Posts by TonyJ 1642 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Dec 2010
This seems to be a bizarre way that Virgin work.
I popped my email into their "we will let you know when we are coming to your area" website as our estate was built after they initially ran their fibre so we lucked out.
That was three years ago.
18 months ago I got a "great news! we're coming to your area" email.
SInce then...nothing. I asked them on Twitter and was told to register my interest on the same website.
So "coming soon" seems to be their default operating model.
Yes indeedy. I've said this many times - 1) Stop trying to make technology be the parent. I have two sons: one of almost 15 and one almost 9.
The 9yo rarely has unspupervised access to the internet and his games are age-proportional.
For the almost 15yo I am slightly less concerned because I have all of his passwords. He knows that I can, and do, randomly check what he's been up to.
That's the price he pays for the freedoms.
So....having got that first part of the argument out of the way (and here's a tip for the moronic parents and mumsnet types that believe this is necessary - put the computer/tablet etc where you can see it when it's in use) the second point, b) is, as others have called out - it's one step away from the Government saying things like "Oh expenses scandal? What expenses scandal? <click>"
Of course you can insert your own bit there for whatever they deem it necessary to "protect us from seeing".
We, as a nation, seem to be hell bent on sleep walking into 1984....it was a warning ffs not an instruction manual :(
This article - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/20/daniel_mahony_comug_gsm_gateway_bail_7_years/ - has had all the comments either rejected or deleted by a moderator...
Anyone have any idea why?
My own was just a simple question about the length of the bail - nothing out of the ordinary or inflammatory.
Seems a bit odd/heavy handed by El Reg.
"...Yes; Fusil Automatique Leger IIRC.
And a much better firearm firing a much more effective round as well, but the fashionable thinking of the day thought it it had too long a barrel for the Battle Taxis of the time...
Not just too long but using a non standard round - 7.62mm vs the NATO standard 5.56mm. But it did pack one hell of a punch.
Also heavier and very prone to jamming unless you were meticulous with cleaning and turned the gas return pressure right up, at which point it kicked like a fucking mule.
And remember that a longer rifle takes longer to track across an arc to a target vs a shorter barrel albeit usually at the cost of longer range accuracy. But assault rifles are meant to be able to deliver rounds fast in a general direction and not necessarily with huge accuracy - it's enough to hit the target it doesn't usually matter where.
52 can finally be configured to use the Windows certificate store. Not relevant for all, I know, but it's a royal pain in the arse trying to use FF in any kind of enterprise.
And yes...I've had the discussion MANY times about the fact this ain't an enterprise class product but it's "needed" here.
Like the two guys who sat at opposite corners of a huge desk in the boardroom - so large I couldn't talk to both at once. They then proceeded to ask me questions in a very bad tempered fashion and even argue with one another.
Generally I'd just start to answer the question asked when the other would jump in.
In the end I got up, thanked them for wasting my time and left. Don't know if was meant as some kind of test but it was incredibly frustrating after the first five minutes.
Then there's the one where I'd had to take some hardcore painkillers after being driven into from behind at high speed - no wonder I didn't get offered that one. I was off my head and could barely remember my own name.
Had a couple of the unanswerable questions like above.
Had one where the guy seemed to take every pause for thought to mean I didn't know the answer and would move on.
Oh I once received a CV from a guy WhO hAd WrItEn every word in his CV in alternating upper and lower case.
One of my favourites had to be the interview I had where the entire thing centred around my scuba diving hobby. Not a single technical question was asked and the closing comment was how I seemed like I had just the right mix they were looking for and would be an asset to the team. I had a phone call from the agency before I even got to my car telling me I hadn't got it because the interviewer felt I wasn't technical enough!
Went for an technical architect role and when I'd done listening to what they wanted and pointed out it was clearly programme manager if not director level and I really wasn't suited to it, they then asked if they could complete the interview and see if I fit anything else. And then promptly interviewed for the very role I had already said I couldn't do and seemed surprised when I couldn't answer some of the questions.
Got asked what my ideal job would be in the future once when was still an electronics engineer. Back then R&D would've been my ideal and I said as much. Got rejected because they felt I was too aspirational for their company!
Fun fun fun.
"...After they arbitrarily removed PS3 support and then refused to refund me the £70 for the content I had bought through their service that I subsequently lost access to. After trawling through 10 pages of small print I finally discovered that they apparently retain the right to withdraw any services at any time they see fit.
