Posts by Martin-73

Apple iPhone X screen falls short of promises, lawsuit says

Inches are not legally defined anyway

Nobody except apple and the USA, burma, and liberia uses inches anyway. And it's a crapple product. so who really cares?

I admit that first sentence was trolling, but... yeesh. You don't buy a phone sight unseen. So you saw it in the shop, went 'ooo', and bought it. So what if the measurements were off. you decided it was good. and purchased it

So this time, for the first time in recorded history, i side with Apple computer, inc.

(brief jab by using their real name there)

Home users due for a battering with Microsoft 365 subscription stick

The subscription model is full of fail

Other than security updates (an important but usually fairly minor part of office software), who the hell needs to update.. OTHER than because 'everybody else did and they send me stuff i can't open'

I am still using office 97. And it's quite functional, tyvm. I need a helper program to open .docx files, but that is free. And NOT A SUBSCRIPTION.

Continually demanding monthly dues from people for software they should be able to buy outright is a dick move. Making it cheap enough they think 'that's reasonable'... is more of a dick move.

Office 97 is now 21 years old. If I'd paid even 3.99 a month for it, that would now be just over a grand. Which is plain silly for a word processor with some other programs I rarely use bolted on. MS's proposed price is double that.

Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

Re: Outages get blamed for everything.

Satnav function on my phone worked fine, the only bit that didn't was the traffic status which COULD explain the 'being late for a meeting'.

As it was, my luck ran the other way. I took the route less travelled, because it looked lighter on traffic from the roundabout... and got to work 15m early

My hoard of obsolete hardware might be useful… one day

In the attic I have... 7 computer carcasses, 3 boxes of cd rom drives, a box of at and atx power supplies, about 8 DSL modem/routers, mainly netgear DG834s, and a SACK of dialup modems.... All brand new. Got them at a clearance auction for a pound,. The modems themselves are useless but the pieces can be handy for projects

GitHub lost a network link for 43 seconds, went TITSUP for a day

One of the biggest fails here...

Seems to be the simple "don't rely on an item, to report news about said item.

That being said, they're learning from it.

London flatmate (Julian Assange) sues landlord (government of Ecuador) in human rights spat

"Iron Mike Pence"

Iron , as in 'iron hoof'?

Yes I know, politically incorrect, but...yeesh

Take my advice: The only safe ID is a fake ID

Re: Kyden-Titty, Fay

It's because like so many people, you couldn't help staring at the Titty

Does Google make hardware just so nobody buys it?

Re: She has an idevice (not sure why, she's otherwise clever)

But idevices also slow down over time, oddly enough, when new models come out

Re: "Pixel also isn't a dumb terminal, is it?"

Running into this issue with a friend right now. She has an idevice (not sure why, she's otherwise clever) and she cannot find out how to download a file, then open it. It constantly wants to stream things?

Punkt: A minimalist Android for the paranoid

Re: DOA

Parallel universe yes. For my colleague and myself it's invaluable for sharing images and data about jobs. With due regard to GDPR of course, nothing identifiable.

Re: Calls and Email

@charles 9

Most email CLIENTS send plain text as well as the embroidered crap. Most of the actual content is in the plain text anyway.

The exception to this is automated responders by big companies (ebay/amazon/paypal etc) who often send empty 'text/plain' sections. Which is user hostile.

But personal emails even from a high up mangler, will usually have usable content in the text/plain area

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave me tea... pigs-in-blankets-flavoured tea

Re: Sprouts

This might be north south rather than england scotland.... here in the deep sarf, the large yellow fleshed things are swedes, and the small whitish things that baldrick ate are turnips.

North of t'border it's reversed, maybe in other regions also?

Convenient switch hides an inconvenient truth

Re: Information on "shunt trips".

It's happened to me that you CANNOT disconnect the other end of the circuit. (circuit that has more than one load, and a JB hidden (against current regulations but fine up till the 90s) under a floor that has the bane of my existence: Laminate flooring.

