Posts by lsces 101 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jan 2015
Having recently taken another 2 HP printers down the tip because they are out of warrantee I think is about time all manufacturers should be required to offer a repair service? I did try to repair one of them using a replacement new print head, but without success. Since it was an A3 all-in-one machine is grated having to throw it away, and at the very least HP should have collected it to recycle themselves if they refuse to repair it?
But the problem was that we kept loosing data! Machine was working fine, the days statistics printed off, but next morning they were missing.
After several days of the same problem I went on site to monitor things. A bit longer run to get to site. Daily stats run off everything fine. The machine was left on so it was still accessible remotely to allow managers to check anything they needed, and shut down later to restart in the morning.
7PM a hand appears around the corner, pulls out the plug and plugs in another plug - without even looking - then the vacuum starts ...
The real irritation here was not so much the hand of god, but the fact that while 'write to disk' was activated on the machine it turned out it only happened when the program shut down! Fixing that fault help a solve other site problems where electricity was an equally mystic provision.
"A shame, as there's a lot of technical information that's going to be lost."
Not just technical ... a lot of historic groups fall into the same hole and information is lost. I've managed to archive a few sites that marry in with my genealogical archives but others will not be so lucky.
But even that is not as reliable these days :(
Having had my own and client emails bounced by M$ and the like, the ONE thing that should be a legal requirement IS a bounce message, rather than simply handling the traffic as if it HAS been delivered. But then the whole internet is just built on lies?
Digital video handling systems I was building even before IBM messed up the hardware had high speed ports that bypassed any CPU paths and now they are talking about adding it as if it's some modern improvement? So are we going to see patents claiming it has just been invented?
Spent yesterday winding back another Dell Optiplex computer that had been bricked by the update. All the machines have now had the feature updates disabled until next year. At least THAT facility is available now. The update screws up the USB mouse and keyboard so they are unusable. One might be able to recover with a PS2 keyboard except the motherboards don't have a PS2 port. Boot from a USB stick and repair allows removing 2004 and makes the machines workable again, but it's a bloody waste of time having to do that after machines have been unusable while the update was applied as well.
Just spent several hours trying to get a clients machine working again after it allowed 2004 upgrade through on Monday. Mouse and Keyboard don't work once the windows logo page appears. On a machine that has been running W10 for some considerable time. Third attempt at creating a boot disk finally worked by using a USB stick and once I could actually get to the repair options WITH the mouse and keyboard working we managed to kill the upgrade and everything is working again. Upgrades killed for a couple of months, but both mouse and keyboard have the latest driver both the wireless version and wired. Of cause if the pigging DELL computer had a PS/2 keyboard port then we would probably have been working a few hours quicker? Next problem is what happens when the block times out ...
Having switched many sites to a simple .uk I'm now dropping the .co.uk versions ... and I'm getting daily emails from the registrars AND Nominet about needing to renew them ... this con sounds like another reason to HAVE to continue paying them even if the .co.uk domain IS our registered trade mark?
The only thing that comes to mind over this is that in order for a third party to access information from inside the providers network there should be SOME log of that activity? Or are these mobile providers providing free bandwidth to some third parties that they do not bill? Independent of who provides the kit, there should be no back doors that can't be blocked by proper traffic management although the crap way the whole system has been built does mean that even American suppliers seem to have unmonitored access to everything anyway? And if all the content is properly encrypted no-one can read it anyway ... unless we get stung by back doors in the encryption process. So is China any more of a risk than any other country in the world?
While production hosting of PHP may well be essentially Linux based, and benchmarks will tend to show that is much faster than a windows hosted solution, the DEVELOPMENT environment may well currently be running on a windows powered desktop/laptop, and that is where provision of a suitable platform may be sensible. The only looser if Microsoft try pulling the plug on a PHP development platform is Microsoft as it is yet another reason for dropping windows completely. But personally I think any developer would already be running on a Linux desktop anyway? Nowadays the applications that will only work on windows are getting less and less so the need to put up with a second class operating system is waning nicely :)
LibreOffice came about because Oracle tried to seize control of OpenOffice after acquiring it from Sun. It was that money grab that resulted in most of the developers walking. It only became Apache OpenOffice because Oracle would not back down and simply pass the name to the original developers. The RIGHT thing to do now is to merge the two back into 'OpenOffice' ?
