Posts by anthonyhegedus 1145 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Feb 2016
Most people have cordless phones. How do they work in a blackout? A good proportion of people don't use a landline phone. How do they work in a blackout?
The answer is that this would have seemed like a problem back 20 years ago - remember when rabbit cordless phones came out? The base station had a 9V battery backup. That was the first digital cordless phone on sale in the UK, and people were probably genuinely worried about such things. These days... I think not so many people care so much.
I thought it would be really cool to include a wedding address on my wedding invitations sent out in 1996. Nobody RSVPd by email of course because none of our friends had an email address at the time.
I still thought it was cool.
It wasn't AOL either!
We have several customers who use Sage, and it's more about what it can't do than what it can. Every machine needs to be updated separately, they all need admin permissions, the updates fail, and if you every have a problem, all their support peopl seem to be able to do is say "you need to talk to your IT support, the permissions are set wrong"!!
We have had better luck installing it on a server and RDPing to it, but Sage don't support that so you have to lie to them if something does go wrong. And the bloody thing takes over your network: It seems to *require* a gigabit LAN, it doesn't work over a VPN. The backup system is pathetic. The software itself seems to rely on flat-file database tables done in Foxpro or something from the 1980s. Many of our customers, including accountants, are moving over to Xero. Yes, it's cloud-based, but in terms of overall reliability, you'll get fewer down-days, and at least you can use it from an alternate location if your office broadband goes down.
The whole thing with Sage is rooted in its original 1980s code. It's a dinosaur and that company deserves to fail.
I switched off my home-hosted server after 10 years. I bought a Dell cheap-as-crap server for £99 in 2007 and it has been running non-stop (well, more or less) ever since, with a few hard disk changes of course. It's always been reasonably OK, and not too much of a burden, but I wanted something more reliable. I got too many spams, and too many emails that just got mis-reported as spam. And I couldn't see the point any more.
So I decided to use gmail for my personal email and moved my work email to office365. I use my personal email so little for actual communication with people I know - I only use it for setting up accounts with thinks I purchase.
I keep telling our customers to change their personal email addresses for this reason. I actually say to them that there is no guarantee this email address will continue to work, Tesco/TalkTalk/BT/Whoever are under no obligation whatsoever to keep it working. The number of 'tinyworld.co.uk' and suchlike email addresses I see out there is decreasing, but there are still a lot of people who insist on keeping them.
Can one really expect any better from BT? Going on the abysmal performance and poor reliability of their "home hubs" (can someone tell me why they're not called routers?), I am not surprised at all. Furthermore, I'm not surprised at the total ineptitude of their team to fix the problem in a way that makes customers feel even remotely valued.
Yes, you're running a business, say a small one with 10 PCs. You could go for ten custom-built PCs with Linux. You'll be paying a linux support person to set these up and migrate your data, and set up your email. You've saved £1000 on Windows Pro licences, and you'll be saving money because of the lack of viruses, annoying updates and general reliability.
But you'll be spending money on (possibly) training, increased maintenance costs due to lack of knowledge of linux generally, and possible future problems if some new program becomes necessary and it's not available on linux .
Then you could argue that you wouldn't use apps that aren't web-based ("cloud" apps) anyway.
All these are part of making a "business decision" about whether to implement linux.
Personally speaking, I have tried to use Mac, Linux and Windows for my day-to-day work. All I require is the ability to browser the web, get email, run our support system and rapidly switch between these tasks on any computer I pick up. We use google docs so most of this is on the web.
All these things are possible with all three OSes, but I find that the last linux I tried (last year, Ubuntu with Unity) was too clunky for day-to-day use, and there was no google files sync, which was a slight problem only. Maybe the file manager could have been replaced with a modern one but I found it slow and clunky. I tried Windows and it's just too crashy and rebooty (does updates when you least expect). Personally I just preferred MacOS.
We have dozens of small business customers and support about 600 computers and even though I hate windows, I prefer MacOS, and Linux is reliable, I have not been able to recommend one single Linux PC to any of our customers. We do have a handful of Linux servers, that's all.
I'm a little confused about the whole thing... too many editions... but why?? Is there really a business case for one ubuntu over another ubuntu? Why don't they just have one version with maybe different modes for different use-cases?
I understand that there are three different types of control menu (KDE and Gnome and Unity), but I don't understand why you need a different windowing system as well. I've probably understood it wrong, but the end result is that it's confusing.
And the software - they boast of thousands of software packages but many of them don't work with a graphical interface or are long dead. The quality of software isn't amazing. We have Libreoffice and Thunderbird which are fundamentally very good, but are beginning to look a little dated.
Don't get me wrong, I've used Linux before, and it has served me well in the past, but I think for the general home or small business user, it's not there yet.
