Posts by Tezfair

Bloody vultures! Cheeky Spanish paraglider firm pinched El Reg's mascot

Re: It's floating around the web

So the question is, did el reg commission the design or lift it themselves?

Lazy designers?

Customer of mine several years back was going through a marketing refresh and had a proposed new logo. As soon as I saw it I said it was the same as Creative Labs A - the like-an-upside-down V with a line at the bottom. It wasn't similar, it was the same, thickness, font, distance between items.

They didn't use it in the end.

UK taxman spent six times more with AWS last year than cloud firm paid in corporation tax

hmmmmmm

All that tax / profit going abroad along with jobs.

Backup your files with CrashPlan! Except this file type. No, not that one either. Try again...

offsite backups

I gave my lads (at uni) a 4Tb ext HDD each. Set up syncthing as send / receive and so far has been sufficient for multiple offsite backups.

Never bothered with any of the online backups due to the volume of data. Cheaper in the long run to buy drives.

Google Pay tells Euro users it has ditched UK for Ireland ahead of Brexit

What I hope for...

Once we get out of the EU and in control of our taxes, we can poach bigcorp back to our waters with favorable - eg, lower CT that Eire. Whilst we might make a loss on some taxes, by virtue of employing people the gov would recover that tax through PAYE / NI / VAT (on the basis that if more people are emploted there's more disposable income)

After all, being in control of 'our' countries finances was probably the key reason for people voting to break away from Brussels.

How'd your servers get that baby-smooth look? Dutch and Brit cool kids dunk Supermicro systems in synthetic oil

new spin on old tech?

I recall this being a thing some 20 years ago

Is this the way the cookie wall crumbles? Dutch data watchdog says nee to take-it-or-leave-it consent

I just surf privately now

I got fed up of being hit with cookie messages so I have an addin in Firefox - temporary containers which opens links in a private session then when i leave the cookies etc are deleted. Seems to work well, especially when opening youtube links as I can now watch a clip without it knowing and saving what I watched.

ReactOS 0.4.11 makes great strides towards running Windows apps without the Windows

Potential to VM cheap

I have customers that would benefit from virtualising the desktop but the cost of either enterprise licensing, Citrix or VDA licenses stops the idea from progressing. All they need is a windows based OS with file access. Even Office could be OSS.

It's not your imagination: Ticket scalper bots are flooding the internet according this 'ere study

Reminds me of the failed 'This is it' Tour

Jackos tickets were swapping hands at 4 figure sums then he goes and dies and any refunds are face value. Bet there was a lot of annoyed people that lost out due to the touts.

Not cool, man: Dixons spanked over discount on luxury 'smart' fridge with wildly fluctuating price

so the price went up because they sold a few?

I know shops aim for 75% markup, but adding a grand based on sales is taking the piss

Windows Defender update: So secure, it wouldn't let Secure-Boot Windows PCs, er, boot

golden age

I look back to XP / Office 2003 / Server 2003 and think how wonderful those days were.

Trying to log into Office 365 right now? It's a coin flip, says Microsoft: Service goes TITSUP as Azure portal wobbles

Re: Remind me again why ...

I've looked after on prem servers for donkeys years, and Exchange from 2000 and I don't recall once ever having any outage. Small business don't need a full time IT, I agree, however I look after many small businesses with various versions of Exchange and them paying me is far better than them paying a foreign company and the UK gov losing out on tax.

Struggling with GDPR compliance? Don't waste money on legal advice: Buy a shredder

snake oil seller indeed

I read up on GDPR and gave a reasonable heads up to a multi office consumer facing client, but it seemed that what I said couldn't possibly be right so they got a chap in at great expense which essentially repeated what I said and also gave them some long policy document which was specific to them. Nope, it turned out was a straight lift of documents that other companies had posted on the internet and this guy simply changed the company name.

