* Posts by cycas

7 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jan 2016

'Plane Hacker' Roberts: I put a network sniffer on my truck to see what it was sharing. Holy crap!

cycas

Re: So... who pays for the 3G/4G data connection?

I've still got one of the kindles with that deal. It gives access to the entire internet, not just amazon, for free ,anywhere it can find a signal of any kind.

Admittedly, you are accessing on a kindle in black and white, so functionality is limited, but it was still a pretty good deal for the extra 20 quid I paid when it was new!

It's law to have your dog microchipped, but databases run themselves, right?

cycas
Facepalm

It's law to have your dog microchipped, but databases run themselves, right?

So, on 6th April it became law that all dogs in the UK must carry a microchip, recording a number that links to a database record that identifies the dog's current keeper.

The idea being that this would help lost dogs get back to their owners faster, thus reducing the cost of kennelling, rehoming, and euthanasing dogs*, and also reduce the number of poor sad weeping people sharing photos of their beloved lost Trixie on facebook. Good idea, right? What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently what could go wrong is Petlog, the UK's biggest microchip database service, run by the Kennel Club. They weren't ready for all the people who, spurred by the legislation, decided they wanted to check what was on the chip record and amend it. So now if you, like me, have a dog whose chip is registered with Petlog, not only is it very difficult to find out what's on the record or change it - but if the dog does go missing, chances are the poor busy council dogwarden who finds your dog won't be able to check it either.

More info here : http://www.dogworld.co.uk/product.php/156736/

To be fair, a lot of dog rescues have created problems for themselves by insisting that all the dogs they microchipped should be recorded with their own contact details, and then not checking the record afterwards. But you would really think that Petlot would have expected this, given that they had years to prepare for it.

* Sorry kids. Rex didn't run away to a farm. Nobody wanted him and he got the needle. :-(

Furious customers tear into 123-reg after firm's mass deletion woes

cycas

Re: It does matter!

Sadly, sympathy butters no parsnips, the most important thing someone affected by this can really take from it is that in future they SHOULD have backups and that this is not something you can economise on or forget about or put off till later. :-(

I haven't read any comments that I would say are sneering, but what can you say to someone who has just lost all their data and didn't back it up, other than 'backups are good' which they already know?

cycas

Re: 123-reg

Do you have a recommendation for DNS hosting? I don't host with 123reg but I do have domains with them. I've have moved them before this if everything else I try didn't seem to be worse.

Microsoft: We’ve taken down the botnets. Europol: Would Sir like a kill switch, too?

cycas

Perhaps this could be an available level of windows license for home use?

Surely I am not the only person here supporting a group of remote charity volunteers using their own computers whose idea of problem reporting is 'my laptop is broken'. I have them using cloudbased email and document management in the hope that this reduces the likelihood that they will send infestations in all directions, and I make them swear they are all using AV but I am gloomily aware that probably at least a couple of them are infected with something and I'll probably never know what.

They could actually be among the machines attacking their own charity's website. If their OS stopped them from doing that, they'd never know, but if they did, they'd probably be happy about it; well, if I could manage to explain it in words they'd understand, anyway. They are lovely, lovely people.

'You're updated!' Drupal says, with fingers crossed behind back

cycas

Re: DrupLOL!

Maybe because that's what you know?

Personally I like Drupal and have been using it for years with no great difficulty. In fact, one framework site I inherited I replaced with Drupal, because the developers of the framework site had apparently not read the documentation for their preferred framework, nor had they written their own.

All systems have their strengths and weaknesses, and not least of that is the way that the people working on the project like to work. From the customer's point of view, the tools used to do the job should not be that important, as long as the person using them is happy with them and can do the job excellently with them.

British bureaucrats are world's most social-media-tastic

cycas

"Digital" is a euphemism; it's a job-creation scheme for life's natural twiddlers, timewasters and bureaucrats that can be used to justify almost anything.

I NEED THIS ON A TSHIRT. AND A MUG.