Posts by MisterHappy

Windows 11 growth at a standstill amid stringent hardware requirements

8000+ PCs/Laptops

The main drivers for any upgrade cycle for us tends to be what is the benefit & how much of a PITA will it be.

Having completed the Win10 rollout to various PCs and Laptops, replacing where needed, we know exactly how much of a pain it will be and are looking at the EOL for Windows 10 as the time to upgrade, we have a stable image with 3rd party software supported by the vendors so why change anything?

MS will probably offer extended support in line with Win7 so buying that will give us an extra year.

Notepad Dark Mode and Android apps arrive on Windows 11

I expect this will be unpopular but...

I have to disagree on this one, MS have a good understanding of how 80-90% of their user base works.

Most people simply don't care, as long as the 5 or 6 icons they always use are in the same place on the desktop, they are happy. They don't care about UI changes or Feature updates. Does the internet work, does Facebook work & in a work environment, do the applications work the same way as they did?

We are the ones that make up the other 10-20% and we do care (In varying amounts).

I just want a checkbox at install for "Corporate or Home" so I don't have to mess around removing XBox game bar before imaging 7500+ machines.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother: Bloke gives away SpaceX ticket because he was over weight limit

Re: Weird thing I’ve noticed is a correlation between …

Purely from a personal viewpoint...

I was spending far too much on ready-meals/take out/eat-in and decided to get a couple of recipe books and try and learn how to cook.

Yes I diligently followed recipes to the letter at the start but after a while I had got confident enough in the basics that I could adapt, combine & improvise. Obviously YMMV but I think recipe books are a good start, just buy some that include things like making a rue & a simple cheese sauce as well as the fancy stuff.

Tesla to disable 'self-driving' feature that allowed vehicles to roll past stop signs at junctions

"I don't understand the hostility towards Teslas by some contributors to this site."

IMO most of the hostility is directed at Tesla as a company for their blatant lies & marketing strategy.

The idea of a car with all of the features of a Tesla appeals to me a great deal but with a huge caveat! The technology should be set up in such a way that, if the driver does not respond to a potential problem in time, the software will do it for you. It should also be dialled down so some features are disabled/enabled as I prefer, lane assist on narrow roads as an example.

It should not be marketed as "Auto-pilot" or "Full Self Driving" no matter how much Elon winks at the camera and says how the driver must touch the steering wheel & the fine print includes "Not actually a self driving car".

Any world in which "Do not dry your pet in this product" has to be put into the instructions for a microwave oven is not ready for a car to be marketed as "Self Driving".

When forgetting to set a password for root is the least of your woes

Re: Marketing Company

My mum used to get Woman's Own & they had a "Reader's Top Tips" section. These days it would be presented as "Amazing Hacks you never thought you needed!"

Machine needs more Learning: Google Drive dings single-character files for copyright infringement

But I went even further back in time and bought the architect a very nice dinner & suggested he put a lever right... here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDPoC6GM&ab_channel=ComicRelief%3ARedNoseDay

BOFH: What a beautiful classic car. Shame if anything were to happen to it

Re: Deranged

The old joke was that spotting forged passports was easy, if the photo actually looked like you it must be a forgery. Real passport photos always look like you have just finished a 5-10yr stretch.

COVID-19 was a generational opportunity for change at work – and corporate blew it

Re: A different point of view...

This... So much this!

We have a 15 min Team catch-up via Teams at the start of the day, usually just takes the place of the 15 min "How was your evening?" chats that we had in the office pre-Covid but sometimes work related stuff comes up.

Teams is running all the time & calendars are shared, people have been told that if someone is showing as busy then by all means drop them a message but don't expect a reply right away. At the start of all this there were lots of pointless meetings but over time these have been winnowed down to the ones that actually serve a purpose.

Additionally we have been encouraged to book a weekly 30min call with a colleague for a "No Work Allowed" chat.

My only real bug-bear is some of my colleagues have forgotten that email exists, I can flag an email, don't expect me to scroll back through months of Teams chat to find the important bit of info you sent me.

