Posts by htq

RBS promises 'safe, secure, confidential' info-sharing on Facebook at Work

Been there...

My previous company produced and sold their own @Work Social platform. IT bods were tasked with "championing" the cause. Part of our annual objective was to increase our PQ score by more than 5 points. PQ = no one's really sure what it is since the "secret sauce" is a company secret.

Anyhow I did my part and only managed to increase my score by 3 points. Posting "work" related posts - like how working from home can be more productive, or why multi-tasking is not as efficient as you think you are. Alas those who post about "their gingerbread sculpture" or "last week's social do" got way more likes, comments and feedback and a higher PQ score.

Traditional enterprise workloads on an all-flash array? WHY WOULD I BOTHER?

Reminds me of...

the time our Drawing Office Manager wanted to upgrade all their desktops from a Pentium 90 to a P120 - instead of my advice of increasing the RAM. Manager's decision was based on more MHz therefore spooling the print job would be much faster. Which was true, then I pointed out that the plotter took over 30 minutes to finish the job so the fact the desktop can finish spooling the print job in 15s instead of 30s it moot!

Fanbois to gamebois: Apple paperwork reveals iOS FUNPAD

Re: Awesome

Or using caffeinated water for your de-caf coffee.

Landlines: The tech that just won't die

Re: Call filtering

Hopefully you'd never have to call 111. When they call back it is listed as number unknown.

SAN upstart Coraid AXING staff, struggling to survive – sources

SR1521

We wanted a simple SAN for our network and came across the CoRaid SR1521 with 15 Hot swap SATA bays. We started out with 1TB drives then over the years upgraded to 3TB drives. This thing is "simple" so won't be suitable for "Enterprise" networks. It booted up in less than 10s which made me wonder what kind of OS it was running. My cyclic infatuation with Plan9 was all thanks to this unit :-)

Police radios will be KILLED soon – yet no one dares say 'Huawei'

Motorola

Back in my days... Motorola radios have nifty features like

"Public Safety Mic" - must still work while radio is being swung around by the microphone cord.

"Man down switch" - when radio detects the person carrying it is on the ground it automatically opens up a channel to control.

We also demoed live video feed from a police motorcycle mounted unit while tests were being carried out in Jersey.

Upchuck nation: Half a million CHUMPS now own Google Cardboard VR gear

Got mine for under £2

Plenty of websites out there offering them for £2 or less. I ordered 4 pairs and gave 3 away to people really interested in trying them out.

I'm really impressed with what the whole setup can do. Now seriously thinking of buying a "proper" pair that costs £50 or more.

Microsoft's MCSE and MCSD will become HARDER to win

MCSD

A while back the company I was working for wanted me to take the MCSD certification. I took the first three courses, VB.NET, ASP.NET, Advanced SQL2000 Programming, passed them then went onto look at other courses. Two or three of the required courses weren't available from MS, for example System Design, so you had to gain that knowledge elsewhere. So much for "MS certification". I decided not to bother.

Distributed Linux OS wizards CoreOS release first commercial product

Re: Update all at once?

Reboot after every update? We're not talking about Windows server here ;-)

Patching the running kernel might mean a reboot - but not necessarily if you're using Ksplice.

Honey, the satnav app says you're to leave at 6am... Yup. I'll have that coffee off you

Have been using this feature in Google Now

When Google Now first came out it took me a week before the system would recognise by preferred commuting route. Now, no pun intended, I get a notification at around the time I usually leave for work or about to head home to tell me the traffic condition and ETA.

When I was levelling up playing Ingress, I'd get notifications asking me whether I'd want Now to notify me of traffic conditions to a few portals I regularly visit.

Indian climate boffins: Himalayan glaciers are OK, thanks

Chasing Ice

See www.chasingice.com for another perspective.

So long, 'invincible dreamers': Google+ daddy Gundotra resigns

Re: What do you do at a party ?

@Ledswinger : I've learnt a few things from the Reg forums...so...

@ give G+ another try

Try searching for subjects you're interested in then add a few people to your circle. Make comments and join in with discussions. You know, like in real life. Try posting something that interests you. Keep it up for a few weeks and see where you get.

Re: The problem with G+

The problem is with user expectations. G+ is not the same as Fb. See my post about "What do you do at a party ?"

What do you do at a party ?

Facebook is like a family get together. I finally succumbed to opening a Fb account last year so I can sync Candy Crush progress on difference devices. Have kept away from the "family get together" because I know the kind of posts being made there.

Google+ is like being at a party. You could stand in a corner trying to look cool/sad or you could go up to strangers and strike a conversation. When I first started on G+ many years ago, the first few months was like an echo chamber. I made public posts after public posts until one of my post caught the attention of someone in Southern California. They then added me to their circle. I then saw posts from their extended circles and strike up more connections. For some reason I have over 1500 people, from all reaches of the globe, following me but I only follow about 300.

Like in real life if you don't have anything interesting to say or share then people won't be interested in listening.

Apple patent LOCKS drivers out of their OWN PHONES

Motorola better get ready to be sued

My Moto X detects when I'm driving and helpfully offers to read out text messages or answer an incoming call by voice confirmation.

VMware 5.5: Plenty that's new and exciting... but what about the obvious stuff?

An alternative hypervisor

We've been using proxmox-ve in our environments...

https://www.proxmox.com/proxmox-ve/comparison

Page through Page's page page-views: Google+ shows how many saw your profile

It's the interactions that counts!

Just checked my profile: 1,278 followers | 151,645 views

Meh - not entirely sure what the view count means anything in real terms. For me it's the interaction that counts. I do get more than enough meaningful interactions, but not that order of magnitude.

Coraid gets $29m VC cash boost. It's too early for an IPO: what gives?

Plan9

We have one here at work and the unit booted up in less than 10s. Out of curiosity I took a closer look and discovered it was running Plan9. So thanks to Coraid - I got to play with Plan9 and Inferno-OS :-)

Asus offers compensation to pre-price drop Nexus 7 buyers

nexus not booting up

Yep had one out of three doing this same rebooting. Sent it back for a replacement. Problem sorted.