Posts by TonyJ 1642 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Dec 2010
...for her but also for her family.
I can never (and truthfully hope to never) understand either what motivates people into such crimes to begin with but then the lies and manipulation of what they do/do not "remember" and the ongoing mental anguish that causes loved ones of the deceased is unfathomable.
The driver was clumsy in his approach and should have had more common sense and this was not the right approach to try and talk to a woman. It was a creepy invasion of privacy and I'm not justifying it.
Given most of the readership here work in IT related fields I am sure we all know someone (or even many someones) who aren't that confident around the opposite sex face-to-face but find it much easier to communicate via other media.
I'm equally sure we've all come across similar creepiness over the years.
Given the driver has to have the customers' address by virtue of them delivering the food that's one thing you can't get away from but surely it's not beyond the realms of the likes of Just Eat to add some kind of text or voice based messaging to their app that is single session for the duration of the order then destroyed? That can also be tracked and stored for just this kind of incident.
JE's response to the complaint (and I agree it wasn't really their fault, directly) was still not good enough - it was very lacking in all the important areas.
But...let's not end up in a world where one sex trying to "chat up" for want of a better term a member of the opposite sex automatically becomes an offence. :(
"...or racket. "It'd be really bad if something bad happened to you so consider joining our platform" says MS..."
Unfortunately though, in a world where you can get sued for putting rounded corners on something or where patent trolls abound it's possibly not such a bad racket to have.
Not sure what they mean here as you can already do the things listed with config files and although it's been a while since I was doing it, I seem to recall at least one of those files were JSON. Happy to be corrected on that though.
I know, Mozilla - how about actually providing a mechanism to manage FF from AD Group Policies?
I'd suggest anyone thinking of deploying FF in any kind of commercial/production environment get a hold of CCK2 to do it.
Law enforcement turn up:
"Unlock your machine!"
"I am trying but my password isn't working"
"Oh you're refusing to hand over your login crypto keys*? Off to jail with you until you comply!!"
"But honestly...that IS my password...."
*Because lets face it - passwords, PINs, keys....all one and the same in the eyes of most police forces et al.
The thing is they do make great cameras but these days they are so incredibly expensive compared to alternatives.
My dive buddy and I have have a Hero 4 after our 3 broke it's mount and sank - but there's no point in trying to use it on a dive in 4K or with the screen on or without an extra battery as the cold waters will drain the thing in minutes.
Also compare the knock off models you can pick up for 30 or 40 quid that will do just as good a job and that you don't care quite so much if they are lost or damaged and you can see why their sales are slipping.
Even the mid-range brands you can pick up are half the price.
So not really a surprise when they say they didn't sell at the same price as when they launched, but they started to when they dropped the price...
"Went looking for a suitable quote..."
Went to Leeds a couple of weeks ago to watch Queen and Adam Lambert (brilliant, by the way).
On leaving the arena, half the sodding local roads were shut as was the M621. As was a chunk of the M1.
Believe me....Leeds to the dark side is about right!!!
Honestly....Microshaft, Micro$oft, Slurp, yada yada yada yada
Even if good points are made, puerile and childish name calling detracts from it to the point a lot of people don't even bother to read what's said.
The points that both sides forget all too often are that it's about choice. Yes, really - your average user will choose to buy a computer from the likes of PC World, Dell, HP or even Tesco or Sainsbury's and because it ships with a copy of Windows installed (and it's what they most likely use at work) and it'll run the Office package they mostly know (also from work) and the games they or their kids want to play then they are happy with their choice.
They will never open a machine up, drill down into the guts of either the hardware of software. They don't want to.
The same people happily use Facebook, Google and any other number of sites that gobble up their personal information so the stuff that Windows 10 sends back is of less than no concern to them.
Having had to dig too many people out of the shit in the past because they had hookie copies of XP that wouldn't update, personally, I believe no home versions of Windows should prevent users from (or rather allow users not to) applying updates. Ever. Rather the occasionally borked machine than one with more holes than your average sieve.
