Posts by b166er

Watchdog reluctantly blesses Vodafone-Three merger – with strings attached

If BT opposes it then I'm all for Throdafone

Bleeping Computer sued by Enigma Software over moderator's forum post

That site has been useful to me on several occasions, so $20 donated. I think Enigma might live to regret this.

Heart Internet in 22-hour TITSUP after data centre power stuffup

Yeah, we have two Hybrid VPS' with Heart. The one with the small database was back up fairly quickly, luckily I guess that database wasn't corrupted because of minimal size/traffic and that VPS was on a switch that got back up and running fairly quickly.

Different story with the other one, bad switch prevented reaching it for several hours then when I could shell in, InnoDB had taken major exception to suddenly going dark and spat the dummy. I'm not a DBA, so I raised a ticket with Heart asking them to step in an fix MySQL so I could go about restoring our database. Then their support site had a lie down and it was a further several hours before they got back to me. In that time, I learnt how to recover InnoDB and fixed MySQL myself, then proceeded to restore the database from a backup as there were tables aplenty missing :/

All in all, Cphulkd, Roundcube, Eximstats and a couple of our databases were goosed, along with some other random file system corruptions here and there.

We don't pay for Premium Hosting (although I notice that has the same SLA), so I had to go learn stuff, but if we had been paying Premium, we couldn't communicate with Heart anyway, that's what really annoyed me about the whole event. Sure things happen and you need to accommodate that, but when you can't communicate with the people and are consequently waiting to see if they're doing anything so you aren't both working the problem at the same time, it gets more than a little frustrating.

The same VPS died last year for a while too, resulting in about the same downtime as this time. I wonder how their SLA is calculated, it's more like 99.6% from where I'm standing.

Maybe some virtual BBUs on those Virtual RAID cards?

What’s new in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2016?

Thanks for the reply, I had in fact Googled it, however that blog is for TP4. I was wondering if it's definitely officially in the release. I suppose the fact that it's still in TP4 means it's definitely in.

Your setups sound very interesting, as they both seem like quite unusual scenarios for passthrough. I wanted to run a Windows virtual machine and passthrough the GPU; I even bought specific hardware (I know GPU support is restricted by nVidia etc.), but there's a list of supported cards on the Xen wiki for example. Ultimately, I was frustrated and could never get it to work, using either Xen/Qemu or KVM, so I was hoping Microsoft had made a more thorough effort on this front. This paragraph on the GPU focused TechNet blog stood out:

We’re working with the GPU vendors to see if they want to support specific GPUs, and they may decide to do that. It’s really their call, and they’re unlikely to make a support statement on more than the few GPUs that are sold into the server market. If they do, they’ll supply driver packages which convert them from being considered “use at your own risk” within Hyper-V to the supported category. When those driver packages are installed, the error and warning messages that appear when you try to dismount the GPU will disappear.

I guess it's time to grab TP4 and try!

I believe GPU passthrough is only available in VMWare as a paid for option? What version of VMWare are you using and were you able to pass through your devices without paying extra?

So is Discrete Device Assignment in?

Lettuce in SPAAACE: Captive ISS 'nauts insist orbital veg is 'awesome'

Re: One giant fart

So gastronauts in both senses then?

It's enough to get your back up: Eight dual-bay SOHO NAS boxes

Would have been really nice to know if any of these do iSCSI and whether they have apps for backing themselves up to cloud storage services.

Crazy Chrysler security hole: USB stick fix incoming for 1.4 million cars

Re: Why is the onboard computer able to control the brakes and steering?

Presumably so a future firmware update will enable the vehicle to auto-pilot.

BT: Let us scrap ordinary phone lines. You've all got great internet, right?

Almost all broadband connections in the UK could support VoIP calls provided there was end-to-end QoS and presumably there would be more bandwidth available for IP if the copper didn't have to support traditional voice calls anyway.

If BT/Openreach can remove the need for twice the amount of equipment as is really necessary, surely that would make maintaining the network easier to and therefore more reliable?

