Posts by Dabooka

They're BAAACK: Windows 10 nagware team loads trebuchet with annoying reminders to GTFO Windows 7

Oh well,

Looks like the missus is getting Linux on our aging but faultless laptop soon then.

I'm not upgrading for the sake of it when it's little more than a glorified browser and CD ripping device.

Prodigy dancer and vocalist Keith Flint found dead aged 49

And again, in a variety of gigs throughout their career

Re: Yawn.

With Chris G 100% there.

Re: Yawn.

Never taken drugs back then (beer is all I ever needed) but I assure you I was surrounded by those that were on the stuff and I still loved and got The Prodigy's music style.

That's not to say powders and pills wouldn't have 'helped it along' or whatnot, just that it was (is) bloody enjoyable whilst sober. Well, maybe a bit pissed but you get my point.

Absolutely gutted

Refreshing to see how many people on here share the same memories and views of their music though.

Firestarter being banned on TOTP as 'he scared kids' is always amusing, as most folk think Smack My Bitch Up was their first to fall to the censors. My first 'proper' gig was The Prodigy in Newcastle (The MAyfair for those that may remember it), where they ended the set with a early version on No Good (Start The Dance) when all there earlier stuff was Charly etc. Cracking tune. Breathe is a tough one to beat mind, but there's a lot to choose from.

I am amazed how so many on here have never heard the music though. Not knowing Keith Flint bey name is fair enough, but the tracks have been doing the rounds for thirty years and he's not exactly a face you'd forget in a hurry.

Ah, this military GPS system looks shoddy but expensive. Shall we try to break it?

Re: Pointless tale of destruction

It's one thing talking at a function and quickly killing it dead, submitting an entire Who, me? is a little different!

Re: waste

I think we may work with each other and not know it....

Pointless tale of destruction

To not be told of the findings, to complain of the cost and deliberately smash it up, all seems a bit of a wasted tale to be honest. Not even any mention of a fallout or cover up.

2/10

Former senior UK council officer fined for doing dodgy data dealing to help his girlfriend

Re: Berk

My experience of a sizeable county council would echo the sentiments above. Stupidity on this scale is predominant.

I also don't really know what they aimed to achieve with such a stunt. It's not as if it was a tendering process that was under way, what edge could knowing other's CVs really offer them?

Idiots. And I too doubt he got a 'full' pension, although I could still imagine him taking early retirement. Probably a consultant for them now.

Solder and Lego required: The Register builds glorious Project Alias gizmo to deafen Alexa

Re: Nest controllers

I did not know this, but I doubt I'll share it with them; I'd hate to come over as ridiculing their decisions anymore than I already have.

I am somewhat amazed at this though. Clearly I appreciate if the net goes down the connection is lost for remote access, but I would have assumed access via the internal wifi network would still be granted. Evidently that is not the case.

Re: Second photo

That wasn't just me then?!

Re: If I was to have one

This 100%.

We had some friends over at the weekend who were selling the virtues of Nest heating controllers and to say I remain unconvinced is an understatement. Utterly pointless vs the cost and risk, but hey ho each to their own. Fifty quid for remote LEDs for the light fittings. Eh?

Although as the link posted further up, I did have fun over Christmas dropping all sorts of things into conversation to see what their targeted ads Alexa would start to show. Eventually she insisted I stopped but couldn't explain why, even though she was adamant it does not listen, as the panic and worry started to build.

Dratted hipster UX designers stole my corporate app

RE: not a clickable link

In his defence, does he actually have the HTML open or do you still need the bronze badge for that?

Oh and I certainly do hover to see where it'll take me. As normal folk do.

Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019

Technician Ted amongst others.

A once-in-a-lifetime Opportunity: NASA bids emotional farewell to its cocky, hardworking RC science car on Mars

Re: Opportunity---NNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

'Reboot required'

Unlock with Fingerprint [F2] or Password [F3]?

