Posts by Why Not?

O2 pulls plug on OAP-monitoring service

Nice Idea bad implementation

£20 a month ?

No Advertising

little Idiot buttons, they are old not toddlers.

UK gov's smart meter dream unplugged: A 'colossal waste of cash'

and that has been tested when?

My meter has been in for 30 years and as far as I know no one more technical than a meter reader has seen it.

How the clammy claws of Novell NetWare were torn from today's networks

Novell 3.1x - ran fast and easy loved it. NW 4 made sense eventually.

But NT3.x allowed you to use a PC that cost a months pay as a workstation as well as sharing files. Cost of Netware = 2 weeks pay. NT3.x = 2 days pay.

If you were selling 3 - 4 machines with a shared database to a customer you could knock off the cost of the server machine.

Novell could have added a decent native database and dropped the cost and have had more of a chance.

Linux 3.11 to be known as 'Linux for Workgroups'

Re: WFWG TCP/IP?

oh Trumpet twice as fast and doubly stable.

they should have called it we all used to describe 3.11 as 'W*ndows for crash groups', can't complain kept me busy and wasn't as obscure as the early UNIXs (you just had to make everything fit in 540k ish).

That flag will upset them.

Do you think windows 8 should be called 'Tiles for focus groups'?

UK.gov fines itself harshly for hurling NHS records to the winds

Re: Hypothetically speaking

You don't get sent to prison if you do your best to manage it, only if you are criminally negligent.

Re: Hypothetically speaking

Your options

1/you sign a contract with a suitably accredited firm that takes responsibility for disposal and indemnifies you against such fines. You then ask for a quarterly report of wiping and compare with your disposal list.

2/ You wipe them yourself before going off site, will probably take 30 - 60 seconds labour per computer if you have it set up properly. Nothing goes off site unless it has a signed sticker on it saying it has been wiped and attach a copy of the wiping report. do random inspections.

3/ you ask your mate to dispose of everything on eBay without wiping them and feign ignorance when he gets caught. Get your Trust to pay the fine.

UK Post Office admits false accusations after computer system cockup

just wishing

Any chance of the muppets that signed off on the defective system getting some jail time?

Why didn't their defence solicitors point to the known failures in the system and create a reasonable doubt?

Broadband rivals 'pleased' over Ofcom's market shake-up plans. Maybe too pleased

Re: Router Costs

new vendor sends a new auto provision request to the router.

TR 069 works quite well.

now it just needs ISPs to implement it.

Re: Nice to see the repair issues raised

They are mostly, however the ISP has always had to ride BT.

My experience (and that of others) of BT broadband direct is unprintable.

Zen & co have been excellent but hog tied by BT.

Nice to see the repair issues raised

it would be good to see a sense of urgency with Broadband issues, my experience is that faults were very low priority.

Government IT contracts to be scrutinised by UK competition watchdog

only those with billion dollar turnover need apply

lets hope they make how much tax is paid in UK and how many UK nationals hired part of the variables?

Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise

Titanic meet PNC

you seriously believe only 25 people peeked?

With the penalty being allowed to resign and early retirement its hardly a deterrent.

I suspect this is random sampling not aggressive monitoring.

I think it should be like your credit record with the opportunity to correct and leave notes on file. No deletion except for entry errors.

I told you I'd be back: Arnie set for another career revival

Raw Deal & Kindergarten Cop were arguably his best work.

Killing people to the Rolling stones is a bit of a Signature move.

Maybe he can make sequels?

Sore Deal - as an undercover bitter ex government agent he smashes a Sanotogen counterfeit ring in a quarry and an old peoples home with enough armour to start world war 3 in a corduroy jacket.

Unemployed? Ugly? Ugh, no thanks, says fitties-only job website

Can't wait

I look forward to Looked-IN the website for arrogant professionals. Those that talk the talk but can't sashay the walk.

Douglas Adams as always is ahead of us, BeautifulPeople.condem sounds like the Golgafrinchans. With a little bit of luck they will all be infected by a dirty Telephone.

