* Posts by RobDog

119 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2013

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Techie cleaned up criminally bad tech support that was probably also an actual crime

RobDog

Someone knew something

I worked for a UK clothes and home retailer (defunct quite recently actually) in early 90s, and one morning we arrived at HO to find, on one floor, monitors disconnected and placed on the floor (15inc crt so some effort required), little piles of screws neatly beside the Elonex desktops, lids lifted and the 4MB/8MB sticks of RAM gone. Probably about 40 machines. Hey ho, we’d heard it was going on and we were a victim. You’d think a lesson would have been learned. Except that 2 weeks later, a different gang (maybe) returned and this time were not so civil, and a number of the monitor signal wires (fixed connection, not plugged) had been cut to speed relocation, the lids of the pcs wrenched off with some kind of pry tool and again, the RAM nicked. Just for good measure, they didn’t bin the remains of their sustenance; crumpled sandwich packages, crisp packets and coke cans.

Google Maps to roll out Trump-approved Denali and Gulf of Mexico rebrands

RobDog

Re: What's in a name...

‘Tunnel sous la Manche’ on e.g. the A16 approaching

UK aims to fix government IT with help from AI Humphrey

RobDog

Re: How long until "national id to allow easy access to Government services"

I renewed my expired driving licence online the other day and it asked for just a passport number, not a scan of the whole or part of the passport, and offered me to use the passport photo it found on my new licence. Also, it didn’t matter whether the passport was expired; it explicit stated the passport didn’t need to be current. I was surprised.

Techie fluked a fix and found himself the abusive boss's best friend

RobDog

Ranting/threatening ‘boss’?

I don’t care who the boss is are or what their problems are, they don’t get to talk to me like that.

Both KDE and GNOME to offer official distros

RobDog

Re: Linux is like car clubs

Your counterpoint is completely wrong in this case. Tomato soup tastes like tomato soup regardless whether it’s Co-Op Heinz or Lidl.

This is dealing with something completely different but jake is gonna be jake I guess

RobDog

Linux desktop take up to stall again

Too many variants. When will ‘they’ learn?

Apple drops soldered storage for 2024 Mac Mini

RobDog

Why is power button controversial?

They don’t want you to turn if off! They want you to interact with it like people do with Echo, they want Siri to be your got for information mgmt obviously but it can’t do that when the computer is powered off. Its soooo blindingly obvious. Put the power button out of the way to make people not bother their lazy fat selves putting the effort in reach for it.

Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after update labeling error

RobDog

Credit card slipped

Yearsnyears ago when I got my first credit card, and had just moved out of home, I splurged on the essentials…in Debenhams a new duvet set, and in the local in-car entertainment shop a brand new Pioneer tape/FM head unit and 4 speakers for my battered Triumph Spitfire. The assistant and Ingor on well, plenty of chatting, he broke out the card slip machine (not electronic) and took the card imprint…remembered he hadn’t given me some accessory or other, and promptly never got me to sign the card slip. Never got charged a penny or heard any more about it.

Crack coder wasn't allowed to meet clients due to his other talent: Blisteringly inappropriate insults

RobDog

Rude boss

I went for an interview at a former High St electronics retailer in the mainframe room. The dc boss had an interview ‘technique’ where he had the chat, talked about the job, so far so good, but then asked a ‘controversial’ question that was designed to make me lose my temper, and he feigned an angry attitude trying to make me argue with him. It was so obvious and transparent I just talked normally and even slightly mockingly. When he was finished he reverted to normal. He just came across as a fool. I got the job but didn’t take it.

Sweet 16 and making mistakes: More of the computing industry's biggest fails

RobDog

‘….not a viable business model’

They could have, if buyers were braver than always buying IBM.

Bargain-hunting boss saw his bonus go up in a puff of self-inflicted smoke

RobDog

Re: Beige Box

We had those. The only part they had in common was the Elonex badge.

RobDog

Is that California…

…a tiny seaside village in Norfolk that’s between Caister and Hemsby?

Techie told 'Bill Gates' Excel is rubbish – and the Microsoft boss had it fixed in 48 hours

RobDog

Why wear out the carpet

Running a:\Setup.exe /a <drive>:\<directory> copied and exploded the contents of the disks to a destination (usually you’d choose a mapped network drive) from where you could run setup.exe at the client PC and never load a disk.

Installed in ‘admin’ mode. And with an optional answers file if I recall, one of my first pc support roles.

Tesla recalls over 1.6M electric cars in China for faulty hood lock

RobDog

Tesla recalls get reported, others don’t

After all, It could be much, much worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_switch_recalls

US border cops really must get a warrant in NY before searching your phones, devices

RobDog

‘The land of the free’

That’s all

Innocent techie jailed for taking hours to fix storage

RobDog

Not in the UK

Unless he was exercising the privileges of one of the commercial licences, he could have just got in his car and driven home.

Techie installed 'user attitude readjustment tool' after getting hammered in a Police station

RobDog

Re: User attitude readjustment tool

How old are you?

