* Posts by LewisRage

185 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Sep 2015

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Switchzilla rolls out Wi-Fi 6 kit: New access points, switch for a standard that hasn't officially arrived

LewisRage

Sorry... Cisco have reused the model name Catalyst for their WAPs.

I just find this stuff astonishing, like there aren't enough words to use to give a new thing a new name?

I can see it now "Dave bring a Cisco Catalyst in the van with you, we need to increase capacity at site"

"No problems Steve, I've got one to hand, see you in an hour"

...

"Steve you spanner, you've brought a fucking switch/access point [delete as necessary] when I clearly meant you to bring an access point/switch [delete as appropriate]"

Out-of-office email ping-pong fills server after server over festive break

LewisRage

And then everyone can go on holiday to penisland.com

Strong-willed field support op holds it together during painful customer call

LewisRage

I used to work the service desk for, as it was, Norwich Union. Being a very large company it had a whole variety of sub-divisions all with their own acronym, you'd get calls from NUI, NUGA, NUITS etc etc, there were many of these and all varied. Too many to really remember them all but it generally didn't matter. They had a computer, it had a problem, you fixed it and moved on with your life.

One day I had a call from someone from NFU. We went back and forth, her computer didn't have an asset tag, her name wasn't in the support system, I checked which office she was in, it was Norwich and although I didn't recognise the address there were a few small offices that you might not come across all that often.

Eventually I started getting more broad in my questioning and it became apparent that she was with the National Farmers Union and bizarrely she had a 'Call Service Desk on 01603 699999' (which was out number) stuck on it.

9 months later my team leader shouts over and asks me if I've ever heard of NFU. I told him it was National Farmers Union and he told me I needed to stop taking the fucking piss and help, so I explained and it turned out that this person had the same sticker on their computer.

Defense against the Darknet, or how to accessorize to defeat video surveillance

LewisRage

Re: Defense against the Darknet

British keyboard layout :

2 = "

3 = £

4 = $

On the logitech in front of me the # shares a key with ~ on the far right just below ] next to the return/enter key.

Whilst that matches the HP laptop layout next to me it isn't reliable; I have a bunch of computers in the office that have an annoyingly short/single key back space and the hash key sits between it and the =/+ key.

Brit hacker jailed for strapping ransomware to smut site ad networks

LewisRage

£700K is just what they know about...

If I was doing something like this you can be sure that I'd have a bunch of crypto wallets stashed somewhere unlikely/inaccessible to the authorities, leave a large enough chunk somewhere obvious to be found so that it's feasible that they've got all the remaining money, claim a sex/gambling/drug addiction to explain away any discrepancy and then cash it all out once you are a free man again.

Razer – perfectly happy to sell you a laptop for over $2,000, but when it comes to fixing security holes... tough sh*t

LewisRage

Same as their phones

Sounds like there is as much after market care for their laptops as there is for their phones.

The original Razer phone is still at a patch level of July '18... and there's no sign of an update that I can see.

Naming your company 101: Probably best not to have the word 'Oracle' anywhere near branding

LewisRage

Re: Lack of detail?

I don't think it matters if they didn't offer any defense does it?

If Oracle101 had rocked up and made the same points you have then perhaps it would have gone differently, as it is the adjudicator isn't there to discover evidence for the decision, just to make the decision on the evidence presented, which none.

Lip-reading smart speakers: Just what no one always wanted

LewisRage

Re: Wonderful

Google just gave me a smart speaker.

Not that I'd accuse them of being the modern Stasi...

...not publicly anyway.

And not in my home either, now.

Or indeed not when I am carrying my phone with me.

Or when I am in ear shot of anyone elses android phone.

LewisRage

Re: subliminal facial muscle movements instead

I'm guessing they would, in much the same as people with parkinsons will struggle with a generic touch interface and people with speech impediments struggle with voice control.

LewisRage

Re: jaw rattling speaker?

>it was illegal for a BT speaker to produce notes below about 150Hz

Why would that be a thing? A MiniRig2 will demonstrate that this is not a fact.

BT might not be the best for audio fidelity but given that most are listening to compressed streams anyway it is awfully convenient.

Android clampdown on calls and texts access trashes bunch of apps

LewisRage

Re: What about Side-Loaded Apps?

Yes, absolutely. That's what Cerberus (mentioned in the article) are recommending to their subscribers to return the SMS functionality.

