Posts by terry 1

Software rollout failure led to Devon & Cornwall cops recording zero crime for 3 months

Crimes are committed every day in Cornwall...

Our neighbours across the border insist on putting jam on the scones before the cream. Outrageous behaviour

First ever 64-bit version of Windows rediscovered … and a C compiler for it too

Re: Windows XP x64

I seem to recall the MS Action Pack came with XP x64 DVD

Don't panic. Google offering scary .zip and .mov domains is not the end of the world

pointless

Anyone buying a zip domain are going to be so heavily monitored as spam that they will have virtually no emails go though. Bit like .xyz, pure spam sites

Astronomers clock runaway black hole leaving trail of fresh stars

Sounds like a black hole is a massive space whirlpool. Kinda makes sense that it can't keep sucking stuff in so bound to eject matter as new elements.

Maybe the universe wasn't created by a big bang, but was a load of black holes converting boring atoms into 'stuff'.

Techie wiped a server, nobody noticed, so a customer kept paying for six months

Sometimes things are just forgotten

The story reminded me of a long ago client, I provided remote support to them, they were running SBS 2000 at the time. Few years later the server was getting slow so popped in SBS 2003 then few years later SBS 2011. Then out of the blue, one of the directors sends me an email about a Dell whatever-it-was server. As they were in the process of being brought out so all accounts etc were being looked it.

Basically the SBS2000 was leased and the company had continued to DD the payment each month for years. I'm sure the leasing company didn't mind. No one knew and all thought it was their own kit.

Ouch!!

Cop warrant orders Ring to cough up footage from inside this guy's home

So.....

If I set up a camera looking at a photo of drugs, cash etc and the police come and bash the door in, can I be arrested for wasting police time??? ;-\

For password protection, dump LastPass for open source Bitwarden

Had bitwarden for years

..one day I will remember the master password and unlock it :(

Years late and 36 cores short of AMD, who are Intel’s 4th-gen Xeons even for?

All those cores, MS will be laughing all the way to the bank

Commercial repair shops caught snooping on customer data by canny Canadian research crew

I was at a domestic job yesterday where her hotmail account was compromised and the lady had difficulty changing the password as she used it all over other places. We went though various accounts changing them, and despite me having typed in the passwords initially and she wrote them down, when she did it, I still turned my head. Just habit. She thought it was hilarious.

Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

Been suppling small offices (workgroups) with W11. Start the brand new PC with no internet so no demand for a MS account. Then once at the desktop, taskbar put to the left and a reg tweak to bring back the classic 'right click' context menu. Then the end user feels it's close enough to W10 that they can actually work rather than be stuck having a WTF moments all day long.

The start menu sucks the most

Sage denies misleading customers over perpetual licensing, users not happy

"If Sage are genuinely offering free upgrades to customers who have support contracts without forcing them into a subscription"

I don't believe they are. What Sage are saying is to have a support contract you are on a subscription, therefore you have access to the current version already. So it's not really a free upgrade as such

If you don't have a subscription, it's not going to update anyway. But I still did my MTD VAT run this morning on my 3 years old version of Sage that's now locked down

There is a potential work around however. I found on one of the Sage KBs that if you install Sage with no internet, it will work fine and just requires the serial and activation codes. With this, I was able to find the account number key in the registry and delete it, then add specific firewall deny rules to block my Sage and so far has not nagged me.

I posted a lot of my findings on accountingweb. So far the stand alone seem to be fine, the network versions need a few more tweaks, but ultimately no one will know if this works until the servers are shut down.

Sage accused of misselling perpetual licenses it knew would soon be obsolete

Workaround?.....

I have v25 perpetual essentials, it's not the cloud version. I think I have come up with a way to get around the issue as on one of the Sage KBs, it did say that if you installed Sage on a none internet connected PC then you are unaffected.

If you go into Sage and look under Tools / Activation, there's a refresh license choice. Don't click on it, just make a visual note.

Go to help, about and under account number, take a note of the number.

Open resource monitor and under network, make a note of all the sage executables that are running off to the internet

close sage

disconnect the computer from the internet (eg, unplug the cable / wifi etc)

open regedit and search for the account number. I found it under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Sage\Line 50. Delete the AccountNumber key (see note later)

with the computer still disconnected, open sage. The 'refresh license' option before is now gone, under help / about the account number is no longer there and so far as I can tell, it thinks it has never been connected and 'might' continue to work after September. I wound the clock forward a month and never had the 3 day warning to reconnect.

