* Posts by HarryBl

148 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Oct 2013

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OneOdio Focus A5: Big battery, budget sound, and a bargain bin price

HarryBl

Sony wants a word...

Google reportedly developing an AI agent that can control your browser

HarryBl

When is Google going to develop a search engine that simply searches what you ask it for?

Intel's processor failures: A cautionary tale of business vs engineering

HarryBl

It's IBM and 'shareholder value' all over again...

PayPal is planning an ad network built off your purchase history

HarryBl

What are these 'ads' that people speak of?

We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners

HarryBl

Re: I can afford to use genuine inks because.

I've got a Canon Pixma and it's quite happy using non Canon compatible ink bought from Amazon. I've bought various brands and they all work without any problem.

Google ponders making AI search a premium option

HarryBl

Excellent news. Now if they'd just make the regular search verbatim by default...

Fujitsu to shutter operations in Republic of Ireland

HarryBl

"The Post Office suspected foul play and demanded those local branch managers make up the shortfall personally.

Hundreds of those Post Office employees were wrongly convicted of fraud, some attempted suicide, with sadly four cases resulting in death, and 33 have since died and are unable to see justice served. "

Slight correction.

They weren't 'local branch managers they were sub postmasters/mistresses.

They weren't Post Office employees they were Post Office franchisees.

Legal campaigners challenge UK.gov decision to redact NHS-Palantir contract

HarryBl

Is Jolyon about to lose yet more of his gullible supporter's money?

How governments become addicted to suppliers like Fujitsu

HarryBl

Re: Corruption

The Post Office is government owned. It's the Royal Mail that was privatised.

Logitech's Wave Keys tries to bend ergonomics without breaking tradition

HarryBl

Re: exchange rate

20% VAT

Clingy Virgin Media won't let us leave, customers complain

HarryBl

Re: Successfully Rubbish "We are committed to providing our customers with excellent service"

Call them and tell the first lot that you speak to that you want to cancel. Be persistent. Take no bullshit.

They will eventually put you through to somebody who actually has the power to negotiate.

Tell them you want to cancel. They will make you an offer. If you find it acceptable then take it.

If they don't come up with an offer that's acceptable tell them you want to cancel - this is with a month's notice.

Sometime in that month you'll get a call from them with a better offer. Again if it's acceptable take it. If not say so.

You can cancel your cancellation any time within the notice month if you feel it necessary.

What you MUST do is convince them that you're not bullshitting and will cancel if necessary.

Be prepared to go through the same rigmarole in 18 months time.

Users accuse Intuit of 'heavy-handed' support changes on QuickBooks for Desktop

HarryBl

I remember having a home version of Quickbooks in the UK in the dim and distant past. They did the same with that - just buggered off back to the US and screwed us UK folks over. I wouldn't touch them with a shitty stick.

Europe finalizes €43B Chips Act it hopes will help free it from foreign fabs

HarryBl

Re: another bite in the buttocks

We're the second largest manufacturer of jet engines in the world.

Huawei masters the great vanishing act as UK sales evaporate

HarryBl

Re: A loss to end users

Huawei sold off Honor last year (?). They're now a separate company and have Play Store on their newer phones.

Surprise! China's top Android phones collect way more info

HarryBl

Re: As an owner of a Xiaomi

The article says that phones with Chinese firmware do this. No mention of phones with the Global firmware installed.

A brand new Linux DRM display driver – for a 1992 computer

HarryBl

I spent 3 years of my life wielding a soldering iron on the innards of Atari STs back in the day when component level repair was cheaper than swapping modules out.

Atari provided a pretty nifty diagnostics cartridge for them.

Amazon puts 'creepy' AI cameras in UK delivery vans

HarryBl

Re: Isn't there a law ....

I've been with Amazon since 1995 and have never, in all that time, had a problem with any of their delivery drivers. Mind you I do smile and say 'thank you' when they make a delivery.

Govt suggests Brits should hand passports to social media companies

HarryBl

Is there anybody in the House of Commons who has even the slightest idea about modern technology?

Japan solves 5G airliner conundrum: Keep mobe masts 200m from airport approach paths. That's it

HarryBl

" Their US colleagues ought to be taking notes from the rest of the world."

Good luck with that...

Ancient with a dash of modern: We joined the Royal Navy to find there's little new in naval navigation

HarryBl

Re: USNA Annapolis

Another thing that was quietly brought back by the USN was morse code. You can knock a satellite out of the sky but you can't stop an HF transmission in morse.

HarryBl

Re: USNA Annapolis

Not if your GPS receiver has been wrecked.

Navigating without GPS is one thing – so let's jam it and see what happens to our warship

HarryBl

Re: Hmmmm....

Sights aren't taken 'round the clock'. They are (or were before Transit/GPS arrived) taken at noon. Occasionally star sights were taken too.

If you're manoeuvring close enough to something to be able to see it you're expected to use your eyes (plus bins) to navigate rather than a sextant.

Lithuania tells its citizens to throw Xiaomi mobile devices in the bin

HarryBl

I've got a Xiaomi 10T Lite and it doesn't stop me searching for and reading about any of the search terms mentioned in the article.

Lenovo says it’s crammed a workstation into a litre of space – less than three cans of beer

HarryBl

Petrol pumps...

UK arm of international charity the Salvation Army hit by ransomware attack

HarryBl

Re: dirty pool, dude

You might be confusing the American version of Sally's Army with the real thing that was invented in the UK...

