Posts by Pete 39

More evidence your work/life balance has gone to $%£*: Atlassian says user-interface interactions show hours tacked on to workday

Pub!

"You're probably reading this on your work laptop when you should have been down the pub"

Please tell me and the rest of the UK where?

Galaxy S20 security is already old hat as Samsung launches new safety silicon

Repairs

Or perhaps they want to stop repairs other than at official Samsung shops, and then only for a short while.

Ofcom waves DAB radio licences under local broadcasters' noses as FM switchoff debate smoulders again

Re: Complete the migration to DAB+ before faffing with FM

Actually the FM standard has been modified at least twice, but each was backwards compatible with the the earlier standards. The initial standard was mono, stereo multiplexing was added, and later RDS was added. Each enhancement carefully avoiding interference with each other and in particular with the original and still present mono component.

It's true – it really is grim up north, thanks to Virgin Media. ISP fined for Carlisle cable chaos

Taking the cheapest contractor is not the only option

See title.

Google to kill its Drive file locker in two confusing ways

Error 500

500. That’s an error.

There was an error. Please try again later. That’s all we know.

=========================

Above is all I see when trying to access my Google Drive folders, via the web interface, this evening. Co-incidence or...

Western Digital has cloudified the NAS and shoved it in a trendy box

Advetorial

Maybe I missed it what's special about this kit?

Dust off those White Space devices: New rules finalised by Ofcom

Correction

New UK regulations are set to come into force at the end of this year

Should read

New UK regulations come into force at the end of 2015

etc...

(Would use the correction link but no access to email from this PC.)

Loss of unencrypted back-up disk costs UK prisons ministry £180K

Info Please

If the hard drive was lost how do they know that encryption wasn't turned on? You obviously can't rely on the users as it appears that they haven't got a clue.

Widening this out why wait till something is lost before a fine is issued. If someone breaks the speed limit they can be fined without ever having caused an accident. I'd suggest random checks of similar facilities and if they are found to be using processes that could trivially lead to the loss of data through the loss of a physical asset then they should be fined, without waiting for that loss.

And yes fines are pointless within the Government, the service owner (a person) should be the one to bear the cost with the chance that ultimately they could loose their job. At the very least they should be named so there is no chance I'd have to work with them.

Freeview to be nudged down to clear 5G bands in 2018

OFCOM Couldn't Forward Plan Xmas

I've had to replace my TV antenna because Digital Switch Over changed the UHF channels of the local TV transmitter - £150. To get a decent signal I couldn't have a wide-band antenna, the one supplied provides more gain but over a narrower range. OK I have a reasonably well paid job, and I do use mobile data, so the expence of having to pay again to have a new antenna fitted, if the new channels fall outside of the gain band of the current antenna, whilst not welcome is partly for my own benefit. But my parents and people of their age who are more likely to watch TV than to even send a text message, let alone use mobile data, will have to pay too. Who ever is responcible for this decision should hold their head in shame. There has been a significant lack of forward planning. They claim to have predictions for mobile data use in years to come. Going back to when TV Digital Switch Over was proposed, what where the predictions then, and why couldn't they see that their half baked proposals to free up the 600 MHz band would be so short-sighted? You begin to wonder if OFCOM isn't a job creation scheme for the antenna riggers of the UK.

Geek seeks cash for Top Trumps-style CPU game

2001

I read - "Ha! My Z80A beats your 6502" as "HAL My Z80A beats your 6502", which is possibly why it wouldn't open the pod bay door.

World's stealthiest rootkit pushes DNS hijacking trojan

Update Coming

I wouldn't rely on IPCONFIG /all for too much longer. The rootkit could be updated to catch all calls for the DNS settings, and then to return the values that were there before it changed the ones the TCP/IP stack uses.

It might be necessary to watch the actual traffic on the 'wire'.

Even then if a local but hidden host table has been modified you wouldn't know.

Ballmer reprises 'developers, developers, developers' chant

So they can steal it.

MS have a reputation for taking the idea of any useful utility (defrag and networking spring to mind here) that added useful functionality to the OS and then including it in the OS, thus killing any future market. If sales for the new apps by these developers are through the MS market place then MS'll have the sales data to know which utilities are worth copying / including. If you're lucky you might get bought out, but you probably won't be (lucky). In any case you'll have paid MS to do the research into your market's potential.

Hundreds of Brit pubs to offer free WiFi

Better Abroad

Just back from Turkey. Free WiFi, and occasionally power too, in most bars and cafes. Find the bar's SSID, enter the password the staff give you or point out on the menu, off you go. Good enough for browsing, occasionally for video too. Nothing to pay above buying a beer. Just make sure you have the firewall on and that you use a limited account on the PC.

It might be a loss leader but I imagine once one bar started doing it (for tourists) they all had to or loose trade. Mabe one day it will be better here too, or is there some legal aspect?

Sony brings Skype to Bravia HD TVs

Sony!

Will they keep our data safe?

Avast alert finds WHOLE WEB malign

Not just the web

I saw the web alerts yesterday, and assumed that they related to some dodgy ads loaded as part of the page (or which would have been loaded).

This morning on a freshly booted PC and with Avast! updated it started complaining that DVD menu authoring software I run regularly should only be run in the Avast! sandbox.

Related?