Raspberry Pi stock surges after London IPO

RobDog

But windows

I don’t want to run windows in my SFF computer but Jeff seems to think that’s a requirement. Newsflash - not any Pi users use the desktop very often.

Show me the desktopless NUC in his video? Linux would it be if t were there? H th en might as well run a Pi and forget the windows licensing, updates and intrusive telemetry and diagnostics gathering.

Anyway Jeff Geerling and people like him need to get real jobs.

Snowmobile, Amazon's truck-powered migration service, reaches the end of the road

RobDog

It’ll be back

They just put it on ice for a while

Job interview descended into sweary shouting match, candidate got the gig anyway

RobDog

Seen that before.

I had an interview for a mainframe job at the premises of of a formerly successful High Street stereo and telly seller in Stevenage. The DC manager had this painfully obvious interview technique of asking ‘controversial’ questions, being annoyed with the answers, and trying to create an argument. It was transparent and embarrassing, frankly, and I countered I suppose with a sort of weary demeanour. He then said he had to leave because of an incident in the DC which he I suspect he just made up. I got the job but didn’t take it.

Venturing beyond the default OS on Raspberry Pi 5

RobDog

For a demo

Head over to YT ‘Explaining Computers’ where Chris Barnatt has done the heavy lifting for you.

Musk 'texts' Nadella about Windows 11's demands for a Microsoft account

RobDog

Doesn’t matter who you are, this is ridiculous

“ it is still possible to get Windows 11 up and running without using a Microsoft account.”

One of the first questions should be, if you have a MS account and want to use it click Next, or click No to proceed without.

And that process for bypassing is equally ridiculous.

He’s got a point, doesn’t matter who he is.

How Sinclair's QL computer outshined Apple's Macintosh against all odds

RobDog

Re: The 128K Mac was not "rubbish"..

Just because you liked them and know lots about them, doesn’t make them good.

RobDog

Re: Apple rubbish

I see what you’re saying, yes true, but they were still told off for buying Amiga vs ‘current’ Apple, not old Apple.

RobDog

Apple rubbish

Everything of that time outshone Apple II. But people bought them because then, as now, expensive seemed to mean better. Even a branch of NASA used Amigas believe it or not because the engineers found that for the cost they were far better than Apple or PC but the mgrs of the lab that was reprimanded them BECAUSE they were much cheaper and therefore couldn’t be as good.

Atari 400 makes a comeback in miniature form

RobDog

Re: We could recycle the vibe.

You can buy a ‘wifi modem’ for a C64 that plugs into the user port edge connector and can allow your 64 to connect BBS on the web. Old meets new.

RobDog

Re: Why?

Check out The 8-Bit Guy on YT. He’s done as far as personally ‘invested’ a load of his cash on developing a new 16-bit version of an 8-bit computer that never existed - basically, his mid-80s wet dream computer. I sort of admire his efforts but can’t see it selling in decent numbers, so many commenters stating the truth - that people like me, (but not me) that is mid-50s aged blokes who enjoyed micros the first time round and who are still misty eyed and nostalgic for them will buy one and show them to their kids expecting them to be fascinated - which will never ever happen. Don’t get me wrong, I have 2 C64s which in ever ever use. I should just sell them really and emulate when I have the urge.

RobDog

Re: BBC B

We had RML 380Z, one with 2 disk drives and one with tape, as well as a Beeb and a teletype to the Tech college’s PDP/11

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

RobDog

Re: This

I am this person

UK government lays out plan to divert people's broken gizmos from landfill

RobDog

Re: "financed by the hardware producers rather than the taxpayer"

Check out Technology Connections on YT for how they work

RobDog

Re: disposable vapes

I’ve just bought (clearance) some LED spotlights for my summer house office, but each one is sealed, no replaceable bulbs element. So if one bulb goes on the rails of 4 lights, then it’s down to 3, then 2 etc. and look progressively more rubbish and less effective.

RobDog

Re: "The local recycling centre"

Since Covid started, you now have to pre-book an arrival slot on a website for our local recycling centre. It was obviously put in place to separate people, but the council’s snooping is obviously too good for them to resist and they have kept it in place. So no spontaneous garage or garden clearing now. And they now charge for green waste bin collection. And they are going to refuse collection of black bins (non-recycle) if a) the lid is not closed and b) there is no ‘side’ waste aka black bags sitting next to it. All bases covered.

RobDog

Re: "The local recycling centre"

At my local recycling centre, if some other customer fancies the item that you intended to throw away and you give it to them to enjoy a second life instead of binning it, the attendants go absolutely mental and start a tug of war, and shouting match. I know because I was the one about to put the wooden stools in the receptacle. The argument that ensued was ridiculous. I would have assumed the attendant wanted it for himself to sell on (come on, we all know it’s one of their perks) but he hadn’t even seen them until that point, just saw us talking and handing over.