In that case, isolating the ends of the wires and maybe labelling them with what they used to do and what circuit they're on would be the only option.

Re: stairs and hallways lights...

The favourite of lighting circuits in the UK is for someone to remove the ceiling rose to fit a 'designer light fitting', not make notes of where the wires come from, and have the thing work thusly:

Switch off, light is on

Switch on, BANG

Causes me as a domestic sparks more calls than anything else DIY related

Re: a bit thin?

@Alan Brown

I'm guessing the downvote was from someone who hates Python?

Uncle Sam gives itself the right to shoot down any drone, anywhere, any time, any how

Meh, so armed drones for civilians

Civil rights group Liberty walks out on British cops' database consultation

Amber Rudd, is that you?

Rookie almost wipes customer's entire inventory – unbeknownst to sysadmin

Re: And then billed 3 extra hours?

indeed, and the same is true of base model GM cars (Vauxhall/Opel/Holden)... or was up until the early naughties. Most of the kit for the higher spec was there, but either not connected, or a link removed, but ONLY on SOME cars (it seemed random)

Turns out it was a manufacturing thing, they'd estimate demand for each trim level, and if they had any uncertainty, equip more vehicles at the higher spec, and then disable stuff to downgrade if needed.

I got UNlucky with my Corsa, 2 wire harness to the doors instead of the full 14 wire one, so electric mirrors/windows would've been hard to retrofit :(

Why are sat-nav walking directions always so hopeless?

Re: Hahaha...

"the barrel of a gun"

ALL rise for the Australian National Anthem

Remember when Apple's FaceTime stopped working years ago? Yeah, that was deliberate

It's a legitimate description of their business.

TV Licensing admits: We directed 25,000 people to send their bank details in the clear

Re: TVLD

Crapita are a private company, not law enforcement. As such they have no right to get anyone to comply with jack schitt

Vodafone cops ads rap over Martin Freeman's vanishing spaceship

Re: Umm

A&A offer me the fact they'll smack openreach with a big stick if my line doesn't reach the speed that the availability checker says?

It does, and always does?

Re: Umm

Fair point. I think they should be allowed to use sync speed. Provided they STATE that's what they're using.

Post in haste, repent at leisure

Umm

As a user who is well acquainted with sync speed and what it means... I feel insulted by the usually toothless ASA.

yes there's scope for abuse of sync speed vs throughput. But claiming that users don't know what it means is shullbit

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Isn't the whole point of 'responsive' design

that it adapts (responds) to the device and viewport you're using? So the whitespace tends to say it's not been done thoroughly.

But to be honest, till it was pointed out in the thread, I didn't notice. However I access the stories via the RSS feed so rarely see the homepage.

But I ... quite like it, ghod rest my sole... (the left one).

Facebook flogs dead horse. By flog, we mean sues. And by horse, we mean BlackBerry

Software patents aren't a thing surely? (except in merica)

Fast food, slow user – techie tears hair out over crashed drive-thru till

Re: @ Douchus McBagg

re: regional redirect ... google.com/ncr ?

Re: Ahhh, memories...

To be fair, even working in telecomms for a living for a while, I've done that. Absent mindedly. I blame the prevalence of cellular phones for rendering my subconscious incapable of realizing that 'examining the inner workings of the NTE' (which in the UK involves removing the faceplate with the actual socket on it) is going to kill the phone.

I'm usually too embarrassed to call back

Judge bars distribution of 3D gun files... er, five years after they were slapped onto the web

I see the result as less 'farcical' than 'NY thumbing its nose at trump' Which is always a good thing

As for guns... yeesh, 3D printing isn't the only way. They're gonna ban machine tools next? (or if you don't mind the risk of it exploding... any tools)

Keep yer plastic, says analyst: eSIMs aren't all they're cracked up to be

Re: Why does Apple want eSIMs?

