Posts by Doctor Syntax

Ubuntu's Amazon 'adware' feature to be made opt in

Does “gracefully retired” mean "with weasel words"? If they'd come out & said "we got it wrong" it would have gained them some brownie points. I can't help feel that commercial search was half of what let Mint replace Ubuntu as the favourite desktop system.

Microsoft herds biz users to Windows 10 by denying support for Win 7 and 8 on new CPUs

"I don't need to know all the intricacies of LDAP, KERBEROS, and NFS and SAMBA to have a working network."

Of course you don't. What was your point?

Re: The hate energy from El Reg is high today!

"now I laugh at you"

Mutual.

Re: genius!

"as long as you build your own chip to run it on"

There are plenty of foundries building ARM.

Re: @MacroRodent

"they're a good sized online seller."

And presumably growing. They used to be in a small unit just down the road from me. They've moved at least twice since then, presumably to bigger premises each time.

Re: The more they push

"it should be one of the better OS MS have shat out."

Is that damning with faint praise or praising with a faint damn?

Re: Enough of this.

'Business: "Fair enough. I'd better stick with Windows 10 then"'

Business: "Fair enough, your competition does."

FTFY

Re: Shock Horror new CPUs won't support 7 year old OS

"All the other moaners: its not exactly hard to configure the privacy settings. There are various other 3rd party apps which wll allow you to disable these settings (and telemetry) if it bothers you so much."

And all the 3rd party app makers have to do is keep up with the Microsoft in the arms race as the latter re-enable the settings via updates.

"To be honest, buying brand new hardware and expecting it to downgrade and run clunky old OS versions is something you shouldn't expect anyway."

That, of course, depends on which OS you decide is clunky and whether you regard the version change as an upgrade or a downgrade.

"end-users can just change to Linux; but businesses may not be able to so easily."

However, if business can't change to W10 so easily the choice becomes more balanced.

Re: You seem to have missed...

"Only if they know that they have an alternative."

I'm sure that today you didn't know a lot of things you didn't know in the past but now you've learned about them.

Other people learn too.

Re: Question to Supplier of hardware...

"You seem to have missed the bit where Intel and AMD promised to stop making such hardware."

OTOH they're not going to cut themselves off from the Linux server market are they? So the Linux drivers will be there.

Re: The more they push

"pretty much no one uses Linux on a PC desktop or laptop."

What you're missing out on here is that the more Windows breaks with its past the less the differentiation between a legacy Windows -> W10 and legacy Windows -> non-Windows migration.

The less the differentiation the more readily people will choose the non-Windows option.

The more people choose the non-Windows option the easier it becomes to choose it.

Re: The more they push

"Still a modest barrier to exit then, at least in the minds of the would-be apostates."

Is the barrier more or less modest in comparison with migrating to a new version of Windows?

Even for business users the barrier to migrating to non-legacy Windows has proved substantial if it won't run business-critical legacy Windows applications.

"some may move to Linux, more will move to Apple (in the end commercial support is considered king of compliance)"

Are you saying all those Linux servers dominating the web aren't compliant?

Re: Something missing here

"an unexpected effect is that it also cripples Linux. That then forces everyone that needs a new machine onto Windows 10 or Mac."

But if this is crippling at CPU level it's also going to cripple the Mac unless they're part of the cartel because Mac also runs on Intel. Also, don't you think Linux would code round this pretty quickly?

Re: Anti-Trust suit impending.

"they'll simply buy enough Congress-critters and Senate-weenies"

Other jurisdictions are available. And collectively bigger.

Re: Question to Supplier of hardware...

"No sir, it's an obsolete OS that went out mainstream support a year ago."

Then I'm not buying from you. Or do you have something else to offer?

EU competition commish: We 'pay' for search and social media – with our data

I wonder what she'll have to say about http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/18/microsoft_vendors_join_in_perfect_harmony_to_praise_windows_10/

IBM introduces fleecing-you-as-a-service for retailers

Re: Watch out for bugs

That might explain the occasional stupid price from some Amazon & eBay sellers although I'm still inclined to blame finger trouble.