‘I needed antihistamine tablets every time I opened the computers’

RobDog

40 JPS per day

I was an Commodore 64 and Amiga user; my brother caught the micro bug and bought an Atari ST. My teenage room was relatively clean; he, being 10 years older, smoked 40 JPS per day and periodically he paid me a fiver to open up his ST and clear out the build up of fag ash. I was good with electronics whereas he was a bit ham-fisted and probably destroyed an Atari joystick every 2 months, until he invested in one with a steel shaft and micro switches.

Apple pops blue bubbles of Beeper Mini's iMessage service again

RobDog

Re: Apple is in its rights to block Beeper

“It is really only in the US where iMessage is widely used, in the rest of the world most iPhone owners use something else like WhatsApp”

Citation please?

It is 20 years since the last commercial flight of Concorde

RobDog

Luton Airport

It landed there I think 1983-84, I could see the final approach and most of the landing run for rwy 26 from my bedroom window, so that was pretty thrilling.

Saw it several times taking off from LHR, Many years later on holiday in Barbados, I remember seeing banking in the approach, I was like whaaaa? And then remembered where it flew to.

That script I wrote three years ago is now doing what? How many times?

RobDog

Re: Roll your own ... everything

But the VT52 was not released until 1974, the same year that UNIX arrived at Berkeley (both according to Wikipedia I grant you) so how does that work, the terminal being second hand? What was the professor’s name? Anyone would remember something that significant.

RobDog

Re: Roll your own ... everything

You answered your own question there.

Raspberry Pi 5: Hot takes and cooler mistakes

RobDog

Re: Names for childer

Yep, just like Dr Emmet Brown named his kids Hules and Verne

Workload written by student made millions, ran on unsupported hardware, with zero maintenance

RobDog

Re: I'm curious...

You’ve actually seen it? Examples?

Elon Musk's ambitions for Starship soar high while reality waits on launchpad

RobDog

Re: A brief look back

My upvote was for everything but the pillock part. I don’t think he is. Every company needs a visionary, and every industry needs a disruptor. I’m ok with all of it.

Musk's mighty missile is ready for launch once FAA says OK

RobDog

Re: No

You said something positive about Musk. Expect downvotes.

Germany's wild boars still too radioactive to eat largely due to Cold War nuke tests

RobDog

Not good news for Obelix then.

May the sky fall on on our heads!

Want to live dangerously? Try running Windows XP in 2023

RobDog

I still run XP

Because where else can I play MS Combat Flight Simulator, on my MS Force Feedback Pro joystick? The latter needs a ‘game port’ interface to run it, but even though you can buy a sound card (eg Trust sells one, or did) you don’t get drivers for the ‘stick in modern OS even if you could probably get CFS to run on Windows 10/11.

I use the marvellous tool ‘NLite’ to make the XP install as lean as can be. And before anyone mentions VMs, you can’t get the display working properly in CFS.

Sometimes the old ways are the best.

Cage match: Zuck finally realizes Elon is full of twit

RobDog

Fighting????? Like in a playground???

Like 8 years olds?

Pathetic. You’re grown men. Offering someone out to the grassy bank (as it was outside my school) for a scrap is pathetic and juvenile. A but like Zuckerberg himself really.

And I have to be honest, all the baying and hooting and hollering about making excuses etc (yeah so it’s Elon Musk so he’s never going to win a popularity contest around here) itself is ridiculous and juvenile, like cage fighting itself, somehow trying to legitimise the act of knocking another person senseless.

Go ahead and smash that downvote button. Watch me not care.

LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

RobDog

Re: I bought an OLED TV from them 2 years ago

We had Samsung for ages, but the last one wasn’t very good. ‘LG looks nice’ said the missus and she’s right, the screen is super sharp, vibrant colours, GUI not bad but WHAT IS THIS FRESH HELL???? Whilst bl00dy Love Island was contaminating the screen, an ad popped up in the corner linking directly to a purchase opportunity for the sunglasses and bikini being clothes-horsed by one of the vapid morons dumb enough to humiliate themselves playing multi-person tonsil hockey for a guaranteed dose of Hep-C. I’ve configured it to point to Pi-Hole for DNS but haven’t checked it’s done the trick yet. I don’t think the pushed ads are optional in the settings. Grrrrrr.

Microsofties still digesting pay freeze upset by Nadella's 'landmark year' memo

RobDog

Aspiration

‘Just come over here a minute and take a good look at that Ferrari in the car park. Now, if you work hard, put in long hours and show commitment and loyalty to this company, I can have a new one of those next year.’

FCC questions ISPs' selective memory about data caps

RobDog

It’s really simple

They can, so they will. Just another way to make money, regardless whether it’s ‘the right thing’ or not.

We don’t live in a ‘fair’ world any more.

Despite declines, DXC Technology boss awarded $20.3m in 2023

RobDog

Welcome to the company, now take a look outside

You see my Ferrari in the car park?

Well, if you work hard, put in long hours and show commitment and diligence, I can have a new one of those this year. Right then, on your way.

Amazon confirms it locked Microsoft engineer out of his Echo gear over false claim

RobDog

A certain irony

In a MS guy reminding us “ he emphasizes that the issue for him is Amazon and other tech companies exercising control over products that customers have purchased.”

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