You better have patched those Log4j holes or we'll see what a judge has to say – FTC

eBay vs Newman

I think this is the one...

Under eBay v. Newman, “it is literally malfeasance for a corporation not to do everything it legally can to maximize its profits.”

IANAL - It boils down to "a duty to maximise shareholder value", there are varying opinions on this and the majority state that this is not a legal requirement.

Then again, corporations are people now so who knows?

Electric fastback fun: Now you can surf the web from the driving seat of your Polestar 2

Re: Cue the anti-moving work-around in 3, 2, 1...

And hopefully the manufacturer will be able to point to the hack and it will be thrown out with all costs assigned to aforementioned wanker.

How to destroy expensive test kit: What does that button do?

From the late, great Sir Terry

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

From "Thief of Time

Computers cost money. We only make them more expensive by trying to manage them ourselves

Apparently there is no middle ground in this debate

Own your own equipment but use Cloud computing where appropriate?

8000+ PCs in the estate, these are now on a 5-7 year renewal so we can sweat the assets. If required a PC or Laptop can be replaced outside on the refresh cycle but mostly they are bought with a 5yr warranty and after that expires they are replaced when they break.

On site VM environment that it running near to capacity & extra hosts are bought when needed. If there is something that cannot be run on the hosts because of graphics requirements etc then buy that from a cloud provider.

Two thirds of the staff needing to work from home? Off to Azure to spin up a load of WVD hosts that scale up and down depending on usage.

As with all of these debates, the actual answer is probably that both have benefits and use cases need to be addressed and applied properly.

CapEx vs OpEx? A CapEx cost of 20K is fixed, an OpEx will probably go up in line with inflation and/or supplier decided cost increases, if you are looking at something over the next 5 years then a definite up-front cost is much preferred over a "Maybe 4k a year, might go down but will probably increase a bit every year."

Smart things are so dumb because they take after their makers. Let's fix that

Re: What are error messages for?

I like the result of "Thanks to Bob for the help, I fixed it as detailed in his Blog... Here".

Then the hyperlinked "Here" returns a 404 or a placeholder page because Bob moved it or stopped paying for it.

One click, one goal, one mission: To get a one-touch flush solution

Almost needed a new keyboard there

I managed to hold back the laugh long enough to swallow the mouthful of coffee... but it was close.

"Ah, good, my groin has lit up. I must have new mail."

I was almost in tears after reading last week's column and that one sentence brought it all back, visons of Dabbsy poking at his illuminated crotch on the metro!

The pandemic improved the status of IT workers … forever

We are on the up point in the cycle, it will go down again

Anyone who has worked in IT for a while knows that problems make IT relevant, when everything is working as expected & ticking over without any issues is when management start eyeing up the IT dept and the "Inflated Salaries" with an eye to shaving something from the budget.

I'd guess that before the end of 2022 (barring further disaster) there will be more and more articles bemoaning the short sightedness of employers who are cutting IT staffing.

Happy to be wrong but experience & more than one redundancy round makes me think I won't be.

Canon makes 'all-in-one' printers that refuse to scan when out of ink, lawsuit claims

Re: This was going on 12 years ago.

This is why I used to buy a new printer every couple of months.

Years ago Lexmark sold inkjet printers with a 1/2 filled colour & black ink cartridge for £19.99. When they ran out it was £54 to replace them... Or £19.99 for a new printer.

After a year or so the printers started shipping with only the 1/2 filled colour cartridges but I was lucky enough to re-home an unwanted HPLJ6P by then.

Patients must know how their health records are used – and approve any sharing for research

Selling on of data?

I would have no issue with my health records being shared for research purposes but I do have issues with subsequent actions.

Taking email for example, "we will only share your email details with our partners" which is (debatably) fair enough but their partners share with their own partners & so on until "Single Russian ladies are waiting to meet you" spam turns up in an email you only use for confidential correspondence.

If you want to share my data then please publish a list of the "Reputable Companies" that you are sharing with and provide me with a method of looking up who my data has been shared with & a method of removing myself from some or all of the aforementioned companies.

