Posts by AMBxx

Vibe coding will deliver a wonderful proliferation of personalized software

The best thing about Lotus Notes is that it's so easy to create an application.

The worst thing about Lotus Notes is that it's so easy to create an application.

Yes, you can create an excellent application if you know what you're doing. However, it's also possible to create an application if you don't know what you're doing.

I still have nightmares about the director who created a timesheet application in Lotus Notes. Needless to say, he had 31 columns to store the hours worked in each day of the month.

Re: once but faster and more chaos

I'll take your Access & VB and raise you to the horror that was Lotus Notes.

Electric cars no more likely to flatten you than the noisy ones, study finds

Vehicle weight?

If we're talking about low speed collisions, 80kg human, does the weight of the vehicle really have that much of an impact?

I'd have thought the bigger advantage of the EVs is that they're more recent so designed to meet more recent impact requirements.

Xero to start charging developers API usage fees, replacing revenue share deals

Re: @AMBxx

That's interesting but does it meet HMRC requirements. You're not supposed to manually type the numbers into the boxs. Pathetic, I know but them's the rules.

I pay £15 a year to 123efiling.co.uk for my VAT return. Don't need to do more than that yet. At 57, I'll probably retire if they do bring in electronic filing 5 times per year for small ltd companies.

Way to grow an economy!

Re: The Xero API is fucking awful

I've written stuff to retrieve the reports to allow merging multiple Xero instances into one report.

What an effing mess. The data returned is a sort of JSON but not really. I have to reference the first row header to understand what the following rows are displaying.

There's very little documentation either.

I miss XML!

Newly launched civil service pension portal from Capita is crapita, users report

on time!

It was on time but incomplete - Agile?

MongoDB talks up its AI chops by talking down PostgreSQL

Re: "super-high growth AI company", "AI·native companies" …

>> create governance as they go,

What could possible go wrong?!

Amazon is forging a walled garden for enterprise AI

Own dog food?

They could demonstrate it's wonders by using it for product search on their own website. Amazon search is hopeless and more interested in telling you to buy more of what you've already bought.

I've resorted to using ChatGPT to search Amazon. Does a remarkably good job at picking up very specific requirements.

Not ready for it to place my orders though!

Samsung reveals its first tri-fold phone – and its desktop mode

Connecting to external screen

I think MS cracked that nicely over 10 years ago. Good to play with for a few minutes but never used again.

I miss my Lumia 950XL.

Asda's 'self-inflicted' SAP mess after Walmart divorce stalls financial revival

Re: Availability in stores and online was at an eight-year high of over...

95% is pretty poor. I used to be a buyer for a wine wholesaler. I'd have been slaughtered by the sales team with that sort of rate. It was much easier before the cloud though!

That said, I'm sure they have the notion of a 'core' range that must be in stock 100% of the time (milk, bread etc). If they have a wine list of 100 wines and 10 of the expensive wines are out of stock. it really doesn't matter.

Microsoft's fix for slow File Explorer: load it before you need it

Re: Explorer

Not forgetting that rarely used external HDD that has to spin up before anything works.

We've gone from single core CPU @ 33MHz and <1MB RAM with instant Explorer to a multi-core (16+) @ 4GHz and 16GB RAM taking 20 seconds to start Explorer.

Boffins build 'AI Kill Switch' to thwart unwanted agents

Re: Race to the bottom

It'a fruastrating that the only way to avoid all the AI generated web pages is to just use ChatGPT for your question. I'm sick of so much rubbish filling my search results.

SAP's migration narrative suddenly looks messy as Kingfisher goes off-script

Come on Kingfisher - do some Open Source dev

I did some work for Kingfisher IT Services (KITS) years ago. At the time, their plan was to float their IT division as a separate company. I don't think that ever happened, but they do have a lot of people who are very good at what they do.

Imagine if they put some effort into development of an Open system like Odoo.

Microsoft blanks out BSODs on public displays with new ‘Digital Signage mode’

Re: Did they get lazy?

