Posts by AMBxx

In the halcyon days before Brexit, takeover attempts, and COVID-19, HP made 1.3% pre-tax profit on sales at UK limb

Re: Their Website Still Does Not Work

After 8 months, maybe try a different browser? Phone a friend perhaps?

World takes tablets during COVID lockdowns, with shipments spiking 18%

Re: Shows the limits of IDC's tracking

Are they comparing like with like? Where does the iPad pro sit? What about crossovers in the Windows world? When does a laptop with detachable keyboard become a tablet with option keyboard?

Where do giant phones fit? It's all becoming very blurred

Microsoft to Cortana: you’re not going out dressed in iOS or Android, young lady!

One down, three to go...

Someone made an AI that predicted gender from email addresses, usernames. It went about as well as expected

Re: Work with facts

Still are in the real world. Just a few noisy woke folks claiming otherwise.

Look on the bright side - at least they didn't try and predict race!

SAP takes a punch to its software licensing revenue but Ellison's promise of customer exodus to Oracle seemingly fails to materialise

Plague on both their houses

My SAP sales are up 50% this year. Sadly, SAP are scrapping their reseller market next year. As a freelancer, I can't qualify as a meaningful partner, so can't sell software after December 2020.

Gone in 15 minutes: Qualcomm claims new chargers will fill your smartmobe in a flash

I've always been very aware of how long it takes my phone to DISCHARGE.

As for charging - no idea how long it takes.

We asked for:

Longer battery life

Removable battery

SD Card support

Stronger phones.

(keyboard, but that's my wife asking!)

We get:

Smaller

thinner

shorter battery life

faster charging

Intel couldn't shrink to 7nm on time – but it was able to reduce one thing: Its chief engineer's employment

I seem to recall reading about problem with smaller transistor sizes 20+ years ago. Round about the time Pentium processors were being launched. Looks like we've managed so far...

Wipro buys 4C worth of extra Salesforce expertise

Re: WiPro on a March?

I'd predict lots of redundancies in the next 12 months. Time for all the employees to start looking for new jobs.

Amazon's auditing of Alexa Skills is so good, these boffins got all 200+ rule-breaking apps past the reviewers

Re: You lied

>>a lot of it's functionality is turned off

Are you sure about that?

UK tech spending in 2020 will be hit harder than in France or Germany with little prospect of growth next year – analysts

Re: Just Guesswork

Not guesswork - pulled directly from his rear end.

Only EU can help us, pleads Slack as it slings competition complaint against Microsoft Teams

Re: Slack...

How else are you supposed to send pictures of cats to your colleagues?

Don'tcha just LOVE meetings? Microsoft does, too, so here are some new Teams features, you lucky, lucky people

Re: Meetings, Bloody Meetings

I don't mind, but I do charge by the hour...

Don't strain yourself, Zuck, only democracy at stake... Facebook makes half-hearted effort to flag election lies by President Trump

Re: why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US?

Tower Hamlets for a start.

Postal Ballots

Genuine question - why aren't postal votes considered a fraud risk in the US? Plenty of fraud in the UK, how is the US system different?

Brit retailer John Lewis to catapult 111 tech bods over to Capgemini weeks after dumping 244 on Wipro

Re: Howdy Partner

He's just quoting John Lewis.

Chinese mobile giant OPPO claims new 125W fast-charging spec will fully fuel your phone in 20 minutes

Much heat?

Mine's the one with the flaming pockets.

Apple: Don't close MacBooks with a webcam cover on, you might damage the display

Re: 0.1mm

It's even worse - mixture of imperial and metric fittings.

The new Defender is still called 90 and 110, but nothing to do with the length. Now it's all just marketing.

0.1mm

There's something very impressive about reliably working with such tight build tolerances.

My Land Rover Defender has build tolerances of closer to 0.1m!

When you see PWA, Microsoft and Google want you to think Programs With Attitude: Web app release tool tweaked

Back to Client-Server days?

Looks like we've gone full circle (again).

Utilitarian, long-bodied Nokia 5.3 has budget basic specs - but it does cost £150

I've just switched my bank account to Startling. Their app lets you enable and disable your debit card at any time. I just keep mine disabled until I need it. So much easier than my old method with a hole punch.

Just a shame they don't do credit cards (unless someone knows a credit card with similar functionality).

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

Re: Trade Deal

Yes it was - we send our jobs there, they send their badly made junk to us.

Microsoft takes tweaking tongs to Windows 10's Start Menu once again

Re: Win 8 icons

Give it 6 months and someone will release a Windows 8 icon pack!

Scala contributor: Open source and diversity key to tackling dev skills shortage

Re: "when you had to learn the syntax of several programming languages"

And now, when your trendy framework goes out of fashion, you have to start all over again.

Never knowingly under-digitally transformed: Retailer John Lewis outsources tech function to Wipro

Re: That will be 244 people looking for a job very soon

Yep, JL were in trouble long before CV19. Looking remarkably like M&S back in the 90s. Still big, still popular, but unchanged in 20 years and slowly going down. This will be the first of many transformations that can't hide the fact that their time has gone.

Next they'll talk about focusing on the youth market thus losing all their 40+ customers who actually shop there.

