Posts by Lodgie

Those online ads driving you bonkers are virtually 'worthless for brands'

Our lot have been selling online since 1999. We track all sales so we know what is cost effective and what isn't, ROI is measured. The only online spend that works well for us (specialised sports products) is Google Shopping, followed by very carefully controlled Adwords campaigns that don't go anywhere near associate sites. Facebook is a complete waste of money - we've tried it up, down and sideways, it is useless.

If you employ an agency to run campaigns, be very, very careful as most do not have a bulls notion of how the interweb works, they just want to pick up their commission cheques and client fees in exchange for some impressive graphics. It is a minefield and great way of making someone else rich.

Re: Puzzled

Subliminal ads do not work as desired. They just annoy the crap out of anybody with half a brain.

We've been Trumped! China's Alibaba is a 'notorious' knock-offs souk, says US watchdog

Used Alibaba twice, once for some Canon lens caps and again for something relatively inexpensive but branded.

Both were knock offs and both lacked the quality of the originals. At least it was cheap tat. Great examples of this can be found in the Canarian Islands electronic shops, very dodgy purchasing experiences.

More than half of punters reckon they can't get superfast broadband

Re: Copper cabling, crap service

The copper network was designed for phones and is perfectly suited to low speed data transmission. However, copper is perfectly adequate to provide high speed transmission over reasonable local distances so if you get fibre to a street cab and use copper for the final leg, it is adequate. Our home broadband (in the country) is 150 yards from a fibre cab and we are getting 75Mb. This is plenty of bandwidth.

The contention ratio at the exchange is more important than quoted speeds, having fibre in the UK is like driving down a six lane motorway at high speed only to end up at a clogged roundabout (the exchange) where everything queues and waits for a path.

Microsoft's cmd.exe deposed by PowerShell in Windows 10 preview

Re: Wouldn't want a power shell

Definately a force rather than an invite to a slam...

A strange thing to do. If anyone needs Powershell we all know where to find it and what on earth is an average user going to do with it? CMD is quick and dirty and of course familiar. MS should leave as is, a pointless change.

Re: Wouldn't want a power shell

Think it's ACOL.

Donald Trump running insecure email servers

Small point to consider.

The email systems operated by Trump are commercial and do not handle classified government messages. People will not die if his servers get hacked.

Birmingham sperm bank pulls plug after just a handful of recruits

Re: Spelling Error

Nah mate, it's cockney rhyming slang son.

The wait is over: MoD releases latest issue of Ship Paint Monthly

Re: Dezincification

if you're looking for serious long term protection of any material outside, including steel, wood, concrete, dog and cats I can happily recommend Bedec Barn Paint. It is truly wondrous product with superb stickability and wear resistance. It is unbelievably good. Used by canny farmers and discerning tightwads throughout the UK and Colonies.

I have no fiscal interest in this product etc, etc ...

TalkTalk hack: Teen in court on hacking and blackmail charges

Coincidentally I received a "support" call from TalkTalk this morning. Apparently by computer has a virus. I only mention this as I was, for a short period, a customer of TalkTalk and my number is XD. Perhaps a coincidence. I would have done the usual half-hour wind up but I couldn't be arsed.

BT internet outage was our fault, says Equinix

Re: Brief outage?

Wasn't back until gone midday having failed at 9am. Took the backups out too.

Judge torpedoes 'Tor pedo' torpedo evidence

They can show that the pervy little bastard viewed the kids images but they will not reveal how they obtained the evidence and it is therefore inadmissible. The law is an ass.

Jfrog flicks out scanner to dive deep into containers

There I was thinking this was an exciting security development about containers but it's about containers. Very misleading altogether.

Hey, folks. Meet the economics 'genius' behind Jeremy Corbyn

I would just like to say thanks to the author for an interesting read. Well done that man. Carry on.

Who would code a self-destruct feature into their own web browser? Oh, hello, Apple

Just installed Netscape Navigator 9. By the Christ it's effin quick. On Win 10 too.

Kent Council cheerily flings about £100m at managed services bods

Re: Figures

Love the rider :D

It's 2016 and idiots still use '123456' as their password

Re: Easily remembered...

It's incredible the number of systems that don't use anti-brute force timeouts, or basic complexity rules for that matter. Implementation of brute force prevention is the single most simple anti hack method available to man (or woman).

Telstra dominates NBN retail, but less than you might think

Errrm ... to assist in your eternal search for journalistic veracity, I believe that the The Daily Telegraph is owned by the secretive Barclay brothers and not Murdoch.

Microsoft: We’ve taken down the botnets. Europol: Would Sir like a kill switch, too?

Re: Imagine

Disconnecting a fridge from the internet doesn't mean it will stop working. Does your other equipment power down if it loses connectivity?

So why exactly are IT investors so utterly clueless?

Well written, incisive and funny. Good old fashioned greed, an inability to admit that you don't know what the fuck it's all about and general ignorance - a holy partnership just made for grifting. Any snake oil Sir?

