Posts by CanadianMacFan

HP CFO Cathie Lesjak didn't even read KPMG's Autonomy due diligence before $11bn biz gobble

Didn't need the due diligence report to reject the deal

Around the time of the deal I was working at a place that was using Autonomy's software for the search functionality of the website. They had been users of the software for years, from when it was called Verity. Whenever I needed to find something on the site I just went to Google because I could never find anything with the site's own search. It was that bad. Can't blame the people looking after the software as they brought in consultants from Autonomy to set everything up. The website search was behaving like it was supposed to.

The place even sent me on some training from Verity/Autonomy. In the course they were using the US website of Best Buy as a wonderful example of their software. In the course I was playing around with the search on Best Buy's site and I remember I would search for an item, bring up the page for that item, search for something specific about the item such as the model number, and the search would return no results.

If HP just performed some searches with Autonomy's software they would have realized that any amount of money was too much to buy that company.

ALIS through the looking glass: F-35 fighter jet's slurpware nearly made buyers pull out – report

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Um, I'm not that Gary, American man tells Ryanair after being sent other Gary's flight itinerary

Re: It'll never happen...

I have my own domain also but a couple of times a year I get email that's meant for someone at a Canadian research council because the two domains differ by one letter and someone has mixed them up.

Cops called after pair enter Canadian home and give it a good clean

Re: Milk in Bags?

4 litres comes in a bag that contains three of the bags of milk that you put in the plastic holder.

And in current affairs: Rogue raccoon blacks out city power grid after shocking misstep

Re: Furry Vengence

Considering it wasn't that long ago (mid-June) that a raccoon was climbing a 20+ story office building in Minnesota you might want to rethink that very low wall.

When we build the wall to keep the Americans out of Canada we will ensure that there are plenty of "cat flaps" to allow our raccoons continued access to the US so that they can keep up their ongoing campaign of mayhem.

User spent 20 minutes trying to move mouse cursor, without success

Re: Keyboard ecosystems

"It was alive I tell you, alive!"

How many new antibiotics and cures for cancers did you just throw away?

Britain's new F-35s arrive in UK as US.gov auditor sounds reliability warning klaxon

Re: What will happen during a war?

Detuned? That implies that bagpipes can be tuned in the first place!

Your F-35s need spare bits? Computer says we'll have you sorted in... a couple of years

Unfortunately the lawyers are the only thing that works correctly on this project.

Pentagon sticks to its guns: Yep, we're going with a single cloud services provider

Re: Co-CEO chats with current POTUS?

"It's enough to force them to wear distinctive clothing in public as a warning to others"

They willingly do that now.

Google to add extra Gmail security … by building a walled garden

Re: Watchout Facebook is trying the same scam

Yes, many people get a free account with their ISP but it becomes a pain if you move and have to switch providers or you just switch ISPs in order to save money. Then you have to tell everyone to update their contacts with your new email address and you need to update all the companies that may send you something important (such as a bill). There would also be the issue of moving the mail from the old ISP to the new ISP (unless I used POP instead of IMAP but many non-technical people might not think to retrieve the messages before closing the account).

It's much easier to have an email account that doesn't change no matter how you access the Internet. However, Google, Microsoft, and those companies are not the only companies out there that offer free accounts. Others out there offer accounts as a way to try their services with the hope that you will need more than 5GB (or whatever limit they have) or would like to upgrade to other services. The company I'm with is aiming their services at small to medium business but lets individuals have free accounts, with a few restrictions. I even use my own domain with them. When someone asks I give them a good reference because their service has been great. Whenever I have changed ISPs in the past I've never had to worry about losing contact with anyone because my email address has stayed the same.

UK's Just Eat faces probe after woman tweets chat-up texts from 'delivery guy'

Re: I'm failing to see how this is Just Eat's fault

The only way that they could reduce this happening is to create an app that would SMS/call the client without divulging the number to the driver and instead of passing the phone number with the order to the restaurant give a PIN to enter into the application. If the person responds back then they give away their phone number. Of course there'd be no way to hide the name and address though they could just pass along the first name and only show the full name in the app if the driver can't find the place. Once it's delivered, by having the customer sign or tap a button on the app then the details can't be shown to the delivery person.

But you are creating a system in which every delivery person would have to sign up for the app or be registered by the restaurant. It's an extra step and wouldn't always stop this problem, just reduce it.

Brazil says it has bagged Royal Navy flagship HMS Ocean for £84m

Buy one get the other thrown in for free.