Viasat: Huzzah, we're going to the EU courts over airline broadband

Re: EU fail.

Err, what?

Not cool, man: Dixons spanked over discount on luxury 'smart' fridge with wildly fluctuating price

4k for a fridge?

Really? Just how smart is it? Will it actually prepare the veg for me getting in or does it just let me know I'm running low on milk and mechango?

Senior slippery sex stimulator sales exec sacked for shafting .org-asmic cyber-space place, a tribunal hears

Re: Well, still an idiot

Exactly this.

My own blog has both .com and .co.uk for crying out loud, and I'm not exactly a million pound buisness. It certainly sounds like a decision only a Muppet would make not retaining the .org (or at least mothballing it) so assume he did this to prove a point? Why else wouldn't you keep and use both?

Oh cool, the Bluetooth 5.1 specification is out. Nice. *control-F* master-slave... 2,000 results

If he did that as a hobbyist and got it to work, he could have made a fortune working at the likes of Nokia. Typically their IrDA modems needed a clear and sustained line of sight, no bright lights, the correct sequence to establish a handshake (granted the plane would be one way traffic) and a waning moon to function.

To pull that off on a moving plane outside in the sunshine? I'm unconvinced...

Using WhatsApp for your business comms? It's either that or reinstall Lotus Notes

Re: RE: Alister

I had that on the Dragon 32 although I always thought it was branded as Android Attack (in my defence I was about 7). I do recall the flash on the box claiming 'Real Digital Speech!' and my favourite 'Written in 100% machine code!'

'We'll get you next time' wa occasionally spoken when you clocked a level and escaped.

'Numpty new boy' lets the boss take fall for mailbox obliteration

Re: This could be my place

Ha, Good post. I hate this 10 min edit limit....

Thankfully I'm non-techy so any typos I make have limited result. I am aware of several of the bigger mistakes made over the years, and the measures taken to cover them up, but that's because I'm friends with the right folks in IT.

This could be my place

Honestly, I started working in a college around that time and it was <i?exactly</i> as described; Netware, resetting profiles, reluctance to use email (IT in general), passwords-on-PostIts, the lot. It's only the number of staff that's different.

Uncanny.

Fujitsu says UK Foreign Office can't count in lawsuit over loss of £350m comms contract

Re: Doesn't make sense...

Yep, that's my reading. Surely their technical argument about not adhering to the hybrid requirement they'd have been out of the running all along and a lot further down the pecking order than a measly 1% (rounded or not).

Crooks the lot of them.

Ooh, my machine is SO much faster than yours... Oh, wait, that might be a bit of a problem...

Re: Time machine

Yep, I'd have to agree. Although an amateur kid with a dangerous level of enthusiasm, I only knew 3Com as hardware cards and hubs.

My first experience of Novell Netware was many years later when the ortgainsation I was with went national with the databases (PeoplePlus if I recall) and got rid of legcay regional networks. That also saw a shift to 'high end' 486s and early Pentiums (all Dells) to replace the creaking fleet of various 286/386 and even a TI 486DX4(!) which was actually far too new to be consigned to the skip.

Re: Cat-5?

Well even old Amstrad 1512s and 1640s had an (optional) 10 or 20MB HDD so most 386s exceeded that size but you're right, not by much. Maybe 40 or 80MB unless you were loaded / lucky and got a ~200MB or so. Or maybe slaved two together?

Happy days of IDE....

Just updated Windows 7? Can't access network shares? It isn't just you

Re: 'On a point of order, Mr Speaker'

FINALLY!

I never actually intended for a debate about the term (although clearly it;s wrong).

Re: 'On a point of order, Mr Speaker'

Well I'm a Brit living in Britain, and I've never heard the term 'lappy' out in the wild. Indeed I've never heard the IT mob use it either and I expect I'd be despatched forthwith if I were to do so.

So I guess I'm not seeing your point, if there is indeed one? Bollocks to the El Reg article of old?