Note:- if you reconnect to the internet and open sage, the deleted registry key is replaced and the 'refresh license' reappears. This is to be expected as Sage has ran off to the server. I suspect that if this works for you, you then add the deny firewall rules with the path to the Sage executables

The VAT MTD won't work, but that's an easy work around as you export the VAT to a CSV and use bridging software. I did it for the first time last quarter and all worked flawlessly.

But as a standalone Sage, mines been fine for the last few weeks since I made the above changes. It may not suit everyone or work on network versions or higher versions, but it's here as a suggestion.

I paid for it, that makes it mine. Doesn’t it? No – and it never did

Re: TomTom Lifetime Maps

In fairness to TT and Gamin etc, they do say on the box in small print that the lifetime updates is only the lifetime of the product

Too many years ago to remember I purchased a couple of music tracks to play in windows media player. Not long after I lost my freeserve email account and thus, lost the ability to play the purchased music. Damned DRM. Pretty much from that point I never purchased any more music online, always CD's and don't have a single software subscription.

I'm a happy perpetual dinosaur

Sage accused of strong-arming customers into subscriptions

YMMV

When I got the pop up warning I was annoyed, this was around a month ago? I have perpetual and also on v25. Having read a little deeper into the issue, Sage themselves said that a PC that was never connected to the internet when installed will not be affected. So after a full backup of sage and the VM, I uninstalled and cleared every trace of sage off the system. Disabled the nic and reinstalled. sure enough the licensing part doesn't get installed, however, should you turn on the nic and open sage it then runs off and you're back to the beginning.

repeated the above with the addition of windows firewall blocking outbound connections from sage.exe, sbddesktop.exe and sg50svc_v25.exe and so far it's been fine, even when I put the clock forward years it will run as if there's no internet

The VAT MTD was a pain, but it's just a few extra steps to export to a CSV and 100PcVatFreeBridge sees it and sends it off. No issues. Hopefully the CT one will be similar as quite frankly I will be damned if I have to spend money per month for doing my accounts for the paltry income I get these days.

Getting that syncing feeling after an Exchange restore

Good backups are one's that successfully test restore. I wonder if all the backups were totally incremental based but the original full backup was still needed and was lost in time. Maybe it ignored the weekly full. I also suspect circular logging would have helped the restore. it's something I have always enabled.

I've been around Exchange from the beginning and it still gives me the willies anytime I update it, however now it's virtualised so a test export makes life so much easier.

Been there at the weekend playing with eseutil and watching the painfully slow % bars, usually claiming back a few Gb of space

Microsoft unboxes Exchange Online certification in bid to push customers off-prem

I have been working round Exchange even before Exchange was Exchange and was a fancy email server built into Outlook 97. However I have resisted O365 and rue the day that onprem is no longer available. My clients don't want ongoing cost of subscription but find Exchange features very useful. I would have no issue with moving my clients to imap or a linux based mail server long before MS see's a single subscription penny.

FreeDOS puts out first new version in six years

cool

Now where's my Jazz Jackrabbitt shareware floppies?

IT technician jailed for wiping school's and pupils' devices

Indirectly related, but often I am asked to allow business emails on personal mobiles. Yes, I can do it, but always get that persons immediate boss to agree on the understanding that I cannot remove the email account from their personal device and it's up to them to ensure the account is removed.

Yes, the account is locked down should said person leaves, but it doesn't clear the existing emails.

I always had a feeling that should I do a remote wipe on a personal device it would come under the computer misuse act.

Please pay for parking – CMOS batteries don't buy themselves

Re: Paid parkng Tesco....

Tesco will have to pay the local water company surface water drainage, and based on size, could be a considerable charge per year

Reg reader returns Samsung TV after finding giant ads splattered everywhere

Good read. good advice

I have a 14 year old Toshiba 38" Regza. No wifi / ethernet, just a good old TV without the bells and whistles, it just works as good as the day I brought it. Recently my lad brought a JVC 4k and swapped our TV for his for testing before he moved out. The sound was tinny (he had to buy a sound bar to make it sound less awful), apps kept crashing, the remote was a nightmare. He partly did it to encourage me to get a better telly, however it did the opposite, it makes me more pleased with what I already have, good picture, great sound and no slurping.