If anyone can explain why Jupiter's Great Red Spot is spinning faster and shrinking, please speak up

Aliens

It's aliens right? It's always aliens.

BOFH: You'll find there's a company asset tag right here, underneath the monstrously heavy arcade machine

Re: A little power

BGInfo is still available & quite useful when managing 1000's of desktops

When ERP migrations go bad: Games Workshop says project issues are delaying refresh of 'dated' online store

Re: BOFH

The site that hadn't been updated for ages that the creator pulled because he has family commitments & "Wasn't sure" if the IP crackdown would affect him? That TTS?

Not too bright, are you? Your laptop, I mean... Not you

Toshiba Tecra A2

I think I've mentioned this before but...

The Toshiba Tecra A2 had a volume control dial on the side of the laptop, positioned just in the right place for it to catch as it was pulled out of the laptop bag.

It was not an uncommon event for an exec to call in a panic because they had no sound and had a presentation coming up. Usually it was limited to once per person but not always.

More than half of companies rethinking back-to-office plans amid variant uncertainty and vaccine mandates – survey

Monday - Friday

Get into work, take off coat and log in, while the PC is logging in moan about the traffic, then open emails. Get up from the desk and go have a chat about your/your colleague's kid, go off and make a coffee, come back and complain about the state of the kitchen, chat to the colleague who has been away for a few days.

Sometime around 10 - 10.30, actual work will be started.

Later on, have lunch and repeat the morning routine with slight variation when you get back from lunch.

These are the people who miss the office.

Cloud load balancer snafu leads to 3D printer user printing on a stranger's kit

Not so much a problem with "Makers" as such, I have a 3d printer churning away quite happily.

However I use a VPN connection back into my home network if I want to check on things when I am away. The issue is more Joe public and "You can do this using the cloud".

Someone brings up TSD as a remote monitoring tool at least once a week on various 3d printing forums & it's about 70% "It's great, I love it" to 30% "Use a vpn, this sh*t isn't secure"

So the data centre's 'getting a little hot' – at 57°C, that's quite the understatement

I can finally tell this one!

Back in the 90's the company I worked at upgraded the mainframes from 2 ICL ME29's to a nice shiny ICL Series 39 Lv40 with the corresponding disk cabinet and tape drives for backup. The problem was that the replacement took longer than expected so the air-con in the room was struggling to cope.

Initially this wasn't a problem, the 2 ME29's would run the production work while the S39 was being commissioned, things got a little warm but the S39 was shut down at the end of the day. However once production jobs started running on the new box we couldn't shut it down as easily. As everyone except project managers knows, projects always have snags, in this case it was that some of the batch jobs needed more work before they could be moved over which meant that for a few weeks we would be running both MEs & the S39 from 8am to 11pm.

In the first day it got warm, then hot, then hotter! Then the over-temp alarm in the S39 started going off, a quick check of the manual showed that the alarm would be followed by a shutdown, this would be sub-optimal so a call to the friendly ICL field engineer followed. He told us that there was a reset button located just under the top vents in the box & that pressing it would silence the alarm for 30 mins and cancel the shutdown.

For the next week there was a step-ladder beside the S39, after about midday whoever was on shift would leave the computer room because it was too hot to work in for more than a few mins at a time. When the temperature alarm in the S39 went off, someone would dash in, go up the step-ladder, reach in and hit the alarm reset. This would then repeat every 30 mins throughout the day until all the batch jobs had finished and everything could be shut down. Remote operator consoles were used to monitor things like tape requests etc & these would be done as fast as possible to avoid the heat in the room.

After a week the management had a big chiller unit installed. Of course, after the old Me29s were decommissioned the room was usually too cold to work in because the new chiller was not linked to the air-con and constantly blasted chilled air into the room.

Tired: What3Words. Wired: A clone location-tracking service based on FOUR words – and they are all extremely rude

Re: WHat Three Words - commercial algorithim that cant be shared without license payment

Why is my cat posting here???

Elevating bork to a new level (if the touchscreen worked)

Unless you are Scottish...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU

On this most auspicious of days, we ask: How many sysadmins does it take to change a lightbulb?