I know most people couldn't care HOW their internet is delivered, but all the ISPs push their services as 'Fibre' for a reason: it sells. People do care what fancy words are used in the adverts. The word 'fibre' sounds more up to date than 'not fibre', so as long as they continue to be allowed to use the term, the ISPs will do so.
So now the real fibre providers have to differentiate themselves. I would go so far as to say that the totally disingenuous way that BT started calling FTTC 'Fibre' (and then all the other providers followed suit) has slowed down real fibre penetration in the UK. Who is bothered with getting fibre into homes when almost everyone can (apparently) get it? When I tell people that only 3% of the country have fibre, they're generally surprised.
If the cabinet is outside your house, then I suppose calling it Fibre does make sense, but quite frankly, if your cabinet is 3km away, it's hardly 'Fibre' now is it?
The use-case mentioned about having an audiobook read with the same voice as a child's mother deserves to be filed under 'C' for 'Creepy'!
I can't really think of any use-cases which aren't either creepy or criminal. The criminal use-cases are fantastic though. How about I receive a voicemail or even a phone call from a friend asking me to transfer him some money? Video and audio evidence is going to be worthless.
We are going to have to introduce better technologies to prove someone is who they say they are, I suppose.
It's not just that it's your fault for allowing your fruity hyper-evolved 8-track to stain your wooden surface, it's your fault for noticing. Apple have every right to sue you now for deliberately causing your wooden surface to accept a white stain-like ring from their device. Remember, you don't own the device, you just paid Apple a small amount of money for the right to use it until Apple decide to stop supporting its use. Buried deep in one of the volumes of the EULA is a clause that basically says that normal operation of the device is not defined.
Apple now have every right to sue you and all furniture manufacturers out of existence for bringing the homepod into disrepute.
....that observations throughout the centuries that fit with established theories that the earth is round would be enough to show that the earth is not flat. Everything seems to point that way, and nothing seems to point to the earth being flat.
Isn't this all enough for him? Doesn't he follow the whole thing through logically and see that established fact after established fact just falls apart from his illogical beliefs. Just from that simple premise, everything needs to change, for the flat-earther. Gravity? Pah! there's no such thing, the earth, stars, sun and moon are *accelerating* upwards at 9.8 m/s/s! They really believe this shit.
The trouble is, there are flat-earthers from all around the world...
So what is actually going to happen with office 365 running on, say, windows 8.1? Will it just stop updating?
Assuming you have windows 10, will your office 2016 upgrade to office 2019? It's really unclear what Microsoft are doing, with so many different versions and ways of buying this product.
I once had a customer who had had a Mac for years, and th time came for him to upgrade. He got a brand new Mac mini, and I got him a decent cordless mouse to go with it. I helped set it all up for him, copy over his old files etc and I noticed he was having trouble moving the mouse. I just put it down to it being slightly different.
Anyway I went back to see him a week or so later, and he told me he loves his new system, and he’s finally got used to the mouse. I asked him what he meant by getting used to the mouse. He showed me. What had happened was that he used to use his old mouse upside down, with the lead pointing towards him rather than away from him. He’d been using it this way for so long that it had seemed perfectly normal to him to push the mouse to the left to move right, down to move up and so on. So when he had started to use the new mouse the right way round, it seemed backwards to him, and it took him a week to learn how to use it all over again!
I can see why you get ads for stuff you just looked at, it makes sense from a commercial point of view, but what really gets my goat is when I see ads for stuff I’ve just gone and bloody bought!
If I buy a coffee machine, why the hell would I want to go and buy another one right away? Do google and amazon or whoever I just used really think I’m that gullible? Oh yes, I’m really going to think “I’m so glad I purchased that drill, I think what I really need now is to go and buy another one! And come to think of it, I was so pleased with the replacement toilet seat I got the other day I think I’ll buy some more!”
From a computer science standpoint, how is it that multiple processors from more than one manufacturer have the same flaw? Is the whole concept of speculative execution taught wrong at all major universities?
And how come AMD managed to remember to design their processors without this flaw?
I wonder how long this has been known about, and at what point someone realised that this flaw could be used for something malicious?
I know it almost doesn't matter now, because we have this problem and need to work with it, but I'm just curious as to how such a simple flaw kept under the radar for so long?
Which last train to Essex were you referring to? C2C via Basildon, or Greater Anglia towards Shenfield, which then splits to various places such as Southend, Colchester, Clacton etc?
Some of us need to know.
The physics of puddles of vomit sliding around the floor, and of people slipping in said vomit are an important research topic, I'm sure.
"I have had to rebuild their local mailbox several times because there'e something that Outlook can't handle. It has screwed up the folders on the IMAP server somehow, and I am going to have to roll my sleeves up and work out how to resolve that, too."