One map to rule them all: UK's Ordnance Survey rolls out its Data Hub and the juicy API goodness that lies therein

Re: re: proprietary product

Postcodes are for the convenience of the Royal Mail, nothing much to do with finding where you want to go.

My current postcode is for just 3 houses - great for navigation.

If you have a long street, odd numbers one side, even the other, chances are there'll be just 2 postcodes - one for each side. If the numbers go sequentially in one direction, then back the other, there'll be just one postcode.

Not forgetting that the rest of the world have their own systems for both postcodes and grid references.

Linux Mint 20 isn't exactly bursting with freshness but, hey, there's kernel 5.4 and it's a long-term support release

Linux flavours

Are all the cool kids still using Mint or have they migrated to something more esoteric?

Remember when we warned in February Apple will crack down on long-life HTTPS certs? It's happening: Chrome, Firefox ready to join in, too

Re: 2 year cert valid for 390 more days in sep 1st?

Read the article. It's not from 1st September, it's for certificates issued after 1st September.

Finding SAP hard to swallow? ERP giant says it's working on something more bite-sized

Too late

It's a shame they didn't think of this before forcing all their users to migrate from a monolithic on-prem system to a monolithic cloud system.

Dumping all your resellers next year won't help you reach small businesses either.

Windows 10 Insider wondering where Notepad has gone? Fear not, Microsoft found it down the back of Dev Channel

Re: Good Grief...

Most people do, but only on their own machines. If you've just remoted to a customer's server, the last thing you need is to be mucking about with alternative text editors.

Apple gives Boot Camp the boot, banishes native Windows support from Arm-compatible Macs

No reason you can't emulate x86 to run Windows in a virtual layer. Just don't call me to complain about the dreadful performance.

Indonesia’s capital city is literally sinking. Google just opened a new cloud region there anyway

Liquid cooling?

Just asking!

Maybe there is hope for 2020: AI that 'predicts criminality' from faces with '80% accuracy, no bias' gets in the sea

Re: Training data?

Could it be the same as the AI that could differentiate between dogs and wolves? Turned out most of the wolf pictures had snowy backgrounds.

In this case, the mugshots have a little board with the person's name. Innocent folk are all in beachwear!

While eyes are fixed on Apple announcements, Microsoft's streaming service Mixer goes the way of the Windows Phone

Re: Facebook Really

Given that MS own Xbox it's incredible that they managed to screw this up. What could be easier than just adding it to the front of their own platform? Could have even added a streaming button to the console.

Re: Can Bing please die too....

Isn't Bing used for duck duck go's search?

C is for 'Careful now', D is for 'Download surprise': Microsoft to resurrect optional Windows 10 updates as 'Previews'

Microsoft Money

Still going strong on my PC. 16 years of data and runs much better now it's on Windows 10 (though I think it's the SSD that's fixed the stalls).

Freely available now - just search from MS Money sunset edition.

Only things broken are multicurrency (I think that's a data corruption on just mine) and the online updates as they've expired.

No longer any need to login to MS security either.

Only true boffins will be able to grasp Blighty's new legal definitions of the humble metre and kilogram

Wrong sort of chain (they do have other uses). This type was used by farmers for measuring land.

Football isn't important for measurement.

Cricket & Rugby both use 22yds. Derived from a Chain. Much more civilized.

Boffins find that over nine out of ten 'ethical' hackers are being a bit naughty when it comes to cloud services

Re: It is happening now

Of course - he saw it on a TV drama.

Hey is trying a new take on email – but maker complains of 'outrageous' demands after Apple rejects iOS app

Agreed. There's nothing to see here that couldn't be done with a spam blocker and a few email rules.

I agree that spam blocking is far from perfect, but no different to having to approve all the senders for email to be visible in your 'imbox'

Couple wrongly arrested over Gatwick Airport drone debacle score £200k payout from cops

I don't think that's in the government's power. The elected police commissioner gets to do that (except they won't as they're probably old pals).

Germany prepares to launch COVID-19 contact-tracing app 'this week' while UK version stuck in development hell

With the rate the infection rates are dropping, the chances of encountering someone who has both the virus and the contact tracing app are minimal.

Are you having a hard time following what Microsoft is trying to do with .NET 5.0? You're not the only one

Re: I can help.

No extension to DNS either

OOP there it is: You'd think JavaScript's used more by devs than Java... but it's not – JetBrains survey

Re: Python !?

Not sure survival is a good metric. Basic is still going (and still taught in some schools).

You know Facebook has an image problem when major nonprofits start turning down donations over political lies

Re: Obvious Zuck is obvious

Of all the things Facebook does, not censoring Trump should be the least of our concerns.

If Trump were to say that, you could be pretty sure he'd be voted out in November.

That's why free speech is important.

Huawei launches UK charm offensive: We've provided 2G, 3G and 4G for 20 years, and you're worried about 5G?

Re: The bigger issue is rising Chinese power

Please keep shouting this from the rooftops. I'm amazed how little has been mentioned in the press about HSBC supporting China in Hong Kong.

I started the transfer of my business account away from HSBC today. First Direct account will move once the first transfer has succeeded. Then I'll be selling my investment in a HSBC ETF.

Forget arguments about power or US vs China. The important one is civil liberties and democracy.

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.