Re: Serious Question

Kind of like the submarines you sold to Canada, eh?

Re: Whats in a name

More like Big Jim (for King James VI of Scotland) or something like that as it's names after Elizabeth I and not the current Elizabeth II.

For fanbois only? Face ID is turning punters off picking up an iPhone X

Re: Real data?

Since it was asking potential customers whether Face ID would impact their purchasing decision I'm guessing that they don't have the phone yet. /s

I won't be buying it, or any phone, that has Face ID. Not because of the stuff that has been mentioned about the police and other people making you unlock your phone. I live in a place where a third of the year it's cold enough that my face needs to be protected from the cold when I go out. Unless I'm staying in a store for a while I stay wrapped up even on the bus. With using my fingerprint I can easily unlock my phone in the cold with just taking my glove off. I'll be damned if I have to uncover my face for anything that needs an ID.

I know that I can enter the password but then what's the use of having something of to save me from entering the password when I can't use it all of the time like I could with the fingerprint ID?

Let's go live now to Magic Leap and... Ah, still making millions from made-up tech

Re: That's not a pattern you've given us

I'm Canadian so I have a closet full of lumberjack shirts. My only concern is what will the baristas look like? There are some people that shouldn't be seen naked in public (I happen to be one of them but I'm not applying to be a barista).

Web uni says it will get you a tech job or your money back. So our man Kieren signed up...

Re: Shortage ?

I fully support minimum-wage brain surgeons if they are anything like Ben Carson (who ran in the Republican primaries in 2016 and is now the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development). Actually with some of the things that he's said minimum-wage is too good.

Brit broke anti-terror law by refusing to cough up passwords to cops

It's not the judge's fault

I don't know why you are so upset at the judges. They are stuck in what their actions. They apply the rules of law that were written by the politicians. The only way that a judge can overturn a law is if one side, usually the defence, makes an argument that the law in question violates a right or freedom or breaks another law. It doesn't sound like that's how the defence argued the case this time so the law still stands. The judge is unable to do research on their own on matters unrelated to evidence not presented in the case.

You should be directing your anger towards the politicians who created the law in the first place and those who have failed to repeal it.

Huawei Honor 8 Pro: Makes iPhone 7 Plus look a bit crap

Yet another large "phone"

Is there any company that makes smaller phones? I know that Apple has the SE but I'm not going to pay their asking price for a phone that has a bunch of features missing. It was bad enough when they had the two sizes and the plus version had a couple of extras. Now they bring out the SE halfway through the normal cycle (which they didn't this year) and it's missing the big features altogether. For the most part it just has things like the processor upgrade.

Bring out the phone in the three sizes and have all three equal except for the screen size. And f*ck off about making them thinner all of the time. Nobody is screaming about wanting them thinner. How about making them a bit thicker for once and put some more battery back in? Apple has acknowledged the problem since it's selling external battery packs. If people are willing to put that ugly thing on their phone then they would be more than willing to have a phone that's a bit thicker.

Yes, I do like my Apple stuff. I used to be a fan but Apple's products have been going downhill since Jobs passed away. And I have (I didn't want to put the pun in with the contraction) never been afraid of calling them out, as you can see. Their stuff has usually worked but it's getting less user friendly. If something better came along I would switch.

Man sues date for cinema texting fiasco, demands $17.31

Re: This guy is about to become a legend

What children? They'll start, she'll whip out the phone to text a friend, and he'll leave the room frustrated.

O (n^2) Canada! Code bugs knacker buses, TV, broadband, phone lines

Re: 100% own goal.

I will admit that the middle of the night would probably be the best time but the middle of the day isn't that bad for TV as most of the viewers are at work or school. You aren't going to do it during the evening as that's when prime viewing time is. The morning probably has people catching up on news.

Actually, why aren't there extra systems in place to handle failures or extra load? They've shown with this upgrade that their system has a single point of failure.

'I feel violated': Engineer who pointed out traffic signals flaw fined for 'unlicensed engineering'

Re: Landgrab again

But in Canada engineer isn't a protected designation. That's why we have domestic engineers, sanitation engineers, etc. The equivalent to the engineer in Oregon is Professional Engineer and every province has an organization that enforces the rules, as like for medical doctors. Having a degree from university isn't enough to call yourself a professional engineer. You need to sit a test that challenges your technical, legal, and ethical knowledge.

Re: Self description

He could have even said that he was trained as an engineer or had a degree in engineering and would have been fine as those don't make the claim he is acting as an engineer. Though he didn't really need to say anything about his profession and let the math speak for itself.

