Posts by Captain Scarlet

An email banning our staff from using TikTok? Haha, funny story about that, we didn't mean it – Amazon

Work devices

Ah good so its not only ourselves that have a headache with MDM (Android Zero Touch and DEP my a**e, still slower than pre BB10 devices to setup).

Email seems lost in the post? You might be a Tsohost customer

Re: SFU

Yeah thats my only worry, used to see lots of hosts selling up (UK2 I seem to remember were actually advertising saying they would buy your host). Been using UKDedicated on and off, currently use Guru just for a simple Wordpress site.

Another host who I used to recommend Hostroute are long gone, apparently sold to TsoHost :S

CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor

Re: Sad.

Everything is bloated these days, for some reason my Corsair mouse requires a piece of software that consumes 1/3 of a cpu core at all times and needs to hammer WMI.

Road trip on Mars: Thrill as Curiosity rover races up to 0.06 miles per hour. Marvel as it takes a mile-long detour

Re: Flat Mars-ers

Wait yes Mars is flat, don't go the other side of Mars as you will fall off!

Utilitarian, long-bodied Nokia 5.3 has budget basic specs - but it does cost £150

You may have offended someone who just downvotes everything you post.

You are plugging it in wrong!

Captain, the computer has identified 250 alien stars that infiltrated our galaxy – actual science, not science-fiction

Re: Could they name some of the suspects?

This is an outrage calling us aliens when you are the alien race in this galaxy!

We will be avenged when we work out how to use Tiktok, for some reason the cameras do not pick us up.

Mind the airgap: Why nothing focuses the mind like a bit of tech antiquing

Re: At a loss

Turn off wifi on the machine or your Mrs and the Children will be must upset!

Baroness Dido Harding lifts the lid on the NHS's manual contact tracing performance: 'We contact them up to 10 times over a 36-hour period'

Re: Contact tracing is about far more than just tracing contacts.

I thought advice in the UK was only to get tested if required or self isolate.

I managed to catch some form of bug from the supermarket (Where everyone has stopped social distancing and ignoring one way systems), test was booked (I am required to go to site if they need something turned off and on again) and I was there at the drive in test centre 30 minutes later. Very odd process but 3AM the next day I got the all clear (But still isolated + 2 days once symtoms went).

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

Re: Thank fuck for that

Yup DAB+ sounds much better than DAB, biggest issue I have is that you can still buy brand new "DAB" radio's that don't support DAB+ (As I found out when I purchased a cheap DAB Radio from Argos to find none of the stations I listen to work).

I won't say who I listen to as I'll get downvoted again.

It's not a Windows 10 release without something breaking so here's a troubleshooter for your OneDrive woes

Re: rather than Linux

Yup they are to expensive and the fact you can't legally run the OS on anything you can build yourself puts me off.

Cool IT support drones never look at explosions: Time to resolution for misbehaving mouse? Three seconds

Re: Switching on the "monitor stand"

Ask them to log a ticket with your HellDesk (If you have one).

Re: It normally the Caps lock

I have been caught out by that before and accidently changing the language (Left Alt + Shift) more than I care to remember.

Re: Early optical rodents

Yeah until over ten years ago I just ordered those plain blue mousemats, my current mousemat is one of those larger gaming mousepads (Akasa Venom, but I find it works with everything. My old man actually got one as well, as for Autocad apparently loves it for detailed Cad drawings)

Re: Switching on the "monitor stand"

The amount of damaged drives from users putting their HP SFF's on the side and then knocking them over was annoying. Especially as I did buy the overpriced stands for staff who let me know they wanted it on the side.

Re: Switching on the "monitor stand"

Yup anything with a plug, I have started doing the "I have never used one of these before" especially if we havent supplied it.

I am to old to be interested in whatever crap people buy these days.

Rental electric scooters to clutter UK street scenes after Department of Transport gives year-long trial the thumbs-up

"Cycling Proficiency Test" - Yes that was it have an upvote!

School swimming, I remember that although that was because our primary school had an outside freezing pool and I don't remember being taught anything (I must have been pratting about).