Have an upvote DisruptiveDean

I hate apple like the best of em, but it's going to be the design considerations that drive them. They're definitely going to want a free choice of providers (now they've established themselves, in the iphone's early days, exclusivity and tie ins made sense, to get the brand out there). Now they're well known as ..well, a phone brand... so the more customers who can use their device the better.

Yes, the rejection of the SIM concept struck me when I moved to leftpondia in 2000. They were selling 'digital' cellphones with no sim slot... I was ...perplexed. Turns out it was some cdma halfbreed

Re: "number portability"

indeed Mage. I've only ever owned two 'tied to a network' phones (circa 1997 and 1998). Yes, I had to get a new phone after a year, because the deal was only available from Orange (now half of EE) on a boxed kit with new phone, sim, leather pouch (remember them?) and 12 months prepaid (over 30 mins per month billable).

So I ended up with two identical phones. It was fortunate the market moved slower in them days... the phones were identical so i ended up with four batteries, 2 chargers, etc. (necessary with early motorola handhelds).

But it did strike me as an amazing waste of resources that simply paying for an extra year cost MORE than entire new set of kit. So when I finally ditched the orange phones in 2001ish, I bought unlocked nokias which I continued to use till 2010, when I bought my first smartphone. A Galaxy A3. Outright. for cash.

Provider keeps trying to tempt me with free phones. But if i question them, it turns out the phone is NOT free, it's 'subsidized provided i sign up for xx months'. They've quit calling me recently after being told to stop lying to me

s/suppliers/billing_companies

As title. Nobody ever switches electricity supplier unless they physically move. there is only one DNO in an area.

No, not having a go at you personally DavCrav but the misuse of the term 'supplier' gets my goat. Telecomms is much more fluid as there are actually multiple service providers (although the physical line for a landline might be tied to openretch in a non cabled area)

As porn site pounds hard on piracy laws, Cox pulls out prematurely

Re: Copyright Issues

@King Jack. Very good point. Both of those items you mention, while widely derided by the popular press and 'experts in pubs' brought about MUCH discussion of the arts in general. And as such would definitely count as 'useful'

London fuzz to get 600 more mobile fingerprint scanners

Why immigration database

As title. No reason for the police to deal with it

Phased out: IT architect plugs hole in clean-freak admin's wiring design

Re: Ah... the bypass switch

Not the same book then, but it looks as if it's in similar vein

Re: Is that legal now?

There is a difference in the wiring regulations between commercial and domestic wiring. Domestic needed all on one phase. Commercial can have multiple phases present even on 1ph only sockets... but labelling is required. Typically a sticker between the sockets saying '415v between', or latterly, 400v between.

Re: get out quick

As an electrician, who does mostly domestic work with a smattering of commercial/light industrial, in the UK... the fed from 2 breakers/fed from different boards scenario is NOT rare at all. The favourite is to somehow crosswire the 2 ring mains, then take an unfused spur (wire right into a JB) for a light in the attic fed by bell wire. (yes, those all occurred together, on one job. very recently)

Result: the light fixture fed with bell wire was effectively fused (not breakers, gen-yoo-wine wylex rewireable fuses) at 60 amps. Or the same rating as the rewireable, double pole fused mains intake before the meter.

That one got rewired and the intake changed post haste by SSEN

Re: Ah... the bypass switch

That wasn't the same radio handbook that told you how to make your own meter probes (for use on valve/tube equipment no less) out of solid brass rod with a 'tape cover to protect against shocks' ?

Re: Architect Smartitect

Nothing like phases being wrong etc, or ethernet wiring... but one well known contractor who Love(ll) to build social housing, at least on a development i was presented with, had handily wired all the telephone wiring on one side of the building (one socket in each room) back to a main socket in the hallway... which then had a single cat 5 (not proper CW1308 but apparently that's normal now) back to the eternal NTE, and the other half back to the kitchen socket, and a second cat5 back to the NTE. (which has ONE set of wiring terminals)

Result... 8 cables jammed in one normal phone jack (Krone IDC terminals rated for 'up to 2 connections' provided the wiring is smaller gauge) and 2 cables at the NTE with terminals rated for ONE wire only.