'On a point of order, Mr Speaker'

I wish to refer my fellow contributors to this here link.

I await the Speaker's ruling and a suitable admonishment.

You were told to clean up our systems, not delete 8,000 crucial files

1994?

Yes I know I could check IMDB but where's the fun in that?!

First movie I saw with my (future) missus.

I remember the 2Gb file size limit in 95 / ME

It caused a hell of a nightmare when trying to edit a video for whatever reason in the early 2000s, and was a good excuse to upgrade everything, so certainly some machines would've had higher than 320mb.

However being in a government organisation 2 or 3 years earlier, I suspect there was a greater chance the hard drive would've been a more modest size though, so 320-500mb sounds feasible.

Until now, if Canadian Uber drivers wanted to battle the tech giant, they had to do it in the Netherlands – for real

Re: Always the Netherlands?

Good shout, Dutch drivers have to attend arbitration in Calgary.

Of course they could just offer to pay expenses and the fee upfront and make it fair. Obviously they host all of these in Stoke, that would surely put any claimants right off.

I'm just not sure the computer works here – the energy is all wrong

Re: Memories

Really?

I thought the 727s had a three man crew with Flight Engineer, surely any level of autonomous landing would've involved a great deal of manual 'support and intervention'?

That's not to say none were upgraded of course, but I assume even the later versions wouldn't have been fully autonomous landers?

Just curious. :-)

My 2019 resolution? Not to buy any of THIS rubbish

Re: Alexa...

Yep, have to agree. My in-laws were aghast because we bought some Sonos One speakers but opted for the version sans Alexa. Apparently ours were cheaper but weren't as good as the Alexa enabled versions.....

Apple blew my mind – literally, says woman: MagSafe plug sparked face-torching blaze, lawsuit claims

Oxygen supports combustion does it not?

I was going to say that, depsite my knowledge being sketchy and my memeory fading, I thought oxygen supported combustion but wold not 'igntite' as it were. As usual the crowd have already flagged this up as such, which makes me think how on earth is this going to proceed? Surely it'll be dismissed, or is this a case of playing for an settlement hence the low value of the claim?

Oregon can't stop people from calling themselves engineers, judge rules in Traffic-Light-Math-Gate

Re: Surely this is just payback?

I know they're available, I was talking more about the focus of the story shifting in other media outlets too.

A bit like the 'flood of immigrants' distracting us away from the borked Brexit debacle...

Surely this is just payback?

I mean I appreciate the statute exists, but isn't this a case of sour grapes by someone being told how to do their job better by a geezer who's improved their 'math'? I'm sure they loved receiving a letter saying 'You're doing it wrong, do this!', so a quick check of the register is easy payback.

After all the story doesn't actually make reference to if the revised calculations are indeed correct, instead the focus is on the use of engineer...

Found yet another plastic nostalgia knock-off under the tree? You, sir, need an emulator

Never had an Amiga

But a lot of those games I did play on one, although ownership was on the PC.

Cannon Fodder. Great game, have a virtual pint.

Corel – yeah, as in CorelDraw – looks in its Xmas stocking and discovers... Parallels

Ah Corel Draw!

How I loved that, messing around with vectors was full on futuristic compared to the bitmaps squares I was used to. See remember the hot air balloon on the box and the 348 floppies.

I do also remember how Word 2 (?) emulated the Word Perfect shortcut keys, but I guess that doesn't count (unless I missed that lawsuit). I sure WP 5.1 was ctrl-p to print and Word was ctrl-shift-F12 but also responded to ctrl-p.*

*Age is working against me here there may be some inaccuracies there but I'm sure my point is clear.

London's Gatwick airport suspends all flights after 'multiple' reports of drones

Re: I wonder if...

Quote "I say kids, but TBH it's always boys really. Or young men. We are definitely the stupider sex."