Reseller Computacenter LITERALLY smokes out squatters from offices

Professional squatters?

Whilst I have sympathy for the homeless it does seem squatting is seen as a way of getting free accommodation by the people I have talked to who do it.

We need a suitable accommodation policy that supports the people in need so squatters have no excuse, currently its too generous to those on their feet (Yes I'm talking about you Bob the union man) and insufficient for those in need.

The changes to squatting law excluded business premises, this is the result, a very aggressive expulsion of people which at first appears amusing but would have quickly turned nasty if anyone had fallen over and injured themselves.

YES, Xbox One DOES need internet, DOES restrict game trading

The Royal one?

Is it just me that read it as the Royal one?

One does connect to the Internet, One does rule the gaming consoles, One does gouge you with fees?

XBOX One thinks its royalty?

So, who ought to be the next Doctor Who? It's up to YOU...

Robert Carlyle - getting back to a real doctor not a hopeless emasculated victim.

Though now doubt the next doctor will be expected to get jiggy with his co stars because that's what we need in a children's program more sexualisation.......................................idiots.

BOFH: Go on, beancounter, type DROP TABLE asset;

Re: Did Simon forget

happy BOFH day to me, Happy BOFH day to me.....

Its like turning up to a new (to me) customer to restore all their data as they had deleted it, ask for the backup tape and they reply - "oh the helpdesk told me you would install the backup after you had restored all our data ......"

Fear the Embarrassing Bodies webcam

Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

I would almost agree with you if it didn't pick the you know 'Embarrassing' illnesses. Clue is in the title. If it was non stop I have a lump on my neck/leg etc then their ratings would be poor. Strangely lumps on boobs or Balls seem very popular, scratchy fanny seems to feature as well.

Its exploitation TV, I feel sorry for your customers but theirs are Jeremy Kyle & Big brother wannabes getting their bits out so we can have vicarious thrill / giggle.

Paris because I'm sure she would get her kit off for publicity

Tea, Earl Grey, hot! NASA blows $125k on Star Trek 3D FOOD PRINTER

Re: You got the wrong model!

Key thing is that it will be cheaper and more appetising than the food they already take up.

Cost is relative. The ingredients can be dry and the water used recycled decreasing weight at take off which can cost $4000 - $40,000 / kg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator_economics

so a few kilos of weight saved will buy a lot of print heads.

Plus the food will 'appear' fresh so will make happy astronauts.

Also who is to say that the ingredients will be stored in expensive one off print heads, I suspect in 10 years time we will see chain Pizza restaurants selling printed pizzas ordered over the net. Probably delivered by robot scooters , they can't be any more of a danger than the existing pizza delivery riders!

Ed Miliband brands Google's UK tax avoidance 'WRONG'

Re: The solution to the problem is simple

Problem is what is gross revenue? Costs are being upped offshore.

Disallowing goods or services that magically pass through a tax haven (without physically being shipped via it) to be counted as costs. As the goods need to be marked with real country of origin and route travelled for customs purposes that should be fairly easy.

monitoring international costs if StarTaxSucks coffee beans are five times the price of those on the open market send them a tax bill.

Charge VAT on every import.

That would level the playing field. Currently goods & carriage under £18 are exempt which is why DVD & CD sales in the UK were severely affected. Personal gifts not as part of trade could still be exempt, so if your Auntie sends you a cardigan she knitted no Vat applies, if she sells to others then she needs to pay.

If the government made an easy way to for the dispatcher or vendor to pay the Vat (e.g. eBay / Amazon charge and pay the vat on sub £18 goods direct to HMRC maybe via an electronic stamp, they can also confirm the goods are fit to import on pain of having their vat license removed. ) this stops the courier companies gouging the honest buyer for a handling charge as they do now and gets £3.60 a time for the treasury and possibly protects UK business by putting them on a level playing field.

No vat stamp and goods stay in customs and the vendor pays to get them shipped back or through. If the payment on the stamp bounces same deal.