And we have already given ARM to the Chinese so little chance of developing the core components. America seems to be under the impression that IT is the only country that designs the integrated circuits we all rely on, but in reality the major producers are all in the far east. How much of Apple's product is produced in the US? Could they afford to build kit if China shut the door ...
My problem has always been NOT wanting the machine crippled by the google bloat when I have perfectly acceptable alternatives. OSMAnd replaces Maps, and other real open source apps provide email, browser and the stuff that run THE SAME as those on my Linux desktop ...
Legacy systems that still rely on access to ports such as a real parallel port do not work on 64 bit windows and many 32 bit applications will NOT reliably work on 64 bit installs! Yes you can completely replace all of the hardware and re-write 20+ year old applications to work, but many applications HAVE been proven to be reliable and starting again from scratch will also start the clock on re-testing every aspect of a system that IS currently working perfectly stably. The volume of systems does not justify the cost of a complete rebuild and many systems have diverged over years exacerbating the problem of rewriting each version. Maintaining systems which may well involve moving to a new computer is a valid way of saving money although simply switching off any access to 'windows updates' and ensuring older builds of windows are maintained is the only safe way to maintain these systems anyway. Security is not relevant since in the vast majority of cases they are not networked anyway.
Current planning is to move these legacy systems over to hardware that is not reliant on Windows at all and any removal of 32bit builds completely will simply reinforce that path forward. 64bit Windows does not allow the level of real time operation that these systems rely on ...
Even on older processors many of these machines manage 99.9% idle time so 'faster versions' do little except increase the idle time further, but one needs the instant response when something does happen, not having to wait for some cloud process to wake up seconds later.
Report email scam has been a feature in Thunderbird for a long time and using it where the link is not already providing a 'deceptive site' block usually proves effective when checking follow up messages. That this is now implemented via google rather then the original Mozilla service is more of a concern and I trust GCHQ more than I do google! What SHOULD change is that international law enforcement actually deal with the people carrying out the fraud, rather than google simply 'giving them a slap on the wrist' ... so getting GCHQ involved in the process makes a LOT of sense to me, but has to be a coordinated international framework. And direct access to those fraudsters details where they are using 'money laundering services' like bitcoin should be a first step in bringing down internet fraud?
Why is it such a problem these days to do multiple screens? I started using Windows98 for a project simply because it simply worked across 16 screens OUT OF THE BOX. Even Linux seems to have lost the plot in handling just two monitors today. I can't run my 4 screen wallpapers across the monitors which used to work perfectly. Just what is gone wrong with any 'improvements' these days ... nothing seems to improve at all?
ONLY a quarter of bug reports being 'bogus' sounds pretty good to me. On a new system a lot of the time is spent explaining just how it works and if the bug report system is the only way of managing operational questions then the 'triage' is to make sure that the user documentation is brough in line with just how it does work?
There was never any point making .uk available without also phasing out .co.uk, but of cause that then penalises .org.uk ... You either have one or the other and THAT is the main problem here and always was.
The sale of .uk domains to anybody other than legitimate UNITED KINGDOM companies is just another example of how the internet was broken from day one? And creating millions of phantom domains with billions of phantom links is yet another example of the utter mess the whole system is in today.
We are not creating 150 new UK business entities every minute so there is no need to allow any registrar to do that! The whole system is just another imaginary money creating activity. The sale of .org confirms that as the only way that sale can be justified is if the .org doamins are going to be shafted year on year for something that adds NO value to the organisation using the domain.
The machine is more than adequate for the job it was bought for and certainly the only limitation is the crap broadband connection. It's sitting next to me doing everything it needs to and it's only the continual harrasment of update warnings that provide ANY problem ... If 32Gb disk is too small for W10 then why was the machine even in stock at PCWorld anyway?