I'm more concerned that files that have been saved to OneDrive may be overwritten by files on a newly restored PC. "I'll just open this file to check" - most of Office automatically saves as it goes along.

Server virtualization market heats up as VMware rivals try to create alluring alternatives

Dumb question (please be gentle)

I used VMWare Workstation back in the day when it was really the only option for virtualisation on Windows (this was before HyperV). That's my only experience of VMWare, just to frame the next question!

I currently run a few HyperV VMs. Nothing complicated, mostly for development stuff. Mixture of Windows and Linux VMs (for Docker).

In a 'proper' environment, what does VMWare give me that I couldn't get from HyperV with a decent management layer. I'm emphasising the management layer because I accept that HyperV out of the box is limited in that direction.

Britain's first small modular reactors to be built in Wales

Claim to fame

I visited Wylfa back in about 1980 (aged about 12). No sure how legal/official it was - my Dad was Deputy Mayor in Conwy, so when he was invited on a tour, I tagged along.

High point of the day was when the guide pointed out the switch that turned up the power output. Not sure if he was telling me to turn it or not, but I did. Much excitement before he turned it down again.

Big regret of the day is that I wasn't allowed to keep the radiation detection badge. Lunch was good though.

Allianz UK joins growing list of Clop’s Oracle E-Business Suite victims

New business model?

Oracle's customers have always been considered hostages to Oracles licensing.

Maybe this is just Oracle taking a more direct route to their customers' money?

Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

Re: Using 6 GHz for mobile is nonsense.

>> The "Green party" in Germany has a high number of technical literate,

WOW! The Grean Party leader in the UK does breast enlargement through hypnotism.

Want so swap?

Microsoft Configuration Manager to switch to an annual release cadence

Re: Features Required to get people to move

Congratulations for working out what InTune does! I get is as part of my Partner Pack. Still can't work out how to make it do much of anything. Just sits on the shelf now.

Major AWS outage across US-East region breaks half the internet

Re: DNS

** Borrow **

Buy book.

Download to Kindle.

Disconnect Kindle from wi-fi before opening book.

Request refund.

Enjoy 'borrowed' book. Just make sure you leave wi-fi off until you've finished the book.

UK calls up Armed Forces veterans for digital ID soft launch

Re: "the government's push [..] to embrace digital ID cards"

>> it will be secured by the same technology in the GOV.UK One Login app

What could you be worried about!

SAP users still wrestling with business case for S/4HANA

Re: genuinely who said this out loud?

"Our software enforces best practise"

"Don't you want best practise?"

End of support for older Office and Windows Server versions pile on the pain for admins

Re: Windows Server 2016 is on the list too

Full backup and VM snapshot. Not taking any risks!

Does Exchange ever survive the mildest of upgrades? Only thing worse is trying to migrate it.

Re: Windows Server 2016 is on the list too

Windows Server 2025 now supports in-place upgrade back to 2012. I was surprised too. That said, I've only tried an upgrade from 2022 so far. It didn't break SQL Server, so looks good so far!

Who gets a Mac at work? Here's how companies decide

I have it in my 1 Person company. Just sign up for their partner program. Gives a load of other stuff too. Unless you're a total MS refusenik, you are likely to save money.

Amazon turns James Bond into the Man Without the Golden Gun

Re: Rip the DVDs. Store them on mirrored hard drives

Replied to the wrong comment?

Re: Yes another reason for owning

Rip the DVDs. Store them on mirrored hard drives

Imgur yanks Brit access to memes as parent company faces fine

Re: The ICO 'court'

It's no different to the various US sites blocking EU traffic as they can't or don't want to comply with GDPR.

To digital natives, Microsoft's IT stack makes Google's look like a model of sanity

Marketing to the rescue

Don't worry, MS marketing will be along shortly to rename everything.