Tens to be disappointed as Windows 10 Mobile death date set: Doomed phone OS won't see 2020

not missed any more

I had windows phones for many years and used to push them over blackberries but once they went to the metro format I went to android and never looked back. I miss the older windows mobile. Simple and manageable.

::sad face::

Oh, I wish it could be Black Friday every day-aayyy, when the wallets start jingling but it's still a week till we're paiii-iid

Bullshit prices

Few weeks ago, Ebuyers Home and Business 2016 Office somewhere around £158. Last week had to buy one (16/11), £174.99, Black Friday deal, £157.49. ex VAT prices.

Shocker: UK smart meter rollout is crap, late and £500m over budget

I suspect that when smart meters were first considered, the old filament bulbs were the normal hence high consumption. My house today is all LEDs, not even halogen or CFLs so the overall consumption will be considerablly less. I don't need a meter to tell me that 100w filament uses more than 9w LED.

Moreover, the old whirly meters tended to be 10% in our favour, so a more accurate meter will mean our bills would go up.

Washington Post offers invalid cookie consent under EU rules – ICO

Re: Other solution

I tend to open these sites in a private window as the cookies will be removed when I exit.

Washington Post isn't alone. i'm finding more and more websites now bring up a popup that forces accept our cookies or leave popups.

Windows 10 Pro goes Home as Microsoft fires up downgrade server

Not the first time

About 2 years ago, not long after a free upgrade from W7 I started getting this sort of error, usually also followed by the 'this needs to be activated' messages. In the end I scrapped my dual booting setup, got a 500gb ssd and done a fresh install and it's been ok since.

SMBs: We don't want to spoil all of this article, but have you patched, taken away admin rights, made backups yet?

Its not the Sysadmin thats at fault...

More often than not the patches cause more headaches than they solve. Many times I have done a 'just released' patch and has forced me to roll back a VM. Worst case one was early 2017 when the update fully killed Exchange 2016 on reboot (I wasn't alone). All services failed to start and had to take it back to the snapshot. Now I only update that server once I have a fully tested patch on a lab backup and then only after a few weeks has passed.

Going gung ho on patches is very risky these days.

Chuck this on expenses: £2k iPad paints Apple as the premium fondleslab specialist – as planned

Perceived quality?

Seems to me that putting a high ticket price on it will make buyers think that this is the dogs bollocks when in reality it's probably little more than a standard ipad with a few tweaks here and there.

Nice work if you can get it: GandCrab ransomware nets millions even though it has been broken

backups are all well and good...

So long as they are detached from the computer at the point of infection, else they will also be encryted. Went to a customers house and everything, pc and ext hdd all encrypted. Only it was some 2 weeks prior to my visit so I gave an explanation and left.

Grumbling about wobbly Windows 10? Microsoft can't hear you over the clanging cash register

profits are up...

No shit Sherlock. Price increases on new versions of everything and / or cores and subscriptions on just about anything that MS can get away with.

Congrats from 123-Reg! You can now pay us an extra £6 or £12 a year for basically nothing

i've been happy with krystal hosting (clients) unlimited web hosting (what we use but are considering going to krystal). cheap and responsive.

Bug? Feature? Power users baffled as BitLocker update switch-off continues

I think this is an old issue

On server 2008R2 my clients bitlocked USB drives would all be locked after an update. Not every update I will add, but enough to make it worthy of checking after the update.

Seagate passes gassy 14TB whopper: He He He, one for each of you

Re: Foot in both worlds

My home server has 5 x 4Tb drives as R5. It stores all the familys files, kids school / uni work, films, music, downloads from early 2000 onwards (mainly old games that the kids can't get any more). I also store various VMs and backups of old server OSs and at the moment I have 1.51Tb of space left.

I don't need speed, but I need capacity. Saying that, a single 14Tb is a lot of data to lose if it fails.

PPI pushers now need consent to cold-call you

0845

i used to have an 0845 number that I would give out to any non friend / family member. i don't recall getting any junk calls. It was a number that didn't cost me anything, but equally didn't generate revenue.

