: Best job straight out of University?

I always use www.playboy.com to test that webfiltering is working.

It should be blocked and has less naked flesh than the sidebar on the daily mail homepage.

Don't shoot! DARPA wants to capture future spy balloons in one piece

shooting down the balloon with convential shells wont work

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/162084.stm

according to this article - it has been tried in the past and with the scale of the balloons even 20mm cannon shells are unlikely to make any significant dent in the ability to float.

This can’t be a real bomb threat: You've called a modem, not a phone

There was another bomb in warrenpoint in 1989 where the alert was called in 15 minutes after the bomb went off. Friend of mine died and my mother suffered long term injuries in that one.

What a bunch of bricks: Crooks knock hole in toyshop wall, flee with €35k Lego haul

1 each of the top 12 sets would set you back £5720 thats ~ 6700 euro,

5 of each (60 sets) not an unusual stock level would get to that amount fairly easily.

Star Wars 75313 AT-AT – £749.99

Star Wars 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer – £649.99

Star Wars 75192 Millennium Falcon – £649.99

10294 Titanic – £569.99

10276 Colosseum – £449.99

Technic 42131 App-Controlled Cat D11 Bulldozer – £419.99

Star Wars 75159 Death Star – £409.99

Technic 42100 Liebherr R 9800 – £399.99

Harry Potter 75978 Diagon Alley – £369.99

Star Wars 10221 Super Star Destroyer – £349.99

Technic 42115 Lamborghini Sian FKP 37 – £349.99

Harry Potter 71043 Hogwarts Castle – £349.99

Facebook rendered spineless by buggy audit code that missed catastrophic network config error

Re: Who me?

Computers were never brought in to save the customers money, they were brought in to increase profits for the banks.

Netflix sued by South Korean ISP after Squid Game fans swell traffic to '1.2Tbps'

Old timer here

Am I missing something?

In the old days there was this thing called broadcast TV.

I seem to remember electricity usage going up when an episode was over.

https://www.drax.com/power-generation/7-of-the-biggest-tv-moments-in-uk-electricity-history/

I don't remember the electricity companies wanting to charge BBC/ITV extra when the electricity usage went through the roof afterwards. Is this not something similar?

Also - very simplistic I know but:

I pay Netflix to provide me with entertainment. (such that it is)

I expect Netflix to pay actors & production crew for their content.

I pay my ISP for internet access.

I not expect content providers to have to pay ISPs as well, if they did, then what am I paying them for?

Is that what they want? we pay the content providers more money and then we don't pay the ISP anything?

In this instance (at the very least) the ISP is completely out of order. if you can't provide the service people expect for the money they are paying you then you need to charge more and upgrade the service. They want to provide a cheap service by running it on very thin margins and they got caught out.

Microsoft struggles to wake from PrintNightmare: Latest print spooler patch can be bypassed, researchers say

Same here - almost.

I have been using Windows for almost 30 years.

Never had a virus, adware, trojan, worm or ransomware on my machine either.

That is not to say I have not come across ( a lot of ) them on other peoples machines.

Big Tech workers prefer 3 days at home, 2 in the office. We ask Reg readers: What's your home-office balance?

Re: WFH is ok, but the bills aren't

Unless your getting to work costs were almost nothing i think you might need to look at your electricity supplier. Our bills have gone up, but not by anything like the savings.

We now have 2 adults working from home and 2 kids doing home schooling. Between us that is 4 computers, and 9 screens. We do try and keep heating costs down a bit by wearing appropriate clothing.

Between fuel, servicing (including tyres etc) ,insurance and car tax I am still well over £200 nett per month better off. My wife would be saving a similar amount. I am sure there a lots of people using public transport who would be saving similar amounts.

My boss on the other hand IS worse off. He was able to commute by bike !. Out of over 150 staff, I think he may be possibly the only one who is financially worse off.

He was a skater boy. We said, 'see you later, boy' – and the VAX machine mysteriously began to work as intended

Re: Static

still remember typing

debug

g=c800:5

and 1701 errors (somebody was a star trek fan)

COVID-19 tracing without an app? There's an iOS and Android update for that

As far as i remember it is the ROI one.

