* Posts by jMcPhee

118 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Nov 2015

Feelin' safe and snug on Linux while the Windows world burns? Stop that

jMcPhee

Not many linux users have stopped patching a linux distribution because the vendor started throwing dysfunctionality (like Skype borking, WGA bricking, & driver breaking) and spyware into the updates.

OK, KDE's become a problem. But, unlike the WIN8/10 UI, we uninstall it and use other window managers.

Photobucket says photo-f**k-it, starts off-site image shakedown

jMcPhee

Rattlesnake in a pinata...

Oh, that's good! May I use that in a subordinate's performance review?

How to avoid getting hoodwinked by a DevOps hustler

jMcPhee

Justice

It's always a pleasure to see hustlers scamming organizations which dumped or neglected their own IT staff to save money a few years back

Smart burglars will ride the surf of inter-connected hackability

jMcPhee

In the end, most people are pretty good about rejecting stupid - once they know what they're dealing with. Vista and Cue Cat are dead, right? IoT may take a while for the crap to be filtered leaving behind useful things.

On the other hand, Baryl just sounds like something fun to screw with while waiting for a train.

Scottish govt mulled scrapping £178m car-crash IT system

jMcPhee

CGI, again. Same shysters who cost US govt $$$$ by botching the Obamacare launch.

You're all too skeptical of super-duper self-driving cars, apparently

jMcPhee

Yeah, let's all put our childrens' safety in Microsoft's hands.

Discredit a journo? Easy, that'll be $55k. Fix an election? Oh, I can do that for just $400k

jMcPhee

Nothing new here except...

Marketing is frequently weaponising misinformation. Tobacco companies and 'special interest groups' got really good at it. The only real change is that different set of criminals is now getting the money to do it.

Just think of it as another form of outsourcing.

Amazon pulls snouts from all-you-can-eat cloud storage buffet

jMcPhee

Re: Why not?

Too old school and sensible. The neo-doofs can't say "oh, I'm in the cloud, the next really big thing in IT"

So despite all the cash ploughed into big data, no one knows how to make it profitable

jMcPhee

We heard all about the 'new economy' in the 90's. Too many (excessively rich) people with too much cash to invest. Not much GDP gets created by knowing who watches which cat videos or who checked out Amazon for what brand of water faucet parts.

Lloyds finally inks mega 10-year cloudy outsourcing deal with IBM

jMcPhee

Re: 10 year deal

Will IBM survive another 10 years? They don't have that much left to sell off.

IBM: ALL travel must be approved now, and shut up about the copter

jMcPhee

This makes sense in the proper perspective: IBM's product is share price, not hardware, software, nor goods and services. (Not even dividends)

As long as Wall Street drinks the kool-aid, IBM's management is golden

Bixby bailout: Samsungers bailing on lame-duck assistant

jMcPhee

Shiny junk. Remember Viiv?

Google to give 6 months' warning for 2018 Chrome adblockalypse – report

jMcPhee

Try this

Turn off javascript. Turn off images. View your favorite *reading* sites. Most of the crap is gone while most of the content remains. You may find that the sites are much more readable with all the cruft stripped out.

Windows XP crashed too much to spread WannaCrypt

jMcPhee

WGA

<Windows XP with Service Pack 2 – No infection>

Yet another reason to have punted WGA and stayed with SP2

Does Microsoft have what it takes to topple Google Docs?

jMcPhee

All well and good until a power supply problem hits or there's a new ransomware making the rounds

Three-quarters of IoT projects are failing, says Cisco

jMcPhee

VC response: "If 25% succeed, we'll have to increase the number of investments to have more successes."

After all, these are the people who pumped and dumped juicero and keep plowing other people's cash into uber.

