* Posts by bin

26 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Feb 2016

Beyond video to interactive, personalised content: BBC is experimenting with rebuilding its iPlayer in WebAssembly

bin

Re: Disaster

......Only the fittest, leanest and ones with the biggest begging bowels survive now.....

My first reaction was - don't you mean bowls?

BUT - you know sometimes the keyboard tells the truth the eyes would rather not see.........

Copper broadband phaseout will leave UK customers with higher bills and less choice, says comparison site

bin

So the solution for loss of a proper phone line is to plug in an adapter - presumably that's an ATA VOIP box. These of course are provided free by your ISP then? Oh and that assumes you've got broadband in the first place - and that you have the skills or even the kit to configure/reconfigure one of these things.

The world doesn't give a toss about about folk who are not into the latest gadgets and gizmos and staying connected 24/7 and all that crap - but there are a lot of people for whom this is going to be a very difficult transition.

Suggesting that Mobile Coverage Will Be Better is just deluded without change. The biggest single change which should be enforced on all mobile providers is that all masts must provide connections for all networks. After all you don't get a new line every time you switch electricity provider so why should you depend on a particular mobile provider having THEIR mast near you so you can use the damn thing.

United States Congress stormed by violent followers of defeated president, Biden win confirmation halted

bin

'Nuf Said

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Isaac Asimov.

Users complain iOS 14.2 causes some older iPhones to overheat, rapidly lose charge

bin

SE 2016 rendered useless

by iOS 14.x

Running 13.5 it was fine - got good signal and data connections. OK it took 3 months to get iOS 13 to a workable level but after that it was fine.

Upgraded to 14.x and all that went.

Drops connection in exactly the same place where it previously worked perfectly

Tried all recommended fixes including a DFU - which required me to actually install Windows 10 (yuuuuk) and then use a media playing application to backup and restore a mobile phone!!!!

Still no good despite this only being 2 years old and very low mileage - it's now so unreliable that I have had to replace it.

Guess what - I've gone back to Android.

LibreOffice 7.1 beta boasts impressive range of features let down by a lack of polish and poor mobile efforts

bin

Alternatively

.. you could just use Softmaker FreeOffice. It doesn't do some of the fancy stuff that is present in the paid for version, but it gets things done. The paid for version is a bit expensive but it is as close to MS Office as I think you can get.

China unleashes fearsome new cyber-weapon: A very provocative meme

bin

China has one goal

and that is total world domination - economic first, then social/military.

Countries that grovel to trade with that evil dictatorship should instead be working together to lock it out and be done.

Linux Foundation, IBM, Cisco and others back ‘Inclusive Naming Initiative’ to change nasty tech terms

bin

Re: Who are these peopel?..

It's OK - you're among friends here.....don't be afraid of holding back!

..............though I suspect you're right!

bin

What about that special Friday?

You know - the one when everything is sold cheaply - it's coming up soon - lots of places are doing it early - can you guess what it is yet????

Funny how the world has not exploded with rage over that yet...........

Delayed, over-budget smart meters will be helpful – when Blighty enters 'Star Trek phase'

bin

OOPS!

Of course all new Smart Meters will be 4G capable because the 2G and 3G spectrum(s) are going to be liberated - aren't they?

AND - don't forget that for your provider to be able to hot change your pricing via the meter, they've got to be able to communicate with it in the first place.

My 'relic' meter is in the garage - no signal........... muahahahahaaaaaa

US-China tariff tiff has got in Huawei of beating Samsung in smartphone stakes, top brass sigh

bin

Trouble is that the stupid oaf is meeting with HMG today - "well, if the UK wants a trade deal with USA after brexit you'll have to ban Whoarewe...."

Still - I've no doubt Samsung are delighted with the implied endorsement from the twittering dolt.....after all Samsung components are made somewhere aren't they???

Apple kills iTunes, preps pricey Mac Pro, gives iPad its own OS – plus: That $999 monitor stand

bin

But....surely a number of Apple products

are made in <whisper> china<whisper> aren't they???

No Huawei out: Prez Trump's game of chicken with China has serious consequences

bin

It is interesting to note that, whilst much of the discussion relates to hardware, it is Google that has shown it's power as the destroyer of worlds.

