Posts by Medixstiff

Penny smart and dollar stupid: IT jobs slashed in US, UK, Europe to cut costs – just when we need staff the most

Re: Smoke and mirrors.

"Then when they rehire it will be in lower cost centers (India, cough cough)."

Maybe look at how TOLL group is faring this year after they outsourced thier IT to India.

Britain has no idea how close it came to ATMs flooding the streets with free money thanks to some crap code, 1970s style

This reminds me of my first job in retail, one of the guys had just built a PC with Windows NT on it and said how it was so good no-one could crash it.

So I inserted a floppy disk in the drive, formatted it and from a DOS pronpt ran a dir command whilst it was still formatting, then watched his faced when a BSOD appeared.

International Bullying Machine? Big Blue seeks exposure of corporate canary

If it gets to the point where the guy haves nothing else to lose, I hope the document anonymously gets sent to news outlets, shared on Facebook and the like.

Then see IBM's reaction when the negative publicity starts biting them hard.

Super Micro says audit found no trace of Chinese spy chips on its boards

Re: I so believe this

I'm waiting to see the fall out from the idiots putting through the encryption laws here in Aus.

You can bet as a Five Eyes nation, any changes they request manufacturers to make will get shared around with other partners.

Blind Freddie can see it's just a matter of time before a work around get's out and if it's by an ex-employee, they better make the most horrific example of them that they can, because if there's large scale identity or data theft that occurs afterwards, voters are going to be mega p1ssed.

Kids and the web latest: 'Won't somebody please think of the children!' US Congresscritters plead

Step 3. Pass a law stating the internet must delete all data via the use of an "erase" button, without keeping the data that was erased but let US law enforcement get to the data if they need to....and don't tell The US government you technology companies can't do this.

UK chancellor puts finger in air, promises 15 million full fibre connections by 2025

Meanwhile in Straya, our backwards politicians lead by an investment banker that made his money by selling off his stake in ISP OzEmail, has basically sunk any hope of FTTP for at least the next decade and lumped the taxpayers with what is now known as "Malcolm's Terrible Mess".

Of course why would the pollies care, the taxpayer's are for it,l and after 8 years in office, they all get to retire on their yearly pay for the rest of their lives.

Trump backs push for bumpkin broadband with presidential orders

I still laugh once in a while when I hear "Home of the brave, land of the free" when in reality US citizens freedom's have been eroded continuously since 9/11 and even their services are going backwards thanks to the paid for politicians.

Unfortunately users on sites like Imgur like to b*tch, whinge and whine but like regular sheeple, that's ALL they do, so it serves them right for not actively doing something to help themselves.

WikiLeave? Assange tipped for Ecuadorian eviction

Except Iran was known to have taken part in the US' extraordinary rendition practices by handing people over to the CIA to be tortured.

nbn™ trials 10 Gbps fibre tech most of you will never see

"That was my thought exactly - why is NBNco trialling a technology that it won't be able to deliver to the significant majority of connected customers, delivering speed that they believe nobody wants?"

I always wondered why they don't push hard into the corporate market and I expect they want a piece of the pie, considering just our 100Mbps connection over dark fibre is close to AUD $1,000 per month (including data downloaded up to a certain amount), a 1Gbps connection at half that price would get snapped up by quite a few large and small businesses I expect.

nbn™ gets its wish: Australian ISPs' performance to be rated

Watch ISP's blame "obviously cr4ppy quality copper to the node" for slow speeds etc.

Oz government on its Centrelink debacle: 'This is fine'

It appears the Minister and Centrelink are digging themselves even deeper in the doo-doo:

Leaked Centrelink memo shows staff told not to process debt disputes in person

The memo appears to contradict Human Services Minister Alan Tudge's claim yesterday that people having problems with online and telephone services could go into a Centrelink office and see someone "in 10 minutes".

I've had to be on Centrelink twice before and my mum currently deals with them whilst going through trying to get disability pension, I can tell you right now, there's is no way in any of the Western Australian offices that someone will see you in 10 minutes, you have to go to a kiosk, print a ticket for what you think is the right area and anywhere from 45 minutes plus later, you MIGHT just get served, I don;t blame the staff for it, I blame the STUPID amount of red tape and BS people need to go through, taking up time.

I remember a few years ago a politician being asked to live off the pension for a month, of course they declined, surprise, surprise.

If nbn™ can't say when it will arrive in your street, you're getting a Telstra HFC connection

Well hopefully I can get mum onto something other than 512kb 20GB ADSL 1 soon.

"The nbn™ network is estimated to be available in your area: Jan 2017*."