Sadly of course as more people get used to the idea of sideloading so the security profile of the device/os goes down with it as people start getting tricked into sideloading random shit that they have no way to trust, exactly what the closed app stores are supposed to be helping to avoid.

LewisRage

Cerberus...

...sent a message about this a while back. The app still functions pretty much as before but it can't be controlled remotely by SMS.

However what the Cerberus developers are doing are suggesting we go to their site, retrieve and sideload a non-store version of their app that retains the SMS integration.

Once again an apparent security improvement leads to a less secure environment.

FBI warns of SIM-swap scams, IBM finds holes in visitor software, 13-year-old girl charged over JavaScript prank...

LewisRage

Re: Just wait...

He must have thought the guy he was replying too was in China.

Sure, we've got a problem but we don't really want to spend any money on the tech guy you're sending to fix it

LewisRage

I was sent on a 100 mile round trip...

...to install a new mouse at a customers site.

The mouse on the reception machine in a fancy hotel had gone awry and there was no-one on site who was willing to stick their arm round the back of a PC and swap a USB plug over.

I was happy enough to do it though as it was the beginning of spring and we were enjoying the first real rays of warmth and happiness of the year, and I'd just bought a convertible car so I was extremely happy zipping down the A140 with the wind in my hair to do the job.

Put your tin-foil hats on! Wi-Fi can be used to guesstimate number of people hidden in a room

LewisRage

...WiFi struggles to go through water

Which will make you more noticeable in this test.

The trick seems to be to dehydrate so wifi passes more easily and you become invisible.

Plex plucks media cloud service, sends users scurrying to exit

LewisRage

Re: Whew!

ffmpeg is a convenient and simple solution that both myself and my non-technical girlfriend can use directly from our television.

Oh no, my mistake. Thats plex :)

Trainer regrets giving straight answer to staffer's odd question

LewisRage

Re: Phones too

My dad had a very minor accident in his Porsche and it needed to spend a week at the garage. The replacement car they gave him was a lime green 1987 Austin Metro.

He didn't crash the Porsche again.

LewisRage

Re: Some police Depts in the US won't take reports for stolen phones

Many years ago (in the UK) I lost my phone. I reported it to the insurance and they needed a police reference number.

I went to the police station and reported my phone was missing. They got a clipboard out, wrote down a description and gave me a number. I go back to the insurers and got my new phone a week or so later.

Skip forward ~18 months I lose my phone again. In anticipation of the question from the insurers I went to the police station and asked to report a missing phone. The copper behind the desk said I couldn't.

"If there hasn't been a crime there isn't anything to report to us".

Fair enough I say, but you did this not that long ago. He re-iterated the line about there not being a crime. I explained that without it I can't claim on my insurance. He reiterated the line about there not having been a crime.

This repeats a couple more times before I give up, pause, look him in the eye and say...

"I'd like to report a stolen phone please"

If his eyes had rolled any harder I would have got the jackpot. He proceeds to take out a form and record the details that I was *clearly* making up on the spot about how it was on the table in the pub and how it was suddenly not there.

He doesn't look too happy about it. I get a crime reference number.

I report it to my insurers who go away to process it, 2 days later I'm in bed when my phone rings(!)*, I fish it out from down the side of the bed where it must have fallen when I drunkenly collapsed into bed on the night it went missing.

It was the insurance company telling me that my claim had been approved and where did I want the new phone shipped too?

I told them I'd found it thanks and they could cancel the claim.

*This was a while ago when a phone would last 4+ days without a charge.

Fourth 'Fappening' celeb nude snap thief treated to 8 months in the clink

LewisRage

Re: unsavoury incident?

"former lovers, [...] I bet their copies aren't encrypted because none of them would listen to me when I lectured them on computer security."

And here we are wondering why they are ex-lovers.

Windows 95 roars once more in the Microsoft round-up

LewisRage

"No forced updates"

Because that went so well with XP right?

Windows 0-day pops up out of nowhere Twitter

LewisRage

Re: gpo help?

> remove the whole Task Scheduler service

That's a terrible idea.

Surprise! VAT, customs likely to get a bit trickier in a Brexit no-deal world

LewisRage

Re: This Train Wreck is getting interesting

>if the [redacted] in Brussels has its way.

It's not the [redacted] in burssels that are the problem surely, it's the [redacted] sons of [redacted] mother[redacted] [redacted] [redacted] tory [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]'s in westminster that we should be worrying about 'getting their way'.