I have a 3 month old laptop supplied with W10 installed and currently it will not start up without complaining that there is not enough memory to update ... Need an external disk, but it can't even use that. The on board 30Gb disk does not have enough free space to install 1903 even after wiping almost everything I've installed that I need to use the laptop. The annoying thing ... ALL I need it for is to use a browser to access client sites for maintenance purposes and after I get back in it does that job without any problems! SHOULD I be able to return the laptop as unfit for purpose simply because W10 will not update on it?
Prior to all of my main applications becoming browser based, everything was written in Builder6 and despite a couple of substantial payments to Embarcadero for later versions of the development platform, those parts have never been successfully moved to anything newer. They are still running quite happily live in the field, although they do need a 32 bit version of Windows to run. However that is probably more for the parallel port access that the programs use for external control then specifically the software. Perhaps it is now time to recode the remaining modules, but Embarcadero is the last place I'd start these days ... no way I can justify the cost even if it had worked ...
Personally I'd prefer to be able to switch off the Google crap so I could use the better free alternatives without wasting so much space on apps I've never used! Although I'm stuck with the crap Samsung ship with the device as well. If Huawai come up with a 'google free' phone it could be very attractive as long as they don't replace it with their own junk? I was currently debating if I bother with the update program from the S9 to S10 but give all the current crap I don't see any point. I may get even more apps that simply refuse to work in portrait mode or like the shit Facebook push - they change from portrait to landscape for no reason! So I am hoping this will be a push for Huawai to come up with something that actually works properly ... none of the American companies do anyway!
I've just returned a Netgear hub purchased to replace the BT Hub6 which continues to cause problems with reliable access to broadband. The Netgear has major faults with port forwarding which apparently they are not going to fix ... obviously they don't even know how to? It's not who sells the kit that is the problem it's that none of them actually understand what they are selling ? Just who does own the core IP that is fundamental to the simple functions of the internet anyway ?
Having been battling continual dropouts on the 'fibre' since it was installed a couple of years back , and attempt to get an answer on how much 200mts of fibre from the cabinet I can see down the road to replace the problematic copper has just been blanked. HOPEFULLY they have now finally fixed the the problem with 30cm of copper around the top of the pole. But the MAIN complaint is why does it have to take 10 or more minutes to reconnect after a dropout the analogue broadband would be back up in a minute at most? Or in the case of a Hub6 ... not reconnect at all until you power cycle it the next morning!
In the early days of computers in the office serving several processes ... before there was even a thought of a 'server room' in a small office ... the technique was to use red plugs and signs for the power socket saying do not unplug! It was also a time where we were still working out just how things like Windows did work, but one site we were having problems with loosing data. The daily reports were printed after close of play, but by the morning all the data was missing, without any obvious explanation. After a few weeks of this problem we decided to visit the office and monitor the system over night. Around 7PM a hand appeared around the corner, unplugged the red plug and plugged the vacuum in - all without even looking. Mystery Solved? Plugged back in the computer fires up and returns to running state ready for the next morning, but all the days data is missing! Turns out that the 'speed up' to only write data to the disk when the application closed does not work very well when the power is pulled :) One needs to ensure that 'forced write' is enabled even if it does have an impact on performance ... and these boxes also sprouted a newfangled device called a UPS ...
I keep hitting these sort of 'walls' and when you look under the cover there are hundreds of third party sites listed and all selected by default, and no way to unselect except one at a time. I just go elsewhere so the choice is obvious - they lose any chance of my accessing their site :) This mainly seems to be media services and news sites often linked to from my main news feed the BBC so perhaps we should be flagging this back to them so they can provide better third party sources?
Had the visit to fit Electric and Gas ... already £30 up because of missed one ... but now we need one of the 'new' electric meters when they arrive as the one fitted can't access the gas meter, so they did not change that. I've still got to manually read the gas meter and the smart display is showing a blank usage quite often during the day. I'd had to wait for this meter as the previous ones did not support dual rate and one can see the joins where even this one has no concept of tracking day and night usage! SO as I say what was the point! Perhaps they should have built something that worked before they started pushing it out?