Likewise you may be more computer savvy (most certainly if you comment here) and your choice may be one of the many many versions of Linux out there and you really probably enjoy tweaking and playng.
I run both for whatever tools or applications suit my need but I don't feel the need to shout about either or cuss the choices of others.
Likewise, I dont feel the need to constantly complain about things that I last experienced 10 or even 20 years ago - a lot of MS software has moved on. Try some of it. Hell I even got downvoted recently for pointing out that LIbre Office 5.03 (I think it was) had included the option of allowing you to have a ribbon just like MS introduced with Office over a decade ago and to which still dozens of commentards here foam at the mouth about....look around you people....office workers and home users have adapted to it and just get on with it. Hell it's worth saying twice - it's been over a decade...it's not going away.
Seriously....for people that espouse the benefits of the right to choose, some of you are very anti-choice when it doesn't match your personal ideal or idea of the "right" choice!
I've said it before - both sides of this fence need to grow up some. It's an OS not a religion.
"...bring back free parking .."
A good few years ago, out local council sold off land to be built on and shut down the park-and-ride because that's where the ran it from.
So fast forward to a few years ago and they decided for a couple of months over the Christmas period to make all the council-owned car parks free.
You couldn't move. Even more than the usual Christmas rush.
After the free period ended, they rather sneakily increased parking from 90p per hour to £1 and since then it's gone up to around £1.50 on average.
And funnily enough, even around this time of year you never seem to struggle to get parked. Even at weekends.
Of course, they've had other great ideas like pricing market stall holders out of bothering to come as they can't make enough to afford the pitch.
Seems like they are utterly clueless for the most part about things like this.
"...When I look at the number of nation state malware examples Kaspersky has exposed or helped expose they look like the good guys to me. Can I entertain the notion that the US spooks are pissed at their work being exposed and are trying to weaken Kaspersky as a response? Yes I can..."
I said pretty much the same thing when this first occurred.
It was Kaspersky who unveiled the work of the so-called Equation Group, for example, with some of their nefarious tricks such as compromised HDD firmware since around 2003 (I seem to recall).
Yeah...hard not to agree here that Kaspersky are the better side.
"..."Did you hear that? The Pope said something very important today. Very. Important. Fake News is a sin. That's what the Pope said. When CNN put up Fake News about me, they are sinning. When the BBC put out fake news about me, they are sinning. The mainstream media are sinners, and they will burn in hell. It's not me who said it, that's what the Pope said." Etc etc..."
Bet you all read that in his voice then, too? I know I did :)
Not to mention that once Apple started down the line of supporting Activesync natively in iOS, it became trivial to connect a phone to a corporate email system.
No more BES needed and no more BES-enabled mobile contracts.
Of course, I am saying nothing of the management nightmare it brought for a time but it did make like easier for users.
I'm sure we all have memories of various director-level staff strolling up to their internal support guys and gals demanding their iDevice be connected to allow email.
"...Mr Allan's lawyers were denied access to the woman's telephone records after police insisted there was nothing of interest for the defence or prosecution..."
Nice to know they were doing there jobs there, then. "Nothing to see here...move along".
When can we expect to see them on trial for this then? What? Never? Oh...
Here's a thing about your 2% figure though.
A quick Google took me to a Guardian article starting that official figures listed 23,851 reported cases in 2015/16 in the UK and Northern Ireland.
At 2% that is just short of 500 falsely accused.
So that's potentially 500 men who had their lives utterly ruined whilst the accusers not only get off scot free but usually also get to remain anonymous.
All I am calling for is equality in the system that means until a conviction is secured, both parties by law have to remain anonymous unless there are very good reasons not to (and that'd be for the courts to decide). In either case, post-conviction the guilty party should be named and the victim given the opportunity to remain or waive their anonymity as they see fit.
I still just feel there are key aspects to the story missing. Why, for example, has it taken 5 years to get to this? Why did the police find no crime had been committed?
As I originally said, MS should have moved them both for the very reasons you said as well as to be seen to be impartial such as not to prejudice the case. Just moving a desk was woefully poor action.
...there seem to be several issues here.