OpenAI bots smashed in their first clash against human Dota 2 pros

LewisRage

Re: why surprised humans beat a handicapped AI ?

It's a fair point, but the AI also gets other advantages, being able to 'see' the map from the beginning where the humans can't, and character selection is limited.

Microsoft's cheapo Surface: Like a netbook you can't upgrade

LewisRage

Re: Nothing wrong with a netbook

@Teiwaz

It's the Acer Aspire One 722.

Maybe I'll take another look, it'd be handy to get away from windows on it.

LewisRage

Re: Nothing wrong with a netbook

Still got my old Acer Aspire netbook running in the sitting room for basic stuff, got an SSD in and 8GB ram. Windows 10 runs* and it does enough for the time being.

It'd do better with a *nix OS but there are not drivers for the wifi and my skills don't extend to making my own.

If nothing else it gets me RDP'd to a fairly powerful VM running on a microserver somewhere in a cupboard, but I wouldn't want to have to use it for anything.

*kinda.

ReactOS 0.4.9 release metes out stability and self-hosting, still looks like a '90s fever dream

LewisRage

Re: RINW10

"moving stuff around [...] often taking everyday tasks an increasing the number steps to achieve them."

worse, WORSE than that is dicking around with keyboard shortcuts.

Microsoft tries cutting the Ribbon in Office UI upgrade

LewisRage

"COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE LAWYER"

> Can't use word.

I'm glad I'm not in need of any commercial real estate lawyering or I'd be seriously worried I'd end up with your incompetent self.

Have you tried using notepad? Sounds more like it's your ability level.

LewisRage

Re: UI for portrait screen?

The problem is that no-one is designing UI for widescreens either.

Currently I have a browser window open with a load of shit taking up the top 5% of the screen, the middle third of the screen is taken up with the el reg content and two completely blank bars down either side.

Same with basically every other current interface.

I'd be greatly appreciative of the option to move the menu/tab/interface to the left or right rather than across the top.

LewisRage

Re: Another Useless Change

so microsoft should drop all the power user options because you don't need them?

LewisRage

Re: it is not the customer's job to adapt

"better UI (such as Libre Office"

Ha, good one.

Oh... you mean it?

LewisRage

keyboard shortcuts still work mate, if you actually had muscle memory from 2003 you'd probably know that because you'd have tried it out of habit...

As much as I do like the ribbon I've never bothered to locate the fill series option on it because ALT+E,I,S brings up the fill series dialogue.

etc etc

I'm assuming this will all disappear too though and that will be annoying.

New Galaxy un-smartphone can’t go online because Samsung's thought of the children

LewisRage

Replaceable Battery

So it's better than any of the current flagship phones?

Sysadmin’s worst client was … his mother! Until his sister called for help

LewisRage

Re: and also Ahh sub folders Ahh, parents

Just set them up with a mapping at the end of the folder structure and then they can add another 255 characters to that.

LewisRage

Re: and also Ahh sub folders Ahh, parents

I used to support an environment that had, amongst other astonishing stuff, a folder structure that looked something like this

Operations\NOC\

Operations\NOC\NOC OLC\NOC NEW DO NOT USE\NOC\

Operations\NOC 2012\

Guess which was 'live'

I also made the mistake of mapping a drive for end users that already had a 40 char folder name, so where they saw U:\ the server saw \\server\share\some folder name\some other folder name\accounts

The users then built out a folder structure that used the full 255 char limit from where they were mapping too. Of course when it came for me to do any work on that server I'd hit this huge chunk of files that windows was no longer able to deal with thanks to the fact the file names were too long.

User fired IT support company for a 'typo' that was actually a real word

LewisRage

Re: sub for a riot

but did you ever ask your girlfriend for coal?

Huawei joins Android elite with pricey, nocturnal 40MP flagship

LewisRage

Re: *Points in disappointment*

why does every body get in such a tiz about a notch.

You've got a screen that goes to the edge all the way round, surely thats preferable, even with a notch, to having 10% of the devices front wasted to plasticy bezel?

Cambridge Analytica 'privatised colonising operation', not a 'legitimate business', says whistleblower

LewisRage

Re: BBC

@Lost all faith...

"cambridge analytica site:bbc.co.uk"

This is of course exactly how the majority of internet users go about navigating the BBC news site.

