Posts by AMBxx

Hey Mister Prime Minister ... Scott! Can you get off my lawn please, mate?

Re: GIT ORF MY LAWN

You'd have hosed him down, wouldn't you?

Barmy ban on businesses, Brits based in Blighty bearing or buying .eu domains is back: Cut-off date is Jan 1, 2021

Re: Lies, damn lies, and ...

Of that 300,000 how many have no EU office? Most will probably still qualify.

I have roughly 2000 contacts in Outlook. Of those there is just one with a .eu email address, but the company no longer exists.

There are two with .eu.com - not sure if that's covered.

The vast majority of .eu sites just redirect to a national domain, so no great loss there.

Interesting stat would be how many UK companies have a .eu address with no representation outside the UK - probably very few.

In Rust, we lust: Security-focused super-C++ language still most loved among Stack Overflow denizens

Latest shiny

I remember at Microsoft's developer conference in about 2005, the presenter asked who in the audience used C#, then who used VB. Nobody admitted to using VB preferring the shinier and better respected C#. They were all lying too.

Switzerland 'first' country to roll out contact-tracing app using Apple-Google APIs to track coronavirus spread

Re: UK app

Between the devil and the deep blue sea - google/apple or government IT.

I'll keep putting my phone on aeroplane mode when out and about.

eBay users spot the online auction house port-scanning their PCs. Um... is that OK?

Re: Puzzled

The Javascript that's doing the scan is running locally so your router's ports aren't involved outside those used to deliver the web page.

I'm sure the array of add-ons I have in Firefox would block the attempt, but as they also block the login page, I'm forced to use Chrome for ebay.

Microsoft brings WinUI to desktop apps: It's a landmark for Windows development, but it has taken far too long

Sandbox

Why do we always end up with a Sandbox? It's fine for games, but any serious business application soon needs access to more.

Document? Library? A new kind of component? Microsoft had a hard time explaining what its Fluid Framework is

Re: JS was derived from Java?

JavaScript has semi-colons as line delimitor and has case sensitive varables. Therefore it's more like Java than VB.

That's about as close as it gets.

Microsoft announces official Windows package manager. 'Not a package manager' users snap back

Re: One software manager to rule them all!

The pendulum swings one way, then back again.

Remember dll Hell?

SAP proves, yet again, that Excel is utterly unkillable

Re: The Wheel of History

For real nightmares, you need Lotus Notes rather than 123.

Re: In my experience

Yep, I spend hours creating beautiful reports and dashboards for the users to just export to Excel.

If you're appy and you know it: The Huawei P40 Pro conclusively proves that top-notch specs aren't everything

Re: In a world, where smartphones aren't shitty PCs

I went from 520 to 1020 to 950XL. Still have the 520. Every time I use my Android phone, I wish I could go back.

WinPho was strangely hated by so many, but now we have a dull duopoly, we're all starting to miss MS.

Re: Flashy

Is there any reason you couldn't just sideload?

Re: Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger are nowhere to be seen

Saves a lot of time disabling all the Google stuff on a regular Android phone.

Oracle to take IT out of the equation for HR, ship prebuilt metrics, KPIs to analyse carbon-based lifeforms

HR Analytics

I've been doing nothing but Business Intelligence/Analytics for over 20 years. HR is the 3rd rail. Far too easy to pull out strange results and confuse causality and correlation.

Re: In Larry we trust?

Wasn't it Larry who said 'if you're not involved with selling or writing our software, explain really slowly what you do so I can automate it'

Something like that any way.

Wanna be a developer? Your coworkers want to learn Go and like to watch, er, Friends and Big Bang Theory

Re: Hmm

You don't write Stored Procedures in SQL. Depending upon database, you'll be using T-SQL or PL/SQL. Big difference. Bit like confusing Java and Javascript.

This space is intentionally left blank

Re: 52,000 is not that many

It's nothing until all 52,000 click 'Reply All'...

It is unclear why something designed to pump fuel into a car needs an ad-spewing computer strapped to it, but here we are

That horizontal surface is designed to ensure a certain percentage of drivers leave their fuel cap behind. I think blocking it is doing us all a favour.

Next time you're filling up, tell the cashier that you left your fuel cap behind on your last visit. They'll probably have a huge box full of them behind the counter!

SAP discards Ace of Sybase: Digital Interconnect unit sold for $250 million

What next?

How many other little bits and pieces are there remaining but forgotten at SAP?

Lyft dumps 17% of staff, furloughs 5%, cuts pay as people stay home, avoid rides in possibly virus-ridden cars

Re: Disruptions disrupted

I was surprised at how many people they do employ - website does bookings etc, they don't employ drivers. Are these all marketing and admin?

Forget tabs – the new war is commas versus spaces: Web heads urged by browser devs to embrace modern CSS

Re: WTF

They know it's BS - that's why they've branded it as Modern. Like MS and Windows 8. Implies that those against it are regressive and resistant to change.

UK government to take equity in struggling startups with £250m 'Future fund'

Re: 8%!?

Housing market loans are secured against the house, so much less risky.

For my business, I'm regularly offered loans at less than 1%. Small print is that the directors are giving a personal guarantee - that means my house is on the line.

Car loans for £20k are easily available at 4% (ish) as the monthly repayments are nice and low and tend to be repaid.

The 8% is for a risky startup - I'd want more than that if I was lending money to a startup. Wouldn't you?

So how do the coronavirus smartphone tracking apps actually work and should you download one to help?

