* Posts by Grogan

417 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Sep 2012

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The end of classic Outlook for Windows is coming. Are you ready?

Grogan Silver badge

Re: I need classic outlook

I use POP3 mail too and I don't listen to any brow beating about why I shouldn't, or why I don't need it anymore. I'll have it for as long as source code can still compile, too. (I run my own mail... there will always be a pop3d to run on a linux server)

Now you can compare your Chromium browser with that other Chromium browser using Speedometer 3.0

Grogan Silver badge

Now that I've tried it, what immediately comes to mind, with the change to this test, is that the scores are meaningless to me at this time. I have to establish a baseline again :-)

Grogan Silver badge

Re: It doesn’t test CPU JS execution?

No reason the author should know this unless intimate with the firefox build system, but browserbench's speedometer is one of the tests used for profiling the build. Benchmarks are good for profiling because they run through a lot of functions of the browser you wouldn't ordinarily hit just by running the software.

Grogan Silver badge

Well, I use benchmarks to compare my build results. Did my optimization flags and build method show any improvement, am I just spinning my wheels, or have I degraded performance. I run through several, and the browserbench suite is one of them.

Benchmarks aren't useful for comparing different browsers in itself... try it on the same machine, with the same resolution/window size, then you're comparing the performance of Chrome vs. Mozilla vs. the other chrome etc.

It would be silly to use the benchmarks across different systems unless you're comparing that (I didn't specifically, but I sure noted the difference in browser benchmark scores on my new rig, for example)

That home router botnet the Feds took down? Moscow's probably going to try again

Grogan Silver badge

Re: "Perform a hardware factory reset"

"And poof! say goodbye to your entire, lovingly-crafted network setup."

That their grandson, who has recently emigrated to Timbuktu, set up for them :-)

FOSS replacement for Partition Magic, Gparted 1.6 is here to save your data

Grogan Silver badge

Coincidentally, I was just wondering about that, if Gparted was going to be safe to use on a UEFI system. I'm expecting a new laptop for Dad any minute now (FedEx) and I need to "unpartition" some space.

I see from further comments that there is a live boot image (testing) out now.

It's crazy but it's true: Apple rejected Bing for wrong answers about Annie Lennox

Grogan Silver badge

Re: If Google loses, it does not win

No, it was foistware. They didn't come by that honestly.

Firstly, it was bundled with a lot of freeware and users had to opt out to not install it.

Secondly, when people went to Google or their services, they were prompted to install Google Chrome, which would make the internet faster.

Man admits to paying magician $150 to create anti-Biden robocall

Grogan Silver badge

I hope he is being charged and convicted for election interference. He says he doesn't think it affected the outcome of the primary, but if it convinced even one person to stay home, it was election interference. Throw his ass in jail.

Nevada sues to deny kids access to Meta's Messenger encryption

Grogan Silver badge

... but eat your meat, or you can't have any pudding :-)

Microsoft Publisher books its retirement party for 2026

Grogan Silver badge

Well, they just guaranteed we'll never purchase another Microsoft Office again. I've got 3 owned licenses here (had to jump through hoops to get them and turn off that Microsoft sign-in shit) worth about $1100 because of Publisher. We have a lot of .pub files, but they aren't that important anymore.

That's the only reason they aren't using LibreOffice. I use Linux only, but we also run an investment LLC (my aging parents are trying to teach me, but I'm a wanker, not a banker)

Good show, Microsoft. Next time I'll be able to say "Publisher is discontinued anyway, so we might as well use this FREE office suite". They are already familiar with it from using it by accident instead of Microsoft Word lol

Rice isn't nice for drying your iPhone, according to Apple

Grogan Silver badge

Re: COULD ALLOW SMALL PARTICLES OF RICE TO DAMAGE YOUR IPHONE

I remember in a test kit of sample questions for A+ certification, one of the multiple choice questions was which of the following is not a valid method of cleaning a keyboard? One of them was "put it in the dishwasher" which I thought was the obvious negative answer. In fact they all looked ridiculous. I was wrong, "put it in the dishwasher" was a valid method. I think that's bollocks, the harsh detergents might not rinse out completely, like the streaks on my glasses.