Music lovers move to block Phil Collins' rebirth

Re: Skinny people in shoulder pads

Ah but it wasn't bad taste at the time, it was fashion. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing; Many fine things emanated from that decade as did much dreadful tat and this applies to pretty much every decade post 1950. I was there through all of them, a truly proud old fart. This present decade will take the biscuit for suite music methinks.

Re: Quite

Spot on analysis. Each to their own.

Bitcoin is an official commodity, says US gummint

Where on earth did you find the punch cards, or did you sneakily Photoshop the Bitcoin logo on a stock pic?

Why is that idiot Osbo continuing with austerity when we know it doesn't work?

Re: @Lodgie

Just baiting :)

An entirely unconvincing argument, it's more of a leftie luvvie rant than solid fact based journalism.

Mainframe staffing dilemma bedevils CIO dependents

Re: Why aren't people learning about mainframes?

This is how I started in IT. Left school in 1969 with one O level (Eng Lit), tried civil engineering for a year then joined good old Marconi Co in their Data Processing dept, processing paper tape for accounts as input to the old KDF9. Soon got a job as a trainee op on their IBM 360/20 and that's where I started. I ran with mainframes as an operator, senior operator, shift leader, JCL guy, scheduler, ops support up until the mid 80's when I moved to data comms. During my time with mainframes training was mainly "on the job" but we did receive external training for writing COBOL and Assembler, which was very useful when batch runs crashed at 3 in the morning.

I don't know what it's like now but I suspect that degrees are now required and it's no longer the get down and dirty job it was in the seventies - I remember isolating duff I/O kit by removing the Bus/tag cables and butting them up, splicing tape, rekeying punch cards; fixing, recompliling and linking duff programs, using the printers for tables for a 2am chinese. It was had, it was fun and we all felt like we were achieving something, doing a useful job which very few people understood, least of all the management.

I doubt it's much fun now.

Because the server room is certainly no place for pets

Re: Remember the old motto

This has cheered me up no end. Speaking as one who cut his eye teeth on a venerable IBM 360/20 (Google it lads) we were more interested in neatness and reliability than new bright shiny things; this applied across the whole spectrum of IT from Junior Operators to Sys Progs. There was a lot of love, mutual respect and a feeling that we were all blessed and honoured to be working in the world of computing.

Systems weren't thrown together, they were lovingly crafted. observing carefully defined standards which made support and upgrades a breeze, these were tested, stress tested and parallel run for an age before implementation and when they were implemented, everyone including the company cat stayed up all night to monitor the first batch run. This doesn't seem to happen now, a dash of alpha and beta testing is done and then the app (in the modern parlance) is slung screaming and writhing at the user who unknowingly runs the live test, It's all gone to shit.

I am now old and by the definitions of this article, a wizard and that makes me proud.

'Why don't you buy from foreign sites?' asks Commish, snapping on the gloves

1. Delivery costs

2. Language

3. Customer service doubt.

Simple. Send cheque by return please.

EU VAT law could kill thousands of online businesses

If your sales are significant and rely on digital downloads, it may be worth moving offshore. Set up a limited company with nominee directors in a non EU state such as the Canary Islands or somewhere else that's tax friendly and let the EU pick the bones out of that.

The new regulations are unworkable for small businesses, they will have hell and all problems collecting IP data (spoofed?), addresses and proof of residence. Yet another ill considered implementation of an EU regulation. It will stop the big boys fiddling but will destroy the small business, or at least double the end user prices so as to make the hassle worth while.

Re: SIx years, and they foud it is an issue only now?

Isn't it strange. I have a VAT registered company in the UK, 20% of the sales are to Europe and 10% to RoW. Also have a Spanish company which has significant sales. I have had not a word from the revenue on this, today is the first time I've heard of the new regs. Ignorance of the law is no excuse - but Those That Tax may have made a bit of an effort.

Plusnet customers SWAMPED by spam but BT-owned ISP dismisses data breach claims

The biggest surprise for me is that Plusnet is owned by BT, can't believe I missed that little nugget. Time to change ISP.

Verizon set to pay $64 MEEELLION for overbilling customers

Please, no more headlines emphasising the huge cost of something using the non-word "Meeellions". It's now a very threadbare, cringworthy joke.

Premier League wants to PURGE ALL FOOTIE GIFs from social media

I have never posted a video clip of a match on Twitter. I now intend to do so as often as I can.

Can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of PUREST ... BLACK?

Re: Black space craft? Whatever could go wrong

The space craft that belonged to Hotblack Desiato I believe, leader of the the band known as Disaster Area. The ship was programmed to crash into the sun as part of the bands finale.

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

Re: We're not all incompetent scammers!

There are honest ones out there but there are lot of completely useless twats too. You're right about the friends and family fixers, they done an evening class course on using Micro$oft Office and they are up there with Tim Berners Lee. A little knowledge is very dangerous here.

Klingon and Maori roar into 'mutt's nuts' dictionary

Re: What does el Reg have against Spanish?

Whilst I don't wish to be a pedant, I am donning the cap of pedantry:

What you have there is close but wrong, it is balls of but, a dog is perro. Nothing translates particularly well, especially in the plural. cojones de perro is as close as you can probably get. In certain areas this will translate as dog f**k, derived from "balling the dog"