We are in a new economy and new rules need to be made. Millipede had the opportunity to do so in the last government and was found wanting. He is just a hypocrite.

Re: Pot and kettle

If you have a child out of wedlock its still illegitimate if you marry later.

He set up a structure to avoid tax, just because he didn't use it later doesn't mean he isn't guilty of planning to avoid tax. Just because Google did it better doesn't make him any less guilty.

He & Balls could have done something while in power. They didn't, they made it easier, they also allowed companies to offshore & onshore to avoid tax.

This isn't a new practice its being going on for decades, its just easier with the Internet and global travel

Wannabe hacker, you're hired: Brit bosses mull cyber-apprenticeships

idiots

let me see a large percentage of CS grads can't find jobs that pay more than minimum wage.

Oh lets fix that we will use apprenticeships to drive down wages further.

'Zombie hunter' task force unleashed on the UK tech biz

Seemples

Why look out for Zombies. All these companies run up VAT debts then crumple. Why aren't the Directors prosecuted and their assets taken?

How did Comet manage to run up a £50M+ debt on tax? Their credit rating must of been atrocious why were they allowed to owe the tax man anything?

The VAT bill is one of the things businesses 'borrow' from the tax system, they are collecting on the Government behalf its not their money though to hear them talk about "finding the money to pay the vat man" you would think it was theirs.

Any business turning over say £120K should pay VAT monthly on a cash basis (not Accrual which can catch you out). It can be an approx amount which is finalised quarterly with 3 monthly declarations.

So if they are paying £6K / quarter they pay £2k a month this cuts VAT exposure to a third. If it varies massively outside the normal retail fluctuations SIC code norms you can catch this by charging interest.

Any company turning over £120K a year should be doing monthly accounts and rough turnover calculations.

Same with PAYE & corp tax its monthly.

Bigger firms or at risk ones can pay more frequently.

3 strikes and PAY. If the company has failed to pay on time 3 times or more / been caught mis - reporting should be allowed less flexibility on payments. So dodgy companies pay everything immediately.

Smaller firms could be allowed more flexibility but why not pay min 50% of your expected corp tax monthly?

Lets be as hard on reckless firms as we are on reckless benefit claimants there are fewer and we have more control over them. They do not have human rights!

UK.gov blows a fuse at smart meter stall, sets new 2020 deadline

surely its better if the meters were owned by Transco?

Not sure I want any energy supplier owning my meter, I'm sure they will find a way to rip me off.

I do suspect reliability & Security will be issues.

My Meter is 30 years old and has never to my knowledge been tested for accuracy we may well find people / suppliers getting unpleasant surprises.

The IT Crowd returns to Channel 4 for a final episode

Re: That line.

Yes but if every other customer asked if the Banana Daquari contained Bananas that observation would be funny.

Its the combination of communication,observation & timing that makes things funny.

Thongs of praise: Slip on Japan's skimpy mobe knickers

Re: What's larger?

As the Actress said to the Bishop - fnarr, fnarrr!

You have to hand it to the Japanese they are just obsessed with creating products that satisfy customers in every way!

Paris as I doubt she wears a pair

Monitor-makers ponder Android-powered touch screens

If we go with the name of tablet but its larger and harder to swallow I would suggest Lozenge.

doubly effective as the idea sucks.

Vietnamese madam cuffed after advertising girls on Facebook

Re: I see an opportunity

FuzzBook?

IT salaries: Why you are a clapped-out Ferrari

Average

Thanks Dominic, thought provoking as usual.

Should we not be comparing IT work with Average qualified wage?

I suspect the level of qualification in IT and legal is much higher than the average workforce, you for instance compared salaries to lawyers. So a comparison to average wage will always show a premium.

There is a 'degree premium' to most jobs, from memory its 10 - 20%. Entrance into IT nowadays is almost exclusively degree qualified minimum.

Got a BlackBerry? It may be telling your friends when you watch pr0n

Do I get the feeling someone got caught having turned it on?

Would mr Ray care to comment?