HPE's Australian tax failures may have been user error

Certainly was user error

And that was to go with HPE in the first place. I haven't used any of their 3PAR hardware but if it's anything like their first generation of blade computers which I have first hand working knowledge of then I wouldn't want to touch their hardware.

The only good thing I ever had to say about those blades was that if you ever needed to warm up and you were in the data centre then you could stand behind those. We had to put in special cooling to handle the heat coming off of them. And the shutting down of the whole rack to change a power supply was just nuts.

FBI let alleged pedo walk free rather than explain how they snared him

Fighting Child Porn Like Fighting Drugs

Police everywhere seem to be fighting child porn and the distribution of images in the same manner as they do the distribution of drugs. In the case of the images they appear to concentrate their efforts on those who download the pictures for viewing. It's the same as going after the casual drug users. What they really need to be doing is going after the people who are creating the images. They are the ones truly hurting the children.

The FBI had control of a server and they go after the people who downloaded images. There was the opportunity to find out who uploaded them. Get those people and work up the chain until you find out who shot the photos. Then you lock them away for life. Make them fear for their freedom if they create child sex abuse images. They certainly don't feel that way now.

Apple sued by parents of girl killed by driver 'distracted by FaceTime'

Never an individuals fault

We're in an age where it's not politically correct to say that an individual is at fault for something. Sure the driver caused the accident but he's not at fault because Apple didn't implement a feature on it's phone. Because the driver couldn't possibly have the self control to not use the phone. It always has to be the fault of a corporation or the government.

Re: Sad

Even if it is being used by the driver it could be used correctly in a hands-free manner. In this case FaceTime shouldn't be used but other functions are allowed.

No Soylent for Santa after key ingredient supply is choked off

I'll go with the supplier

When it comes to Soylent I'll tend to believe the other person first. At the beginning I was interested in it but then I started to look into the company and the founder. The creator is just not all there. Instead of doing laundry he's quoted as getting new garments shipped over from China and donating the used ones to charity because it takes less water to create the new ones than to launder the old ones. Many problems with that line of thinking. So if he's anywhere near the investigation into what was making people sick then I wouldn't trust the results.

Remember that amazing video of the whale leaping out the gym floor and splashing down? Yeah, it was BS

Re: The guide to spotting non-existent tech

So what you are really saying that Magic Leap did wrong is not get a government contract that was part of the F-35?

Netflix and fill – our coffers: Canada mulls taxing vid streaming giant 5% of subs cash

Re: Fucking Politicians

I can't speak for the person to who you are replying to but I don't think they were advocating the removal of all taxes. This proposed tax is ridiculous though. It's a tax to prop up the Canadian movie and TV industry in order to provide Canadian content to the world.

It's time for the entertainment industry to stand up for itself. Especially since so much of what is produced in Canada is shows for America. Hollywood likes to come up to Vancouver and Toronto because of the cheaper dollar and make their shows here. There are some Canadian shows made here that do make internationally, such as Murdoch Mysteries. Profits from these should be reinvested in the industry. Private investors should be found to back the shows. Instead of making the industry more dependent on government handouts they should be trying to get away from them. The industry needs to make better products and sell them across the world and then take that money to reinvest in new projects.

Wow. What a shock. The FBI will get its bonus hacking powers after all

VPNs?

Many places that I've worked at required me to use a VPN if I wanted to log in from home. How many people are going to have their computers hacked by the FBI just because they are required to use it for work?

Probably will go after anyone using HTTPS next. Sure, it looked like they were connecting to a bank but you can't be too careful with those terrorists. /s

Re: What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander

I think that they've already stated that hacking into US government computers would be considered an act of war.

Has Canadian justice gone too far? Cops punish drunk drivers with NICKELBACK

Re: What if...

Or The Vinyl Cafe with Stuart Mclean. I imagine that if you are drunk then the way he talks will screw with your mind.

Jersey sore: Anchor rips into island's undersea cables, sinks net access

Redundancy

The whole point of having multiple cables for redundancy is kind of lost if you lay then on the seabed where an anchor can cut all three in one go.

What should the Red Arrows' new aircraft be?

Canada's Snowbirds

Canada has an air demonstration squadron of Canadair CT-114 Tutor which were procured in 1962. (http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/aircraft-current/ct-114.page) We really need some new planes to replace them. I hope that they pick something like the SuperHornet for the replacement given the history of using the CF-18 in the Air Force. But given our history of procurement the SuperHornet will be long retired by the time we get around to buying anything to replace the Tutors even if we decided to replace them today.