Neutron star crash in a galaxy far, far... far away spews 'faster than light' radio signal jets at Earth

Hope it's true

I have long argued that the speed of light is the fastest thing we currently know of and it is entirely possible that something else could go faster.

Have I been paid, Sage? Cloudy wage service locks out users

hidden T&Cs, robbing buzztards

I don't normally have their support, but I did last year to catchup my perpetual license only to be told that I had to give them 30 days notice, only they send the invoice after the cut off day. All I got back from Sage was " if the renewal is not paid then it will be passed to debt collection and a 11% fee is applied on top of the total cost of the amount owed. "

Needless to say I will no longer deal with them and i'm working on getting my clients to move too.

A £1.3m prize for a plunging share price at BT? Not so fast...

Good that his bonus is being questioned. My rental goes up almost twice a year and the idea of a mobile only house becomes be appeaing. I'm looking to move to Zens FTTP and hopefully get away from BT billing for good. The business line is on VoIP and already thats halved the rental.

The issue with BT is that they are pricing themselves out of the market, same as postage stamps. I probabbly send maybe 10 letters a year now whereas it was anything up to 30 a month (invoices).

Plus I have no interest in sport, but I bet i'm subidising BTSports TV rights.

Three-hour outage renders Nest-equipped smart homes very dumb

Did I read that right...

Unlock doors from an app? I wonder how the insurance stands with a lost / stolen unlocked phone where the owners details are visible. Seems a theft waiting to happen.

Peak smartphone? Phone fatigue hits Western Europe hard

1st phone in 4+ years

I decided to retire out my faithful oneplus one last week for a Samsung S9+. Reasons were due to the screen, battery life and some VoIP compatibility issues with bluetooth. It's been bl**dy fantasic mobile. The last phone before that was an S4 which I had for several years on contract (my lads got that now)

I don't need to replace a phone until I have to as the quality has improved over the years and there's very few bells and whistles that I can't live without.

A beer for my old mobile

New Monty Python movie to turn old jokes into new royalties

topical

Wife and I were bored last night channel hopping so watched Life of Brian on Netflix. It's like an old friend

Last attempt to find MH370 starts this week

a silly suggestion, but bare with me

Clearly this is no help to the plane, but maybe they should install sealed plastic balls so in the event of a crash at sea the balls are released and may give a clue to tidal direction. This is based on the rubber ducks that scientists monitor on the ocean. There's little or no weight and can be shoved in any void.

Microsoft's latest Windows 10 update downs Chrome, Cortana

3 hours and went back

Some personalisations were lost but the biggest issue was windows flagging up with 'windows license will expire soon' every few minutes. Yet go into activation and its all activated and happy and has been for about 3 years. Gone back to the previous build and all is calm again.

Boring as she goes at Sage? Oh no, no, no! Shares slide as sales slip below forecasts

Necessary evil

I have sage running on a licensed W10 VM. Its become my dedicated 'accounts' computer as I got fed up of sage trashing my main PC or running into issues when I did an OS update. That aside, my biggest issue (and most of my clients) is subscription. I don't need to have their support, often it takes several days for any responce and usually the first 'copy and paste' reply from them isn't relevent.

I fully suspect that the likes of Quick and Xero etc., are hovering up Sage users once Sage refuses to update the perpetual license. I was quite happy on Accounts v19, it did everything I needed but changes at HMRC meant it was better for me to upgrade so now im on v24, but only because I stood my ground and demanded perpetual license.

If i'm forced to go subscription, it will be to the cheapest provider as I only need to manage invoices and VAT. I could go back to XLS but as the gov is pushing more and more for digital everything, a spreadsheet may cost me more in time to manually process everything.

User asked why CTRL-ALT-DEL restarted PC instead of opening apps

Ahh yes

Many a time I have had calls from customers saying the server was making a beeping noise and upon hearing said noise over the phone asked if there was anything on the keyboard.