(note that this was back in the day when keyboards were hundreds of dollars... I still have one that you can pry from my stiff, dead, fingers, one of the first IBM clickity clack PS/2 keyboards from the 80's)

Grogan Silver badge

Common sense is what's lacking. Of course dry rice is dusty... nobody told you to put the phone in the bag with the rice and make shake and bake chicken :-)

You obviously dry the exterior of the phone as best you can before putting it in with the rice, too.

Persistent memory to replace DRAM, but it could take a decade

Grogan Silver badge

Re: OK, I'll bite.

Good point, they'll have to come up with a bios key combo to clear the system memory portion of that persistent memory. (I say it like that because I envision a day when memory and storage are the same device)

Preview edition of Microsoft OS/2 2.0 surfaces on eBay

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Nice museum piece

I remember in 1994 I paid $400 for Microsoft Office on umpteen floppy disks. Within a year or so some of those floppies had sectors that couldn't be read. So you'll get to like disc 12 and the installer barfs. Microsoft Office 95 was available on cdrom by then... I borrowed me one.

Grogan Silver badge

Fools and their money. Some people place great value on valueless things just because it tweaks their ego to have something with some form of rarity or authenticity. Why in the everlasting fuck would I want some skidmarked pantaloons just because they were worn by Elvis or somebody?

Software has got to be the most ridiculous memorabilia, if I wanted OS/2 for something I'd just go find it. Humans are pack rats... there are archives.

HP CEO pay for 2023 = 270,315 printer cartridges

Grogan Silver badge

It's probably gone up from this now, but several years ago I saw it expressed as: If you were to empty out ink cartridges, it would cost over $8000/gallon :-)

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year gap

Grogan Silver badge

Wow, that's nice news. That was an awesome little swiss army knife distro, I used to keep that handy. They even made it look nice, for being so light weight.

I found an old screenshot, I don't know the date but it's named dsl23.png, so version 2.3? It uses Linux 2.4. Using 23 Mb of RAM booted up with a decent GUI. I remember this being my favourite release, I loved the ringed planet and colour scheme. That's fake transparency though, it's the desktop bgimage. I positioned it so the rings match :-)

Damn Small Linux - dsl23.png

North Korea running malware-laden gambling websites as-a-service

Grogan Silver badge

I don't understand why anybody tolerates that little kleptocratic fiefdom. Even China should want to spank them (stealing bank accounts from Chinese nationals etc.)

If there's a people that need liberating on this planet, it's North Koreans. What awful conditions they live under. Absurdly so.

Worried about the impending demise of Windows 10? Google wants you to give ChromeOS Flex a try

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Not worried

In Soviet America, Linux runs you...

Microsoft might have just pulled support for very old PCs in Windows 11 24H2

Grogan Silver badge

Re: What?

You only think it's "fair" because you don't know anything better. We enjoy better compatibility for older hardware.

We have userspace driver frameworks for those kinds of peripherals too...

Windows Vista? They made perfectly good sound cards go in the garbage because they banned hardware processing because they couldn't control that with their DRM (at that point there were some models you could force to use a software driver if you edited .inf files but that was shitty compared to what you had). Windows 7 removed gameport support from sound cards.

Nvidia knows how to eat a bag of dicks, but they provide legacy drivers for older cards on Linux. Further, there are open source drivers that will accommodate them. Other, more open graphics hardware has even better support for old models (e.g. old Radeon cards). The kernel can still use old, non-mode setting drivers too with a few parameters set. Old Matrox cards and an AGP bus? No problem.

There are windows-only printers and devices that just can't work, but you'd likely be having trouble with those on newer windows as well because they didn't stick to the API frameworks.

Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all

Grogan Silver badge

Re: until the Cybertruck is scheduled for a full wash

Same (well, not even that, intentionally). I never wash my car, what's the point? It will rain, or in winter time, it will snow some days and rain other days, in current times. If the roads are salty and slushy, washing the car is pointless because it's still salty and slushy etc.

The body shouldn't rust, unless compromised. I drive my cars for 10+ years, too. There may be some scratches, gouges and rust when I take it to the wreckers at the end of its life, but it got there. That is a very unusual instruction in the manual for these vehicles. The kind of thing you'd skim over and then a few seconds later.... "what?!?