Sysadmins rebel over GUI-free install for Windows Server 2016

Well someone had to :p

Nice to know you're listening though d_(*J*)_b

Windows 10 won't help. The PC biz is doomed, DOOMED, I TELL YOU

Thing is, Windows 10 is not only for PCs. The device market has flourished and therefore PC sales are diluted, stands to reason. I'm looking forward to Xbox and PC sharing an OS, would love a Surface and am quite tempted to get a Windows phone. So there's four potential 'sales'.

Whether my fridge will ever join that collection is at the moment a mystery, but a router with Windows 10 IoT might be quite interesting.

That EVIL TEXT that will CRASH your iPhone: We pop the hood

Reading through this thread makes me suspect people with iPhones often don't have a sense of humour.

'Millions' of routers open to absurdly outdated NetUSB hijack

As far as I am aware, DrayTEK routers appear to be immune to most if not all of the recent router pwnage flaws I've seen.

Gaze upon the desirable Son of Alpha: Samsung Galaxy A5

Interested in your experience with the Alpha, as I have 3 S2's. Do you love the Alpha too? :)

Forced sale of Openreach division would put BT broadband investment at risk, says CEO

BT's plans would be put at risk? Perhaps that's a good thing.

Mozilla to whack HTTP sites with feature-ban stick

Re: Too costly

Erm, GoDaddy are doing SSL certs for £3.99

'Just follow the damn Constitution!' FBI, DoJ skewered over demands for crypto backdoors

"Apple and Google don't have coercive power. District attorneys do, the FBI does, the NSA does, and to me it's very simple to draw a privacy balance when it comes to law enforcement and privacy: just follow the damn Constitution. And because the NSA didn't do that and other law enforcement agencies didn't do that, you're seeing a vast public reaction to this."

A politician said this? I like this guy.

New Windows 10 will STAGGER to its feet, says Microsoft OS veep

Re: It'll arrive in waves...

Wave 1 - OEMs and Retailers and the £300 laptop buying general public gawd blessum

Wave 2 - Service Pack 1, enterprise churn on a 'thoroughly tested' deployment

Wave 3 - Service Pack 2, anyone who understands Microsoft release strategy

Maybe 10 is 8.1 Service Pack 1, so we won't have long to wait for Service Pack 2, although I hear Service Packs don't exist any more, but patches will be delivered in waves!

Tesla reveals Powerwall battery packs for homes, Powerpacks for cities

Do these make sense with Economy 7 doing the charging?

Brit boffins blow up Li-On batteries and film the melting copper

I wonder what's in Musk's battery tomorrow?

Welcome, stranger: Inside Microsoft's command line shell

'MS-DOS was lacking other features, too, that many would now consider unforgivable. After typing out an incredibly long command and realising there was an extra letter at the very beginning, all you'd end up with was an unusable chunk of text.' - a bit like when you've composed a txt or email then realise you have a spelling error and are sadly using an iPhone instead of a phone with editing capabilities.

LenovOUCH expands bits-blistering bodgy battery boomerang

Thanks for the heads up here, I just bought an x220 off Ebay last week and according to Lenovo's Battery Utility 2015 tool, I need a replacement. Here for the installer if you need to check.

I'm pleased about this, as batteries are never warrantied by Ebay sellers, so I'm getting a brand new warrantied one from Lenovo!

(Just found out the warranty is only 90 days. Still, better than 0 days I suppose)

Windows 10 Device Guard: Microsoft's effort to keep malware off PCs

Re: As much as an MS fanboi that i am,

Well perhaps he means that Device Guard isn't mandatory?

KABOOM! Billionaire fingers dud valve in ROCKET WIBBLE PRANG BLAST

What strikes me about that successful hover and land footage, is that I'm so used to seeing scenes like that in CGI, that that footage doesn't look real!

ALIENS ARE COMING: Chief NASA boffin in shock warning

Perhaps not, but Mulder has and he's back soon!

