Posts by gv

Linux devs open up universal Ubuntu Snap packages to other distros

Re: It's a stupid idea

Anybody running "apps" from untrusted sources probably deserve whatever mess they end up in.

Not just the proles getting the heave-ho as British Airways races to save millions

Re: Dumbsourcing

"In the long term", yes. In the short term, their numbers will look good and the PHBs will award themselves pay rises and bonuses for a job well done.

Do you have a 'co-working mindset' and 'ephemerally involve others' in work?

Re: Lock-in

"I'm pretty confident I could open up my Word 6 format thesis"

Possibly, but having been burned by the upgrade from Word 2 to Word 6, I still bear a grudge.

Oh yeah, and see the post below about Microsoft 'Binder.'

Lock-in

“all your team’s discussions and deliverables stay with the plan and don’t get locked away across disparate applications.”

Instead they get locked away in one application, which will probably be incompatible when they release a new version.

'MongoDB ate my containers!'

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

Don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick... Hang on. They're back

Re: Except...

I wasn't "bashing closed source projects" - just making the point that open source software development generally leads to better code.

Re: Except...

"I'm not saying closed source is inherently better, or that smaller teams work better but the reality is much more complex."

I'm sure the same types of things go on in any non-trivial commercial project -- it's just you don't get to hear the juicy details.

When most coding is either off-shored or handed off to junior bods, it's not surprising project delivery objectives are not met or are late. Methodologies or the latest buzzwords are not going to fix that. There's a reason why open source development is inherently better and less buggy.

$10bn Oracle v Google copyright jury verdict: Google wins, Java APIs in Android are Fair Use

Re: Honest question

I don't know about you, but my desktop is made of wood and is enormous.

They take to it later, but when women FLOSS, they mean it

Kids, bills and mortgage means I have to work for a commercial software company. Once I retire, my plan is to spend some serious time on producing GPL licensed code. Maybe by then I'll be a grandpa too.

CSC grabs pistol, plays employment paintball with P45s

Pyramid

“offshore capability to increase competitiveness and correct our pyramid”

If I were a customer, I'd be looking to align my business elsewhere.

Blocking ads? Smaller digital publishers are smacked the hardest

It's called progress

In the old days, if I wanted to block ads on, say, my television, I'd have to design/build some form of gizmo and then physically solder it onto my set somehow, or take the easier option of using the Off button.

These days I have complete control over everything entering/leaving the network in my house. I can put all manner of hardware and software between my consumer devices and the wider world.

The 'new' Microsoft? I still wouldn't touch them with a barge pole

Not Just Microsoft

I think the same arguments apply to pretty much all the vendors currently trying to move customers to the "cloud".

Stop resetting your passwords, says UK govt's spy network

Unless you have an elephantine memory, the "ten" passwords rule kind of forces you to write down the previous passwords just to cut down the time required when typing in the new password.

LG: Stop focusing on Apple and Samsung. There's us. And our G5. Look at it. Look at it

Software Updates

It's all well and good enabling some form of hardware upgrade, but the pain point for owning an LG phone is that the software updates become non-existent after a relatively short period of time.

Thunderbird is GO: Mozilla prepares to jettison mail client

Re: it if it grew sync backends

"If you're using Exchange, why not use Outlook?"

Some of us have spent many, many years succesfully avoiding the use of Outlook.

Re: I use thunderbird, and don't want to see it go

Seamonkey is still going strong for the truly nostalgic.

IBM says no, non, nein to Brexit

Personal Choice

[quote]how staff choose to vote was “of course a personal choice” [end quote]

Exactly.

Microsoft headhunters seek Linux folk for secret open source unit

Re: API Shim

Over the last 8 years or so of installing/running Linux on laptops, I've not had a problem with any drivers. (But then I steer clear of installing the proprietary video drivers.)

Whitehall waste: Cash splashed on consultants and temps up 90% in half decade

Bamboozled by the IT Suppliers

The impression I get of government IT is that they tend to buy large software suites from the "usual" vendors and then spend more money employing the "usual" consultancies trying to get the things integrated and working. As the vendors and consultancies are there to make money rather than improve society, it's not surprising things go awry.

Larry Ellison's Brit consortium in 'advanced talks' to buy Aston Villa

"Villa requires a lot of investment if it is going to compete with the other big names in the Premier League"

Something that definitely won't be happening next season.

12,000 chopped: Intel finds its inner paranoid

I'm quite happy not having my fridge or toaster connected to the Internet, thanks.

Video folk, you'll love the 96TB, 2.6GB/sec LaCie 12big HDD

Re: Units !

Clearly some kind of mysterious feedback loop.

Flying Spaghetti Monster is not God, rules mortal judge

Theological Canons

By this yardstick both the Bible and the Koran are works of satire, meant to entertain while making pointed political statements.

Gnome shrinks the upgrade footprint with version 3.20 release

Those of us on a rolling release just do a daily update.

Oh, sugar! Sysadmin accidently deletes production database while fixing a fault

If it's during the scheduled maintenance window, why was a full backup of the database not the first item on the schedule?