Just reskinned for NI.

most people in NI are more likely to come into contact with ROI people than GB people.

University of California San Francisco pays ransomware gang $1.14m as BBC publishes 'dark web negotiations'

It is all very well saying that - oh they should have had proper backups.

Unless you are targeted by these sort of groups, you have no idea how destructive they can be. They can sit inside your network for weeks, and map out everything including your backup regime. They will know you have offsite backups and make sure that those are left in a useless state. You do restore your offsite backups to confirm they are valid, dont you. Thats great, however what happens if there is now a booby trapped file in your backup that activates after a certain date and re-encrypts your network.

They will wait until they know the best time to strike, 3am in the morning when no admins are around means you will cause more damage without anyone knowing and taking action.

no point in password protecting things, they probably have your domain admin credentials.

Are you sure you can pay the fines for having confidential medical or financial information released to the world?

A $1million payday can really concentrate your mind to make sure you do enough damage so as your victim has no option but to pay up. Not bringing morals into this - I know all of us would never do this, but as think of this as an academic exercise.

If any of us knew we could earn millions without a chance of being caught, do you think you could wreck a companies network and their backups?

It's National Cream Tea Day and this time we end the age-old debate once and for all: How do you eat yours?

cone is pronounced like tone

adding an S

Scone should be pronounced like Stone.

although - i still call it a scone......

Trump issues toothless exec order to show donors, fans he's doing something about those Twitter twerps

Re: The absurdity of that order

I think this is what Trump is hoping for.

The people who post vile, hateful and usually wildly inaccurate information are the ones who have most to gain from this. They don't want people encouraged to check their sources.

Usually the more sane among us are happy for people to question and have debate about opinions.

If this ever happens (i don't believe it will) expect a lot more outright lies and misinformation on the internet. You won't be allowed to question it.

I also agree with someone elses comment, his inital tweet wasn't amended, or deleted. It was just suggested that you might want to check the facts. If that scares him so much - you have to wonder why....

Microsoft blocks Trend Micro code at center of driver 'cheatware' storm from Windows 10, rootkit detector product pulled from site

Maybe that code was written as a way of confirming the developers eyesight was OK, before he/she wrote something a bit longer?

For the price tag, this iPad Pro keyboard better damn well be Magic: It isn't... but it's not completely useless either

Re: Because ... it’ll just work : Nope

My Dell XPS M1330 from 2008 was in use up until christmas 2019.

mind you I did upgrade from the crappy Windows vista that was installed.

When you pay higher end money - you get a higher end device, not unique to apple.

Motorola bounds out the G8 with a harder, better, faster smartphone for the thrifty

Re: No NFC

I agree - no NFC no sale.

I use it for connecting to a diabetic scanner, the freestyle libre. I can't understand why a phone at >£200 cant have this feature.

MIT boffins turn black up to 11 with carbon nanotubes that absorb 99.995% of light

Father Ted

But is it as black as Priests socks?

https://youtu.be/N8VFecEzkgk?t=34

Sorry about the crappy quality, only copy of it I could find.

Peak tech! Bacon vending machine signals apex of human invention

My favourite type of BLT sandwich

Bacon

Little bit more bacon

Two more slices of bacon......

Automated payment machines do NOT work the same all over the world – as I found out

over here it is the equivalent of 25Rand.

Marriage of AI, Google chips will save diabetics from a lot of pricks

Not quite the same - but available right now and it works

https://www.freestylelibre.co.uk/libre/

my type 1 diabetic son has been using this for around 8 months at this point. available to children on the NHS in our area (at least)

Gone from around 8-10 finger pricks per day to maybe 2-3 per week.

And as someone else has said - much better than finger pricks which only give point in time information, this samples every minute.

been a life changer.

Also doesn't phone home all the time.....

Fatal driverless crash: Radar-maker says Uber disabled safety systems

Re: "Self driving cars can only only react"

I timed the video and from when the pedestrian appears to when the video stops seems to be closer to 0.75 seconds rather than 2.

Not sure I would have noticed, reacted and braked to a 'safe' speed in that time.

The failure is not in autonomous cars per se, something went wrong here in that the 'extra' senses that the car should have did not operate or were turned off.