Since it may well be connected to specialized hardware that only has to do a specific job, the problem of getting the same hardware working with a newer version of windows comes to mind. How many systems are still running 32 bit versions of windows so they can still access that hardware by a real parallel port. M$ has broken so much of the physical interface that modern versions of windows can't even connect to some very expensive and still fully operational hardware :(
Just had to return £20 worth of cartridges to Viking Direct as the one I replaced rendered the printer unusable. The replacements cost over £60 ... what was that about printer ink being more valuable than gold? What is even more amusing of cause is the bags to return the empty cartridges which you can't use when they are refilled. Anybody do an A3 printer that takes bottles of ink?
I'm up to 40 and demands are getting up to $5000 dollars now. My joke is I've never been able to get a camera working with the kit here so I'd happily pay to fix THAT problem, but while bitcoin is being used in this way I can't see ANY legitimate reason for the idea that it is a main stream financial service ... it's simply an illegal money laundering system in my book and should be shut down!
Just received a modem from Vodafone for a second fibre broadband only to find it does not even understand IPv6 ... I did not even think to ask about it as the BT circuit already has it set up. I just assumed since the mobile phone has an IPv6 address that the broadband would as well ...
It would perhaps be useful if we had an actual list of providers who do support an IPv6 connection?
I know that wide screen monitors are a thing of the past, but responsive design SHOULD be able to make use of all the blank space that cropped sites like The Register have always had. Far too long and thin is what is needed for limited vertical display devices, but horizontal display devices should be supported as well ... even if many sites can't actually cope with using tablets and the like in horizontal mode ...
Since being upgraded to fibre I was getting outages every day. The BT hub was then taking 5 to 10 minutes to reconnect. Was on a HUB5 and then supplied with 3 HUB6's over some months. All to no avail. I'd even dropped the analogue phone and just pluged the hub in direct. Currently there is a Netgear hub on the line, the analogue side is connected back up, and I've not seen a dropout I can't explain. 30 days clean before re-plugging the analogue gear, and another 24 days clean since. The annoying thing here is that BT paid for the Netgear unit early on because their original installation engineer did not know the hub I was using then would not work with fibre! SO I had to go out late on a Friday to buy something to get the line working again! Should have just ditched the BT hub when it arrived ...
Sod's law says the backhoe will hit the cable duct at the point where all of the fibres are in the same one? Perhaps at the top level sites will have two or more independent ducts allowing re-routing around the break, but how much of the infrastructure that feeds us poor end users goes through a single point of failure at several points on the route?
Pity when using all recent Samsung phones in landscape mode they forget and give you some pages portrait. Something of a safety issue when using the phones in a car hands free and you can't get back to sat nav ... can't actually DIAL from the phones without taking it out and turning around!
Battling currently with Google Play trying to update applications I've in theory disabled on my S9+ so I'm looking forward to a clean open source OS that I don't have to have EITHER Google or Samsung versions of the applications which compete with the Linux compatible ones I run on my desktop. Looks like LineageOS 15.1 is reaching a stable point and it will be nice to get that loaded.
And that is why I have no interest in being screwed yet again by Microsoft! Their actions destroyed my main source of income by their actions over forcing my clients to pay them for a new version of windows and at the same time throwing in 'free' software to help justify the millions of pounds they required because XP was 'no longer supported'. I'm just not interested in dealing with a company that thinks they own everything and this is just another action to take further control of what should be an independent area of business!
But why should I have to? The laptop has been working fine doing the job it was doing. UPDATE AND WIRELESS PORT WERE SWITCHED OFF ... and yet still M$ managed to force an unwanted update through. Given the time wasted on his it would have been cheaper to buy a new laptop ... but why should I need to pay for a ne M$ license when I already have one on the existing machine!
Hence M$ should be paying us!
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