P.S. I'd have to say the underside takes more of a beating, if not undercoated.

Ford pulls the plug on EV strategy as losses pile up

Grogan Silver badge

I was up there today so I had a look at the car. It is indeed an Escape, a 2021 model Hybrid (not plug-in hybrid, it uses the engine to charge the batteries)

They have had it for longer than I remembered (time flies). They will have had it for 3 years in June, dad says. (and they haven't had any trouble with it)

Also, it was not as expensive as I thought. Around $44,000 Canadian (which is still a lot, but you could easily pay more for a car than that)

I can't edit the old post, so I'll just reply to it for the sake of correctness.

Grogan Silver badge

No, it's not a plugin EV, it's a 2021 Escape. It uses the engine only to charge the batteries.

They've actually had it for longer than I remembered, time flies. I asked Dad about it and he said it will be 3 years in June (and they haven't had any trouble with it)

It also wasn't as expensive as I thought, ... $44,000 Canadian.

Grogan Silver badge

My octogenarian parents have a Ford hybrid electric. I think it's an "Escape" but I"m not sure. It's a typical hatch-back vehicle that they make these days. It's an expensive machine, but is it ever nice. Unlike EV's, it's even more practical than a regular car because you don't have to stop for gas very often. My folks go back and forth to the city for doctors appointments and stuff and still wouldn't need gas that week.

They've had it for more than a year and haven't had any trouble, but we'll see how long that expensive tech goes without needing major money.

Republican senators try to outlaw rules that restrict Wall Street’s use of AI

Grogan Silver badge

Those greedy pricks would want nothing more than to have AI buying and selling up stocks for them before anyone or anything else can react. Crash the whole stock market, as long as they profit.

That's what AI tends to do, finds the best solution regardless of other costs.

Congress told how Chinese goons plan to incite 'societal chaos' in the US

Grogan Silver badge

Man, would I ever like to see a "Chinese goon". Do they have big noses like Alice?

DEF CON is canceled! No, really this time – but the show will go on

Grogan Silver badge

Re: "That's because we studied math at school."

I firmly believe this... "Lottery tickets are a tax on fools". The odds of winning anything significant are so far out there that you'd probably have a far greater chance of being dead on that day than winning a jackpot. For example,. the 6/49 lottery (sampling with replacement), your chances of winning with all 6 numbers are something like 1 in 15,000,000

Even with instant gratification tickets like "scratch and win", the serious prizes are VERY rare. The $2 and $20 etc. prizes you win occasionally are unlikely to cover the costs of all the money you waste on tickets. I have family members that buy me those at xmas or birthday time and dropping hints didn't work, so it was "Don't waste your money on that, it never pays out. I can't even be arsed to scratch them to be honest" which resulted in a disappointed "oh..." from my sister.

You're not imagining things – USB memory sticks are getting worse

Grogan Silver badge

I got so sick and tired of all the crappy USB sticks available. I could go around to every store in the area and not one would have a decent one. I went through several and they all had such crappy, pulsating write speeds that they were pointless.

It seemed to me they were missing some SCSI logic and buffering wasn't working correctly, in addition to it being crappy memory.

So I ordered a big hundred dollar Corsair GTX that does about 400 mb/sec (according to iotop "actual write speed") for both reads and writes.

IPv4 address rentals to mint millions of dollars for AWS

Grogan Silver badge

All these downvotes because people don't like to hear the truth. I've been downvoted here every time I've said something like this about IP address hoarding.

They must be American or something.

The truth is that nobody wants to replace all their equipment, work with more machine readable than human numbers, work with much more complex subnetting etc. and beta test new infrastructure. Companies are hoarding IP addresses and not using entire networks. That shouldn't be.

Cloud Software Group effectively snuffs open source XenCenter via a README file

Grogan Silver badge

Re: This would have been news in 2014...

You're the low knowledge pipsqueak that probably doesn't know anything but installing software packages, judging from your ignorant comment.

The KVM module is the business end and you can use command line utilities to start a virtual machine using it (the entire virtual machine configuration in one command) or use a graphical front end.