Do schools not have safety bike lessons anymore, I remember I had lessons at primary school?

I tend to have a problem with almost being knocked over.

Something as simple as the corner of a building increases this and I find it always happens when I exit tube stations. I understand there isnt enough room but the small majority riding at 20mph on the pavement is not on.

Well bork me sideways: A railway ticket machine lies down for a little Windoze

Why not set to auto reboot?

Seems odd a sign would not attempt an auto reboot, obviously if it fails to boot multiple times the repair menu normally comes up.

Boffins baffled as supergiant star just vanishes – either it partially blew itself apart or quietly turned into a black hole

Re: Privacy?

This is the voice of the Mysterons, we don't probe humans, we have no idea where you have been!

Things that happen every four years: Olympic Games, Presidential elections, and now new Mac ransomware

Re: 40 UKP?

Yes but if its only £40 the user will be more likely to pay that than several thousand.

DDoS and dingoes: Australia to bolster cyber-defences with 500 hackers amid China spat

Sophisticated hacker

That can mean anything these days, from people who open a spreadsheet of reused usernames and passwords to actual proper hackers.

I wonder which class of hacker tried to hack them?

LibreOffice slips out another 7.0 beta: Spreadsheets close gap with Excel while macOS users treated to new icons

Re: Any news of a Libre_mail client

Lotus Notes was never about email (Until it was to late), why do you think the email application template was clunky for so long! It was always about having networked applications and hope to god the develop knew how to handle multiple edits of the same record at the same time!

I tend to find we have add-ins forced upon us for things like specific non standard charts the incoming MD wants. These then spread to other staff and they just stick like an annoying tic.

The majority of add-ins tended to be 32 bit a number of years ago, not sure if its still the same.

Also an accountant able to use more than 3GB of memory in excel spreadsheet is just plain scary!

Here's a headline we'll run this century, mark our words: Alien invaders' AI found on Mars searching for signs of life

We will be Avenged

As you have been so kind, we won't en-act our revenge this week.

Finally, a wafer-thin server... Only a tiny little thin one. Oh all right. Just the one...

Re: Do you recall the smell of burning UPSes in the morning?

Yes because of an internal fault in one of our UPS's, it tripped the utility power and went to battery.

We got alerts immediatly via email that utility power was down. It was connected to a fully populated IBM Blade Centre I went to check as it covered 1 of the 4 2KW powersupplies and if it went down we would have no power redundancy on the left hand power domain (Which also powered internal fibre switches and management).

I went and stabbed the button to put power back on as I couldn't see anything wrong.

Sparks immediatly came flying out and the 16AMP C19 cable melted before it re-tripped.

Never been so scared in my life (Circuit had 50AMP fuse).

Windows 10 Insider wondering where Notepad has gone? Fear not, Microsoft found it down the back of Dev Channel

Re: Better alternative, skip MS

For me I often have it open with Notepad++, I don't know why as I use the other view in Notepad++ heavily

Re: Better alternative, skip MS

I must admit every time I use vi I have to Google how to use it.

Working from home on Virgin Media's broadband? Too bad. Outage hits English capital

*1 person was connected directly to the router with a second used by the failed switch

I think they mean have 2 consumer connections with 2 seperate routes, which would be Virgin Media and a second on BT Infrastructure (Only way I know of a consumer being able to get 2 different routes). However there are lots of places where both are not available and for a consumer may end up costing to much.

I myself can get a 4G Router to get myself online if the worst comes to the worst (Just slap in my sim from my personal phone, unfortunatley the signal isnt great but better than nothing).

Try telling that to some people who run these companies, I remember my time from ISP Helldesk of one customer having some crappy 5 port switch fail. The staff member was yelled at by the boss, but we didn't provide it. Their boss didn't like it when I said we didn't support the switch and refused my recommendation to run longer cables to the provided 5 port ADSL router (Our routers were pretty basic Conexant devices with no customisation at all and no wifi) or simply replace the failed switch as for some very odd reason only 1 person was connected directly to it.

Faxing hell: The cops say they would very much like us to stop calling them all the time

Yeah especially as they will often charge for it

Castelle Faxpress

I can't remember the model but we had a Castelle FaxPress.