F-35 'sovereign data gateway' will stop US reading pilots' personal data? Yeah right

No so secret special ops

Hope the President remembers to ask for the F-22s to carry out any special ops that they want to deny which involve going into countries that the US isn't involved in combat with. Or at least if they send the F-35s remember that the flight plan is also sent to Texas.

Whoosh! China shows off J-20 'stealth' fighters and jet drones

Spares

Wonder if they have any extras to sell to Canada. Can't be worse than the F-35 that we were supposed to buy. See if we could get a version without weapons and radar so that we could put in our own.

New MacBook Pro beckons fanbois to become strip pokers

And nothing about desktops

Meanwhile a bunch of people wanted to hear about new Mac Pros and iMacs. I was wanting to hear some news about iMacs. They haven't been updated in a year. I was thinking of updating my 2009 iMac. Mind you considering how they have been doing their updates lately I might just want to buy the current model to have the ports.

Or try to make a hackintosh. Anyone know of good manufacturer of an all-in-one machine with a 27" screen similar to the iMac? Bonus points if it doesn't come with Windows.

Possible reprieve for the venerable A-10 Warthog

Re: Good on them, I say...

It's not just the Brits that the Americans don't like. It wasn't with an A-10 but in Afghanistan there were some Canadians out doing nighttime training. An American out in his fighter jet coming back from patrol and despite being told of the training he thought that the flashes of the gunfire meant that he was being attacked and so he dropped a bomb on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarnak_Farm_incident

Smoking hole found on Mars where Schiaparelli lander, er, 'landed'

Re: Metric and imperial

So it's obviously the team who was responsible for the crushable bit that is at fault for not planning to take into account this easily foreseeable mistake and not take the proper actions to deal with it.

Is Apple's software getting worse or what?

Re: Preview

Try dragging the video or photo from Photos onto the Desktop or into a folder in Finder.

You're fired (into space)! Trump tops Martian ejaculation poll

Please no

I'd hate to think that in a 1,000 students of history would be hearing about the great pioneer Trump and how he risked his life along with Clinton (or whoever else) to become the first people on Mars. Everything else will have probably gotten lost as storage mediums change, file formats change, files get deleted accidentally, storage units (hard drives, discs, crystals, etc) get misplaces, etc. They won't remember that Trump is lower that stuff a dung beetle cringes at when it walks on it.

US govt straight up accuses Russia of hacking prez election

Re: USA: We be incomptent, yo!

The Americans seem to be able to screw up something as simple as paper ballots. Three words:

Florida 2000 chads

High rear end winds cause F-35A ground engine fire

Re: workaround?

Nay, if you are starting it on land then you must start it in an approved shelter from Lockheed Martin.

How does facing into the wind make more money for the company? At sea the planes are on a carrier so there isn't much that you can do there.

Re: workaround?

You're never going to see the F-35A on a carrier since it's the only version made not to work on one. The F-35C has the arrestor hook, setup required for catapult launches, and any required strengthening. The F-35B is the STOVL version.

Who Knew...

that Samsung had taken over making the F-35?

Re: A wreck without leaving the ground

I hate to break this to you but the F-35 is the cheap-n-cheerful aircraft to sell to other countries and to use when the F-22 is in short supply. Of course they were worried about the cost of the F-22 and chose to change more of the mix to the F-35. Oops!

The wait is over: MoD releases latest issue of Ship Paint Monthly

Re: Dezincification

Around five years ago (maybe a bit more) the city of Ottawa in Canada installed sacrificial anodes and connected them to the fire hydrants in order to try and extend the lifetime of the hydrants and the pipes. I haven't heard anything if the project is working or not.

If we can't fix this printer tonight, the bank's core app will stop working

Re: Ah pagers....

Back in the late 90s there was a new contractor where I was working and he refused to carry the pager we took turns wearing because of the electromagnetic radiation associated with it. As if the pager sent anything out or the tower sent a beam directly to the pager.

EU ends anonymity and rules open Wi-Fi hotspots need passwords

Re: Let's step back for a second

Please let's kill this idea right here. Facebook has spread far enough and I don't want to have to get an account on there just so that I can start using Wi-Fi at coffee shops. Having them track me wherever I go on the Web isn't worth getting a bit of free access with my coffee.

Besides, there's nothing that enforces a Facebook account to be your real identity. They only check it out if they receive complaints.