2015 was the Year of the Linux Phone ... Nah, we're messing with you

Re: Regarding Linux 'denial'

"I would be in a state of denial if I criticized Windows for its failings in 1990 here in 2016."

Of course. In 2016 Windows has a completely new set of failings.

Re: It works...

"Many proprietary formats are de facto industry standards and are supported by major players"

Most proprietary formats are restricted to the vendor [the clue's in the name] and used to lock their customers into a perpetual repurchasing cycle.

FTFY

Re: It works...

"UI/UX design benefits from thinking about users who are different from yourself"

My experience is the very opposite. It seems to concentrate on enabling the user to use a very limited repertoire of tasks very easily whilst making it downright impossible to do anything else. This applies to websites as much as to desktops.

For many of us the advance of systemd with the release of Debian 8 makes 2015 a not very great year at all. Debian 7 moves into LTS next month so that extends it a little further but it's getting time to get od my backside & make sure everything I want, including my favourite proprietary RDBMS & tools, can run on BSD or find substitutes.

The multiplicity of desktops is a strength, not a weakness. I use the desktop to provide access to documents which are reference material or WiP, not applications. If the only desktop was Gnome 3 or Unity I'd have given up on Linux already.

Eight-billion-dollar Irish tax bill looms over Apple

"they had a close approximation to Whisky"

They have whiskey to which Scotch is a close approximation.

FTFY

"Amazon, Google, Microsoft and all the other giants of the Irish IT industry ... would all leave for a more accommodating EU country"

It depends on how this was calculated. If it's simply a matter of restating the profits and calculating the tax bill at Ireland's standard corporation tax rate it would still be generous compared to what they'd pay in other EU countries. This was an exercise in squeezing a low tax bill lower still. I don't think any of them are going anywhere. But it would be nice to see Ireland spending a little of the windfall on beefing up their data protection regulation.

Late night server rebuild led to 'nightmares about mutilated corpses'

Re: The pair spent the whole night re-installing all the software

In a situation like that you can take it for granted that there's only one tape for all the backups and that the daily backup had been taken post-corruption and pre-discovery. My Murphy will explain why.

"boss bought it because he wanted to bang the sales lady"

Maybe someone should have told him buying it was OK but don't install it.

RP should stay well clear of forensic science as a career change.

RBS and Natwest online banking goes titsup

Re: LOL!!

Make that licenses, the banking licenses of the directors as just happened to a couple of the Co-op's senior bods.

Re: LOL!!

"! IT is the core of your business"

And if they keep demonstrating failure to maintain the core of their business the regulators should be asking them why they think they're entitled to keep their licence.

French say 'Non, merci' to encryption backdoors

'Not sure how Cameron is going to u-turn from his "Let's ban ALL teh encryptionz" speech with grace'

One popular form of words is "I don't recognise that statement".

Put your private parts on display if you want to keep earning a living

Re: Nazti

"What bothers me is the kind of pondlife that comes up with such things as an idea and then goes on to produce it as a product which they then sell."

The real problem is that they actually can sell it because there's more pondlife that's prepared to buy it.

Watchdog says yes to BT's EE takeover deal. Shrugs. No 'significant' harm in it

Re: Government wonks/officialdom living off Sweeties?

@A/C

I call that cheating. Not only are you using facts and logic, you also know the difference between "your" and "you're".

Hyatt says hackers took card data from 250 of its hotels

"Protecting customer information is critically important to Hyatt, and we take the security of customer data very seriously,"

Why do they not engage the brain instead of uttering such tosh.

If it's critically important and you've just failed at it what does it say about your competence at stuff which is just very important or only important let alone nice to have?

No escape: Microsoft injects 'Get Windows 10' nagware into biz PCs

Re: I will give this the attention it deserves..