Although the second last roll-out plan said it would be available quarter 1, 2016 back in 2015.

Bloke sold cash register code to restaurants that deliberately hid sales from taxmen

I didn't twig until my friend started working for the Department of Finance, how many Asian run shops had two tills, one with an EFTPOS machine and the cash only one. If he sees that happening, he knows which ones to pass the details to the ATO for possible audits.

Fujitsu staffers strike over pay, job security and pensions

About the only role with any job security these days is a politician.

Even then you must really screw up to get the boot, at least in Australia.

nbn™ aces the easiest construction target it will have for two years

Mum's area was supposed to commence build Q1 2016, they've only just started work a month ago.

Considering they finished running FTTP literally 200 meters down the road this time last year and stated they would go FTTN for mum's area, I do wonder what the hell they've been doing for nearly 12 months.

IBM throws ISP under a bus for Australia's #Censusfail

I'm kicking myself I didn't read the article on ABC yesterday, the news ticker at the bottom of the morning program stated "IBM claims census fail could have been resolved by turning router off-and-on again.

Google may just have silently snuffed the tablet computer

Bugger, I was looking for a replacement for the old Nexus 7 (series 1) as it's a handy size to use in the car with Torque running. But it's starting to really run slow in general use let alone running apps.

Optus' HFC problems were never a secret, so why did nbn™ need the network?

"Now would be a good time for you Aussies to admit that you don't know how to fibre. Get some people in from over the ditch to start all over again, only do it right."

F*ck off, we know how to fibre, it's our overpaid underperforming pollies that need to be dropped in a ditch and filled over for screwing it all up.

Microsoft sues Wisconsin man (again) for copyright infringement (again)

Funny how M$ stopped the TechNet program because they said "That's how most pirated software got their keys" - and not once did they respond to the question of "Why don't you just block keys when you find them"

Oh no, everyone knows it's because MSDN with Office, Windows and Server is closer to something stupid like $10K versus the $600 AUD for the same TechNet subscription.

I have no sympathy for them, after how they treated probably their best sales people (through word of mouth to family, friends, customers etc), the tech's that play with their product as part of their learning experience -because all too often outsourcers etc. don;t give a damn about certifying you unless there's something in it for them - so suffer M$.

VW Dieselgate engineer sings like a canary: Entire design team was in on it – not just a few bad apples, allegedly

Re: Everything has a wire somewhere

"It would be too difficult to convince the current set of morons in Congress that there could be such a thing as "wireless fraud""

Because the internet is pipes right?

Sony wins case over pre-installed Windows software

Back in the early 90's

We were told by our suppliers that it was illegal to sell a computer in Australia without an OS.

I used to LAN at a place where members of the Perth Linux Users Group would meet, a few of them told us they also tried asking for their money back because they didn't want Windows 9x, they tried going to court and were told "Linux isn't an operating system", so they were stuck with the OEM WIn9x, even though they did not agree with the EULA.

US Marine Corps to fly F-35s from HMS Queen Lizzie as UK won't have enough jets

FTFY

Currently we own just four of the over budget, problem ridden fighter jets:

Dell swings layoffs axe at 3,000 EMC people

Dell needs to be careful and look at how IBM and HP have gone the last decade with their buyouts and cost cutting.

Don't be fools, the workers do 95% of the work, the Mangler's are only there to make the harder decisions that need sign-off and to take responsibility - yeah right - for some of the decision making process.

Seagate sued by its own staff for leaking personal info to identity thieves

Re: Over my career, I've know of only one universal truth:

"A company's security is only as good as it's most retarded user. And while the upper management & HR types target all security policies and procedures for the worker bees, in the trenches, fact is, some of the most prolific offenders are those in the upper echelon."

That sums it all up right there, I've had countless "discussions" with senior Manglers over why we don't allow Admin privileges outside of IT staff and how it's usually Manglers that are the most likely to be targeted in an organisation.

For those that don't believe me, I point to an article about one of the Directors in the last place I worked and how he "decided" to take a sabbatical from IT.

I then tell them the truth about his situation and that tends to put them in their place, along with the wrath of the CEO - which they've all felt at one time - if a breach occurred and it pointed to them as the culprit.

HPE crams unloved software down Brits' throats – then charges them $9bn to swallow it

"However, HPE will have the power to appoint its own executives to serve on the company's board of directors"

So they want it to die then?

HP Manglement is why they are in the position they are in.

Sophos Windows users face black screens after false positive snafu

Trend Application Control is worse.

