Posts by keith_w

A lightbulb moment comes too late to save a mainframe engineer's blushes

Re: I’m sure a lesser techie would have sussed that in a flash

but the IBM CE probably tested the bulb last month after which it burned out as he released the test switch

Seagate demos hard disk drive with an NVMe interface. Yup, one with spinning platters

Re: Server simplification, really?

We recently went through this with a Dell 5480 at work in order to double the storage. We looked up the specs on the Dell website, and then checked the model of the SSD that was installed. We then ordered the correct replacement and it worked well. We even managed to image the old drive to the new one successfully.

This drag sail could prevent spacecraft from turning into long-term orbiting junk. We spoke to its inventors ahead of launch

If you want to catch up to another spacecraft in the same orbit, you slow down your spacecraft so that it moves to a lower orbit, which being shorter also means that you are orbiting the earth faster than the higher orbit (this is why low earth orbits are c.90 minutes compared to geosynchronous ones c.24 hours) so travelling in your lower, faster orbit, you catch up with the other spacecraft and at the right time, you speed up and raise your orbit to intercept the other spacecraft.

Windows 10 2004 is nearing the end of the road. Time for a Windows 11 upgrade?

Re: Thin ice

Until such time as Linux or any other alternative operating system is as easy to use as Windows (and yes, I say that with a bit of tongue in cheek) the hoi polloi of average users (by which I mean people who basically use it for browsing and email) will not be switching. Oh, and it had better come pre-installed. I was thinking that it would be more likely for people to switch to IPads, but I then realized that those who would do that have done that.

Expired cert breaks Windows 11 snipping tool, emoji panel, S Mode features, other stuff

I don't know how long Microsoft has been doing this, but I do know that if your domain attached computer didn't log on to the domain on a regular basis, the trust would be broken and you would have to remove it from the domain and add it back in again. And if your Windows 7 machine didn't get on the internet or connect to your license server on a regular basis, you could lose activation, so it's not like this is a particularly new trick.

Remember when you thought fax machines were dead-matter teleporters? Ah, just me, then

Re: coworking

Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical mechanical fax type devices and in 1846 was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments. He received British patent 9745 on May 27, 1843 for his "Electric Printing Telegraph".[2][3][4] Frederick Bakewell made several improvements on Bain's design and demonstrated a telefax machine.[5][6][7] The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli.[8] He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone.[9][10]

Re: "Era of innocence, my arse"

Thank you for reminding me of the Carry On movies. I still fondly remember Carry On Doctor - "No Sister, the other end", when the nursing sister trainee was wondering how the patient was to swallow the huge pill she was holding.

Software Freedom Conservancy sues TV maker Vizio for 'GPL infringement'

Re: I smell a fight coming on

I used to work at John Deere (though not FOR John Deere). Their programmers are expressly forbidden from using GPL'd software. They had an annual refresher to remind them of that requirement.

Mind your Ps and queues: Bork makes a visit to the A&E

Re: OK, I'll bite

being from north of Darlington, but south of Newcastle, I definitely disagree about either of those places being anywhere but 'South', Also, I am currently living in the great white north so to our friends from Minnesota and Wisconsin, if you are south of 45, you are south.

Oh my, Grandma, what a big meteorite you have right there on your pillow under that hole in the roof

Re: A meteor shower in Golden

No thank you. if I hear anymore suggestions of this nature I will petition Mr. Trudeau to re-close the border.

Electric car makers ready to jump into battery recycling amid stuttering supply chains

Re: Shoudl have from the start

As I recall, used Tesla batteries are re-purposed into Solar <whatever> power wall packs.

Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?

In 65 years of living with the North American electrical system, I have yet to melt a kettle's electrical cord, although I did once melt a can opener's cord. But that was because I let is sit on a hot burner.

Got enterprise workstations and hope to run Windows 11? Survey says: You lose. Over half the gear's not fit for it

Re: Corporates won't be interested in this for quite a while

And that is exactly when most larger companies will be moving to 11. if they are on 10 or 7 on whatever hardware they are on, they will stay on 10 or 7 until that hardware is refreshed. 10 isn't due to be EOL until 2025, so what are these guys moaning about, they'll still get their updates.

Anonymous: We've leaked disk images stolen from far-right-friendly web host Epik

Re: Must have taken them HOURS

there's probably a program to do that. you just have to be sure, when copying and pasting it, to be sure that you are using a monospaced font.