You may not have noticed, but 'superfast' broadband is available to 94% of Blighty

Depends who you ask

I currently get 6Mb

According to BT sales and openreach I can get 'up to' 35Mb.

Accoring to BT engineers when they come out to work out why my upgrade is running at 2Mb, 35Mb is a bit optimistic as I am 3.2KM from the nearest Cabinet.

So who are these stats coming from? the sales side or the engineering side?

'Dear diversity hire...' Amazon's weapons-grade fail in recruitment email to woman techie

Re: is it my fault?

read Tabitha Babbitt and immediately thought of Lorena Bobbitt - entirely different person but also had a penchant for sharp tools....

Ouch.

User demanded PC be moved to move to a sunny desk – because it needed Windows

Re: As any good medical professional will tell you

I used to work in a hardware store.

I still remember the day a girl on work experience was sent to the shop for 'a long screw'. I had to leave and let one of the female shop staff serve her.

30 years ago and still makes me smile.

India's Martian MOM clocks up 1,000 days circling the red planet

Re: India has a space program...

Sorry - I think you meant poor loyalist terrorists. (or better still - just terrorists)

Don't see too many picture of DUP MPs shoulder to shoulder with nationalists.

Ex-MI5 boss: People ask, why didn't you follow all these people ... on your radar?

Re: Stop trying to re-write history

I was just pointing out that there were more terrorists in N. Ireland than just the republicans.

I was also responding to the original statement by the ex head of MI5 that the IRA did not TARGET civilians with any great strength of conviction

People in Britain are sensitive to the deaths of people on the mainland - but many thousands more were killed over here in N. Ireland 'on British soil'.

I am responding to the idea that some people had that all 3532 people who died were innocent civilians killed by the IRA.

The IRA killed over 2000 people - that is abhorrent, just don't whitewash the rest.

The British army killing IRA people were not killing civilians, however in trying to kill enemy combatants they managed to kill a even higher proportion of civilians than the IRA did while trying to kill them.

Approximately 60% of the dead were killed by republicans, 30% by loyalists and 10% by British security forces.

Responsibility for killing

Responsible party No.

Republican paramilitary groups 2058

Loyalist paramilitary groups 1027

British security forces 363

Persons unknown 79

Irish security forces 5

Total 3532

According to Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland:

Of those killed by republican paramilitaries:

1080 (~52%) were members/former members of the British security forces

723 (~35%) were civilians

187 (~9%) were members of republican paramilitaries

57 (~2.7%) were members of loyalist paramilitaries

11 (~0.5%) were members of the Irish security forces

Of those killed by British security forces:

187 (~51.5%) were civilians

145 (~39.9%) were members of republican paramilitaries

18 (~4.9%) were members of loyalist paramilitaries

13 (~3.5%) were fellow members of the British security forces

Of those killed by loyalist paramilitaries:

878 (~85.4%) were civilians

94 (~9%) were members of loyalist paramilitaries

41 (~4%) were members of republican paramilitaries

14 (~1%) were members of the British security forces

Also if the British Army are accountable under law then why is there so much annoyance over some of them being prosecuted for what was done.

Re: Stop trying to re-write history

As mentioned previously.

Although 3532 people were killed - they weren't all killed by the IRA.

1390 were killed by loyalists/British Army Forces.

2058 Were Killed by the IRA.

The British Army killed a greater percentage of Civilians to Combatants than the IRA did.

Loyalists killed 878 Civilians

Republicans killed 723 Civilians.

Who were the terrorists again ?

Who are the Conservatives getting in to bed with ?

Re: IRA

Just to point out that not all 3600 deaths in the troubles in N. Ireland were caused by the IRA. (I am no friend of theirs, they almost killed my mother and did manage to kill some friends)

Of the approx 3500 deaths - 2000 were killed by the IRA. The other 1500 were killed by the people opposing them.

They also had a lower casualty rate among civilians than the Loyalists and surprisingly the British Army.

Republicans 35% civilian casualties

British Army 51% civilian casualties

Loyalists 85% civilian casualties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles#Responsibility

Customer: BT admitted it had 'mis-sold' me fibre broadband

I was offered Fibre at up to 45MB with a minimum guaranteed speed of 35.

I jumped at this because I was stuck on 4.5 with ADSL.