" of which the first is "Show what I'm listening to". It's off by default,"

Card skimmers targeting more than ATMs, says EU

Signatures = good

Electronically verified signatures are fine. The speed and manner in which you write is as unique as a fingerprint. That can be captured & analysed by the average PC. No graphology expert required.

Set different levels for different authorisation requirements.

<£15 NFC

<£100 chip & Pin

<£500 chip & Pin + signature

<£1000 Chip, pin & delivery address = card holders + Signature

If there is a suspicion the card has been stolen move up the tree.

all depends what shape the attacks are after a card is stolen.

Voda: Brit kids will drown in TIDAL WAVE of FILTH - it's all Ofcom's fault

Sorry they have always been referred to as 'Adult Entertainment-1' or similar.

Methinks the pips are now been squeezed, a contract is a mutual thing not something imposed by a supplier.

Stephen Fry explains… Alan Turing's amazing computer

If Only

If Tommy Flowers had pursued an alternate sexual journey would he be lauded nowadays?

Or if Marian Rejewski had asked to be called Maggie after his holiday would he be known as well?

Alan Turing was a genius but he was a Big Fish in a very small pool ram jam full with Big fish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Welchman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Keen

Young model ruthlessly fingers upskirt iPad petshop pervert

Re: Only in America

You sure they could track him down?

Another MYSTERY evacuation: Google UK empties swanky offices

Re: Fire drill

Agree its probably just a repeat alarm because of lack of interest.

Happened at a few places I worked.

But it may be like a site I once did some work at, They had the Emergency Button behind a row of racks, placed just so when you opened one of the rack doors it swung and hit the button.

Whole site went dark and curses heard across London. I walked out trying not to roll on the floor laughing.

ICO clamps down on nuisance calls, slaps £90k fine on Glasgow firm

Re: **snigger**

Probably deliberate they are trying to convince us they have grown a pair to go with their PECR.

Its their swansong they are finally penalising UK firms but mostly I get calls from 'Reginald' in India nowadays.

Holly(oaks) talking head is FUTURE of face messaging, claims prof

I want queeg!

lets have a funky gym instructor type.

It has a six in it, but it's not 6,000

I assume sooner or later they will come up with 'looks sick' and sounds honest so we can book a day off and fiddle benefits.

eBay chief Donahoe sees his package nearly double in size

Good on him

Making a profit, employing people and healthy stock price.

Plenty of CEOs earn that kind of money, lets hope he is friends with Bill & Warren and spends his money eradicating Polio or similar, that isn't that unusual with wealthy industrialists.

Drilling into 3D printing: Gimmick, revolution or spooks' nightmare?

Luckily due to the open source nature the ink cost is being handled

http://hackaday.com/2013/03/05/finally-a-machine-that-makes-cheap-3d-printer-filament/

I think it will provide simple prototyping and custom parts for one off / concept designs.

I suspect jewellers, Artists and designers will have one in their arsenal. Hobbyists will also aspire to them, its going to be the hardware hackers equivalent of a lathe some weird guy you know will have one in the shed.

CCTV hack takes casino for $33 MILLION in poker losses

Re: Sometimes it's just luck.

Sorry when I was visiting South Africa I came across a Casino with a field of slot machines played almost exclusively by dirt poor workers in that situation Predator is the correct description.

I would imagine the average loss by normal people in Vegas is in the thousands, for Warren Buffet that is nothing, for most people its a lot of money they didn't want to lose.

Re: Because a feed to Google would be more secure?

no but when proposing technology to non technical people I tend to compare it to widely known public version that way they have a reference to base a decision on. Suggesting we use opencv to pixellate the cards tends to lead to a lot of head scratching.

Therefore to illustrate obscuring cards I compare it to the smudge feature on google maps, most people understand such things.

Sometimes the audience are so stupid that when I say lets open coffee house like Starbucks they do that then complain they get sued for calling their coffee house 'Like Starbucks but we pay tax'.

Stupid is as stupid does - I still have problems coming to terms with that.

You would have thought the first thing they would have done to a cctv feed was obfuscated the cards. Google smudge anyone??