"we have to keep one single copy of Microsoft Office alive"

But which version? There's the rub.

"number of lookup"

Over what period of time?

Re: "straight out of its 1990s bullyboy playbook"

"with Win XP probably the last version that was reasonably clean"

Wasn't XP the one that introduced phone home? I'd count W2K as the last one that was reasonably clean.

Re: I have a question...

"Why haven't any governments had a go at M$ ... over their forcing Windows 10 on people"

That's an easy one. You're talking about governments & this has only been going on a few months.

Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

"Linux: "Good morning, only 15,473 software updates so far today."

Thank you for your informed comment. Now let's look at reality.

First, and I can't speak for other versions, but with Debian updates arrive as they're ready. You can install them when you wish but it would be silly to not offer an important update promptly because today's the first Wednesday in the month & we only release on the first Tuesday.

Today brought 5 updates. I can tell the system to update. It tells me what's to be done including the following:

"Need to get 2,560 kB of archives.

After this operation, 1,024 B disk space will be freed."

but then asks for confirmation to go ahead rather than just doing it.

It took a second to download and a few more seconds to install. But look again at the second of those lines I quoted. Not only does the upgrade process tell you what the impact on the file system is going to be, sometimes it actually releases space.

The Linux upgrade process these days is in a universe Microsoft hasn't even thought about visiting.

Re: Microsoft claims it's doing this...

"After a long weekend, come to work to find Win 10 has installed itself on most of a company's PCs"

Well, at least it would tell you which users ignored your instructions to turn them off when they're not in use. You did tell them that,didn't you?

"if you are not in the deb camp and want rpms then fedora is UEFI compatible as well."

It's a very long time since I used Fedora but AFAICR I found it to be release often, break often. Maybe a derivative of RH, say Centos or Scientific Linux, would be better; I'm sure they're UEFI compatible.

But as a stepping stone it might also be worth looking at one of the Ubuntu derivatives such as Zorin that set out to provide a user interface as close to W7 as possible.

No, Agile does not 'equal' DevOps: Examining complexity and the long haul

Re: SEP implementation process

"thanks to Douglas Adams for inventing this"

He didn't really invent it, just communicated it to everyone who hadn't worked it out for themselves.

DWP building a separate ID tool as Verify can’t cut it, whisper sources

Re: This is a solved problem surely?

@A/C

If you can scan a genuine paper bill header it's probably easiest to do a bit of editing and knock out a new one on a colour printer. Even better, knowing the waste "management" at the company that used to print my mobile & water bills, it might not be too difficult to obtain some genuine blank stock.

Microsoft wants you, yes you, to write bits of Windows 10. For free

I wonder if it would be possible to put something in there which would upgrade the OS to W7.

Server retired after 18 years and ten months – beat that, readers!

When did Time cease to be a thing? I upgraded my cousin-in-law's Time mini-tower to Linux a few months ago.

Learn you Func Prog on five minute quick!

"And not a moment too soon!!!"

The problems you complain about with OO stem from standard operating practice. Take an existing idea - in this case existing ideas about data structures, add something - in this case glue the procedural stuff onto it, wrap the whole thing up in new nomenclature to disguise what you've borrowed, add some over-the-top stuff - e.g. your example about wheels, and tell the world you've invented something completely new.

Between them the new nomenclature and OOT stuff is enough to put many of us off for years.

OK, I left out inheritance but the basic principle is "data structures on steroids" but calling it that wouldn't have brought the same kudos.

Nest thermostat owners out in the cold after software update cockup

" Like many companies these days, the Nest terms and conditions explicitly forbid customers from entering into class-action lawsuits against the company. Instead, all disputes are to be settled by arbitration on a case by case basis."

Whether this is a valid term or a meaningless jumble of letters could depend on local consumer protection law.

Er, what sort of Docker experience were you expecting?

"less than 3,000 per cent back in January 2008"

Last time I looked zero was indeed less than 3,000.