'I’m sorry for everything...' Facebook's Zuck apologizes to families at Senate hearing

Grogan Silver badge

Pee Wee Herman "I'm sorry I took the money" came to mind immediately. Then when out of sight of the cameras... rofl!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF_sahvR4mw

(From Cheech and Chong, Nice Dreams movie)

It took Taylor Swift deepfake nudes to focus Uncle Sam, Microsoft on AI safety

Grogan Silver badge

I've seen photochopped (whatever program they used) images of celebrities that looked real enough. Real enough to make me feel guilty looking at them.

Windows 3.11 trundles on as job site pleads for 'driver updates' on German trains

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Improvement?

No, they'd need a "real time" operating system, that's the point (mentioned in the article). DOS (the actual operating system) is a real time OS by nature. Rudimentary, but it knows nothing else. Well, that is to say, their program would run in real time. Windows is just their GUI, essentially an application.

Linux can be made to be more like that with patchsets, or there are specialized operating systems (e.g. QNX, RTOS)

SparkyLinux harbors a flamboyant array of desktops

Grogan Silver badge

You guys are just used to distributions like the more commercial ones. Community based distributions usually provide just about any software available for the platform. This is not a flamboyant array.

For example,

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Desktop_environment

Take a look at "officially supported" and "unofficially supported". I'd paste, but it's too much :-)

Competition is decreasing in enterprise IT – and you’ll be poorer and dumber for it

Grogan Silver badge

Re: on-prem or cloud is not the question ... complexity is

"Everyone uses drugs..."

Heheh, in context, but some of us are doing it right :-)

Simon Willison interview: AI software still needs the human touch

Grogan Silver badge

LOL... AI "hallucinating" bollocks code. If you can't follow that code, you could probably predict that it's not even going to compile.

If it does somehow work, and you can't follow it or understand it, how are you going to maintain it?

X hiring 100 content cops in bid to tame Wild West of online safety

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Errmm

No, pedophilia is just the excuse for authoritarianism. (not only twitter, in general)

Linus Torvalds flames Google kernel contributor over filesystem suggestion

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Linus being shouty is not really news

That's not how kernel development works. Most of the heavy hitters are employed by companies with vested interests.

Further, if you think that's "flaming", try putting on pretentious airs of professionalism around me. It was a discussion between two people who have been working together for a long time. I doubt any appreciate sites cherry picking quotes from their development communications environment. Nice of them to keep it public so anyone can join in, but this is the kind of crap that happens.

Grogan Silver badge

Re: A better long-term approach...

Ahh come on... Rostedt is simply employed by Google. He's been a kernel contributor for a very long time. This isn't "Google" it's an experienced kernel developer with a valid opinion. Torvalds doesn't want to break stuff either.

The kernel mailing list doesn't exist for tabloid journalism to cherry pick quotes from, it's how they communicate in development of the kernel.

Grogan Silver badge

Re: If the didn't insist on sticking with a monolithic kernel they wouldn't have these arguments...

I agree that isn't the point, HOWEVER, if it was a microkernel, the filesystems wouldn't be in the kernel, they'd be userspace drivers (and they wouldn't be having this argument because somebody else would probably be writing the filesystem drivers lol).

Also, they'd be more "pluggable" if all they had to do was interface with an abstraction.

Sorry though, I'm not a fan of the microkernel method. I like having all my drivers in a monolithic kernel, and mine is even more monolithic because everything that drives hardware is built right in. Modules for things I don't load all the time, like virtualization drivers, netfillter modules etc.

Drivers all get updated accordingly when they are part of the kernel, too. The driver author often doesn't even have to do it. I know that when I boot Linux 6.8 for the first time (when it's mainline), that my filesystem drivers are going to be correct for the kernel,

Grogan Silver badge

Well... I happen to agree with Rostedt, inodes are a fundamental that shouldn't be broken. It doesn't sound like Linus. He may be envisioning "inodes going away" sometime in the future but he's not about to break every system in use.

Now, that's not "flaming". It's not completely polite, but it's not like Rostedt is some shrinking violet, they've been working together for a long time. I should think Rostedt is capable of telling him to piss off if he's offended. There are going to be impolite communications in any medium. People get annoyed.

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Here’s a bigger issue….

He has control of the Torvalds kernel tree. People contribute to it and it's where the main development takes place.