Was in the rack forever along with Rational Networks (Might have the wrong name) 24 port 56k dial in appliance.

BT Openreach can still do the same, although for us was about 10 minutes (Checking our external phone numbers for lines coming into out buildings, a little old lady picked up on one of the numbers. After apologising for getting a wrong number tried again and the same lady picked up. Confirmed the number I dialed which she confirmed wasn't her number. Got Open Reach to check, however never found out why it happened as obviously it had fixed itself by the time they had arrived)

Skype for Windows 10 and Skype for Desktop duke it out: Only Electron left standing

Re: Oh Jesus, why?

hmm but the release of IBM Notes 8 was a similar bloat fest (It actually included a c++ low end client which was basically Notes 7, the Eclipse Java based version was the newer client), I really liked it (To me it was the first time the Notes Client actually felt modern and webmail side was also to me brilliant) but had to upgrade the majority of work machines well with it. It feels the same with Teams (Although its just an overkill im app), our older machines with 4GB simply need more memory to run reasonably.

*Edit 1 version ahead and I think it was called IBM Notes in version 8

With intelligent life in scant supply on Earth, boffins search for technosignatures of civilizations in the galaxy

Re: Evidence?

We made the mistake of using Unix, SCO vs Mystronix has been going on for over 20 years now and they are still trying to get us to use our regenerative powers to make their money reappear.

Apparently replacing Kill with "WESHALLBEAVENGED" and ECHO with "THISISTHEVOICEOFTHEMYSTERONS" isnt enough

If Fairphone can support a 5-year-old handset, the other vendors could too. Right?

Re: I expect that I will be downvoted...

Well yes I agree, but a lot of "normal" people do treat it as a status symbol.

My own cases are just cheap gel cases (I used to have cases that had a flap over the screen but they add to much bulk and even the cheapest models are very resistant to scratched)

Re: I expect that I will be downvoted...

So you have some ugly hidious case on your phone and pay £6 for someone to change a bulb on your car.

Re: planned obsolescence - It's everywhere

Had no idea Windows 7 was used in Sony Blu Ray Players, what model is it as I am very curious as seems overkill for me

Re: I expect that I will be downvoted...

I should have added its a no for me if I know I can't repair something on equipment I apparently own (As Apple aren't alone in this).

Re: Nice idea, but

The biggest problem is they are small, why not just buy the spares the build your own (Ok I don't think they have everything but their price for replacement parts is reasonable to myself)?

Re: I expect that I will be downvoted...

Apple are against people repairing their own equipment, so its an immediate no from me.

Ex-director cops community service after 5,000-file deletion spree on company Dropbox

Re: They never listen

Like most things where people do stupid things, nothing until said person leaves.

How do you run a military court over Zoom? With 28 bullet points and a ceremonial laptop flunkey, of course!

**Angrily slurps tea followed by tutting and muttering gibberish**

No Wiggle room: Two weeks after angry bike shop customers report mystery orders on their accounts, firm confirms payment cards delinked

Re: There is no breach

hmm I look at it and "Disposable virtual cards" are not on the "free" package, on the "Free" package you get a single physical card.

Feel free to link the exact UK page you see.

Ready or not, here I come! Microsoft primes the Windows 10 20H1 auto-update cannon as 20H2 hovers into view

2004 so far

My mini pc on the tv no issues at all when updated last week.

My personal PC updated last night changed my theme from Dark to Light Mode (FFS why can't they simple things like keeping how I want everytrhing to look properly!)

The bork on the sign goes round and round, round and round, round and round

Re: 256GB for a sign!

Well 256GB I would recommend for home as a bare minimum, but for work 128GB is fine (30GB free on my W10 machine).

Hey is trying a new take on email – but maker complains of 'outrageous' demands after Apple rejects iOS app

Re: So...

I thought it was just to be spammed by people going ZOMG SIGN UP TO THIS MESSAGING APP on my corporate phone number.

People often stop responding to me when I ask if they have read the EULA (Top tip to get people to leave you alone!).