@Norman - Outlook simply *does not work* with IMAP properly. We've had:
- folders that exist only locally and are lost because they weren't synced to the server
- folders that exist on the server but won't even appear in outlook
- folders that stop updating, even the Inbox.
On top of that, Microsoft decides which is your sent folder and makes it next to impossible to change. Oh, and Outlook insists on testing the settings by sending a test mail *without a date header* and this gets rejected by many mail servers (for example SME Server), thus making Outlook refuse to save the settings .
This is only in Outlook 2016 and 2013. 2010 works fine. 2007 wouldn't let you choose to store sent mails on the server (I think).
Personally I don't care what it looks like, but other people do. Thunderbird is the ONLY mail client that actually works reliably and consistently with IMAP servers. The trouble is that for our customers, they want more than that: they want features like shared calendar, contacts synced with their iphone and a modern look.
Every time we've tried to get things like contacts synced with another service, it's been a terrible experience. Either the addon has stopped being supported, or it doesn't sync the street addresses properly or something else goes wrong.
The problem is that they then want to use Outlook because everybody else does. Outlook is even worse: it won't sync calendar and contacts reliably, because it'll only do that with an exchange server.
But they don't want to pay for hosted exchange, and end up settling on Outlook. anyway However, Outlook's IMAP client really is so bugridden, that in many cases, whole folders stop being synced, even the inbox, and people get upset.
Given that email is so important, why are there so few email clients around? And why do people insist on using Outlook, when Thunderbird is so much more reliable (at least with IMAP)?
The Faily Fail will no doubt have a sensationalist article along the lines of "your data is about to be stolen and everyone's ID will be stolen and everyone's bank accounts will be emptied computer armageddon horror" followed by some useful advice along the lines of "Don't use your computer or phone and keep a lookout for immigrants trying to steal your data".
Two things stand out as speed bumps along the way to getting this accepted, by me at least:
1. If I'm on the phone, I like to be able to quickly glance at a message coming in, or a call waiting. With this device, you have to open it up to check the screen. A really minor point I know, but it did occur to me that it might make it slightly awkward.
2. It's a device for communication. So why no front facing camera? The rear-facing camera I can see as maybe optional, but I like to make video calls to people sometimes. Seems like a serious omission to me.
But apart from that, the convenience of the form factor and keyboard built in probably does over-ride those two points I made. The USP of this device is the form factor. It doesn't actually do anything my phone can't. It's like a Nokia Communicator, but modern.
I used to own a Psion series 5 mx and it was an excellent tool at the time. The form factor was amazing even in 96. The ability to carry just one device for simple note-taking needs to be emphasised or it won't sell though.
I know someone who used a 5mx until last year for taking patient notes - he's a psychiatrist - and he loved it. Only problem was getting the notes off the thing. He has hundreds of files, and each one needs to be tediously exported to word, one at a time.
Agree. That's because bitcoin is more of a commodity than a currency. Bitcoins are more like trading cards than anything else.
There's recently been a 'kitten' virtual pet which works with blockchain, which allows you to create new virtual kittens out of the properties of others. Some of the kittens' attributes are desirable to some people and also rare, and now these kittens are changing hands for real money. I don't know if the whole thing is a joke meant to show how ridiculous bitcoins are or what.
"Please explain what it is that average users can't do at 10Mb/s that they could do at 30 or 300?"
Well, how about have a family with two TVs stream 4K TV? Or have kids play games while you try and upload a file using onedrive/dropbox? Or upload a youtube video in a reasonable timeframe? Or have a video call on your phone while your computer is downloading an update?
All these things are things people do right now that require more than 1Mbps up / 10Mbps down. Most 10Mbps services refer to the download speed, and the upload speed on those services (that use ADSL) tend to be around 1Mbps maximum.
As an example, we just set up an office where they have a fine 22Mbps down but only 0.8Mbps up. This means that it takes more than 20 times as long to upload a folder-full of documents to onedrive than it would take us in our office. Personally I think 20Mbps upload is inadequate, but think about an actual real sitation. Let's say you have 200MB of photos to upload daily. That would take just 40 seconds at 50Mbps as opposed to an hour at 0.7Mbps. We have a customer who runs an office that does that that, and they can't get more than 0.7Mbps upload. That means it ties someone up for an hour while their computer takes up the entire office bandwidth. Except it's more than an hour. It's probably two hours because there are 10 other people working in the office at the same time.
I'm arguing that if they were able to get 1Gbps, that upload would take a couple of seconds, and wouldn't affect the others in the office. It's a real efficiency, because it turns from something you have to bear in mind (make sure your computer has finished syncing all the files) and delays you to something you don't have to even think about.
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