Check your bits: What to do when Unix decides to make a hash of your bill printouts

Re: Not a Cossie, but...

That sounds like a situation where a rules change occurs, requiring all loyalty points to be returned to the company.

Fix network printing or keep Windows secure? Admins would rather disable PrintNightmare patch

Re: "Security is our utmost priority", says company after being hit with malware

Which good old bad old days are those? Even the token ring network which utilized PC Lan Program in the 1980s had server managed printing.

When everyone else is on vacation, it's time to whip out the tiny screwdrivers

Re: Two observations:

When infixed laptops for a living (amongst other things) my teammates and I joked that the IBM T40 was named for the number of sizes of screws it used. A couple of years ago I was on a deployment job that had 273 Dell 54xxs and 20 XPS13s delivered with French rather than English keyboards, so I got the job of replacing them. The 54xxs weren't bad. 8 screws on the bottom, 5 to hold the keyboard in place. The XPSs were a different story. 8 for the bottom, 5 for the battery, 4 for the speakers, 10 for the system board and 20+ for the keyboard itself. Even more if you actually followed the manual and removed the parts that were attached only to the system board instead of gently easing it out of the way. Elapsed time for the 54xxs - 15 minutes. XPSs - 1 hour.

Re: Haynes Manuals

Ah, so they weren't Lego springs. There would have been no problem fing the last is they had been.

Start or Please Stop? Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

Re: Eh...

For most office denizens, the entirety of their computing experience is spreadsheets, word processing and email. A small portion will use specialized software such as an ERP. Each of these will have an icon on the task bar or desktop. In general they will not care about the menu system. Yes there will still be plenty of others who have a huge list of programmes they frequently use but for the most part most office people will use those 3 or 4 items.

Lost in IKEA? So, it seems, is Windows

Re: IKEA

Nope, it is pronounced "I'm not going there"

Samsung: We will remotely brick smart TVs looted from our warehouse

I thought it was the TVs they disliked that they bricked.

Family wrongly accused of uploading pedo material to Facebook – after US-EU date confusion in IP address log

Re: FFS

It does if you think of it as mmm-dd,-yyyy with numbers substituted for the month name

Re: Different date formats are a liability and risk to life and health

Canada also uses mmol/L

Scalpel! Superglue! This mouse won't fix its own ball

Re: mouse balls!

Thank you for not sharing. :)

Redpilled Microsoft does away with flashing icons on taskbar as Windows 11 hits Beta

Re: Don't get TOO far out of the way

My machine announces, via notifications, that it is going into power saving mode and dims the display. What did you mess up to stop this from happening?

Right to repair shouldn't exist – not because it's wrong but because it's so obviously right

Re: Consumption

Lots of countries have consumption taxes although they are generally referred to as Sales Taxes. In the U.K. they have the Value Added Tax (VAT), in Canada we have the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and provincial sales taxes (except in Alberta). I am sure that many, if not most, US States have sales taxes. And many counties in the US have their own sales taxes.

our Dyson Vac is over 5 years old and still going strong.

BOFH: You say goodbye and I say halon

Great murder choice.

When you suffocate, it is not the lack of oxygen that triggers your awareness of suffocation, it is the build up of carbon dioxide in your blood. If you are breathing nitrogen and don't get enough oxygen, that trigger doesn't happen and you drift gently off to sleep, eventually on a permanent basis.

Pipe down, Jeff. You've only gone where Gus Grissom went before, 60 years ago today

Re: Snappy reply.

And here I thought it was for the survivor of the Titanic, not the fictionalized movie of her life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Brown

Open-source dev and critic of Beijing claims Audacity owner Muse threatened him with deportation to China in row over copyright

Re: Illegal bootleg of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' theme

I have to disagree with your "not theft" premise. if you take away someone's ability to earn from something, you have taken something of value, which is indeed theft.

Our Friends Electric: A pair of alternative options for getting around town

In Edmonton, Alberta, many people park on the street year round. The winters there are quite harsh, with periods well below 0c/32f, so they run an extension cord from their home to the car to power the engine block heater over night. There is no reason that same electric cord cannot be used to slow charge a battery.

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G: Sub-$600 midranger makes premium phones feel frivolous

a new outdated phone.