Line was duly upgraded and maximum sync speed was 2MB. Thankfully was able to get back to ADSL without charge.

It turns out that their records assume you are a maximum distance of 500 metres from the nearest cabinet, I live in a rural area and am about 3500 metres from the cabinet.

FTTC falls off much faster with distance than ADSL2. So although I was further from the exchange than the cabinet I got a worse service.

Around 1.4 million people have sub-10Mbps speeds - Ofcom

Officially I can get 40-55Mbs according to BTs own information, guaranteed minimum was 35Mbs

However after I 'upgraded' to fibre my maximum connection was 2Mbs. So am I counted in the 1.4 million ?

My gut tells me no, because I am in some database somewhere that lists me as capable of getting 40Mbs. I wonder how many others are in the same position.

Hard-up Brits 'should get subsidy for 10Mbps'

Re: Truthful figures

Absolutely agree.

I was told I could upgrade from ADSL at 5Mb to 45Mb (guaranteed minimum 40).

Duly went ahead and was left with a fibre connection running at 2Mb. Seems being 3.5km from the cabinet is OK for ADSL but not VDSL.

By the time this was figured out with engineer visits and then fixed I had spent almost 4 weeks with crap internet. I can tell from experience that while you may not need 10Mb for multiple users in a house (5) you certainly need more than 2!

However - my actual point is - according to BT's stats I am capable of getting 45mb and as such am well above the 10mb minimum, and I am sure i will be counted as such in their percentage of users capable of high speed internet.

Microsoft Office 365, Azure portals offline for many users in Europe

Re: not panicking

Not really.

Haven't found my workload lessening since moving. The only thing that has got less is the pressure.

Still have accounts to create, mail to manage and all the other normal things to do, just doing it on a different platform.

As to the argument that someone else will be able to do my job, true, but I know have 'cloud migration' experience which means I should be able to get a job easier somewhere else too.

The world moves on.

not panicking

We have just finished a move of services to Office365 2 months ago.

However this is the first time that there has been a problem that affects our users that instead of running around trying to fix it I can just say "Not My Problem" and go and have a cup of tea !

UK.gov pooh-poohs Virgin Media's whinge to Brussels over beefy broadband pot

Re: VM = Virtual Media?

Very strange economics

You are suggesting that after they had spent the inital £70K to pass all 70 houses the would prefer not to connect up any of them !

Scientists love MacBooks (true) – but what about you?

Re: That Cisco policy

Not only Macbooks.

I have a 2008 Dell XPS M1330 that cost £500 when I bought it (reduced from £800). It came with Vista and has been upgraded to Windows 7 and then 8.1

Just installed Windows 10 Technical preview on it, and it is working very well.

You don't have to buy an apple machine to have a computer that still works with the latest operating system 7-8 years later.

People constantly compare a £1000 mac computer to a £300 cheap laptop. Try comparing them to a similar priced PC and there is a LOT less difference in quality.

Mind you - I do agree that an 7 year old windows laptop is normally worth a lot less in the resale market :-)

This 320-gigapixel snap of London is size of Buckingham Palace

Stealth Taxi?

http://btlondon2012.co.uk/pano.html?view.hlookat=-13.9160&view.vlookat=23.0759&view.fov=1.9694&imarkerath=-13.9160&imarkeratv=23.0759

Samsung shoots Galaxy S III with shrink ray, unveils 4in Mini

Marketing

I think it is marketing genius.

It is clearly aimed at a lower end of the market than the 'proper S3', people who wont be purchasing either an iPhone or a full S3

However compare apple's 'premium' iphone5 with 4" screen and dual core processor selling at the £500 mark to this phone suggested to sell at £300.

The idea is to suggest that the cut down S3 mini is a similar phone to the iPhone5. If you want the best phone around get the S3. (Samsung marketing - not necessarily my opinion)

Samsung to probe Galaxy S III blaze claim

Re: Faulty car charger?

2) Are you sure it has nothing to do with charging?