Charlatans and wan*ers the lot of them..."
Take them to small claims court.
Chances are they wouldn't even turn up.
We took a national furniture chain to court for my wife's lost earnings after they failed to deliver on four separate occasions - they arranged to deliver then simply failed to show. We cancelled the order and I asked them to refund the time my wife took off from work+stress.
They refused claiming they had a clause claiming deliveries were on a best efforts basis...
So we took 'em to court. They failed to show for mediation and then out of the blue I received a letter of apology with a cheque for the full amount.
As others have said - just because they claim it's in their T's and C's doesn't trump consumer law.
"...Smart managers start with a problem they want to solve, not a new piece of shiny they want to buy..."
This!
This has always been part of my approach to interviewing consultant level staff.
First off for anything technical, ask what they feel strongest in - that way you avoid asking questions on their weakest subject by accident. And if they're crap at that, chances are they suck at everything else, too.
I would expect anyone at that level to be able to sketch me out a quick back of the napkin design on a chosen bit of tech. The next question can be the toughest though..."Ok...so now pretend I am the FD of a company...tell me _why_ I should buy that..."
I'm looking for the ones who can say you shouldn't or asking me what I hope to achieve or...what are the problems we are having and let's approach it from that perspective rather than selling shiny.
"...Are HP at all capable of any kind of due diligence?"
No! it would seem to be part of the culture, see this link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/14/hp_recovers_1_8m/ (source: linked in the comments of the ARSTechnica article Justicesays references in their comment here).
Reading between the lines of the 2003 article, it would seem that even having determined the order was fraudulent, HP still shipped kit, invoiced, received payment and then claimed they had been had!
LOL...it was a rhetorical question!
...is to prevent their customers from being able to source cheaper consumables such that they can lock their customers into much higher prices.
At which point, presumably, most of those consumers will give Lexmark two fingers and move to an alternative printer manufacturer who doesn't (currently) do that.
Driving down their sales.
Great long term survival plan.
How does it go then, Lexmark? Piss off your customers, drive down sales, PROFIT!!!! ???
I mean I imagine just the threat of this would make customers run to alternatives.
Hmm yeah I just remembered my old man bought a Lexmark some years ago. Crap quality, ludicrously expensive inks that (at the time) there were no third party options for. Hmm...
"...The original iPhone definitely has a proximity sensor. It is possible that your wife's phone was faulty or there was a software issue...."
Have an upvote - hers definitely never worked (and at the time I didn't even know it was supposed to be there), so yeah, probably faulty. I'd just assumed it didn't have one.
I actually got one of these for my wife.
It was awful. It almost felt like a beta product (and these are just a few of things I still remember):
It had no kind of face sensor so it was common for the user to disconnect mid-call via their chin or cheek;
It's autocorrect functions were terrible - tiny little words above the word in question and even tinier x to close the option;
Inability to forward messages;
No email support;
No apps.
I think it's reasonably fair to say that it was the app store that really allowed the iPhone to become so successful, combined with the then Apple aura and mystique that Jobs was bringing to their products.
As to who invented this bit or that bit - I suggest you could pull most products released in the last 10-20 years and have the same kind of arguments.
But poor show on the beeb for their lack of fact checking on this one.
Some fair points...right up until this dick comment: "...They get all uppitty if you say 'I told you all that last week. She hasn't grown a pair of wings since..."
It's you and your mum. You know one another intimately. The poor frontline staff see possibly hundreds or more people through their doors on a weekly basis.
You'd be pretty pissed off if they assumed to know your mothers' medical history and then harmed her.
You cannot blame someone for doing their job in the best way possible. Especially when they're being forced to use crappy systems and software to boot.
...generally just seem to suck.
I have BT Business Infinity Fibre. Simply because I was pretty much holding down the refresh button 4 years ago to get news of when fibre would be available in my area and BT were, at the time, the only provider (side laugh - my "technical" neighbour seeing the van asked if I had a phone problem...when I explained I was having fibre installed he said I was mistaken as it wasn't available...).
Anyway the BT Business Hub 3 was truly awful.
The wireless was quite simply the poorest quality I've ever come across, so that was turned off almost on the first day.