Solar flair: Logitech's K980 Signature Slim keyboard runs on rays

Swap the keypad for a mousepad and I'll be interested. My old MS keyboard is getting old and this would be a good replacement. Add a backlight (I'll leave it in the sunshine) and I'll buy tomorrow.

SaaS vendors are hiking costs faster than inflation, but squeaky wheels can still get deals

Re: Someone Else's Computer, Software and Storage

Yet people are still buying Oracle!

Reg hack attends job interview hosted by AI avatar, struggles to exit uncanny valley

Re: If an employer asks you do to this ...

HR's job is just to prevent the employees suing their employer. The rest is just drivel.

Microsoft-backed boffins show mega speed boost with hollow-core fiber

Did you summarise the article using CoPilot?

Junk is the new punk: Why we're falling back in love with retro tech

Re: Why ? Surely no one can't work it out ?

Worse still, not all old films gave music rights for streaming. You'll often find that Amazon have changed the songs used. Worst example was French Kiss (my wife's choice!). All the soundtrack is different. Gave up and watched a rip from a DVD.

China cut itself off from the global internet for an hour on Wednesday

meanwhile

The firewall on my website blocks all traffic from China. I guess this makes us even.

Ebuyer website bought by Fraser Group plc

Oh dear

Downvotes from people who aren't Kelsey Grammer fans?

Re: I stopped using them

I stopped using them after they delivered a laptop to the wrong address. They wouldn't refund until they'd received the return! No idea what would have happened if the laptop had 'gone missing'.

QuietPC

Great service and they don't sell loads of carp that you have to wade through to find something worth buying. Nice people too.

Mexit, not Brexit, is the new priority for the UK

Re: On a related note

That means it will all have to be written from scratch with no code reused from previous work.

For my work, if asked, I put in something about reusing parts of the work.

Re: There are undoubtably no brilliant IT people working in the Public Sector

As a freelancer, I work across Private and Public sector. There isn't enough money in the world to make me want to work in the Public sector.

Behold the wood-block wonder of the Kilopixel display

Kindle

Isn't this how e-ink works on a Kindle?

Still a great idea.

How to train your robot: Wear a tiny one in a baby carrier

Old scifi?

Anyone else remember an old scifi short story about couples having to manage a robot baby to see if they were up to the task of raising a real baby? Robot baby would leak oil and make crying noises.

Banning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that

Re: Private or Work?

Easy workaround is to just create a virtual PC in a different zone in Azure/AWS etc. Then use that for browsing. No VPN, no recognisable traffic going via the UK.

Oracle VirtualBox licensing tweak lies in wait for the unwary

Re: All because

Not at all. It's the moving of the goalposts that upsets people.

The tiny tech tribe who could change the world tomorrow but won't

Re: Can we make it a bit more friendly than Firefox's about:config please?

Except that Android settings vary from one phone to another, again between Android versions and I'm sure depending upon the day of the week.

One more request

I just want the scroll bars to be big enough to click and to stop disappearing.

Brit watchdog says public service TV must 'urgently' join Team YouTube

Re: I’ve never understood the UK TV licence thing

With the old CRT screens, they could pick up the use of the TV from outside. With modern TVs, that's no longer the case.

Re: Interesting implications for the licence fee

It's not subscription. You need a licence even if all you watch is 'the other channel'.

Interesting implications for the licence fee

For non-UK readers, we in the UK need a licence to view anything that's being shown as it's broadcast. Doesn't matter whether it's BBC or Netflix/Amazon (showing live sport).

You don't need a licence to view non-broadcast, so your Netflix streaming is OK unless you're watching something that's live.

This leaves us in the ridiculous position that if a live stream video automatically starts when you open a web page, you're technically breaking the law.

The exception is that you do need a licence to watch iPlayer which is the BBC's equivalent of Netflix - watch repeats or old stuff.

If the BBC now moves its old content to YouTube, where does that leave the requirement for a licence to view old BBC content? Will iPlayer be the only place you need a licence to watch old BBC stuff?

Time for the BBC to become subscription?