Posts by Doctor Syntax

Software support chap survived breaking his customer

Re: Picking the data to delete

Seamonkey also makes provision for this and I use it like that. It's a faff to set up so the average punter will not do it. That's why so many system admins report users storing previously read mail in either the inbox or in the bin. It's been commonly observed user behaviour for years.

It's also possible to ensure that Sent mail and incoming mail end up in the same folder so that they get properly threaded. It just doesn't happen out of the box. Of course suggest that it does and some Stockholm Syndrome sufferer will be along to tell you that that's not how they work because they've been used to having something so useless that they regard it as normal.

Is it not beyond email client developers to produce something a bit more joe-public-user friendly?

Re: Ouch!

Trinity recover disk (live Linux disk) with PhotoRec is the real winner IME. Cousin-in-law got hit by an early and fortunately dumb ransomware. It had written new files with encrypted contents and just deleted the old ones. It didn't try to overwrite the old files and as there was plenty of spare space they didn't get overwritten by other files being encrypted. Despite the name PhotoRec will try to piece together all sorts of file types, not just image, works out the correct file type but with arbitrary names onto a separate drive. Oh, the sheer overwhelming number of small image files from the browser cache....

Shrink the old Windows partition, install Zorin with the old partition mountable if required and replace the recovered data from the USB drive and job done.

Surely Windows/MS-DOS has a file move command?

Re: Picking the data to delete

Automatically clearing /tmp on reboot is not a good idea. The service that had its working file in there when the system crashed may be relying on it to recover on a restart.

Re: Picking the data to delete

"same applies to Outlook's bin"

As no email client I've seen makes much provision for managing messages it usually seems to be that or the inbox, neither of which is really appropriate. Maybe there's Archive on some menu somewhere - who knew?

OpenAI slapped with GDPR complaint: How do you correct your work?

So it's OK for it to spout irrelevant bollocks, just so long as it spouts?

So Europe will just have the "AI revolution" pass them by due to their silly laws.

Better and better.

Given that OpenAI seems to have an unending need for money how is its turnover measured? Does the money poured into it count?

UK lays down fresh legislation banning crummy default device passwords

Have a few trading standards inspectors visit the warehouses and seize the entire stock of non-compliant devices. Watch the net container load sent straight back. Likewise intercept and check a sample of incoming packages and seize non-compliant goods, charge VAT/duty on the rest. That'll kill the straight from China route.

The chip that changed my world – and yours

The Z8000 had a market in Unix boxes long before Intel got there. However it was being squeezed from the other direction by the 68000 and derivatives which I think were a little ahead in the market and the trendy RISC stuff like MIPS coming along a little later. What might have killed it there was Zilog making its own systems due to its new owner Exxon's ambitions. The vendor eating its potential customers' lunch doesn't go down well. Then the Intel/SCO partnership ate everyone's lunch.

Meta's value plummets as Zuckerberg admits AI needs more time and money

Re: That metaverse bet is really paying off

"What I wonder is how he convinced enough shareholders to let him dilute their voting power. Did they really feel that if Zuck left it would turn into Apple circa 1996?"

Maybe they did. If they wanted - and dared - to get rid of him now I've no doubt they would find a way. It would have to be done through the courts so it would take a while or go to him and tell him they'll have not alternative to dump their stock which will affect the value of his.

Re: "How many really new products have they monetised"

Point taken. Have an upvote.

Re: That metaverse bet is really paying off

I blame Apple. They got rid of the the big-name founder, Jobs, and it didn't work out until they brought him back. Now all the investors and boards are looking at their big-name founders - not to name any here - and are scared the same thing might happen if they go down that route.

Being a one-trick pony isn't a problem when the trick makes money. The problem comes with not wanting to be a one-trick pony.

Re: Can somebody come up with a suitable prompt …

I'd already forgotten the NFT bubble. Sic transit

Re: "investors are unwilling to wait too long"

Which should be a warning to any would-be investor.

IBM and LzLabs to clash in UK court over Software Defined Mainframe

"Big Blue's UK arm alleges the Swiss outfit used a subsidiary based in Britain to purchase an IBM mainframe"

I'm sure they weren't blaming https://www.ibm360.co.uk. However the thought prompted me to take a look over there. They have some sad news to share about the project.

Encrypted email service files DMA complaint claiming it vanished from Google Search

Re: I said a lot of websites take email, but refuse you if it's not gmail.

Alternatively the OP's mail server is flagging a lot of servers other than gmail etc. as spam although why they wouldn't flag gmail if they're into that is anyone's guess.

Re: I said a lot of websites take email, but refuse you if it's not gmail.

If that was a company that I was trying to buy something form I'd have asked them directly - on a sales phone number, not IT support MD's friend's niece's boyfriend - whether or not they were interested in my business and if they were they weren't going to get it if they blacklisted my email address.

Australia’s spies and cops want ‘accountable encryption’ - aka access to backdoors

Re: Given that---

I'm guessing here, that you've never worked in law enforcement. I certainly hope not. Your attitude would measure up very badly amongst those with whom I worked who did. And two of whom were murdered simply because they were police officers.

Re: Given that---

Almost nobody goes to jail the very first time they do a bad thing.

There was a fairly high profile news report a few months ago of an innocent man whose conviction and life sentence were recently overturned after he'd spent 19 years, IIRC, in prison for an offence he didn't commit. The most recent report I read was that he was homeless & living rough which, in my book, still doesn't add up to having been freed. That's a hell of an experience to justify your use of the word "almost".

if a police officer with access chooses to look up someone they know just because they're curious, that person is not likely to be charged or imprisoned, but they have been harmed.