Alas because of the oddity of how BT did (still do?) their static IP allocation, until the start of this year there was no real option to change it for the PPoE part so it ultimately had to hang around. Until I put in Sophos UTM (second side note - free home version for up to 50 end points).
Best thing I ever did - immediate uplift of around 20% performance and it's consistent.
I have all three - Netflix, Sky and Amazon. I got Amazon Prime for the deliveries initially but now with TV and music, it's frankly superb.
Some of the content on their is absolutely first rate (take a look at Halt and Catch Fire, for example).
I am seriously considering dropping Sky completely. Yes, there are a few series on there that I'd personally miss seeing at release but from memory, I believe most of them are available on one or the other shortly afterwards anyway.
I have the Amazon & Netflix apps burned into the 4k, 40" Hisense Smart TV that was less than £250 from...yep...Amazon and a Fire TV box downstairs.
The box, in particular is just a beautiful user experience. I do look forwards to the day they put full blown Alexa on there instead of just using it for searching media. And that's a great thing about the Fire TV box - when you search, it searches across everything. Something on say, Netflix AND Amazon? You'll see it on both. Something on one or the other - it'll find it.
Yeah I seriously question why I stick with Sky right now and their massively overinflated prices.
Because MS introduced Mailtips in 2007 which, if enabled and done correctly* would warn people that they're about to send an email to everyone/recipients that are on the list outside of their organisation/to a large number of recipients etc etc etc
*Yes...I know that's a rarity for many places, not just public sector.
The problem is though, that would potentially harm the sales of their overpriced units.
I can only imagine that there's a fairly huge markup on a £500-£800+ premium phone and very little on a £50 throwaway device and when you're shipping 350 million a quarter, that's a significant profit margin.
...If one Donald Trump can get the job of President of the Retarded States of 'Murca, with no experience whatsoever in that job, or any like it then shirley, you lot should be asking for the same level of qualifications.
I'll do it if I can take his approach of insulting absolutely everyone. Constantly.
GIVE ME THE JOB YA DUMB SCHUCKS!!!
"...That was normal in the 1950s and even later..."
Yep normal for me too in the 80's
We moved into a stone built house with the same 18" thick walls and single glazed windows.
Mornings were...fresh :)
Once we eventually got double glazing it was blissfully warm by comparison.
@Tom Paine..
When you're done being a judgmental idiotic, put down your Daily Mail and listen while I explain a few things about him.
He spends every Saturday, whatever the weather, getting himself up at 6am, volunteering at a retired greyhounds kennels. He does, occasionally, get paid to work some days during school holidays.
When he isn't doing that, as well as the inordinate amount of studying from homework he gets from school, he does Brazillian Jiu Jitsu. He's pretty damn good at it too, holding several gold medals, a few silver and some bronze. That's from many international, national. local and European championships.
So tell me, what should I ask him to give up in order to live up to your expectations?
I already make him save his own money to pay for them.
I do have many stronger words for you but I won't type them here. You are, though, a cactus. Look up the meme.
...All the people saying they'd never let Windows 10 near their kit because of the data slurping - how many use Facebook, or Google, for example?
I'm sure here at el reg, the percentage is reasonably small, but I'm curious what makes people so anti-MS (for this specific thing) yet merrily give their lives away to the others?
I had a 2011 MBP. From a hardware perspective it still remains one of the best laptops I've ever owned.
I didn't particularly get along with OSX on it as for one thing, the tools I needed day-to-day weren't available for the OS.
The only reason I eventually sold it last August was because I had maxed out the RAM and storage and it was starting to make my mobile labs using Virtual Machines untenable.
The only MBP options by then had fixed everything which meant I couldn't upgrade it at any point so I was stuck paying top dollar for something that would possibly age even faster.
In the end, for just less than the same amount of money I bought a customised PC Specialist Defiance II.
This has 32GB RAM, 4TB (2x512GB m2 SSD's, 1 x 1TB SATA SSD and 1 x 2TB spinning rust), a 6GB (I think - going from memory) nVidia 980 GPU, LAN, 3x USB 3.0 and 1 combo HDMI with USB 2.0 ports, 2 x display ports, an SD card slot, optical port for sound and an almost full sized UK keyboard. Oh and a 4k screen (which in hindsigt I'd have foregone, if I'd known how p!ss poor Windows 10 still behaves with high DPI).
I can't see this one lasting less than the 4 and a half years the MBP lasted.
And no touch-gimmicks.
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