BOFH: My HELPDESK HELL - lies, phones lines and statistics

as always a pleasure anticipated

Bring back Kzzzerrrt - are you onomatopoeia -ist ??

Prod less episodes need killer robots. (can they make a come back?)

agree it needed a destination for forwarding I was expecting a booking line for colonic irrigation that demanded details & credit card or the aforementioned executive stress relief with a backhander to BOFH.

but minor criticism's apart it was the usual amusing observations.

When are we going to have the king / pirate treasure under the server room, offshoring the accounting team etc.

Attention, CIOs: Stop outsourcing or YOU will never retire

Re: Having hired many grads...

Gone are the days when a 30 year career was available with most large companies having annual clear outs of whole sites because the management team are unable to make a profit. This is despite other sites with the same offering doing very well. No shut the site sack hundreds of people and keep the senior management to wreck more sites. Combine that with getting rid of a few people each year to encourage the others. Most intelligent employees run away after that.

There is allegedly a shortage of IT people which is why we are shipping in ICT people by the boatload.

If you have good grades why would becoming Mother Theresa have any effect? Its about costs stupid.

Oh yes its needed for those exceptional people that the big corporates hire, its now a necessity. Don't worry sooner or later their site management will agree a loss leading contract that consumes the output from the whole site then run it so badly you will end up out of a job. HP, Microsoft & IBM have all laid off highly performing & high grade staff because of business reasons.

I have a hunch that those 17% grads that don't get hired are supplanted by cheap labour not paying tax in the UK.

The 20 -30% who now don't take the degree are actually no hopers, they should take the course get excellent grades and run an international charity at the weekend so they can earn £13k instead of voting with their feet and choosing a different direction to earn £25k out of university and going home early on Friday night..

Why bother

Why would you 'do something with computers' when the pay is less than your average surveyor / solicitor yet you have responsibility for the firms entire turnover and need to have knowledge superior to anyone else in the business?

Might seem arrogant but you will need to know as much about Tax as the accountant to configure the ERP, as much about manufacturing for MRP etc. I'm always amused when someone says 'oh I don't bother with computer stuff' yet tries to talk down to you about their 'expertise'.

Until such a career has the same cachet as an Architect and similar pay not many parents will want little Johnny to pursue it as a career.

Little Johnny if he has enough sense to do the job will see he is better off doing something that won't be offshored (though few jobs are immune) or onshored (thanks to successive governments subsidising big business by allowing ICT abuse).

Anyone my experience in corporate is that CIO's come from the business not IT they then have a series of advisers that are IT competent. Something I call the parliament model. This is why outsourcing is so common, sometimes they listen to vendors with nice lunches more than their advisers.

Corporates! Bring in all-purpose filler for IT skills gap, thunders Steelie Neelie

will code for food

Hilarious, apparently there is a lack of people willing to do IT for minimum wage.

Quick, its a shortage, lets open the borders.

The fall in the IT degree students is because they have seen the writing on the wall.If they can see it why can't our lords and masters, surely their friends in business taking those huge bonuses and offering MP's directorships while their company offshores IT can explain? oh wait now I see.

Architect pitches builder-bothering 'Print your own house' plan

Personally I think its genius, if certain designs get building approval in principle when used with XYZ plumbing & electrics it would make self build a reality for many more people.

Also this agreement in principle could be extended to planning and allow innovative designs to be approved based on established plans.

Also in emergency shelter situations shipping in a CNC machine (or CNC cut parts that interlock with standard boards) and a set of plans could rehouse people in days.

Also I suspect many designs will become ECO warrior powered and become homes of the future with near zero impact.

Look out! Peak wind is coming, warns top Harvard physicist

Just a little load of old wind

surprise, surprise ask any sailor why you rig sails a particular way.

Now can we have our money back? Many people suggested wind power was a distraction.

Solar electric power with hydro,battery, hydrogen etc storage would be perfectly acceptable.

Just as Solar thermal can store heat for days.

Solar can also be used as a pre heat for industrial processes or heating.