Firstly, I don't know if the same is true of our US cousins but here in the UK, women that make a rape charge have their identity protected but the accused men don't. And, as mentioned before, women can and do lie (I am not suggesting she lied, by the way - just a generalisation) but even if found not guilty that kind of mud sticks
That should change. The identities of both should be protected until one of them is found either guilty of assault/rape or found to be lying.
Secondly, there's the big question mark over why the police felt there was no charge to answer to - now assuming that they did everything correctly, then that rather suggests there was no rape.
However, I believe that Microsoft should have transferred both of them. Not as a punishment in any way but to be seen to be acting properly to protect both individuals - moving desks doesn't seem to be enough.
Dunno...it just feels like there are key items missing in the story.
...our local council use Crapita to process online payments for various things from council taxes to paying for a recycling bin for garden waste. It was on the latter that tit ook me more than a few seconds when being sent to the card payment site that the big graphics of card types wasn't just a "we accept the following" type of thing but was waiting for me to tell it which type of card I was planning to use by clicking on the right one.
Notwithstanding that most places seem to be able to work this out automatically from the card number, there was nothing at all to indicate you were supposed to do this.
"...most foreign truckers coming to this country have extra large tanks already to avoid having to re-fuel here and any excess can often be bought from returning truckers..."
Yup. Time we made them pay a toll on entry as soon as they disembark from the ferry.
Also make it per person - speaking with a friends' dad who owned a transport company, he was saying one of the reasons he decided to sell up and get out of that business was because of the number of Eastern European companies who could pay such ridiculously low salaries, that they would have three drivers in a cab. One driving, one sleeping and one in the passenger seat. Once the driver had done his hours, swap the discs and drivers over and carry on.
"...Abolish road tax and put it on fuel instead. It's done elsewhere so why not here. You pay more or less according to your road usage. Simple, fair and no way of avoiding it..."
I've said that many times.
Hell, even add a couple more pence per litre of fuel and use it for third-party insurance. That way no one can ever drive uninsured or untaxed.
And on the plus side, you could potentially close a large portion of the DVLA and reap those cost benefits.
As others have said the current system is far from ideal.
I bought a new vehicle and had to have it replaced due to unreliability (in the few months I owned it, it was in my possession less than 25% of that time and the rest back at the dealer, so I ultimately said replace or refund).
As a 40th birthday present my wife had bought me a cherished plate a few years prior to this.
Quite some time after replacement I got a tax refund. Thought nothing of it, as they'd taxed the replacement.
Not much longer after I was pulled over by the police. I was untaxed and the vehicle was showing as being in "dealer stock".
The dealer was adamant I must've done this...no mention of the fact they most likely did it by using my cherished registration rather than the original one (despite my having put the original plates back on!).
Thankfully the police officer was incredibly pleasant and understanding but it's not an experience I'd want to repeat.
And...what is with this rip off concept that if I sell my vehicle today, I lost the rest of the months' tax but I can only tax a replacement from the start of the month, so effectively I pay twice. No excuse for that now it's all done automatically.
"..Same here, mine are on their last legs and whilst I like them, I will see what else is about..."
I have some you can buy in super condition - two Squeezebox Boom's, a SB3 and a very old (only any good for wired connections) SB1 wtih SB2 display. ;-p
They're slowly being retired now.
All joking aside, at the time there was nothing to touch them.
After they bought Slim Devices and made a hash of the direction of the Squeeze Players they closed that down too.
Wouldn't touch Logitech for this very reason - it wouldn't be so bad if they even retired a product line, then after some years decided to retire it but they just drop the axe.
Not sure how this compares to a Fire TV but on mine I have NetFlix as well as the usual suspects of BBC iPlayer etc.
I did even pop a version of Kodi on it at one point.
It does voice search.
It can handle pretty much any Android app (there is a great little app for Android phones called Apps2Fire that basically copies any app from my S7 onto the Fire).
It's quick and intuitive and way before Sky got in on the act with their so-called fluid viewing, you could stop watching on the box downstairs, fire up the app on the Smart TV upstairs and pick up where you left off.