WannaCrypt: Roots, reasons and why scramble patching won't save you now

jMcPhee

Elephant in the cornfield

Flash

Kill Google AMP before it kills the web

jMcPhee

"Novelty for its own sake was an unlamented relic of the centuries of waste." - Arthur C. Clarke

Made for each other! IBM awarded $700m outsourcing gig to cut costs at transport giant

jMcPhee

Apparently these chowderheads missed what happened with project Phoenix. Or... maybe Bombardier hopes to save money with a system which doesn't pay their people

Australia considers joining laptops-on-planes ban

jMcPhee
Devil

The last 16 years of airline mayhem are making ship board travel look better and better

74 countries hit by NSA-powered WannaCrypt ransomware backdoor: Emergency fixes emitted by Microsoft for WinXP+

jMcPhee

Re: Windows XP

Because most people have no interest in fattening M$'s, Dell, and Intel's bottom line

jMcPhee

Re: Every day is a learning day

Yeah, we learned, yet again, that the internet is a playtoy which should be airgapped from critical systems

For now, GNU GPL is an enforceable contract, says US federal judge

jMcPhee

Precedent

Is it significantly different from shrink wrap licensing? That's been decided already

Microsoft's Windows 10 ARM-twist comes closer with first demonstration

jMcPhee

An emulator... just like WINE. Wonder if it runs any better. At least WART was native code.

Well this is awkward. As Microsoft was bragging about Office at Build, Office 365 went down

jMcPhee

Re: Cloud just means...

<<Complete Loss Of Uncontrollable Data ?!>>

Nice touch! That should be added to TITSUP.

Android O-mg. Google won't kill screen hijack nasties on Android 6, 7 until the summer

jMcPhee

Re: Most users...

<<You overestimate the intelligence of the average Android user>>

True... back in the day, many of them had 12:00 flashing on their VCR's

Secure email service builds newsletter bomb defences after attack pummels their inbox

jMcPhee

Stupid Game

It seems like every third site has a "sign up for our email" pimp screen (unless js is turned off). Now, the email providers now have to figure out how to evade bogus subscription requests. It's an idiot's race to the bottom.

It would be easy enough to blacklist known bulkmailers. Or charge a premium for doing so.

Amazon announces new Echo just as Microsoft's first Cortana-powered clone breaks cover

jMcPhee

Echo Show looks like a 3Com Audrey without the keyboard

Agile consultant behind UK's disastrous Common Platform Programme steps down

jMcPhee

Same old con game

In less than 10 years, my former outfit pulled in big buck consultants: McKinsey, then SAP. They got thoroughly hosed by the results.

Agile can work - but not if corporate management uses it as an excuse to evade doing their jobs.

Realistic Brits want at least 3 security steps on bank accounts

jMcPhee

Bank Site Authentication

2FA is good, we know that. But, what about validating the bank sites? DigiNotar hack showed that certificates aren't always credible.

Linux homes for Ubuntu Unity orphans: Minty Cinnamon, GNOME or Ubuntu, mate?

jMcPhee

All I'm looking for is...

...a fine virtual window manager, too.

What is this bullsh*t, Google? Nexus phones starved of security fixes after just three years

jMcPhee
Devil

Re: This is why I use a flip phone...

...not to mention, most flip phone hardware has easily swappable batteries, fits in the pocket, and has near zero chances of being stolen. The downside is that flips don't work very well for no life introverts.

Western Digital relocates HQ, sheds jobs

jMcPhee

Anyone moving an admin operation into San Jose must not be worried about overhead costs - like the way SunEdison moved into Belmont.

Microsoft plans summer CRM war opener against Salesforce

jMcPhee

LinkedIn: Myspace for business

systemd-free Devuan Linux hits version 1.0.0

jMcPhee
Devil

What is systemd??

I've been running Slackware for almost 25 years and have never seen systemd

Will the MOAB (Mother Of all AdBlockers) finally kill advertising?

jMcPhee

It's not so much about blocking ads - it's about blocking superfluous shit. Useless buttons, graphics, CSS, javascript, flash, and all the other garbage is at least as bad as ads.