Seems being a AV dinosaur has some perks

Windows what? PC makers have bigger things on their minds

Windows 10 with a few GUI tweaks is not going to sell computers when the current Windows 10 does the same job.

Microsoft's problem child, Windows 11, is here. Will you run it? Can you run it? Do you even WANT to run it?

I have advised my client base not to upgrade, due mainly to the right click menu being messed about. Stupid light blue icons for cut / copy / paste etc more clicks to do the same task.

But (and forgive my ignorance), if a graphics card has direct access to storage, how long will it before that's a vector for attack? I can see 'cryptolocking' fake games appearing that kills your system and windows will not know anything about it. (If I understood what I read correctly)

Microsoft shows off Office 2021 for consumers ahead of the coming of Windows 11

Upgrade for upgrade sake? I have customers still on Office 2010, it does exactly what they need it to do. Sure, the vast majority are on 2013 and higher as PCs were sold with the 'then' current version of Office. But the fact is that I have saved my clients a skip load of cash by them not having 365.

Windows 10 to hang on for five more years with 21H2 update

I look after around 400 desktops across different clients. The vast majority are around 10 year old i3 PCs, with 8Gb ram and SSD and are absolutely fine for what's needed from them. I know they will have to be sent to slaughter eventually, but its the all in ones that's only 6 years old that will be criminal to dump. Just because they have an older gen CPU renders them ineligible for an upgrade.

I know the company owners will simply stay on 10 until the 3rd party apps stop being compatible. No cloud sales, no upgrades, no pennies to MS but I will happily send my monthly invoice to look after them.

Fool me OnePlus, shame on me: Chinese phone firm fingered for fiddling with performance figures – again

I miss my OPO

I had one of the Oneplus Ones, about a year after they come out. It ticked all the boxes until 2018 when I needed an obscure android feature which it didn't have (i'm really struggling to remember what it was, but something to do with the calling side and was hidden) and went to Samsung S9+. First thing that surprised me was the S9 was no faster than the OPO, it still grinds along today.

I had been looking to go back to oneplus but the cost doesn't justify replacing a working phone that does everything I need it to do.

For the record, the OPO is still going strong, my lads get my hand me downs and I often wonder if I should do a swap with him.

Huawei hits the highway as Volkswagen signs to put 4G in 30 million vehicles

not at all big brother

Speed telemetry uploaded, speeding ticket in the post.

RIP Spencer Silver: Inventor of the Post-it Note, aka the office password reminder, dies

Piles of post it pads...

Looking below my screen right now is a small pile of post it notes with DrayTek written on them. Each time I sell a router to a client I keep the pad :)

Seagate UK customer stung by VAT on replacement drive shipped via the Netherlands

Lad had the same issue

My youngest had to return an AMD processor (also to Holland) and it just dragged on with him, the courier and AMD having to state the price, and often was the wrong price for customs declaration. Under RMA there needs to be a declaration of £0 with it being a warranty repair. All got resolved in the end but took a lot of leg work

Google Nest server outage leaves US, European smart homes acting dumb

Re: lifespan

It wasn't initially brought for that purpose, it was to remote hard restart some client equipment which eventually was replaced. Too good to chuck out.

I did have a timer and a dusk sensor but the wife drew the line at sensors so it now sits in the garage running a run of led down lighters.

lifespan

I try and avoid any IoT device because at some point in the future the maker will shut the server off. At the moment I do have a smart switch, it controls the outside lights at the front and has been very good, comes on at dusk, off at 23:00 and I can turn them on via the app if im late home, but I also know that one day it will stop functioning.

Built in obsolescence, ~5 years then computer says no

Super-antique-fragile-and-it's-XP-alidocious, even though the sight of it is something quite atrocious

ahh, that takes me back

They are running Wyse thin clients. I fitted loads across the South West as part of a Home Retail Group refresh

Microsoft: We're hiking UK cloud prices 22%. Stop whining – it's the Brexit

in that case...

Let Scotland break away from England, rejoin the EU and then watch MS et al lower their prices.