Microsoft: Office 365 IT admins get free device-wrangling controls

Maybe they should just go all in an merge Intune with Office 365.

If Windows 10 is 'free' for consumers anyway, just chuck a bit more on the price of Office 365 and give biz customers 10 with it.

Jailed Brit con phishes prison, gets bail

Wonder how long was left on his sentence and why he turned himself in?

Perhaps he had to do something and needed to be out to do it.

'spose I should go read the Beeb article.

Tears of a cloud: Don’t be let down by backup and disaster recovery

What's kinda really annoying about this at the moment, is SOHO/SMB NAS' have such poor cloud storage support. Why is there no app on ReadyNAS for OneDrive for example (or Azure)?

PIRATES and THIEVES to get Windows 10 as BOOTY

Re: What kind of free is this?

You suspect wrong, it's free for the lifetime of the device.

Most consumers get Windows for 'free' anyway, with their purchase of hardware, so basically what they're saying is, for this version of Windows, free upgrades.

Bulk interception is NOT mass surveillance, says parliamentary committee

'primarily in order to uncover threats'

Evidence that they have found ANY?

Weapons of mass surveillance

I wish I'd leaked sooner says Edward Snowden in post-Oscar chinwag

I don't think it's so much a privacy issue actually, this is an abuse of power issue.

That's something everyone should be concerned with.

But then, to quote Smith: 'Billions of people just living out their lives...oblivious'

Evil CSS injection bug warning: Don't let hackers cross paths with your website

Err, so does <!DOCTYPE html> prevent this?

Sony hackers dump more hunks of stolen data, promise another 'Christmas gift'

Re: Sticking it to the Man is one thing

@Boltar

I would say that the Walton family controlling more wealth than 40% of Americans is bordering on evil.

That's just one example off the top of my head.

Here's another. If you had a wage of say $20,000 per annum, buying an apple for you would be the equivalent of spending 400,000 dollars for Warren Buffett.

(I understand Mr Buffett to be a sensible man and this is not a personal attack on Mr Buffett, rather an observation of a messed up system (an opinion that he may well share))

http://pennystocks.la/warren-buffett/index.html

I do not like the capitalist system.

I also do not like psychopaths.

The perspective is, both groups cause harm.

Re: They are done

That's debatable :D

Thought your household broadband was pants? Small biz has it worse

Re: No FTTC for us

You've hit the nail on the head there me ol' fruit.

If small businesses had enough bandwidth, they'd jump on the VoIP bandwagon sharpish. More lost revenue for Bastard Telecom.

It also amazes me how wasteful of money BT are. I worked in a business centre in a large town just outside Glasgow, which was supplied by a 200pair cable from one exchange and a 50pair cable from a different exchange. The 200pair was so congested (imagine @40 broadband circuits through that) and the frame in the business centre was the old solder type.

There was a BT van in the car park there every week at least, without fail. They would come in and fix the complaint,only to cause another fault for a different tenant. BT engineers no longer carry the equipment to properly terminate with a solder connection, so they just wrap it around and hope for the best.

Last time I was in the frame closet, I noticed an Openreach engineer had scrawled on the wall 'pure quality' (a common colloquialism in those parts)

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Re: Mobile

Indeed,it feels like Uncle Reg is actually trolling.

A redesign WITHOUT being responsive??!? Srsly wtf?

I'm no web design guru, but even I could make this site responsive in about 5 minutes.

Sony Pictures hires Mandiant, asks FBI for help after massive cyber attack

Another network fail, you'd have thought they would have learned their lesson with the PSN breach. Maybe $400,000 wasn't enough.

BOFH: Everyone deserves a little DOWNTIME

Excellent, cheers!

"I was just wondering if you could tell me when things would be back as there's people wanting to work."

Fuck that one really grinds my gears!!! No fucking shit, Sherlock!

Tough Banana Pi: a Raspberry Pi for colour-blind diehards

Couldn't you do iSCSI?