I don't have an S3 but according to this photograph the charging port is right beside where the scorching is.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/347283/20120531/samsung-galaxy-s3-unboxing-gallery-slideshow.htm#page15

Assuming then that it has something to do with the proximity to the charging port I call 1) not using a charger as bull. A bit like the Jimmy Carr episode - if I could get away with paying 1% tax I probably would give it a try, if I thought I could get a replacement phone (or claim) by saying I wasn't using a dodgy charger then I probably would give that a try too.....

'Apple will coast, and then decelerate' says Forrester CEO

How Old?

-> My dad has my 4+ year old 3GS when I bought a 4S recently

Seeing as the 3GS was released in June 2009 (ie less than 3 years ago) just how did you manage to have one that was 4+ years old ?

If you keep adding 33% to the longevity of apple devices no wonder you are finding iDevices not so expensive over time.

->my wife uses a Macbook Pro that must be 4 years old now

My wife is using a Dell XPS laptop that is over 4 years old and that is in a better state than a lot of NEW windows laptops I have seen.......

Digital UK names date for end of analogue TV era

Re: Is the digital TV system in Northern Ireland

Sort of.

The system in the south is called Saorview and is compatible with FreeviewHD. A digibox in the south costs almost 100 euros as opposed to cheap FreeviewHD boxes which can be purchased for around £20 (just bought one from Tesco direct to allow my mother to receive RTE freeview)

Ofcom maps state of UK broadband

N. Ireland

Thanks - but already done that for them.

According to any of the speedchecker websites we should ALL be getting only 0.5Mb.

I am just lucky I guess - but it is a rural area and we will never be getting any further upgrades.

N.Ireland

I notice on the full set of figures that if you sort on highest percentage of people with <2Mb speeds, 16 out of 18 are in N. Ireland.

I also understand that a lot of the figures are nonsense.

I get 4.5mb

My NEXT DOOR neighbour gets 2mb

the neighbour on the other side gets 0.5mb

Windows XP Mode skips virtualisation hardware requirements

Not all OEMs fault.

A lot of machines use the intel chipsets are incapable of running Intel-VT because INTEL do not allow it. Out of a possible 25 Core 2 chipsets only 7 support virtualization.

I just went through an ordering process where Intel-VT was a requirement. The number of suppliers who offered me machine whose processor was fine but the chipset was not was a joke.

Now I want to hit someone from microsoft for making this change. I welcome it, I just wished I had known about it 2 weeks ago!

(ps the fail is for Intel)

First Samsung Android phone out next week

Not just Only on O2

Toshiba TG01 - Only on Orange

Blackberry Storm - Only on Vodafone

Samsung S8000 - Only on Vodafone

G1- Only on T-mobile

they are all at it.

Beeb tech boss seeks to expand TV licence online

Get over yourselves

Don't people actually read ?

"My view is that if you are using the iPlayer you have to be a television licence fee payer. I don't believe in a free ride. If you are consuming BBC services then you have to be a licence holder,"

For all the people complaing about a blanket tax on the internet - where does this quote mention that people who don't use iplayer should be charged?

I have to admit - I don't watch a lot of BBC1 or 2, maybe an hour or two a MONTH, but I do not mind paying the 'Tax'.

My children watch CBBC/Cbeebies

I listen to Radio2 in the car for 3 hours a day (can't account for taste)

I use the BBC website to check the news and sport.

I use iPlayer to watch programmes that I missed (cause the kids are watching CBeebies....)

All these are paid for through my TV license.

I notice so many of the people saying - "I don't watch BBC - I just download what I watch from iPlayer." Do they think that the license ONLY pays for BBC1 and 2?

Mind you I also pay SKY for 300 odd channels of which I only watch about 5. That costs me twice as much as the license.

'Lex Nokia' company snoop law passes in Finland

Listening in

To Anonymous Coward (14:02)

I do not think an employer should be able to listen in on every phone conversation - however if they are paying the phone bill then they should at least be able to look at the logs of the phone numbers that have been called.

This is not the same as listening in to a possibly private phone call. If I want to talk to someone without my boss knowing about it - I will use my own private phone/email account/postal address.

That is what is being debated - the ability to check the logs of messages that are sent/received not the contecnt . As far as I am concerned there is a major difference between the two.

Red ring of Xbox death costs Microsoft $1bn

Extended Warranty

What about all the people who have forked out money for an extended warranty for their 360?