I bought an A12 about a month ago for about half the price of this one and am exceedingly pleased with it, especially the battery life.

BOFH: Where there is darkness, let there be a light

June 31st?

some text

Suck on this: El Reg forces dog hair, biscuit crumbs, and disconcertingly sticky stains down two mini vacuums

Re: Poor article, badly written.

I got all I needed out of the review, one doesn't have much suction and the other does, the same one isn't all that good at washing your floor, the other is better. Battery time? why care? When the battery is low they recharge themselves,

BOFH: Here in my car I feel safest of all. I can listen to you ... It keeps me stable for days

Re: People do need to be told

supposedly my wallet blocks RFID. Haven't tested it yet, but neither have I had any unexplained losses.

The black screen of BIOS borkage haunts Space Shuttle Discovery's new home

Re: Second time?

Not necessarily. It may be that this is the first time that the machine has been rebooted since the battery died 8 years ago. Perhaps it rebooted in order to install the print spooler patch.

Radioactive hybrid terror pigs have made themselves a home in Fukushima's exclusion zone

Re: If "radioactive hybrid terror pigs" is not a punk band, it totally should be

I think it's a 'hair' band. No, I suppose that should probably be a 'bristle' band

Leaked print spooler exploit lets Windows users remotely execute code as system on your domain controller

Re: What the ever-loving frak ?

An unprivileged user uploading a new printer driver to the print server isn't an everyday occurrence and should raise suspicions."

The article isn't talking about people installing printer drivers on their own machine.

Print Drivers!

"An unprivileged user uploading a new printer driver to the print server isn't an everyday occurrence and should raise suspicions.""

It's not users installing print drivers on their local machines, it's regular (non-admin) users installing print drivers on domain controllers!

Former NASA astronaut and Shuttle boss weigh in on fixing Hubble Space Telescope

Re: Faulty backup computer

In addition to the up and down vote buttons the Reg should have an LOL button, which could work in conjunction with the other two buttons.

Toyota reveals its work on an honest-to-goodness cloak of invisibility

If you hit someone in an intersection who is wearing an cloak of invisiblity, who is at fault? The driver or the pedestrian?

UK spends £36m on 18 little 'bullet-proof' boats to protect Royal Navy assets

Re: Turbinia

I am sure, if the new boats cruise at 30kn, then their top speed will be much higher.

Do you come from a land Down Under? Where diesel's low and techies blunder

keeping the generator going.

During the 2004 eastern North American power failure, I was working at a generic drug manufacturer who kept a large amount of their output in very large refrigerators. The diesel generators kicked in but they only had 4 hours of fuel. The warehouse manager tried to order more, but all the diesel deliveries were now unavailable. Some one noticed that the gas station at the end of the road still had, for some unknown reason, power so they started running 55 gallon drug transfer barrels to the gas station on handcarts and bypassing the cars in the fuel queue to keep the generators running.

Re: looking at the DNS log

That's exactly what happened at my work when we first set up internet access.

FTC approves $61.7m settlement with Amazon for pocketing driver tips

Re: Den Of Thieves

This is why I tip delivery drivers cash

Re: Tip fuckery

My son is a bartender at a sports facility. He and the wait staff cash out the card tips as they are received. They also tip the kitchen staff 1 percent of their food orders and the wait staff tip the bar staff 1 percent of their drink orders.

Linus Torvalds tells kernel list poster to 'SHUT THE HELL UP' for saying COVID-19 vaccines create 'new humanoid race'

Masks and the Flu

Over the past year, the reduction in the rate of deaths as a result of the flu have plunged, indicating that masks are a more effective anti-flu resource than flu vaccines. Maybe we should keep the masks, at least through flu season.

NASA pops old-school worm logo onto Orion spacecraft

Re: Apollo era

hurray for Jack Parsons lab.

Guy who wrote women are 'soft, weak, cosseted, naive' lasted about a month at Apple until internal revolt

Re: I wholeheartedly agree

The first thing I wondered was that. knowing of his opinions, how would I feel working with this person if I were a person of colour or a woman? Certainly this would create a less than pleasant work environment and probably would expect that anything I had to offer would be less valued by him and anyone influenced by him.

Traffic lights, who needs 'em? Lucky Kentucky residents up in arms over first roundabout

Around here, that doesn't work. The push buttons only tell the traffic signal control that you want a "walk" light when the traffic lights change.