Take a look at all the kernel trees on git.kernel.org. kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git is just one of them. Now most of those are for developers to work on and they submit merge requests but there are people who work on their own trees, with stuff that's never (fully) going in. For example, the realtime kernel, or Andrew Morton's mm fork (akpm). Con Kolivas' fork with different scheduler work in the past (ck).

https://git.kernel.org/

You, or anybody could fork your own git repo and do what you want, and if people like it, they'd contribute and you could have Pete's Linux or something. Just for example, if you were a kernel programmer (I'm not... when I get stuck on code I don't understand, which happens fairly quickly lol, I have to go find an example)

FBI recruits Amazon Rekognition AI to hunt down 'nudity, weapons, explosives'

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Terrible name

Because "Recognition" is not a name they can get a trademark on :-)

I agree with you though, that's a turn-off for those reasons. It does have connotations of that (though it wouldn't have to, we just associate that shit with Eastern Europe). Especially seeing as it's an authoritarian technology, the way they intend to use it.

Apple redecorates its iPhone prison to appease Europe

Grogan Silver badge

What they are really trying to say is "Don't think"

Top Linux distros drop fresh beats

Grogan Silver badge

Re: Style is optional

I wouldn't single out MX, ugly is the new norm. Distributors (including Microsoft Windows) ship ugly configurations out of the box, because people are bland, boring and fugly themselves :-)

Even things like, the default wallpaper in a desktop environment (upstream, not distro). Do I want abstract orange squares on my destkop? lol

To be honest I've never been happy with a distributors configuration of just about anything. I wouldn't like your :Zorin OS either. Moreover, even distros I "like" piss me off. "Why the fuck would those idiots do it like that!" etc. (and yes, I do know better, at least in the sense that I know how I want things to be built/configured and I change it)

Whatever distribution you use, you can customize your styling. Gnome is making that more difficult to have applications conform to styling though. I detest "client side decorations" and removal of titlebars and window manager controls. I can make QT applications look just like my GTK+ 2 and 3 styling too.

We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

Grogan Silver badge

Well... if you make your tea properly, you won't have as much of those bitter alkaloids and tannins. If I want strong tea, I'll use (waste) more tea and steep it less. I'm not putting salt in my fucking tea, OR coffee (some people do that too... I've had it).

I prefer coffee, but I also like various teas. Both are always black, nothing in it. I especially don't like milk/cream/whiteners. I don't mind a bit of sugar in coffee or tea, but I don't use it..

Wait, hold on, everyone – Mozilla thinks Apple, Google, Microsoft should play fair

Grogan Silver badge

Re: " the impact of platform rules and of relentless marketing."

It's a far better browser than Chrome or any of its bastard step children. You're just used to dictatorial rubbish and wouldn't understand what's wrong with Chrome. Bloated and intractable. We have much more control over our browsing with Firefox, for example we have a much more powerful extensions interface. Chrome is like Internet Explorer 6 all over again, Google thinks the browser defines the Web.

Firefox is completely free, you can compile and customize the browser and it includes all the codecs you're going to need in the source.

IT consultant fined for daring to expose shoddy security

Grogan Silver badge

Re: The problem is law is old and tech is new

That front door analogy again... it's not appropriately applied. I once had a district prosecutor as a computer customer trying to tell me that connecting to someone's open wifi was illegal. She too used the front door analogy. What was really ironic (and embarrassing for her) was that she was connected to someone else's wifi in another apartment, not her own! LOL!

People THINK they make up the law, but they don't. That "front door" analogy is about the level of understanding of those judges. This conviction will not stand, especially after a previous court dismissed it.

Microsoft 365's add-on avalanche is putting the squeeze on customers

Grogan Silver badge

Re: As my grandmother used to say

It's actually both, because asking the price may cause people to stop paying the price. Resentfully in some cases.

I'm like that. If I resent a $2 fee tacked on I'll cancel a sale or subscription. For a recent example, a web host that I've been with since 2004 for dedicated server hosting. The company changed hands, I tolerated a few petty rate increases, but this was insulting. They started charging payment processing fees for all payment methods, just for me to pay my monthly bills. "Enjoy my $3.03, I'm flipping the DNS elsewhere at the end of next month".

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