The Wight stuff: Marconi and the island, when working remotely on wireless comms meant something very different

HarryBl

For all us ex merchant navy sparkies Niton is the home of Niton Radio/GNI

Post Office awards Fujitsu a £42.5m contract extension for the IT system behind wrongful subpostmaster prosecutions

HarryBl

Re: Big 'business' contract

I know of a postmistress in an admittedly one man band sub post office who started doing exactly that after Horizon screwed her over for several thousand pounds.

UK watchdog fines two firms £270k for cold-calling 531,000 people who had opted out

HarryBl

Re: The scams will continue until things change....

The piece you're quoting says that the ICO DOES have powers to go after directors...

Samsung floats autonomous ships as ready to sail in 2022

HarryBl

Re: Does size matter?

"A bigger ship is easier as they have right of navigation."

No they don't. Size has nothing to do with it. Sail has right of way over power.

It's a bit more complicated than you seem to think

https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/COLREG.aspx

HarryBl

Re: Safety?

They don't have absolute right of way. They are required to obey the rules of the road just like every other ship. Sail has right of way over power...

HarryBl

Re: Safety?

"I'm not quite sure what relational reason there is for a pilots job to exist anymore."

And yet they do. They're compulsory in most ports. If you think all you need is a chart and a photo to take a 20,000 TEU box boat up Southampton Water I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.

HarryBl

Re: Boarders!

I can imagine your average ship owner agreeing to have his multi million pound ship and cargo bombed or torpedoed :-)

HarryBl

"But with crew often hard to come by in the unglamorous world of oceanic transport, "

I don't know who told you that but they obviously know nothing about merchant ship crewing. The big problem is the shortage of jobs not the shortage of crew.

UK.gov awards seats on £2bn 'digital outcomes' framework to suppliers – one of which doesn't even have a website

HarryBl

More of Boris's mates?

Everybody's time is precious, pal: Sometimes it isn't only the terminals that are dumb

HarryBl

I had a customer insist that I drive from the Midlands to North Wales to reseat the power cable in the back of a monitor. Some people are just dicks.

Calls for 'right to repair' electronics laws grow louder across Europe

HarryBl

I used to fix Atari STs down to component level because they used ordinary DIL packages.

When surface mount came along I used to fix them because they were big enough to handle with a heat gun, Weller iron and a pot of flux

Modern surface mount is a different matter altogether...

Xiaomi revenues up by a third due to strong phone sales and triple-digit European growth

HarryBl

I've got a Redmi that I paid £180 for. To get the same specs anywhere else I'd be looking at £300 minimum.

Think tank warns any further delay to 5G rollout will cost the UK multiple billions – but hey, at least Huawei is out

HarryBl

Our local newspaper is onto a news generating scam. It publishes the planning applications for 5G masts knowing full well that there'll be a follow up story some time later of the new masts being burnt down by the mongs.

Virgin Media CEO says Brit broadband biz 'performed well' in Q2, which is a weird way to say losses almost tripled

HarryBl

You have to haggle.

HarryBl

My bill was due to go up £20 this month. I called them expecting to spend an hour wrangling with a Filipino before getting through to retentions.

Instead I get through to the UK directly within 2 minutes. When I said it was too expensive they immediately offered to keep me on my current price for the next 18 months so I snapped their hand off.

I'm paying less that the cheapest new customer bundle for more than they get.

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

HarryBl

Re: It works just fine for us

Same with me. I support a friend of mine who lives on the other side of the world and who is totally bereft of any computer nous at all.

With W7 I used to get a cry for help about once a week and would have to Teamview once a month or so to sort stuff out for him.

Since he got W10 he'll maybe ask for a bit of help every 2 or 3 months and it will vary rarely have anything to do with W10 itself.

Chinese tat bazaar Xiaomi to light a fire under Amazon's Kindle with new e-book reader

HarryBl

Re: Bazaar?

They sell excellent value for money phones and also a brilliant electric toothbrush that lasts a month on one charge unlike the Oral thing which needs recharging once a week.

Trump gloats, telcos weep, and China is furious: How things stand following UK's decision to rip out Huawei

HarryBl

Re: NSA Backdoors in Cisco and Juniper kit?

I'm so tempted but I'm a kind soul at heart so I won't.

July? British government could decide to boot Chinese giant Huawei from the UK's networks by this month

HarryBl

What about all the Huawei street cabinets that Openreach have? Do they not pose a threat too?

We're no longer helping UK Post Office persecute postal workers with our shonky system, says Fujitsu

HarryBl

Re: Been thinking

The first job I had was in a bank back in the 60s. It was that long ago we were still using pounds, shillings and pence.

After we closed for the day we'd count all the cash. If we were more than 15 shillings (75 pence) out nobody went home until it was sorted.

If we were short it was bad enough but if we were over it was a major visit from head office deal as we had money that actually belonged to one of our customers.

Honor launches new UK store, laptop, kettle, er... toothbrush?

HarryBl

I used to use an Oral electric toothbrush which was big, clunky and needed recharging every week. I bought myself a Xiaomi SoWhite (I know) which has the same diameter as the 18650 battery that drives it and only needs recharging once a month.

The Oral cost about 40 quid, the Xiaomi was a tenner.

Xiaomi Mi 9 owners furious after dodgy Vodafone software patch bricked their mobes

HarryBl

Re: Android One

The updates come from the manufacturer not Google.

HarryBl

Re: Android One

A Mi A2 Lite is £179 - and a fine phone it is too!

HarryBl

Re: To be fair

They've got a shop in Westfield in London and they're sold online by all the usual suspects.

HarryBl

Re: Identified Root Cause

It wasn't a supplier half way round the world. It was Vodafone.

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