Blocking access to it's services is an instant Kiss of Death to the millions of moby sheeples who cannot exist without it's blessing.

Of course their action was based on a deep and abiding need to protect the world from the evils of <insert_enemy_name> rather than any commercial leverage....

Sniffing substations will solve 'leccy car charging woes, reckons upstart

bin

I may be missing something here, but all these lovely bits of copper trailing across paths and drives are surely going to attract the attention of 'collectors' who'll just be able to either unplug or use bolt croppers and heavy duty rubber underwear. After all they target railway lines already, this should be like taking unhealthy sugar based products from a non-gender specific infant.

Creators Update gives Windows 10 a bit of an Edge, but some old annoyances remain

bin

Re: wuauclt

wsus offline is the only tool I have found that sorts that issue.

Google pulls Hezbollah YouTube channel after we told them about the drone ads

bin

Re: Lethal my arse

It's called 'proof of concept'.

Maybe you've never heard of sarin, anthrax, ebola, y-pestis, polonium etc etc.

Imagine a few drones over - say - London New Year's Eve with biological warfare payloads....

What price freedom of speech eh?

Oh and all you 'my privacy' apologists who think encrypted Watsapp is essential to your rights - I hope you think the price people have paid in London and around the world is really good value for money!

DNS lookups can reveal every web page you visit, says German boffin

bin

Surely switching my modem "on and then off again" will do nothing other than leave me with no connection?

Ad men hope blocking has stalled as sites guilt users into switching off

bin

adblock on mobile?

Is it simply that adblocking on a mobile is so tricky that more folks are just suffering in silence?

I use Naked Browser and or Opera Mini both of which block ads but of course are not to everyone's taste.

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

bin

Space Opera at its finest

What I've always hoped for would be Doc EE Smith's Lensman series - filmed in true retro-tech style as it was set and described in the 30's, Giant machines where now there would be a couple of micro-chips, goodies and baddies and the plucky hero always wins whilst uniting the galaxy with his species inclusive band of chums!!!

The Skylark series would be another good romp as well - I'm sick of all the modern gritty moralising realism, cinema should be fun - but then I enjoy panto so I'm probably in a minority...

Operator of DDoS protection service named as Mirai author

bin

Mirai is one of the worst DDoS botnets ever to grace the internet and is fingered for fingered for downing large chunks of the internet, including record-breaking attacks on Krebs' own site.

"So good they fingered it twice"

Plusnet? More like Plus-naught: Mobile data on the fritz for days for some unlucky punters

bin

Not all bad

OK, I'll admit that PN have not been perfect. However, apart from a couple of bumps I've had no real problems since 2014. When there have been issues with BB/Phone it has always been BT related.

Problems with lose connection at exchange, problems with some dodgy old faceplate, and the last which was a real puzzler. Openreach engineer #1 was a phone engineer who did loads of tests and pronounced phone line OK despite the obvious continual background hum - bit like motorway from a couple of miles away. Broadband engineer muttered a bit then went out side and looked at connector box on the power pole we have next to the garage. Opened up and bits of connector fell out - wiring black and corroded/manky.

Replaced box and reconnected - job done.

We're in a bit of a blackspot for mobile but testing with an EE sim suggested that it would be better than Tescomobile/O2 who I'm with. I do use Three (PAYG sim with wifi dialling v good) as a backup but again spotty cover.

Ordered sim which arrived before xmas. Fitted to old HTC 510 - worked fine. Get 3 bars where none previously. Using data in places where it never worked before. OK, I haven't tried porting my number yet - may not bother.

I can't help but wonder how much of the problems being experienced is down to PN being given the run around by EE.

Is! Yahoo! dead?! Why! web! biz! will! rename! to! Altaba! – the! truth!

bin

Does Flickr have a future in this brave new world?

It may not be the best photo site in the world, but it does stuff a lot better than others, so it would be a real shame to see it vanish down the plug-hole.

I assume the new owners can carry on using it for data mining and ad-thrusting - but will they be prepared to provide 1TB free per user??