Facilities are to blame

When you have a Facilities Management dept that insists on a cost code and charges to move desks, IT frequently got called on to do office moves.

We got so fed up with it that the standard response was to show up & unplug/unpatch everything, put it in an adjoining office or in the corridor & then tell the end users that after they got the desks moved to where they wanted to give us a call & we would reconnect everything. The number of pointless reorganising of offices because "Margaret wants to sit by the window" dropped to almost nothing.

Strangely we were still willing to move furniture if plied with coffee and cake.

BOFH: Here in my car I feel safest of all. I can listen to you ... It keeps me stable for days

People do need to be told

Unfortunately people do need to be told not to punch a hole through their door access card, the card that also works for 2FA & to tap on the printer to release their prints.

Robots still suck. It's all they can do to stand up – never mind rise up

Re: Perfect workers

- dumb, they'll never question their manager

Dumb unquestioning adherence to instruction is the best way to rebel

- only need food / mains. They won't feel jealous about colleague new iPhone.

Ok, I'll give you that one ;)

- employer can legally pay nothing

Except support, enhanced support, feature requests, cloud resilience, etc, etc

- robot will unlikely have an affair and cause a scandal

Not even with the photocopier?

- robot will not join a union

Have you never noticed how when one thing breaks, other machines stop working in sympathy? They already have a union!

Devilish plans for your next app update ensure they never happen – unless you start praying

Just a couple of quotes

“The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays.” - Witches Abroad

10 years earlier from 2000AD... "the wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic" - Anthrax Goulshadow (had to look up the name).

This always-on culture we're in is awful. How do we stop it? Oh, sorry, hold on – just had another notification

Joining the bandwagon

At the moment if I choose to do an extra 30mins at the end of the day because it would be a hassle to stop and start again, I can and because it is my choice I don't log the hours. If I am asked to work late then I will claim the overtime.

I am lucky enough that I am in a position to shut off completely from work at the end of the day, although it has taken some effort to get over to my manager & project managers that when I shut down my laptop I will no longer see any emails or Teams messages.

I can sympathise with the people who feel the need to impress as I have worked for companies where promotions/payrises were handed out on the basis of "Jim worked 30 extra hours to get x project completed" or "Bob is always available if I have a problem, no matter what time of night.".

It is very easy to tell people to just turn off their phone but as has been stated by others, not everyone is financially secure enough or secure enough in their position to tell the boss no.

UK arm of international charity the Salvation Army hit by ransomware attack

Re: I'm surprised

Ahh there's the rub, if #deity is omnipotent then there is a need to defend them.

If they are omniscient then they will already know about it.

Microsoft releases Windows 11 Insider Preview, attempts to defend labyrinth of hardware requirements

Re: hardware requirements

Possibly the few months of people finding the switch in the Bios to enable TPM.

Win 11 checker failed me for not having a TPM, passed after I looked around the Bios a bit.

UK health secretary Matt Hancock follows delay to GP data grab with campaign called 'Data saves lives'

Re: Mess

Have a handy link...

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/ethics/confidentiality-and-health-records/retention-of-health-records

Apple's expert witness grilled by Epic over 'frictionless' spending outside the app

Re: In-App purchases

Depending on which app you have, you can purchase the audio books directly from the website & when your app syncs they will show as available.

One of the issues with buying from the publisher is that many do not make audio versions of their books, however I think Audible does still allow the import of books into the PC version of the app. I have had issues with this in the past though as the books are often not split into chapters correctly.

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

Re: Scammers and time wasters do blacklist people...

I once fell foul of the 'bait & switch' whereby a very attractive lady asks if you have a moment & then introduces her colleague (usually male) to ask about religion...

My question of "How do I know you are the right one?" caused concern, especially when I pointed out that statistically they were worshipping incorrectly due to the plethora of beliefs & most (if not all) belief systems state that people not of that system are not going to heaven. Apostasy was ruled out as that's also a no-no, so no hedging your bets.

All in all, a fun discussion... I enjoyed it anyway.

