Posts by atheist

Trying out Microsoft's pre-release OS/2 2.0

Re: Microsoft Presentation for the 1989 IBM PS/2 forum

The embarrassing release of Exchange Client with Windows 95, that had to be replaced by Exchange Client for Exchange Server, when they got Exchange working.

I snorted when I later read the marketing guff for Outlook: Uses less resources than Exchange Client and Schedule Plus combined!

Before that there's Microsoft Mail. Which bugged out at about 4,000 emails.

Fed-up Torvalds suggests disabling AMD’s 'stupid' performance-killing fTPM RNG

I'll call my new editor CIF

Epson zaps lasers into oblivion, in the name of the environment

Unbeliver

I don't see merit in their claim.

The majority of inkjet printers are not built to last, so their claim doesn't pass the sniff test.

And unreliable proprietary services like Epson Connect compares poorly to a normal network printer.

Re: Which environment we are talking about?

I believe HP were proud to have patented an new printing tech as their license with Cannon came to an end.

Keep your cables tidy. You never know when someone might need some wine

Of many root cause analysis tickets undertaken, from a customer's clustered SAN and server logs was able to time/journal the cable disconnects, fibre, NIC and power, to show that it happened from top to bottom, starting half way down, the inference being someone/thing fell against it.

Linux may soon lose support for the DECnet protocol

The automated testing is mostly on VMs not real hardware. Not actual physical idiosyncratic hardware. We are all Microsoft beta testers.

Not on PC's as the client could not run reliably on anything faster than a 486/2/66Mhz

bare basics

It was the other way around.

The Microsoft bare basics client for Netware would corrupt databases hosted on the Netware file servers.

This caused a lot of grief.

NT Server emulating an Netware file server gateway lost Novell a lot of licensing revenue.

A double whammy.

A floppy filled with software worth thousands of francs: Techie can't take it, customs won't keep it. What to do?

Something similar happend to me too

I'd requested a CD to be sent from the US to Ireland, internally within the company, for a project for a bank.

Customs rang me looking for tens of thousands of Irish Punts. I escalated to the sender and local managers.

What the senders got concerned about was why the valuation was only a half million dollars, when worth so much more. It was the maximum amount the customs form allowed.

Eventually, the managers resolved the issue, and I got the CD. I don't know if Customs were ever paid.

Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth

Rat infested data center

Had the misfortune of visiting a Rat infested data center while doing due diligence. Some of the rats were retiring, leaving long standing problems.

A disaster waiting to happen. Only took a few months.

Same company, another site, had water dripping down the back of the racks.

There's been a lot of changes there, though no progress. Hopefully the last of token ring is gone.

Things I learned from Y2K (pt 87): How to swap a mainframe for Microsoft Access

Some of that borking was in the Microsoft client for Netware, causing corrupion in numerous 3rd party databases, regardless of vendor, hosted on Netware file servers.

Remember when Europe’s entire Galileo satellite system fell over last summer? No you don’t. The official stats reveal it never happened

Re: WTF?

I too like my tip being felt. Roller ball's too.

Remember the Dutch kid who stuck his finger in a dam to save the village? Here's the IT equivalent

Re: Wrong Buttons...

I've seen fights break out between field techs as to who could get to install one at a remote site (in their respective areas) where lots of maintenance needed to be done, so they could instead do it remotely out of hours.

Dell hooking up with EMC and going public again? Come off it

Perhaps the Dell owning VMWare comment is that Michael Dell's end game is privately owning VMWare, and the joint Dell/EMC going public to pay off the investors who helped tale it private. EMC owning Dell without Dell in charge?

'Linus Torvalds is UNFIT for the WORKPLACE!' And you've given the world what, exactly?

Re: How bad is Torvalds?

The vast majority of desktop pcs can boot to MS-DOS. Only yesterday I was reaching for a USB floppy drive

END your Macbook SHAME: Convert it into a Microsoft SURFACE

Your claim for Windows 8 is not true.

My preference is for stylus input and navigation.

I use Windows 7 on a tablet PC because the onscreen keyboard docks properly to the top of a landscape screen, with start, taskbar etc on the bottom. The Windows 8/8.1 options are limited. This particular aspect is widely criticised.

There's a patch promised for next week to improve distinguishing between mouse and stylus input. I am not holding my breath. The new Frankenstein UI hasn't sorted background apps stealing focus.

Don't get me started about OneNote. A big step backwards then staggering in every direction.