Half our fleet needs replacing with freshly SOE'd machines, it doesn't uninstall itself properly - about 25% of installs keep the service running which means the problem of it slowing systems to a crawl whilst scanning the partitions (this is on Core i5's with 8GB's of RAM and 250GB SSD's for god's sake) is still occurring - we've had to replace multiple machines with freshly imaged ones and all we hear back is it's with the developers.

Although if it came down to using Trend versus any Symantec product, we'd stick with Trend any day.

These are not just job cuts, these are M&S job cuts

Unless the higher up's also tighten their belts - they tend to earn 20 times more than the average employee anyway and can certainly afford it - then you know they really don't care what happens to the business or how many of the actual "workers" that make the place what it is are fired, they will still get their inflated pay and bonuses if it goes tits up.

ACCC mulls regulating roaming charges

Considering they've done similar with limiting charges for using other banks ATM's, I don't see a problem, especially after the "mobile blackspot" rort which Taxpayers funded.

IBM swings axe through staff, humming contently about cloud and AI

Re: The American Dream

"Better to layoff a few thousand and revitalize your business than to keep going in a failing direction and have tens of thousands out of work when you go belly up."

As I personally know a few ex-IBM tech's, the problem is they cut the wrong people, cut the top heavy idiot's, not the tech's that do the work.

Most clients don't remember the dodgy sales guy that promised the world, they remember the awesome tech that saved their asses when something went wrong, quality work and quality workers do more good than cheap prices.

Ice to see you! Windows 10 fix for freezing PCs finally flung at folks

Re: Microsoft doesn't say if the update will fix the other issues-

"The real question is when the USERS are going to learn. Given that MS has been selling shoddy software for over 4 decades at great profit, it appears the answer is either "never" or "there's one born every minute". If you persist using MS software despite such a vast body of evidence that it's rubbish you have in my view relinquished the right to complain."

Simply put work uses Windows, hence why the user's get Windows on their PC's, they know how to use it and if it's good enough for work, it's good enough for users.

If M$ Office and more specifically Outlook is ever ported to Linux, then watch companies really look at going the Linux on the desktop route, as no-one seems to have such a fully featured and integrated alternative to Outlook on Linux, sure there's plenty of Office applications but no real Outlook alternative.

And this is why with every version of Windows from XP onwards, I always selected "Check for updates but let me decide whether to download and install them"

Because the number of times M$ released dodgy updates that screwed things until a patch came out a week later, made it a smarter bet to wait two weeks to see if there were problems and even longer once one stuffed something up.

US appeals court slaps down FTC, AT&T walks free, cats and dog living together, mass hysteria

Meanwhile in Australia...

The ACCC takes ISP's to task over throwing around the term "unlimited", which is why the telco industry wants to self regulate themselves, because they keep getting quite rightly butt f*cked for telling porkies and they don't like it.

FBI Director wants 'adult conversation' about backdooring encryption

Re: Two thumbs up for the sub-heading

"I worry that the next 'merkan president will be sympathetic towards these agencies and support the backdooring."

Huawei would be absolutely laughing their butt's off, it would be like all their dreams had come at once, considering how the US had a go at them but never provided any proof.

Pow! Right in the Jawbone: Fitbit cleared in tech ripoff legal ordeal

Re: Convergence

"For example smartphones roughly resemble each other and have OSes that work approximately the same way."

Apple's lawyers beg to differ. hence the stupid "rounded corners" argument they took Samsung to court over.

Privacy advocates rail against US Homeland Security's Twitter, Facebook snooping

On the bright side....

I'm never going the US so this won't affect me.

Once they change it to you must provide the details, it will be interesting to see what happens if enough visitors on business say no.

Australian Federal Police resume NBN raids, this time in parliament

Re: Don't be fooled

"This LNP Government is tricky, deceitful and morally lacking.

The Labor Government wasn't a lot better in some cases."

Hence why so many minor parties and independents were voted in, both major parties are as bad as each other and their people well and truly make a mockery of the term "honorable member".

Turnbull's Transformers intend to test single sign-on to Gov.au on the offshore, public cloud

We have a term for people like Turnbull, "Passion Fingers" because everything he touches he f***s up!

See MTM NBN as an example.

What next for the F-35 after Turkey's threats to turn its back on NATO?

What’s the worst the Russian’s can say, “it’s cr*p and you wasted your money”, we already knew that.

Adblock Plus blocks Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook block of Adblock Plus block of Facebook ads

Maybe if Failbook stopped those stupid "a woman x miles from you" adverts. that quite frankly you can get enough of from p0rn sites, I just might give them the time of day.