PSA: If you're still giving users admin rights, maybe try not doing that. Would've helped dampen 100+ Microsoft vulns last year – report

We have a "Trusted user" in some areas, someone who also has an elevated account, linked to a group of PCs in their area. It means that a lot of the time supplier updates can be installed by the local admin in the dept but only on the PCs specified. So Bob can update the software on the 6 PCs in the warehouse so the barcode readers recognise some new style of code but his elevated credentials won't work anywhere else.

It's not everywhere & has been withdrawn from some areas after "issues" but in balance it makes things a little easier for everyone.

Re: Why do I need admin rights? Well, because of IT

From the IT dept perspective, "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute and emergency on mine."

I have lost track of the number of time the super urgent request that has to be done RIGHT NOW is accompanied by and email that goes back weeks & IT were only contacted at the last moment when the end user found out they didn't have the permission to install software whenever they wanted.

Remember that day in 2020 when you were asked to get the business working from home – by tomorrow?

Was it just me?

Anyone else have a backlog of projects that were delayed or paused because of "Reasons", including "The users won't like the change", that suddenly got greenlit because they included things that enabled remote working?

What happens when cancel culture meets Adolf Hitler pareidolia? Amazon decides it needs a new app icon

Re: And this is where it goes ... pear shaped?

"Some pretty butterflies"

Hacking is not a crime – and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative

Re: Barn doors

However many, many years ago my mum's Woman's Own used to include "Reader's Tips". I suppose that now it would be "10 Life Hacks you would never believe!!!!!"

Drag Autonomy founder's 'fraudulent guns' and 'grasping claws' to the US for a criminal trial, thunders barrister

Re: They're a weird mob.

From a quick search because I too thought it was named after a paper...

"The New York World was established in 1860, just before the Civil War, and it fared poorly throughout the 1870s before being bought up by Joseph Pulitzer in 1883. Over the next half-century, the World was renowned for everything from its “yellow journalism” to its debut of the crossword puzzle; in 1930 it was sold and merged with the Evening Telegram to become the New York World-Telegram.

The New York World never had anything to do with the World Series, however, other than being one of the many newspapers to report the results. The modern World Series (like its predecessor series waged between National League and American Association teams from 1884-1890) was so named not because of any affiliation with a corporate sponsor, but because the winner was considered the “world’s champion” — the title was therefore simply a shortened form of the phrase “world’s championship series.”"

Web prank horror: Man shot dead while pretending to rob someone at knife-point for a YouTube video

Re: Think of it as evolution in action

IIRC - Oath Of fealty but Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

Judge denies Parler an injunction to force AWS to host the antisocial network for internet outcasts

Re: Censorship by Private Companies

From the linked article - updated 58 minutes ago. The account has been suspended.

"A Twitter account linked to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has posted what appears to be a call for an attack on Donald Trump in revenge for last year's killing of its top military commander, Gen Qasem Soleimani.

----------

The social media giant has now suspended the account - @khamenei_site.

Twitter said the account had violated its rules and it directed readers to a list of prohibited acts, including threatening violence."

Re: Censorship by Private Companies

IIRC on a lot of the "Net Neutrality" posts here there are frequent comments along the lines of "If you don't like it start your own ISP". Surely Parler could host it themselves? A few physical servers and an internet connection would do the job.

Re: Censorship by Private Companies

"It is a bit like a city banning someone from talking in any public or private space within its walls and not calling that censorship."

Isn't it more like me not allowing people to come to my house and shout loudly about things I find objectionable? I wouldn't try and stop them talking, they just can't do it in my house anymore.

Flash in the pan: Raspberry Pi OS is the latest platform to carve out vulnerable tech

Alternatively

You could get a USB to parallel lead which is what I got for my friend so he could continue to use his venerable HP Laserjet5p. 20+ years old and still going strong.

Brexit trade deal advises governments to use Netscape Communicator and SHA-1. Why? It's all in the DNA

Re: How to get useful meetings

Had a very good departmental admin a good number of years back, after sitting through various project & team meetings that overran by hours she started bringing a cassette recorder to meetings with "If nobody objects I will tape this so the minutes are accurate".

Amazing how on-track that kept the meetings.