BOOM! Cambridge Analytica explodes following extraordinary TV expose

There is some good news

It's likely their backups are going to be tested soon

123 Reg suffers deja vu: Websites restored from August 2017 backups amid storage meltdown

it's a bugger when

your raid 0 on the web server loses a disk

Swiss see Telly Tax as a Big Plus, vote against scrapping it

This root issue with the license fee is that the bulk of it is wasted on over priced talent or high production costs. Yes we can all look at the ginger one and say how much he gets, but thats largley because he spreads himself all over different programming.

I remember him coming from BSB (before BSkyB) so fair play to the guy, he's worked hard and is sucessful. But Mr Evans aside, look at the fees for other people. Some are in the >£1/2m and thats where I have an issue. I care not one jot who presents a program if the program is good. I would have no issue if there was a constant churn of under 30 somethings coming into the industry willing to take a modest fee and slowly push out the money grabbers.

As I type this, I try to think about what I last watched live on TV, thats any channel, and the fact is that the wife and I work odd shifts so everything is recorded. We watched the first ant and dec saturday night whilst recording this weeks. I too have tried netflix and find that is wholly suited to our needs, hell, we are half way through series 2 of little britain having never watched it the first time around.

But the point is, the way people consume TV is changing. I could quiet happily not watch live TV based on my viewing patterns and thus have no need for a license, but there will be times, such as Christmas or other holidays when family come to stay and they night watch live TV, thus a license is required. Both my boys are at Uni and neither have a licence, one doesn't watch any TV whatsoever, not even catchup.

Ultimately, if the BBC went to PPV and scrap the license they would be in shit creak. They know it too based on the popularity of Netflix and they will fight to the end to ensure their TV tax is never scrapped.

Opportunity knocked? Rover survives Martian winter, may not survive budget cuts

Got money to build a wall and reduce corp mates tax bills

But when real science that can benefit humankind needs money, lets not waste a cent on that.

Bad move Trumpy.

Not cool, dude: Brit web host Hotchilli Internet freezes itself for good

Re: ADSL4Less is now even less

I too was also on ADSL4Less, paid £14.99/month from around 2005 until present. Sad that they are closing down as it was cheap. Now signed up to Freeola on a 2nd house line so I can switch the office number to VoIP without losing the internet.

I'm on a Market A cabinet which means that there's no fibre and limited choices. All ISPs offer the world until I put in my details and suddenly there's no deals or the price doubles.

It's been 50 years since those damn dirty apes took the planet by storm

Charlton Heston didn't have his vest on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xxju1pNhuA

NASA finds satellite, realises it has lost the software and kit that talk to it

NASA decodes message...

Send Nudes

Unlocked: The hidden love note on the grave of America's first crypto power-couple

I love these stories

So many unsung heros to a handful of people now being told to the masses.

Azure VMs borked following Meltdown patch, er, meltdown

Re: might not be just VMs...

bitlocked backup drive are open and fine. Not been an issue for a few years then started after last night. But appreciate the imput.

might not be just VMs...

Customer server installed something last night and since then hourly throws this error...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

File Server Resource Manager Service error: Unexpected error.

Error-specific details:

Error: GetVolumeInformation, 0x80310017, The data drive specified is not set to automatically unlock on the current computer and cannot be unlocked automatically.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It only started appearing in the logs after an update. They do have a bitlocked backup, but that has opened ok and the other drives are fine.

Jocks in shock as Irn-Bru set to slash sugar and girder content

Re: Screw that.

the links go to the same video, but great to watch them again

OnePlus 5T is like the little sister you always feared was the favourite

still on oneplus one

Still going strong, fast enough for me, battery still lasts a day. Whilst it may not have the very latest OS version, im still pleased with it. been far more reliable that the Samsung S4 it replaced (had 5 replacement handsets during the 24 months I was on that contract).

No need to upgrade yet.

Brace yourselves, fanboys. Winter is coming. And the iPhone X can't handle the cold

wrap it in £50 pound notes

You have money to burn, so that will keep the iphone warm.