The fact is that if you go to bbc.co.uk/news right now there is not a single mention of 'Cambridge' 'Analytica' 'Referendum' or 'Wylie' and a single entry for 'Brexit' that has nothing to do with this story. A casual reader wouldn't know a single thing about this story, if they weren't looking for it, after reading the BBC news homepage in it's entirety.

It was featured fairly prominently yesterday though.

What the @#$%&!? Microsoft bans nudity, swearing in Skype, emails, Office 365 docs

LewisRage

RE : M$ are analysing the content

If you read the fucking* article you'd see that they aren't actively policing it, so no they aren't parsing your latest book/email/skype chat. They retain the right to investigate if there is a complaint.

*written on Windows 10, signed in with my Office365 account. Come at me brocrosoft.

Horn star Sudan, last male northern white rhino, dies aged 45

LewisRage

"Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural “background” rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day"

Uni IT man stole £22k of Macs to pay for smack

LewisRage

Re: Eh?

"What sort of background check could you do on me that would show I did drugs in the past?"

How about : "Here... I've got a great big bag of smack, do you want some?"

LewisRage

RE: 3 years in Pokey should work.

Yes, time in prison has been shown to both reduce drug use and improve behaviour on release.

Bitcoin's blockchain: Potentially a hazardous waste dump of child abuse, malware, etc

LewisRage

Usenet was all text based...

...until a mechanism was found to store binary data, this was to be the 'end of usenet' at a couple of points but it's still going strong. Admittedly the block chain doesn't have the capability to remove questionable content but I'm sure if usenet can survive storing questionable content the blockchain will find a way (although perhaps the answer is 'a different block chain').

My PC is broken, said user typing in white on a white background

LewisRage

Mr B*stard

For Mr Bastard you need to turn to autocorrect.

In your spell checker of choice simply set an autocorrect rule to change the users surname to a suitable superlative.

I found this out on my dads copy of MS Word in the mid 90's, he went from Mr Rage to Mr Old Git. Thing is I forgot and he didn't notice for a really long time. Apparently his new accountant questioned it, I'm guessing at least 9 months after I made the change.

Star Paws: Attack of the clones

LewisRage

Re: Cloning As A Service

We're of one mind, even down to repurposing the unwanted genetic matter to refill the protein vats.

LewisRage

@Gordon 10

This is easy to solve, simply copy the model for all these razor/recipe/beer/gin subscription boxes and couple it with the cloning technique.

Every month you get a fresh puppy clone in a dog sized box, you put the old one in and send it to the freepost address for introduction to the doggy retirement home (aka Soylent Pup). All for the low low price of £20/month (initial fee, rising to £20000/month after 1 month).

It'd need a clever name though. Best suggestion gets a 10% off their first month.

Flight Simulator's DRM fighter nosedives into Chrome's cache

LewisRage

Re: The path to hell

"Catching cunts who are ripping off other people's hard work."

nine thumbs down

"What good intentions?"

34 Thumbs up.

Everyone in this thread seems to be pretty relaxed about people's work being ripped off.

LewisRage
FAIL

Re: The path to hell

@dan1980

"but, more simply, the goal is to protect their profit."

What complete bastards. How dare they etc etc.

Everyone working in the digital world should be working for free and living off the generosity of the community.

Two thumbs up for you too. Shocking

LewisRage

Re: The path to hell

Catching cunts who are ripping off other people's hard work.

Developer recovered deleted data with his face – his Poker face

LewisRage

DEL & * catastrophe

In the distant past I was providing support for an EDI supply chain system, the one I was currently working on was running one of the large distribution depots for Marks & Spencer, essentially everything went through here.

I talked their IT through tidying up a bunch of backup data files that were impacting performance. I said, and I'm pretty sure I said this right, "type Del *.0??" what she heard was "type DEL *.??"

Sadly all the current data files had a 2 letter extension and we were running this in the data directory.

All their data had gone. I asked about backups and she had the audacity to say 'I don't know about that I'm the Unix admin'. Turns out that they didn't keep backups.

Fortunately they had a functional spare system that we could replay all the changes into and we got them back up and running after only something like 12 hours of solid work.

Bloke sues Microsoft: Give me $600m – or my copy of Windows 7 back

LewisRage

Re: i want a slice of that $600M

"Couldnt even access a boot USB stick."

yeah, because that could be caused by the operating system

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