Again, a report from recent months in the UK. A police civilian worker, not an officer, had access to confidential information about an operation and passed it on, the information eventually ending up alerting a criminal.

Re: Given that---

Read up on the killing of Charles de Menzes. What happened was a system failure. The system was devised by Cressida Dick. On the day in question, it was operated by her. It involved a misidentification, failure of surveillance officers to notice that a tube station was closed. Cressida Dick did not resign. She was not dismissed She was promoted to become the head of the Met.

Re: RE: "support law enforcement"

Might as well add, "If you're innocent, you have nothing to hide" to that.

To which, of course, there is stuff that you're contractually obliged to hide. On a personal level it's part of the contractual terms for many web-sites that require log-in access. In a work-related context it includes any commercial-in-confidence material you handle and material subject to regulatory or statutory control.

Re: Assumptions -- No -- Never heard of them!!

"So you simply make all those illegal."

You do not stop people who want to break a law by giving them more laws to break.

If the details can be left to somebody else then all failures can and will be dumped on them - maybe even penalties. The burden of proof is on those who think it's possible. Come up with something that can be given to infosec experts to pick over.

Judges need evidence to make decisions.

Re: Given that---

I don't know about Australian gov & police but in the UK the Met kill one or two bad people a year and have been known to kill one or two who weren't. I suppose that's OK providing you and yours aren't included in the one or two who weren't

The eight-bit Z80 is dead. Long live the 16-bit Z80!

Great article, the diversion into Z8000 history is much appreciated. One system builder was Onyx with the imaginatively name Onix OS (Unix 7th ed, of course ported by the company who also did the original port of AIX)

Zilog built whole systems. I suppose this must have been the result of Exxon's ambitions. I went on to work in a shop that had two different models. One of them had a disk drive just under the top cover that gave it a rotating external magnetic field so that text on the monitor of the terminal placed on top of it would wobble all the time.

Re: Nascom 2

The move from batch on cards to direct access on anything more than a crystal set was a game changer for anyone working in those days, even if the batch turn round was just(!) a few hours.

BOFH: Smells like Teams spirit

Tell HR that you're concerned about the content/unstructured nature/whatever will float their boat of the meetings and will only go if one of them is present as a facilitator.

Re: I had a consulting gig once

Assuming there's a non-shit manager further up the food-chain try to get the messages forwarded to him.

I think this revenge is going to be served at body temperature.

Alternative status messsage "I'm offline. Please email me instead."

Re: can I call you Chris?

Hi, Chris

Re: <ping> <ping> <pi^&*^&*$%%$^&*^&*(^&*$%

people should learn to respect their elders.

Amazon to ditch WorkDocs sharing service, support countdown begins

Re: Trust the cloud they said...

You are quite right, of course. But it needs long term thinking and upfront investment to set up such an archive. The CEOs who listen to the cloud salesdroids may well only be thinking a few years ahead to their next move or even no further then the end of the next quarter.

"We are always innovating on behalf of customers, which means we must sometimes make the difficult decision to pivot when we believe our resources should be invested elsewhere to better serve them,"

In what way is it on behalf of customers to bin the investment customers have made in the service?

From the customers' PoV the message is clear: you can't trust somebody else's computer.

Workday abandons new-build Dublin office project

If the employees don't have to pay the higher prices to live in commuting distance of the large city in which the HQ is located the employee then they can more easily afford to live somewhere with a suitable workspace.

I know of one such Dublin-based company where the employees can live and work at home anywhere in the world e.g. West Yorkshire.

Have they realised that with work at home they can reduce their HQ building to little more than a post-box?

VMware’s end-user compute community told to brace for ‘Omnissa’ shift

That's probably what the employees, customers, and partners said. Omnissa would have been the result of a bit of cosmetic work.

Help! My mouse climbed a wall and now it doesn't work right

Re: Mouse balls

Tell them it can't be cleaned if you can't remove the cover, they'll have to but a new one.

Re: Mouse balls

"Is it weird that I miss the days of cleaning the lint out of my mouse and ball?"

Very. Unless it's recalling lost youth.

Re: Is it plugged in?

"Only when I drove off did I wonder whether the testing would be valid coming from someone so clueless."

Probably the best testing. The clueless will try the oddest things edge cases.

Indian bank’s IT is so shabby it’s been banned from opening new accounts

"work out what parts of the project can be subcontracted"

IME, which admittedly is not in India, it's more a case of work out which parts have to be subcontracted because they're specialist and the main contractor doesn't want to build up in-house expertise for a relatively small number of use cases.

Strong electric car sales expected for 2024, but charging grid needs work

Re: Cheaper

Yes, TFA is saying more needs to be done by governments. Despite what National Grid says HMG has just thrown up its hands in horror. That's government action UK-style.

Re: Cheaper

HMG has set a target for motorway charging points which is, to put it mildly, not ambitions. When it was reviewed it was found that it wasn't being met.

Why do you think they abandoned their targets recently? It wasn't that such brilliant progress was being made that they weren't necessary, was it?

Re: Cheaper

The one in the car park is already occupied charging somebody else's car. Now what do you do?

Throwflame launches fire-spitting robo-dog from Hell

New Zealand will need them to keep the billionaires out.

Re: "I don't think it means what they think it means."

Not the police. Army ATOs.

Re: Nice headline grabber

I was think along the same lines but a bit closer to home and the dog format seems quite appropriate. Unfortunately the price is a bit steep and it would leave scorch marks on the lawn.