Also right now in the UK the new generation version that supports 4K is less than £70.
So I'd be hard pressed to accept the Roku box is "the best" although of course, your own personal tastes may vary and other boxes are available :)
"...Yeah that's a pretty good deal. What are they like to work with? I use them for my personal mobile service and despise their customer support team with a passion...."
So far they've been great - UK based call centre and they know their stuff when I've had to call which to be fair hasn't been often.
The first time was to query the welcome letter that they sent that had the wrong costs on (and a little font at the bottom saying that it didn't include any discounts you may have received - they explained that and agreed it's a crap letter), the second was request the IP address and login details to use my own router setup and the final was a billing query as it wasn't clear it was the first 6 weeks rather than 4.
In every case I got straight through, spoke to someone helpful who knew what they were talking about and came away pleased.
The service itself - it is not noticeable different from BT's to be fair.
I think, in all honesty, you tend to get better service with a business account. It's not always the cheapest by a long stretch. When I swapped mobile providers three years ago, I wanted away from O2 as they'd gone from good to bad to absolutely terrible. Three were awful to deal with but generally gave decent deals and good performance and Vodafone were hideously expensive.
EE got really bad reviews for anything consumer but hidden away were reports of them winning award after award for businesses. Best thing I did - fast, loads of shared data and the usual unlimited minutes yada yada but again - UK call centre staffed with people who know what they're doing and do it well.
"...however you're still paying for it ..."
Possibly true but here's the figures for comparison:
BT Business Infinrity with 5 Static IP's (4 x usable): £56pm due to rise again shortly after I left them to as I recall £60-61pm
Line rental £18.99pm
So the monthly bill to BT was £75pm
Vodafone Business Fibre + 9 Static IP's (8 usable so a doubling) £32.50pm (£25 + 7.50 for the IP's)
You may be right that they're bundling it in but not showing it but at that kind of saving, I don't care much :)
Moved to Vodafone Business Fibre.
They charge no line rental.
Between the actual cost savings compared to BT Infinity Business Fibre and losing BT's line rental I have more than halved what I was paying for a slightly better service (greater number of static IPs, for example).
And I liked their pragmatic approach - when I told the sales guy I don't even have a phone plugged in, and it's used purely to service the broadband, he got it right away and didn't try to upsell anything.
I can see a lot that could go wrong with this but playing devil's advocate for a second there's a few things that spring to mind that could also be positives such as patients actually having company for a while. Hospitals these days are pushed to breaking point and health care staff struggle to find that kind of time more often than not (and that's no slur on them - they do a fantastic job for the most part).
Also going with it is an almost one-to-one monitoring (though again, flip side of that coin is a lack of help if something were to go wrong with the patients' health).
Not sure it's a good idea at all but something that is possibly worth considering for some of the lighter cases, perhaps?
Snapshots at a hypervisor level have never been a backup mechanism.
Now snapshot-aware backups are of course useful, but that's not the same thing.
Must admit I have only used Xen in it's Citrix form here and there but it always felt a bit clunky by comparison to the others out there. Mind you, that could also be down to the very fact I encountered it only rarely.
Gotta ask though...hypervisors for cars??? Why? (That is a genuine question)
"I know it's a hobby..."
Here's a thing. He wasn't posing with firearms he was posing with what is effectively a toy. For his hobby.
There are pictures of my in diving or climbing gear I've posed for.
One of my friends races cars for a hobby...guess what...?
Context is key.
"...In my experience that's often not the case, at least in the regions we work in. Our interviews are very real-world, and of course still many people don't make the grade..."
This isn't always fair.
I have 20 years of experience across various roles. Asking me to recall things ad-hoc that may be obscure or esoteric proves memory not experience.
Mind you then there's the interviews where the person interviewing you has a networking background (I don't) then wants to drill down into network architecture.
And says stupid things like "well wouldn't you use BitLocker as a start to securing your Office 365 implementations...?"
And we're not talking the application suite here.
Testing memory ain't the same as testing knowledge and is why so many "professional" certifications aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
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