Re: Good for data-less phone plans

I think I found your coat - it's the one with the giant pockets ;)

Watch out, everyone, here come the Coronavirus Cops, enjoying their little slice of power way too much

Re: So glad I don't live there anymore

Meanwhile, in India, the police have big sticks. Be careful what you wish for.

Re: Cambridge Police are too busy with serious crime

Just do a transphobic tweet. They'll be on your doorstep in no time.

Americas' SAP Users' Group chief reckons upgrades to S4/HANA will gather pace despite COVID-19 disruption

Is he for real?

Is anyone really going to do such a complex upgrade when their technical folk could be sick at any time?

Might be a good time to review the plans and fill in any gaps, but keep away from the stuff that's working.

Microsoft 365 Business to gain more Azure Active Directory toys... oh, and it's called Microsoft 365 Business Premium (from 21 April)

Grammar Nazi Alert

>> businesses with less than 300 employees

FEWER Please.

Zoom vows to spend next 90 days thinking hard about its security and privacy after rough week, meeting ID war-dialing tool emerges

Re: 90 Days?

That's how shorting works - you need the margin.

90 Days?

By then, the lockdown is hopefully going to be eased. At that point Zoom traffic is going to plummet as people realise video conferencing while working from home is just Internet Presenteeism.

I wish I had the nerve and capital reservers to short Zoom stock.

BT reopens £90m UK High Court case over 1970s VAT 'overpayments'

Re: Hang on ... *who* paid the VAT ?

It's VAT on bad debts, not VAT that's actually been paid.

Microsoft cops to 775% Azure surge, quotas on resources and 'significant new capacity' coming ASAP

Re: Teams sizing issues

They've gone from 22 million users, most of whom just don't know how to disable teams to 44 million users actually doing something.

It's far more than a doubling of active users.

Delivery drones: Where are they when we really need them?

Re: Er ...

By the time the law changes, the laws of physics will implode and we'll have teleportation doing away with the need for anything as crude as a drone.

Brit housing association blabs 3,500 folks' sexual orientation, ethnicity in email blunder

Re: re: why

White, middle-aged, male, heterosexual Christian. I think I'll take my chances with 'prefer not to say'

Re: re: why

No different to employment data - they need evidence to prove they're being fair to all. That said, there are going to be questions about the quality of the data so whether it's useful or not is another matter.

Does the data include children? They're not likely to be tenants - the agreements would be in the parents' names.

Microsoft goes into Windows lockdown for builds from May, citing 'public health situation' (yes, the coronavirus spread)

Re: Admission of Incompetence

Next they'll announce that they're moving to annual instead of 6 monthly releases to improve productivity.

SAP opens up certain online courses to locked-down tech learners

Paying for vendor training

I've never really understood software vendors charging for online training. The more people who have skills in their products, the more likely they are to be sold. Bit like charging resellers for the right to sell the software (but SAP do that too).

Capita CEO and CFO take 'voluntary' pay cut of 25% amid coronavirus outbreak

Re: "a 'voluntary' pay cut of 25 per cent"

They'll be awarding themselves a bonus for their excellent handling of their own pay cut.

Doubles all round.

It's time to track people's smartphones to ensure they self-isolate during this global pandemic, says WHO boffin

They do strategy - there are doctors working for Public Health England. Much of their work is responding to GPs unsure of what to do with someone returning from overseas with a strange disease. They also handle the planning for stuff like we're going through at the moment.

The old joke about Rocket Science is correct - the science is easy, it's the engineering that's difficult.

My nephew flew back from South America a week ago. This weekend, he visited his girlfriend's grandmother. Total moron.

I have two neighbours. Both have had their children (20 somethings) return home from either London or ski resort in France. 3 more morons.

My friend's father died on Friday of Coronavirus, so feeling a bit touchy today.

BT's Wi-Fi Disc ads banned because there's no evidence the things work

Re: "Only we guarantee Wi-Fi in every room"

At least you had 1s and 0s. We had to make do with just 1s.

(with thanks to Dilbert)

Re: MikroTik for the win

Some new builds down the road from where I lived nearly 20 years ago were networked end to end. Now, it probably all needs replacing as it will be out of date. Given how most households are quite happy with wifi, cabling is a waste of money for most people.

The Reg produces exhibit A1: A UK court IT system running Windows XP

XP Updates

Does anyone know how many updates MS have issued to folk paying for the extended support?

What would machine learning look like if you mixed in DevOps? Wonder no more, we lift the lid on MLOps

I predict (without any AI)

That we're overdue a return to traditional Software Engineering with Waterfall project mangement.

Yes, projects will be late and/or over budget but at least the stuff will work as per requirements spec.

If you're wondering how Brit cops' live suspect-hunting facial-recog is going, it's cruising at 88% false positives

Re: Now you see me

We need to stop is ASAP, but not because of privacy rights, not innacuracy. Arguing about it getting stuff wrong only works until it gets mostly right.

Brexit Britain changes its mind, says non, nein, no to Europe's unified patent court – potentially sealing its fate

Re: Brexit Filter

Kind of sums up lots of people's opinion on all things EU related.

Microsoft's latest cloud innovation: Printing

Re: Right, so send a document up to a server on the internet

I miss the days when a printer was directly plugged into the back of a PC. Always worked and none of this mucking about with pools and the differences between printers and print devices.

Microsoft's Cortana turns its back on consumers as skills are stripped from Windows 10

Re: It isn't like MS

You sure? No defeat on phones or band or mp3...

Admins beware! Microsoft gives heads-up for 'disruptive' changes to authentication in Office 365 email service

Re: Dum question

You're a harsh crowd today - I only asked a question, not making any comment on the current strengths or weaknesses of POP.