The openreach chappe told me they'd done similar at blocks of apartments but because it was easier, he had 7 cables to contend with at each NTE.

Some 8B connectors and a huge chocblock behind the hallway socket got the ONE working... but yeesh

re: spacing of phases in the UK

If i recall, it pre-dates AC even. If you had both 'outers' of a 200/400v to 250/500v DC system (centre earth) you had to have the meters and any accessories 6' apart so arm to arm contact was impossible.

Usually a floor per 'line'.

Something about the supply regs and anything over 250v nominal ? or was that for light sockets... old books

Devon County Council techies: WE KNOW IT WASN'T YOU!

Re: More than just spelling.

TWENTY POUNDS? they get a fiver... and that only because the pound note is not de rigeur anymore (south of the tees/exe line)

ZX Spectrum Vega+ blows a FUSE: It runs open-source emulator

I can confirm that the original Sinclair computers were both shite, and awesome. Equally.

The concept was awesome. The manuals were amazing. The quality control was.... unknown. Literally, they didn't understand the concept.

My first Sinclair computer (a ZX spectrum+... the plus was 'plus something better than rubber keys but ONLY marginally) didn't work out of the box. Dixons diagnosed a dud power supply, and swapped it for one that only worked occasionally. Eventually my ham fisted attempts to put enough force on the connector to get the thing to start, caused the pin in the 9v connector to fall off. The second one (replacement after a screaming fit by my usually non demonstrative mother, who'd paid for it) worked flawlessly. And still works. Albeit with a few mods and a non-original PSU

Surprise, surprise. Here comes Big Cable to slay another rule that helps small ISPs compete

Re: People bang on about "creative destruction" and this about the only rule that encourages it

Indeed, and the Openreach monopoly only reaches to the exchange in any case... almost every exchange in the country has at least Talktalk and BT backhaul available to other ISPs (TT wholesale aren't crappy like TT retail).

Grad sends warning to manager: Be nice to our kit and it'll be nice to you

Re: Sometimes violence is the only answer

Ah! you mentioned ASR!

*fires up Agent* for its six monthly outing into that September forum that I am not allowed to post in* but love to read

*I know the chicken. But i am not qualified to do more than pet it.

Sysadmin trained his offshore replacements, sat back, watched ex-employer's world burn

Re: Timing is everything - hourglasses question

Is the correspondence with the 5v logic standard just coincidence?

Re: Timing is everything

@symon

Ignore the proffered glasses, and use the timer on your phone.

Re: Logic bombs are unprofessional

@tinslave_the_barelegged.

Same in my sphere of employment. (Commercial/residential electrician). I am forbidden by law to interfere with power company gear, and forbidden by elfin safety law to work 'live'.. The power company charge enormous amounts to do a disconnect/same day reconnect and can't guarantee it. So if you ask the power co guy nicely, and don't look too much like someone who's likely to grow certain green plants, they'll give you seals and tell you to be careful.

All hell would break loose if the messing with the power company's main service head blew up on you, from a legal liability P.O.V and from pure physics. But we're careful.

Ideally the rules work. But the world ain't ideal

Sysadmin sank IBM mainframe by going one VM too deep

@DougMac... explaining the downvotes

Having lived in the US for a few years (in various places) but being a brit ... so i noticed these things... The 'nobody calls it a pound sign' is VERY strongly regional and/or local.

Some places assume if you say pound sign you mean Lb, and call # 'a number sign', others almost exclusively use it as a weight identifier " #potatoes 39c " isn't a weird hashtag, it's telling you the tubers are cheap

Re: Just to mudddy the waters a trifle ... (@peter Gathercole)

ECHO OFF

MODE CON: COLS=80

CHCP 437

PATH C:\DOS

thought i'd recycled those neurons years ago