Posts by secondtimeuser

IT infrastructure scared away potential buyers of struggling e-commerce site

An absolutely appalling website redesign shortly before going bust probably didn't help. CRC in particular used to have one of the best bike shopping websites in the game but the relaunch version omitted all kinds of sort and filtering options that made finding what you want unnecessarily difficult.

ByteDance 'would rather' torpedo TikTok than sell it off

"sell...or have its video-sharing app banned from US software stores"

So offer the app as a direct download from its own website and let users sideload it? I assume there's some text in the bill that closes off this obvious loophole?

Users now keep cellphones for 40+ months and it's hurting the secondhand market

I recently retired my 4 year old Galaxy S9 (which in itself was second hand) and replaced it with a new Galaxy A34 which was on a great offer in Black Friday sales.

Any difference in day to day usage is largely invisible, though I do find myself disappointed with the new camera performance. There might be some settings magic I'm missing but I'd have expected mid range to at least match premium from 5 years prior.

Share your 2024 tech forecasts (wrong answers only) to win a terrible sweater

UK English becomes the official language for all programming and digital communication, including reporting on the entire IT industry.

HMD offers Nokia phone with novel concept: Designed to be repaired by its owner

3.5mm headphone jack AND MicroSD slot? This has suddenly shot up my list of candidate phones for if my current one suddenly expires.

I paid for it, that makes it mine. Doesn’t it? No – and it never did

Re: Ink on Paper

Just this week I've finally got a mobile calendar solution running I'm happy with; Synology NAS (that I already had) with their Calendar app on it, then DAVx5 + Business Calendar on the mobile devices.

5 calendars in parallel (one for whole-family activities, one each for the inhabitants); wife and I have admin rights over the kids calendars to keep track of where they need to be and when, and we can see each others calendars (but not add to them). Early days but seems to be working fine so far, and with nothing depending on Alphabet / MS etc.

Elon Musk had secret twins in 2021 with Neuralink exec

Re: Elon Musk had secret twins in 2021

The less intelligent one will be used for spare (organic) parts for the superior one.

Next six months could set a new pace for work-life balance

Re: 40 hour weeks?

I'm surprised by the apparent normalcy of 40 hours too. I've been on 37.5 hr weeks across 3 different jobs / industries since graduating in 2010, just with different philosophies of how to spread that time across the week (e.g. 4x8 + 1x5.5 or 5x7.5). All UK jobs but parent companies have been US or Canadian based.

Putin reaches for nuclear option: Zuckerberg banned

Re: I know, right?

"Another F.U. Song" by Reel Big Fish fits that bill pretty well.

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Re: file managers

I'll take a look at that one, cheers. One of my journeys in WINE has been getting Total Commander to work as that's what I've been using since forever as I love the two panel layout Vs WinExplorer. Looks like Xfe can do the same so that will likely work for me.

Re: Mint Newbie

Thanks! Aside from some games on my dad's Amstrad when I was really young I've been on Windows since our first Win95 PC when I was about 8 years old, so it wasn't so much learning Windows as "this is what a PC is" - I didn't have any habits to break or processes to unlearn. I'm generally going in with the approach of "this is the same, but different".

Mint Newbie

I'm at the very start of my non-Windows adventure having installed Mint dual-boot on my laptop and managed to get maybe 10 hours of "flight time" with it. Install generally went okay but there's definitely some oddities that have crept in, e.g. the function key behaviour has inverted so now I need to hold down the Fn button to get the basic F1, F2 etc commands rather than the audio playback tools.

I found some unexpected behaviour trying to get programs running through Wine (as there are no Linux alternatives) and I'm still not used to files and folders being jumbled up in the File Explorer rather than having folders all at the top of the list (presumably there's a setting somewhere?).

All in all, it's working (generally), but it's different, and it will take some getting used to. I also find some of the documentation a bit lacking / presumptuous at times for an *absolute* newbie,

Windows 11: What we like and don't like about Microsoft's operating system so far

Annoying here too as someone who has always had it at the top, though it seems a registry change allows moving it to the top (for now?)

https://winaero.com/how-to-move-taskbar-in-windows-11-change-taskbar-location/

ZTE Axon 30 Ultra: Strong effort from an entity-lister, but your tiny child hands may struggle

Battery Capacity

Given how big phone batteries commonly are now, when are we going to stop using mAh and just write it as 4.6Ah instead?

Google to ban emoji, deceptive marketing, and ALL CAPS from Play Store metadata later this year

Impressively Forza Street manages to be both ad free, and a free to play mobile game that's actually fun to play (if you like racing games).

Irony isn't dead... Facebook sues EU on data privacy grounds for requesting too much personal data

There's some fairly believable options for those;

Medical information: they had a sick day, on return to work they needed to give a brief reason for needing time off.

Personal financial documents: payslips

Information about family members: next of kin details for in the event of an emergency at work.

Would you let your car insurer snoop on you for a better deal?

I'm already on this insurance.

I'm already on the Co-operatives Implementation of this insurance. Some background info:

- 23y/old male

- 3yrs no claims bonus (ie, no claims since starting driving)

- Skoda Fabia estate, 1.2, no modifications, 54 plate.

- I pride myself on not driving like a tool. I stick to speed limits, I corner smoothly, I accelerate gently and brake responsibly. Compared to most of my contemporaries, I can probably be called a pretty good driver.

Had been with Aviva, insurance premium had gone up from £550 to £820 (fully comp). Direct Line wanted £790. Tried some price comparison jobs, premiums ranging from £900 to £16,000 (yes, that many zeroes). Co-op Young Driver Policy? £440.

Yes, that few zeroes.

So, bit more digging, decide to take the plunge and go for it. Chap came round to install the box at my flat, so plus points for that. It's actually about the size of a standard HDD, buried in the dashboard.

I've got an online interface that shows my scores for the last 30 days (and I've made a spreadsheet logging all of my scores). The four parameters measured are Speed, Acceleration and Braking, Cornering and Time of Day. These are unevenly weighted, by my maths Speed and Time of Day have a relative weight of 0.3ish, Accn/Brk and Cornering 0.2ish. You also get an overall score for each day.

My main gripe is a lack of consistency. Monday to Friday I'm doing the same journeys at the same times of day, and while everything else is fairly consistent, my cornering score can go anywhere between 2.6 and 5 (out of 5). Also, cornering score seems to nose-dive on any journeys with a motorway-motorway junction (think M5/M42 junction, if you know it) - almost seems as if it wants you to shed a load more speed, even if you cruise round it at a very sedate 45mph-ish. There also seem to be some roads that are just impossible to get a good cornering score on too, such as the A48. If I went any slower round the corners it would be dangerously slow, and yet the best cornering score I've got is 3.5ish.

Time limitations can be a pain too, though I so rarely drive between 11pm and 6am I just suck up the poor score for that day.

As for unexpected events, emergency stops are filtered out. Came round a blind corner on a country lane to find a car reversing in front of me, 50-0mph in as short a time as possible and my accn/brk score for the day was still 4.8. It's only repeated heavy braking that will do you over.

After 3 months use I got a £53 rebate on my insurance, essentially taking my premium down to £390, which blows away every other off I found. Shall be getting my next premium adjustment in a couple of weeks time.

Overall I'd recommend it, but only if you're a legal beagle when it comes to speed limits and only if night driving is an extreme rarity.