'Contractual barriers' behind geo-blocking could breach EU rules

Never mind on an EU basis, geo-blocking for digital distribution is an anachronism that needs to go the way of the steamship. If I can read the contents of a US website, why can't I stream HULU and watch US ad breaks every 5 minutes for a 30-minute sitcom?

'Just give me any old date and I'll make it work' ... said the VB script to the coder

Visual Basic

"Finding the bad calls is more or less impossible, given the lack of VB code analysis tools."

Judicious use of grep (you can even get it for Windows) is encouraged.

Linux fans may be in for disappointment with SQL Server 2016 port

Re: @linicks - Actually you were awake

I think it was more of a "meh". Not sure why anyone would want to use SQL Server when there are a plethora of open source GPL'd database engines available.

It would only have caused "excitement" if Microsoft said they were going to licence it under GPL version 3.

Tech biz bosses tell El Reg a Brexit will lead to a UK Techxit

Re: Freedom of movement.

"Under our own control, we would be in a position to decide how immigration should work in our specific case."

You mean under the control of the incompetent buffoons in Westminster. I doubt very much the control will extend to the rest of us.

Microsoft has made SQL Server for Linux. Repeat, Microsoft has made SQL Server 2016 for Linux

"You cant do that with open source."

That's why Red Hat and Oracle are making so much money selling support contracts.

I predicted this 3 months ago

See http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2015/12/11/microsoft_offers_linux_certification_do_not_adjust_your_set_this_is_not_an_error/

Machismo is ruining the tech industry for all of us. Equally

Re: Is this getting worse with time

If I don't know about something, I'm quite willing to admit it. Better that than trying to bluff it: I've only seen one example in my career of somebody who lied about their skills to get a job -- they got found out fairly quickly and were shown the door.

'Boss, I've got a bug fix: Nuke the whole thing from orbit, rewrite it all'

Interesting

What's interesting about these anecdotes is that the project managers, "solution architects", et al., would be absolutely unable to triage or investigate these problems. It's risible that coders are seen as mere 'bricklayers' and are consequently outsourced.

No, HMG, bulk data surveillance is NOT inevitable

Re: "treats innocent people going about their daily lives as suspects"

As an innocent (cough, cough) person going about my daily life, I'm doing my utmost to expand their haystack with as much spurious data as I can.

Canonical reckons Android phone-makers will switch to Ubuntu

Re: malware to follow?

My point was that there are people targetting Linux for their malware, but the security model is robust and has been hardened over a number of years, so their efforts have not, apart from the odd report of a server compromise, gained much traction.

Re: malware to follow?

"we have been too small a part of the market to be worth the notice of criminals"

Linux servers power pretty much most of the Internet, thereby making it quite the dominant part of the market.

When customers try to be programmers: 'I want this CHANGED TO A ZERO ASAP'

Re: What are the odds?

I shudder to think what the rest of that codebase was like.

Microsoft offers Linux certification. Do not adjust your set. This is not an error

Re: Errrrrr

When will we see SQL Server on Linux?

128GB DDR4 DIMMs have landed so double your RAM cram plan

I'd quite like this in my laptop.

Rdio's collapse another nail in the coffin of the 'digital economy'

Exactly how much money do you make if you record a song and nobody hears it?

GCHQ's CESG team's crypto proposal isn't dumb, it's malicious... and I didn't notice

Re: "Anyone who knows my phone number can authenticate as me, and MITM is trivial."

"If I phone your phone number, I expect to get you."

You might get me, but you might get the person mis-sold PPI, or the one involved in the car accident, or having problems with the Windows PC, etc., etc.

Bacon can kill: Official

Re: Why single out bacon?

Yes, those Jains are always causing trouble.

Re: Risk assessment...

"If you eat a bacon bap it's the bap that will do most harm!"

Given the additives, preservatives, mould inhibitors, various processed oils and fats in your common supermarket "bread", I think that assessment has hit the nail on the head.

Grinning BBC boss blows raspberry at UK.gov, eyes up buffet

Print Media

"Newspapers contributed to the crisis by failing to develop platforms, and by giving away their content for free."

A strategy adopted by some of the print media (Metro, Evening Standard, et al.).

And on that bombshell: Top Gear's Clarkson to reappear on Amazon

Amazon Prime

Excellent, yet another reason for not signing up to Amazon Prime.

Linux Mint 17.2: If only all penguinista desktops were done this way

Re: @James Loughner Lack of upgrades is a killer for me

Linux is basically like a box of sweets: some of us like to try all of them, even the strawberry cremes.

China's best phone yet: Huawei P8 5.2-inch money-saving Android smartie

No ac WiFi?

Considering that most of the time my phone is on a WiFi network, it seems strange it does not support 802.11ac.

Also, you can pick up an LG G3 with a QHD display for about £150 less than this.

Tech Mahindra posts profit warning: The end for Indian outsourcing?

Outsourced

The Indian outsourcers have themselves now been outsourced to China, et al.

Microsoft's magic hurts: Nadella signals 'tough choices' on the way

Re: Old rant...

There I was thinking a document is just a bunch of text with maybe some images and/or tables.

If you have "complex" documents, I'd revisit the use case for having that data and business logic in an Office document. If you choose to continue with Office then be prepared for the awful breakage when a subsequent version completely breaks your documents.