Switch on your smartphone camera and look how fertile I am

jMcPhee

Re: Disposable barbeques

That is a step up from newspapers and dustbin. We're way too big to flush.

Cloud computing is bigger than AWS and Azure

jMcPhee

Nothing new here, really: cloud computing comes and goes. 40 years ago, it was called TSO (and other things).

IT was cloudy until the early 90's when thenextreallybigthinginIT became client-server. That pan has flashed and TNRBTIT is back to cloud. Prediction: when cloud operators have to turn a profit, things will change. Again.

So my ISP can now sell my browsing history – what can I do?

jMcPhee

Make Junk Data?

So, what would happen if enough of us got an old PC and set up a (linux) client which made countless random web queries during off hours when the bandwidth wasn't needed? OK, the tone and content of junk mail would change. But, could it crap up analytics to the point where no advertiser in their right mind would pay for it?

US Senate votes to let broadband ISPs sell your browser histories

jMcPhee

Ho hum...

Congress is adding another set of players to what Farcebook, Google, M$, et al. have done for years. Will the big online ad companies let these upstart ISP's cut into their revenues?

Boffins Rickroll smartphone by tickling its accelerometer

jMcPhee
Trollface

Wow... so it could be possible to spike an mp3, play it in a car, and freak out its accelerometers to pop the air bags? Turn up the volume to trick Onstar into thinking the car next to you had a wreck? Screw with the orientations of a room full of tablets? Such possibilities...

Devs bashing out crappy code is making banks insecure – report

jMcPhee

Agile Payoff

Well, that's what agile's all about, right? Do it fast and cheap, then clean it up more often.

Tuesday's AWS S3-izure exposes Amazon-sized internet bottleneck

jMcPhee

But, the primary point of 'the cloud' is to be a cheapskate

Amazon's AWS S3 cloud storage evaporates: Top websites, Docker stung

jMcPhee

Re: Cloud selling and Pricing

You left out some key steps the auditors follow:

1) Pay us

2) Show us you don't do dumb things

3) Here are some pissant concerns/findings so we can say we did something. Oh, and here are some meaningless pain-in-the-ass findings to address because they are one auditor's special area of expertise - you should make his book mandatory reading.

4) Your own in-house staff know about the real problems. But, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.."

5) Set up the next audit. Don't forget about (1)

Facebook scales back AI flagship after chatbots hit 70% f-AI-lure rate

jMcPhee

As any recent job hunter knows, the major online resume parsers are crap. (Looking at you, taleo)

Good AI sounds a lot harder to write than a resume parser. Maybe Zuck et al. need to start with something simpler. And more useful.

New Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters can't transmit vital data

jMcPhee

Re: WTF?

At least they can use a USB instead of a MIL spec 5-1/4" floppy

Mystery deepens over Android spyware targeting Israeli soldiers

jMcPhee

Re: Russia

..or an IDF pilot test. Oops.

'I'm innocent!' says IT contractor on trial after Office 365 bill row spiraled out of control

jMcPhee

If he'd have been an employee instead of a contractor, this wouldn't have happened.

Global IPv4 address drought: Seriously, we're done now. We're done

jMcPhee

Re: And still there are those "legacy" IPv4 blocks...

Also, there are those who got allocated Class B IPv4 space 20+ years ago... then keep almost all of it behind a firewall and use less than 20% of the addresses.

Maybe if IPv4 owners had to pay a monthly fee for the public resources they are using, they'd be allocated more efficiently.

Why should we have to mess with v6 so IT fails, like intellectual pygmies described above, don't have to learn about private address blocks?

Two words, Mozilla: SPEED! NOW! Quit fiddling and get serious

jMcPhee

Fork Time

We've got 2 different user bases talking here.

One group wants to run quickly and in a consistent manner. They've got a job to do and they don't want to screw around trying to figure out how to do it after redesigns.

The other group likes to dork about with PC things. They love the way facebook makes changes and enjoy diddling with new UI's. When a new icon, like the smiling sperm, shows up, they are eager to see what it means.