(Like any of that is going to happen)

Shocker: Clearing 2015's vast PC backlog was 'costly' for vendors

Re: Windows 7

i'm still buying Lenovos with W7 preinstalled, and will continue to do so until they run out

Windows 10 lags 7, 8 … and even Vista in the channel race

Re: It saturation. It isn't the OS, its the hardware

Yep, I have been selling i3's for years and despite then now being 4th gen, they are fast enough for most office roles. Only a failure is now the reason I replace computers, not speed or the latest shiney shiney

Symantec numbers are out. Execs might wish they weren't

Not surprised

Earlier this year they announced they were stopping SBE antivirus / SMSMSE as a package and selling them individually. Surprise surpise the combined price of both was near double what the package was.

So for my smaller clients, they have Avast free for business and only SMSMSE looking after their Exchange. Although the price is the same, it's Symantec that has ultimatlely lost out on revenue as the only thing that keeps me using SMSME is the fine control I have on content filtering - something I have yet to find on other Exchange protection software.

Profitable business evaporates at Systemax... make that all business growth

SBE

As a small business supplier, I would guess that some of their losses are down to

- Adoption to 365, so who needs to buy OEM office?

- i3 / i5 machines good at what they do, no significant speed improvements over the last few years (ignoring ssds etc)

- People happy to stay on W7 on their i3 / i5s

- Reduced server HW sales since it's all going to the cloud.

I would imagine that a lot of dizzies will struggle in the future as people move to the cloud. Eventually I see all PCs will become glorified thin clients an become a throw away white good, same as a microwave.

Northamber: Windows 10 killed our sales momentum

I suspect their big profits were down to lack of competition at the time, but as people got familiar with the likes of time and tiny etc, pcs ended up being cheaper anyway. I recall my 486 DX2/66 with 4mb of ram cost IRO £1200 back around 93/94, now I can get a crap (branded) one for sub £200. Account for a windows key, the cost of the hardware, I suspect the margin for that is probably £20 to the dizzy.

As for W10 killing the market, yes, to some degree. Consumers are quite happy with their XP / Vista / W7 machines and are put off by the negativity that surrounds 'tiles / start menu', however in the business world *I* don't feel much has changed. i'm still buying in W7 pcs for clients and have no intention of taking them futher until forced to.

Cloud provider goes TITSUP? Will someone think of the data!

bust or no broadband

same result - no work

Hear that sound? It's the Windows XP PC bubble popping

Re: So does this mean

Ebuyer has been pushing PCs at £149, and Ingram Micro selling i3's at up to £100 off since xmas, so yes, bargains to be had

HP: We're gonna book $1bn worth of Server 2003 sales THIS WEEK

no more HP from me

Been selling Fujitsu Primergy servers for the last few years. Not had a single issue and pretty damn fast. Good value, and best of all, no contracts required if I need to do a firmware.

400,000 Windows Server 2003 boxes face SUPPORT DOOM

And how many of those boxes have dozy users logged on and wandering around dubious websites?

I don't think the risks are any where are big as XP. None of the few 2k3 boxes I look after are connected to the internet so where's the risk?

My customers will replace when needed, not because they need to.

Microsoft tells resellers to use Office 365 as loss leader

They are on imap with 1and1 and is the reason im trying to get them off. I'm used to exchange, but if you want to suggest an alternative I will look. I have tried other mail servers, eg, hmailserver but it simply doesn't work well enough over wan

I suppose it makes sense for some, but I can't get my head around why people want to put their customers on 365 and then never see any future renewal profit.

I look after one company that has 50 or so mailboxes spread over 8 locations. I considered a hosted exchange as £6 / month / mailbox doesn't seem much, but scale that up to 50 or £300 a month and suddenly the costs become significant. In less than 18 months it becomes cheaper to buy a basic server, exchange and cals and self host.

Home Office terminates order for 16,000 PCs from Dell

Maybe...

Someone spent all the budget on chrome laptops.

Hitachi Data Systems hands out P45s ... to EXECUTIVES

good`

take the one out at the top and save 5 ~ 10 jobs below

Microsoft took away $4m of our profits, laments mighty reseller

unfair to MS

I'm not entirely sure that MS should be to blame here.Yes, W8 is a bitch and shoving everything into the cloud means less recurring profits, however as an ex insight user/buyer I found that their prices were often higher than say ebuyer, had poor range, their couriers turned up often 3 days later than expected and they had such a high 'account manager' churn that I had no idea who my manager is / was.

So their losses doesn't surprise me

Amazon Web Services runs out of (some) servers

aka

All resources have been utilised in bitcoin mining operations