* Posts by Ethangar

19 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jan 2014

Yes, there's nothing quite like braving the M4 into London on the eve of a bank holiday just to eject a non-bootable floppy

Ethangar
Angel

I pleaded with one to stay on the phone while I called the cops. Since they could trace the location of my "stolen" computer and give it to the police.

My wife's favorite line is that she is a sgt. in the internet fraud squad of the RCMP. :)

Panic in the mailroom: The perils of an operating system too smart for its own good

Ethangar

Re: Computerized billing ...

We did Pickering too. The glow in the dark jokes continued for ages after the tour guide stepped on and put her hands in the "tester" and got flagged red on 3 tries. You could almost see the panic as she kept double and triple checking her radiation badge was still green. A helpful fellow then came over and asked if the tester was acting up again. Gave it a smack on the side and she tested green then, as we all did. Inspired a LOT of confidence in the test procedures when a smack could change the results 180 deg.

TomTom bill bomb: Why am I being charged for infotainment? I sold my car last year, rages Reg reader

Ethangar

Re: It's ALWAYS easy to sign up

We signed up for the 3 month free trial (Sirius) when we were traveling cross country and back. After 6 days of listening to the same 20 songs on 15 different radio stations, I decided to pull the plug on it after a month of the 3 free. I called them up and told the nice man on the phone that when it ran out I would NOT be continuing with the service. It just wasn't worth it to me. Start 15 min of arguing on how life changing it is and how I should continue. Nah. When it runs out just turn it off. I wouldn't budge and he got more and more pissy. Finally he just went "Fine, It's noted on your file." and hung up. An hour or so later I was out at the car and was curious. Turned on the radio and .. just the Sirius ad running. Not that I missed it but I was still a little miffed at having it turned off when I still had 2 months free.

PC printer problems and enraged execs: When the answer to 'Hand over that floppy disk' is 'No'

Ethangar

Re: I think he was glad when I left

I used to regularly wear a T-Shirt that said on the back. "People that think they know it all, really annoy those of us that DO." Kept most people away from me.

Ethangar

Re: "The IT manager turned up clutching a clipboard"

Exactly! Worst hangover I ever had. Stood there glassy eyed, praying for death. But, because I was holding a clipboard and hadn't moved in 20 min. It must have been serious so everyone left me alone.

If Daddy doesn't want me to touch the buttons, why did they make them so colourful?

Ethangar
Flame

Re: But I didn't touch nuthin!

ergh!?

Another one that I hear all the time is they will "validate" instead of VERIFY!

Ethangar

Re: Many years ago...

My friend bought a house. In the island of his kitchen, up under the counter is a light switch. Now my friend is more than a little OCD. He's pulled the cover and yep, there is wire attached to the switch and it is live. But 6 years on he still has NO clue what the hell that switch is for. He's turned everything in his house on and flipped the switch on and off to try and track it down. Nothing.

So I take great pleasure asking him if he found out what it's for whenever we go over for a visit. Usually involves me getting called some 4 letter words. :)

I joked the one day that all the time he's flipping the switch on and off that his neighbour is standing in his garage looking up at the light going "That damn light is going on and off again!?"

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

Ethangar

Re: Details!

And there is the other Canuck! LOL

Square peg of modem won't fit into round hole of PC? I saw to it, bloke tells horrified mate

Ethangar

My father-in-law once called me complaining that his hard drive wouldn't open.

?!?!

Hard drives don't open!

Why not? I open it all the time.

NO! Opening hard drives is BAD. Don't do that.

Well how do you get the disk back in there then?

This went on for some time before I figured out that he was talking about his DVD drive. The door was jammed. That wasn't the first an likely won't be the last where he uses the wrong term to describe a computer part that isn't working.

Ethangar

Re: I can't believe it was so easy.

For the young'uns. This is pre Plug N Pray times... :)

Happy birthday, Amiga: The 'other' home computer turns 30

Ethangar

God the memories... I started with the A1000 ( with all the sig's under the cover ) and still have it. I think I owned just about every flavour of amiga that came out. I only missed the A600 and cdtv. The A2500UX with Amix on it was one of my favourites to tinker with. I don't even want to think about the amount of $$ I spent on them over the years upto and including the A3000 and A4000 with 68060 boards, Voodoo sigh. AREXX was a lot of fun to play with. Like most of you it was the amiga that got me onto a dozen BBS and opened the online world to me. I can still remember the pride I felt when I finally got AmiTCP/IP properly configured and went "online" for the first time. That raw feeling of personal achievement just doesn't exist now. Ranked right up there with installing an ISA modem and spending the next 20 min wrestling with IRQ's.

I should fire up the 1000 just for fun and have a go at ports of call or railroad tycoon.

RIP Sir Terry Pratchett: Discworld author finally gets to meet DEATH

Ethangar

Truely sad

Every one in my family has gone through my 60 odd Pratchett books. I have about 20 of them on audio book to and were always the first choice on long drives with the family. We will miss you Sir Terry.

World's only flyable WWII Lancaster bombers meet in Lincs

Ethangar

The memories

About 25 years ago I was at the Hamilton Airshow to see all the wonderful old warbirds. Bought a ticket ( proceeds to the museum etc ) for a ride in one of the warbirds. AND WON! Got to go for a 30 min flight in the Lanc. Its deafening, cold, cramped... And it took weeks for me to stop grinning like an idiot :)

Ouch... right in the Androids! Google hit by another antitrust sueball

Ethangar

I know some VERY computer illiterate people.. mostly in my family and to a person they all prefer Google. The answer is simple. It just works and doesn't blast you with weather, sports scores, images etc that they have no interest in (ie their ISP's "home page" for example). Its just a page with google on it and a search box. That is why most people ( myself included in the beginning ) use google. Its simple and it works. That's what made it the dominant search engine.

Hundreds of folks ready to sue Bitcoin exchange MtGox

Ethangar

The Winklevoss twins had ~25 million in bitcoins last I read. Wonder how they made out ;) Might be another FB lawsuit coming to cover any loss. :)

Microsoft-backed lobby group demands market test of Google's proposed 'search fix'

Ethangar

Couldn't agree more. People make a choice to use google because it works, is quick and has limited fluff. Personally I don't see any problem with google showing their stuff higher up the list. I'm using their search so self promotion is to be expected. When I browse General motors site looking at cars I certainly don't expect them to link to Ford or Chrysler.

Google close to inking search biz deal with Brussels: report

Ethangar

Re: Thanks Microsoft.

Here here. Everyone that I know uses google because it gives them the answer they are looking for quickly and easily. People use it because it works! Anyone old enough to remember altavista will know that being king doesn't mean you can't be toppled. And without court cases and judges.

Good news: 'password' is no longer the #1 sesame opener, now it's '123456'

Ethangar
Alien

An old co-worker used to be freakish about his passwords. Every site had its own unique password. He wrote them all down in a booklet beside his desk but even took that one step beyond. The book was filled with things like

theregister - I had a peanut butter sandwich and a chocolate milk for lunch today. 3U

So it was every 3rd letter in upper case. There was also A for alternate, L for lower case and H for hacker a=@ etc.

So even if you got his notes.... you would still be lost.

IBM's Watson-as-a-cloud: Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's another mainframe

Ethangar

Biggest one that jumps to mind would be medical diagnostic. There is no doctor on earth that can keep up with all the research being done the world over even if its in a very narrow field. Have watson gather and collate all the information published, research papers, findings, studies etc so that your doctor could just call and tell watson that patient x is presenting with x,y,z symptoms, these drugs didn't do anything what is another course of treatment? Patient has XX what are the new treatments? etc. I think something like that would be quite useful.