I only use the damn site to keep track of family in the UK.

BTW Failbook, I live in Australia where we use kilometer's, if you're going to post this trite at least update the ads. for the location you are trying to target, you muppet's.

League of lawsuits: Game developer sues cheat-toting website

Sounds like someone needs to spend a little time and effort on their game.

I don't play LOL but if part of the problem is leveling characters, can't they just implement some checking in the background and if they see a toon has gone from level 1 - 20 in a certain amount of time, send a warning to the account owner that using cheat's is against policy and another infraction would mean either closure or a ban for X time frame?

Or if a toon has been playing continuously for X day's and no-one can do that without serious medical issues, send the notification to the account owner?

Cops to let the private sector chase after cybercrims' assets

Just how many Cybercrims live in the UK that this will affect though, most attacks stem from Russia etc. and you can bet they don't give a flying-you-know-what for what a UK judge says.

Your colleagues will lie to you: An enterprise architect's life

Ah software licensing

It would help if the vendor knew how their licensing worked too.

For the last 4 years straight we have had M$ audits and they always fall down when it comes to Datacenter Edition of Server, we always point them towards Micro$oft's own material online to win the argument.

Then there's Oracle, f*ck them, we do all the things they want, run all the scripts, sit with their licensing people and every year somethings changed from last year and we haven't even added any new Server's etc.

As it is we have been waiting 9 months for their reply to the last audit.

Apple says banks can't touch iPhone NFC without harming security

I wonder what would happen if the banks put up advertisements advising they cannot support Apple iPhone's, as the NFC chips are obviously faulty if they don't work with open source products?

Facebook to forcefeed you web ads, whether you like it or not: Ad blocker? Get the Zuck out!

Failbook needs to up their advertising game.

I only have an account to keep track of my sisters family in the UK but just about every ad they post is one of those "horny women in your area" friggin' things that you can find on most pr0n sites.

Obviously Failbook doesn't consider itself a "family" site.

Windows 10 grabs 22 per cent desktop market share in a year

It can't be long before Win10 Enterprise VL is sold in Bali etc. to avoid all the BS M$ is pulling for Home and Pro users.

Windows 10 still free, even the Anniversary Update, if you're crass

I just bunged in a SSD, installed Win10 Pro using my Win7 key and once confirmed it was activated, took the SSD out and went back to my Win 7 install.

If I eventually have to go Win 10, my work PC at home is provided by work, so I'll go Win 10 Enterprise and lose all the BS M$ intend to push out to the tiles - or whatever marketing name they call them now.

nbn™ talks up HFC upgrades to gigabit speed

You missed a word:

"As nbn™ has been directed to use HFC by Australia's COALITION government, we are left to conclude by implication that the government's policy is prescient."

Also I bet if they had given us an extra slip of paper asking to tick the technologies as a taxpayer that we wanted installed by NBN Co. at the recent Federal election, I expect the Lib's. would get an unwelcome response considering the cost of FTTP versus FTTN, FTTB or even FTTdp in which the user pays the power bill too.

PHP flaws allowed God mode access to top smut site

What I want to know.

Is why the hell Pornhub has 'share" buttons for social media sites like Facebook.

I mean seriously who is going to let their friends know their dirty little viewing habits by sharing them for the world to see?

Not too mention prospective future employers, doing a search of their profile.

IT boss 'set up fake companies to charge his employers $2.4m'

I sometimes run start-of-day operations when our DBA is off and checking the direct debit file is always sobering.

On average we receive anywhere from $12 million to $23 million coming in, I still after 6 years here, do the sums in my head as to how long it would take me to earn that type of money.

Then I console myself with a bacon and egg roll, instead of boring cereal, because after waking up at 4:30AM to get everything sorted by 6:30AM so people don't whinge - even though our SLA is for the systems to be up at 8:00AM - means I deserve it.

Tight-wad Apple repair techs swapped our damaged iGear with used kit – lawsuit

This has always been the case, monitors in particular, which is why you just hope to hell your monitor dies within the 30 day DOA period so you can RMA it, otherwise it's Russian roulette as to what you get.

I've had plenty of customers over the years p1ssed because the monitor they looked after and had not a blemish on it, was replaced with one that had a scratch somewhere obvious as a refurbished/repaired model or even funnier, when they have dual screens and they get a different model as a replacement.

Oh boy do the OCD ones get wound up easily.

I don't see them winning this case, I suspect more than anything it's their lawyer trying to make a quick buck and being in a win-win position, if they win, he gets a good payday, if they lose, he still gets his bill paid.