Euro Parliament VOTES to BREAK UP GOOGLE. Er, OK then

Well Schmidt did say he welcomed promises by international leaders to crack down on tax loopholes.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/19/google-eric-schmidt-tax-loopholes

This is one way to do that.

South Londoner wins Reddit MILLIONAIRE not-a-lottery lottery

Re: errrm....

Guess you don't read Reddit :D

Renewable energy 'simply won't work': Top Google engineers

A home fitted with solar PV and a ground source heat pump, would surely require very little in the way of fossil fuels, if any at all. And that's achievable right now.

Regarding the cost, it's a simple supply and demand argument. When plasma TVs first launched, they were around £4000 each. Driven by market demand, this fell to £400 pretty quickly.

If ground source heat pumps and PV roofs were mandated on all new build, the price of installing it would plummet and therefore be more accessible to retro-fitting for owners of older properties.

So if each domestic property was self sufficient (including charging cars, at least for the daily commute), then attention needs to turn to industrial processes. Again, if the large sheds that businesses live in were covered in PV, a large amount of energy requirement would be removed. Converting industrial waste into energy is already being done by various companies, I believe Sainsbury's have a store powered entirely by food waste. There are a good few countries that have close to 100% renewable electricity generation through geothermal or hydroelectric.

I'm far from being an expert, but these things I can see with my own eyes, so I refuse to believe it's not going to be possible.

I'm sure saying this will probably prove unpopular.

SO LONELY: Woman DARED to get rid of her iPHONE - Apple DUMPED all her TXTS

I remember this story when it first came up.

I hope Apple get whipped for this. It's blackmail and deceitful.

CBS goes OTT, releases EVERY EPISODE of Star Trek EVER MADE

See my remark below.

I'm not a marketroid, promise! :D

As long as it's 20p per day on a daily basis, we're fine. That or buy £10 worth of credit and use it at a rate of 20p per hour (40p for premium).

Let's be generous and say the average Netflix (for example) viewer watches 1 hour per day.

At £6 per month, that's 0.20p per day, or 0.20p per hour.

So if all content providers were to,charge, say 0.20p per hour for their mainstream catalogue, or say, 0.40p per hour for blockbusters or what they class as premium content (the BBC colour TV license is almost exactly 0.40p per day), then it wouldn't matter if we needed multiple subscriptions to multiple providers.

If however, they all charge £6 per month, someone's going to lose out somewhere.

The consumer will lose out through being unable or unwilling to pay for access to all they content they want to watch. Some content providers will lose out to others because they're not in the viewers discretionary budget.

If providers harmonise the price per minute watched, they could also sell that to other service providers in bulk, similar to existing agreements such as MVNO etc.

Fragmenting is a bad move and will ultimately lead to a loss in revenue unless the price is harmonised at an affordable rate.

Dropbox-but-with-an-actual-box firm touts new biz appliances

The thing with all these similar products, is the upstream bandwidth available behind them which is where cloudy solutions prevail.

Adorkable overshare of words like photobomb in this year's dictionaries

So is the polo-neck the normcore of the hipster?

Google opens Inbox – email for people too thick to handle email

How about Google pushes the industry to standardise the HTML and CSS allowed (or not) in an email?

Then EVERYONE sending an email can make sure it's formatted to convey the message on whatever device displays it.

If email really still is relevant (and I think it is), then why the fuck this hasn't been done long ago, I just can't fathom.

Browsers are now, by and large, accurate and consistent, why not the same for email renderers?

Want a more fuel efficient car? Then redesign it – here's how

What if you reskinned the doors, wings, bonnet and boot with carbon-fibre? That bonnet alone must weigh a tonne.

Also those bumpers look damn heavy and I bet the headlight glass is 2 inches thick :)

Keep the seats though. One can go TOO far!

Sky's tech bets pay off: Pay TV firm unveils blazing growth for Q1

Is there a completely ad free option yet?