Posts by dc_m

London's poor 5G blamed on spectrum, investment, and timing of Huawei ban

Re: Pointless

CCTV cameras are never on the mobile network unless they really have to be, wifi or ethernet, yes, but very rarely 4g

Junior techie had leverage, but didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation

Re: Curious 6000kva?

I generally agree on this one, but keep your hands off my Torres!

Microsoft pulls the plug on WordPad, the world's least favorite text editor

Re: It's all crap

yep, got a solution for you there. Hit the button that says "I don't have an internet connection".

Set the wireless up and run updates the old fashioned way, once Windows has already started.

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

Re: Dirt

It took a little bit longer for the dishwasher to become popular, particularly in the UK, but I've cleaned a lot of them in it before and successfully recovered them.

Just takes two days to dry out and it's all good!

They just don't make them like that any more!

Stanford Internet Observatory raises alarm over 'serious failings with the child protection systems at Twitter'

Re: Yet more Twitter trashing

I was wondering the same thing. If Stanford is not the definition of a research establishment, then what is it?

Basecamp decamps from cloud: 'Renting computers is (mostly) a bad deal'

Re: It's not just the cloud

On the other side, a job that should take 10 minutes by an internal tech, takes 2 days by a managed service provider. Also, it's very difficult to fix what you did not break!

Anon, because that's what I'm dealing with right now!

Bitcoin energy consumption a feature, not a bug, says crypto-miner

Re: He's lying for a start

That sounds like fun, I'll join you!

Bitcoin worse for the climate than beef, say economists

Re: Lying with numbers

Either that, or dumped by an economist!

Fake vibrating teeth could make great hearing aids

Re: IBM Engineer...

No way I'm clicking that at work!

If you fire someone, don't let them hang around a month to finish code

Still do, you can still buy them as well as smaller iterations. The biggest problem is teachers remembering to keep those big 6v lantern batteries charged!

Lost your mouse cursor? Microsoft's PowerToys 0.55 has you covered – with a massive crosshair

Re: Outlook ate my cursor

Outlook is a pos memory hog for that sort of thing.

This is going to sound dumb, but try emptying your deleted items folder.

Wi-Fi not working? It's time to consult the lovely people on those fine Linux forums

I've seen it before. Machine was an Acer travelmate running Ubuntu (as far as I remember). Everything else worked perfectly. It turned out that the physical slide switch on the side was actually a "soft" switch. Had to install a separate Acer hotkey utility to make it work.

Windows 11 gets chatty as Teams integration turns up

Re: Escaping Microsoft's messaging platform

Do it!

I have to use Microsoft at work. At home I use exclusively Chromebook and Linux mint. There is the odd niggle, but it mostly just all works!

20 year old hp printer with no usb port. USB to parallel adaptor. Plugged and played. Impressive.

I have a colleague testing it. We use teams on site.

Unfortunately the rolled in version will not let us connect to the domain account, only a Microsoft one. This makes it entirely useless.

Hubble, Hubble, toil and trouble: NASA pores over moth-eaten manuals ahead of switch to backup hardware

Re: Sounds Like...

You sir, are a genius.

Intel throws sand in the face of 'musclebooks' with 10nm Tiger Lake tech

Re: "a new PC will be faster and smaller and lighter"

That will be your kensington lock slot at a guess.

Don't bother trying to use it, you can break it with your hand!

I haven't bought new pants for years, why do I have to keep buying new PCs?

Re: Old kit

There's only two things you can do to improve that machine.

1. More RAM (if you can get it, probably rare now for that age)

2. (more effective) Lose the spinning rust and fit an SSD. It makes a huge difference! Steal it back when the machine dies completely.

How do you save an ailing sales pitch? Just burn down the client's office with their own whiteboard

Re: " 220V on which South Korea operates"

I have exactly the same issue with a car radio. It has a clock on it and bluetooth. If I have it constantly connected, whenever someone walks by, it turns itself on as their phone connects. This leaves me with a flat battery, If I connect the radio through the ignition, the clock is never correct! cannot win.

Re: Interviews

yep, I remember using no nails to make sure the power switches stayed in the 240v position at a school too! I think the three of us did 90 of them.

How embarrassing: Xiaomi and Motorola show up to high school prom both wearing remote-charging tech

I've got a Xiaomi Poco, it's a great piece of kit and it's not a flagship phone by any means. It does however need a full 3 amps to charge it properly, I know this because of experimenting with a 2.4a magnetic cable. I can't help thinking that's rather a lot of current to be whistling through the air.

Super-antique-fragile-and-it's-XP-alidocious, even though the sight of it is something quite atrocious

Re: Argos catalogue ?

Learned a huge amount from the old Maplin Catalogues. Used to read it from cover to cover, didn't know what a lot of the things were at the time, but still very interesting.

5 months later, 37.7% of Windows 10 PCs are running the May 2020 Update... Wait, people are still on 1809?

Re: Oops

Been running Linux mint now for quite a while. Initial flaky start appears to have been a duff SSD.

It's taken a while, but it can do everything I need that a windows machine can do, including label printing and updating the Garmin GPS.

Been dabbling for ages and finally took the plunge when I acquired a machine with a windows 8 licence, not going to happen.