It's really disappointing in 2018 to see such a blatantly sexist and cliched comment on the Reg forums, suggesting that boys and men are inherently more stupid than females based entirely on their gender.

Actually when you say it out loud it's kind hard to argue with isn't it. Carry on!

IBM: Co-Op Insurance talking direct to coding subcontractor helped collapse of £55m IT revamp project

Re: UAT

All I know is my missus is a product manager and recently has had problems where the lack of BA / QA etc has resulted in the rule of unintended consequences being played out when developers have gone off plan. No bad intentions of course, that goes without saying, but when you are talking about calculating tax for example, you really do have to know (or at least know to check...) every piece of minutiae.

There's always a running battle between dev time, testing and getting out to market, where the various factions are always the 'hard done to' and 'their managers don't get it', but that is no different to many other sectors. Sure the actual output may vary, but the adage that managers know nothing and developers / teachers / machine operates etc are being held back by meddling incompetence is often little more than a lazy stereotype. The reality is not as clear cut in that.

Now manager employed solely to hit data targets (such as those found in NHS) is a concept I cannot get behind at all.

The Palm Palm: The Derringer of smartphones

Sorry I thought I read £350

Which clearly is ridiculous, as a secondary phone why would I want to pay nearly double what I spend on my main handset?

This is just something to take out to the pub right? The small battery, ability to call and maybe an app or two and I'm sorted, but it's about £280 too expensive.

I'll await the might of AliExpress and Banggood to develop their thirty quid alternatives...

Ticketmaster tells customer it's not at fault for site's Magecart malware pwnage

Just out of curiosity

What did the Java 'customer support product' actually do? Clearly I don't mean the hacked code, I'm referring to the intended function of it.

Doom: The FPS that wowed players, gummed up servers, and enraged admins

Re: All credit to iD games...

So many of us experiencing identical flashbacks, especially the Dragon 32 to Amstrad 464 (and then 6128).

Serial cables at the dining table were a thing at mine for while but soon I scored for some old cheapernet cards and hooked up a small token ring. I may be wrong but I only recall up to four players on head to head and can't recall internet play, but that might have been the limitations of my setup back then.

I do recall LAN parties involving mates bringing base stations, CRT monitors, Soundblaster speakers / headphones, keyboards and mice for a whole weekend. Used to flip between Doom, Quake, Duke 3D, Heretic and Rise of The Triads.

Ah the chicken spell in Heretic. Halcyon days.....

Google CEO tells US Congress Chocolate Factory will unleash Dragonfly in China

Re: I thought Google was supposed to 'do no evil'?

Bloody hell Bob, that's virtually incoherent.

Seriously, chill the fuck down and sort yourself out. It's not 4chan

Google: I don't know why you say Allo, I say goodbye

Re: Messages?

Can't you turn that off in settings? I've just lost my Android, but thought Messenger was alright to be honest.

BOFH: State of a job, eh? Roll the Endless Requests for Further Information protocol

Again the BOFH teaches me something

As a user I'm learning all the tricks of IT at work.

Total Inability To Support User Phones: O2 fries, burning data for 32 million Brits

Do people really need reminding buses are still running?

Are folk that dense to assume no buses are operating because an app doesn't update? Hang on, I think I've just answered that one myself.

Do not adjust your set: Hats off to Apple, you struggle to shift iPhones 'cos you're oddly ethical

Nice try, but...

You're still not getting a Christmas card

Q: If Pesky Pepper had a peek at patient papers, at how many patient papers did Pesky Pepper peek? A: 231

Re: At least it was reported

Indeed, from what I can read into the article that is my take on it too; I cannot believe that a missed requirement for training and systems, whether mandatory or best practice, wouldn't have been mentioned in the summing up.

Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence

It's all Greek to me this

But other than for digital currency I can't see it having much use in the real world or by now we'd see it out in the wild.

This article just suggests it is indeed emperor's new clothing as I'm sure any successful applications would've be exploited by the marketing droids behind it.