Plusnet broadband outage: Customers fume as TITSUP* continues

bin

Plusnet Account Security

What really bothers me is that the account name and password on your PN router has to be the same as the acount name and password that you need to use to log in to your account at PN.

The CS rep then uses that password as part of your ID check.

It therefore follows that your account password is either stored in plain text or easily decrypted.

Surely that is verging on criminally irresponsible in these days of mega login and data breaches.

You should install smart meters even if they're dumb, says flack

bin

The king's new clothes

What I love about the 21st Century is how we are always looking for a hi-tch solution to a lo-tech problem.

We are using too much power (or rather we cannot generate enough power to meet the demands that we have created with all our electric stuff.)

So how come every time I watch the news on BBC there are ranks of unused computers with their LED/LCD monitors glowing away using power to create heat to raise the temperature to require air-con to keep the temperature down. Seeing cities at night with millions of lights and computers and god knows what all churning away for nothing makes me boil - in a low energy way of course.

So what do we do - well it's obviously too hard for anyone who goes to work to actually switch off their computer or the lights so lets jump on consumers at home because they're an easy target.

Lets put in more computers and servers to run complicated smart meter systems with all the IT infrastructure and meetings and spreadsheets and reports and all the other crap that corporate mumbo-jumbo thrives on rather than actually face the facts.

If you eat too much you get fat - nothing to do with your genes or your bones - you're just a greedy slob.

If you consume more power than you can generate (oh and while you're doing it you can destroy in a few hundred years what nature took billions of years to produce (Go Mankind - yaaaaay) then the answer is to consume less.

If industry and businesses showed a willingness to reduce obvious excessive consumption at night and thereby set an example then maybe folks would get behind other methods of helping reduce consumption. However these days all we want is more gadgets, more machines, more 24/7/365 everything. Well, good luck with that. I'll be dead when the shit hits the fan and the climate goes into meltdown - literally. Many readers here and their children may not be so lucky - but then they'll have a app to tell them how hot it's going to be so they'll be happy - and they can read their smart meter whenever they want - it will help I'm sure.............

Adobe reverses decision to kill NPAPI Flash plugin for Linux

bin

I for one am glad to see Adobe taking this step. My missus is totally non-technical - she sits at a linux laptop and does her thing and I'm reasonably happy she's not going to get hit by nasties. We've been Windows free for 10 years now.

In a mom 'n pop setup it's obvious that you're going to be needing flash to view those sites that still demand it - good or bad, it is what it is.

So go on - give Adobe some luuuurrrv (in the nicest possible way of course - that does not mean bent over a chair) for a change.

How Microsoft copied malware techniques to make Get Windows 10 the world's PC pest

bin

What happens when it's no longer free?

That's it in a nutshell really. After all they can't very well 'force' you to take an upgrade and then demand money for it it........what a good idea! Lets call it ransomware (nah that's been done)

OR are we going to see the free upgrade period magically extended - for your convenience?

I do have a confession though - I actually took an old spinner, installed W7 and then immediately updated to W10 - do they actually expect people to PAY for this? OK, it works but it's a train crash. There are many adverse comments about UI design in Linux, but you have to work really hard to come up with something as schizophrenic as the mess of metro and classic as W10.

One of my neighbours allowed her tech savvy daughter to upgrade her laptop from 8.1 to 10.

Cost - one new printer/scanner as her 10 year old machine would not work with W10 full stop. Worked fine on my linux machine but no way with W10 - free upgrade??? Yeah - right.

Get out of mi casa, Picasa: Google photo site to join Wave, Code, Reader in silicon hell

bin

Re: Good replacement for the app?

Picasa will of course continue to work locally - may be worth making sure you've got the setup downloaded somewhere. If she doesn't use the web albums why worry? Ain't broke - don't need to fix it.

If you want to change then FastStone is a very under-rated prog. It does a lot of stuff very well, but doesn't have the slick edge when it comes to organising and grouping files that Picasa does. It can be done with tags etc but that's not really what it is about - more of a viewer/enhancer/editor. I use it extensively for all sorts of stuff. It also has a resonable email interface for local clients or a good collect and zip if you're using Web-Mail.