Excel is for amateurs. To properly screw things up, those same amateurs need a copy of Access

Re: Access

Nope, I have used Jet reports recently alongside Microsoft dynamics. It's still horrendous.

Dutch Gateway store was kept udder wraps for centuries until refit dug up computing history

Re: Reminds me...

I remember that one. I used to work on Mitsubishi Apricots as well.

Re: Gateway servers running Citrix in Scotland

I used to use winframe in a school. Head thought it was the best thing since sliced bread being able to run modern software on 486 machines! Problem was, on 10mb hubs they ran like crap.

Found out the lease was up as the server was sat in the disposal pile. Nobody knew it was leased!

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

Re: Nope

Do what I did, take the plunge. I acquired a machine not suitable for the job it needed to do. Had a win 10 home licence on it at some point. Had to give work laptop back with 10 pro on.

Installed spare SSD in said machine from dead win 7 laptop. Installed Linux mint. I have used linux before but never taken the plunge as such with the desktop.

The only thing I am still working on is updating the Garmin GPS. Everything else is working very, very fast.

Loved win7 but I have seen some scary vulnerability's in my time and the lack of security updates and ease of exploitation no longer sits easily with me.

Oh what a cute little animation... OH MY GOD. (Not acceptable, even in the '80s)

Re: early viruses

I remember that set, rudecdtray was my favourite. It's till around

Re: Head

Ah yes, rambling Sid Rumpole. Brilliant sketches.

Now heard fairly regularly on BBC 4 extra for the 10-12 comedy club!

BOFH: When was the last time someone said these exact words to you: You are the sunshine of my life?

Don't ask me for a survey unless you are prepared for me to tell you what I think of you, particularly if you have pissed me off!

VMware to stop describing hardware as ‘male’ and ‘female’ in new terminology guide

Has anybody else realised that plugs or sockets, either male or female do not have feelings, therefore they cannot be offended?

This is getting silly now

10 PRINT "ZX81 at 37" 20 GOTO 10

it's called mslogo now.

The "little bots" are known as turtles, they are still being used. There are variations of basically the same thing.

It would have been a variant of the original valiant roamer. Uses two massive lantern batteries. I know for a fact schools were buying these no more than 8 years ago.

Google broke its own cloud, again, with dud DB config change

Funnily enough, google apps is running like a dog right now.

Misco UK chops majority of workforce, pulls down shutters

Misco were always good for a third quote. Guaranteed they would be more expensive than anyone else.

Footie ballsup: Petition kicks off to fix 'geometrically impossible' street signs

Really, I think we have more important things to worry about right now!

Trump-hating Iranian is the new Uber CEO

still never any cars in my town so I'll stick with the local cab company thanks!

Our day with Larry Page: Embedded with one of the world's richest men

1. Do you swallow it, or smoke it.

2. Where can I get some?

Scary news: Asteroid may pass Earth by just 6,880km in October

Re: Context

Almost a Douglas Adams reference

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space

upvote for you!

The ultimate full English breakfast – have your SAY

Fried bread, brown, toast if absolutely necessary

Tomatoes, tinned is fine, or fried and halved or both

Beans, preferably with a dash of Worcester Sauce.

Sausage - Cumberland

eggs, runny yolk fried.

Tea, classic English Breakfast tea

Bacon, thick and chewy

Maybe a small amount of black pudding as I'm just getting into it, never liked it before.

fug it, If we are going to do fat, Chips as well. Barbecue sauce.

Who do you want to be Who? VOTE for the BBC's next Time Lord

How about going old school with Patrick Stewart or Sir Ian Mckellan

What's the biggest danger to the power grid? Hackers? Terrorists? Er, squirrels

I thought hospitals all had generators?

Apple sued by parents of girl killed by driver 'distracted by FaceTime'

Nice idea but just because you are moving doesn't necessarily mean you are in a car. In common with most people, I like to use my phone on the train too.

User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again

Re: Can you hold down the power button

There's probably one on your numeric keypad!

A robot kitchen? Whatever. Are you stupid enough to fall for this?

Re: Mark Oleynik is a Ph.D. mathematician

Surely just weigh rather than measure the carrot.

Unimpressed with Ubuntu 16.10? Yakkety Yak... don't talk back

Re: I find what people hate about Ubuntu weird

Nope, same things happens on Win 10 as well!

Sick and tired of modern Windows? Upgrade to Windows 3.1 today – in your web browser

Re: Ahhhhh Win 3.1 on a 386DX 40MHz with 8MB Ram

nope, 386dx 25 with 1mb here!

Pubs good for the soul: Official

The answer is both

Preferably in a nice hot bath. A cup of tea and a pint of beer. Plan not to do anything afterwards, guaranteed a good nights sleep.

Re: Willie Nelson

There's also a lovely version of that with Norah Jones and the little willies.

Boffins solve bacon crisis with newly-patented plant

I like your thinking, like quorn, not bad if you add meat!

Belkin's N150 router is perfect for learning hacking skills – wait, what, it's in production?

Re: Oi Belkin!!

I can see both sides here.

I'd be annoyed if a product I bought was absolute cr*p, but then that's why I wouldn't buy belkin in the first place. Their routers have never exactly been the last word in reliability!

Remember Windows 1.0? It's been 30 years (and you're officially old)

Re: Ahhh Windows 3.11 for Workgroups...

For us it was 486's with Office 97 and windows 98!