Posts by steviebuk 2874 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Feb 2017
An "essential facility" as they make it as fucking difficult as possible to install something outside of the Apple Store. Last time I had to use an idevice (ipod touch) only option was to jailbreak the device to be able to put whatever you wanted on it. Which Steve knob head Jobs was trying to make illegal but lucky a judge saw sense and told him to jog on.
I bet. To save every fucking penny they get "AI" to do the checks. This is evident with their fucking constant disregard for all the clear fucking scam adverts on YouTube of late.
Over the past month, I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen the starscope monocular advert scam. And lets not forget the "I have this amazing fomula on how you can make £5k a day. Just sign up to this free course" which turns out to be one free course convincing you to pay lots of money for the other lessons. Which turn out to be nothing more than "Sell my courses and you'll get commission" none of them realise the guy/woman (don't see many women doing this scam but know they do, one from the apprentice did) who has this "Secret", the secret is flogging the bullshit courses.
....that support appear to be unable at all to disable the car. Although she could see all the cameras, not being able to disable it from randomly starting up and driving off again is really bad.
AI car thinks
"I need to get passenger from A to B. I could just kill the passenger then there won't be a possibility of me failing if I have no passenger to transport"
Yep. Even more annoying when I suggested long before that "Why don't we get our own drive crusher. Then all controlled internally and done properly". I was a low down temp so was ignored with mutterings by them of "waste of money".
Several years after the incident I find they have bought in their own drive crusher and are very strict with it. Funny that.
Reminds me of one manager saying "I don't want anyone doing "quick win tickets anymore" you need to work on all tickets but prioritise the "low hanging fruit" tickets". I couldn't keep quiet. "They mean the same thing." No that don't he kept saying. I gave up arguing as he was never going to admit they do. Fuck whit.
Reading This Is Going to Hurt, although from the viewpoint of a junior doctor and they get it worse. It so reminds me of the mentality of IT management at all NHS trusts.
"We are taking the overnight beds away for the junior doctors" ignoring the fact they tend to have to work way over their allotted hours.
"Staff car park isn't own by us. Speak to the parking company that gave you the fine while you were delivering babies"
"We need to save money so taking away your staff cantine and leaving you with just a vending machine instead"
Arseholes.
I can understand that but when you've worked in a trust that decided to ignore the advice of the IT department when it wanted to get rid of some old hard drives, despite them giving them details of a company that would shred them securely and give a certificate. They choose to ignore this as "We want it done now, we don't want to wait".
They turned up later on ebay. Someone bought them, found unencrypted patient data on them which also IDed the trust and hospital. The hospital was then hit with the biggest fine in the UK.
So no thanks.
I would of thought they could of worded it different and not related it to covid-19 as if I've read it right, one of their staff died of it.
The most simple phishing email they could of sent out is one that spoofs a managers address and asks for urgent help with something. Sadly I've seen that work with people replying & actually paying money as they didn't bother telling anyone. It was spotted they'd replied and given out their mobile number, the rest was then done via txt that we can't and don't monitor. I really wanted to know what went on in their head and why they never double checked first!
I've also witness a director fool for it when the spoof was the chief exec. Nothing better to see a director who is fearful of the CEO, fool for a phishing email all because they want to "please(kiss arse)". Forgetting the phishing issue, they shouldn't have a fear of the CEO, CEOs need to learn not to be cunts like that one was.
If one of the big wigs demanded "I need access to gmail. I need internet access now from this station"
But that is air gabbed sir/madem for safety.
"I don't care. You know who I am. Get it done. I need to book this dinner date for my partner I promised them about and forgot"
Opens to the Internet.
"Oooo I got sent an email for a discount for a dinner date. There is a link. Thats a funny address, thisismalware.com. Never mind, should save me some bucks. They need me to run this file for the discount? Sure."
Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
Did Angela Kolar
Vice President, Operations Services & Chief Risk Officer skip work recently or just not bother to notice the this risk?
I wonder if its like the oil in Texas where the companies were given, I believe, funds to weather proof their shit but didn't bother and used the money on other things, then we saw what happened in winter.
Nothing will be learned, as said, until the big bosses are fined if it can be showed they are incompetent and that it wasn't due to some lower down rogue employee.
You should watch Mark Russinovich's Case Of the Unexplained talks. He's now head of Azure but even when he was just a Technical Fellow in Microsoft he'd always take a dig at the Office Team. He even used his tools to find a bug in the Office Suite told them about it but they still told him to report it properly as a bug. So despite how high up he was, even he couldn't get the Office Team to listen to him.
I do understand however, it was a bit of jossing but still feels like the Office Team possibly don't listen much.
We already struggled to get the multiskilled operators (painters, decorators, builders) and the grounds team to use the tablets and phones & we're fully aware passwords aren't secure but if 2fa gets in the way, they'll be even more annoyed.
We have 2fa setup on 365 for the office workers but its fucking flacky. It will randomly decide a laptop that has office 2016, the Outlook 2016 isn't a "modern app" (it is) so doesn't understand 2fa so needs the one time password instead. It will randomly decide the mobile you're using needs a 2fa check and refuses to pass it despite nothing being fucking wrong. Turn off 2fa, log them in, turn 2fa back on and all fine.
I understand the need for 2fa just make it simple and make it fucking work.
I started my college IT courses learning Pascal and then Visual Basic. Loved both. Wanted to be a programmer, so I thought. But I was shit at it. Visual Basic made it easier.
Wrote a lottery number picker in Pascal then later converted it to Visual Basic but with less features than the Pascal version as didn't know how to code the extra features in Visual Basic.
Wrote a martial arts membership database for my year assignment with it as I was doing martial arts at the time.
Discovered how to do scrolling in it so did scrolling credits for the about box :)
I loved it. Shame it turned out I was shit at programming so became a desktop engineer instead (which I find easier). Shame though as more money in programming.
Recently booted up a Win 98se VM just so I could load my old projects into it as found the old CDs from 1998. Fixed a bug that was over 20 years old in my installer (don't know why I never worked it out at the time as was fairly easy to work out what the issue was). Stuck the video of the Lottery Number Picker onto my YouTube channel just so I have a record of it somewhere.
Then I took a look back at Hotdog that also used to love :)
....seeing this as I've always loved the Isle of Wight. We'd got there every year in the 80s and early 90s for 2 weeks for the family holiday. Staying at Sandown holiday park. Sadly, lots of what we loved have all gone and closed down but the island is still nice to visit. My sister has now moved there, which we all dreamed of doing as kids. I'm also considering it but IT work there isn't great, the pay isn't great and worst of all their internet. I might knock Virgin but their speeds are generally good but they are to cheap to pay to have their cable run over to the island so no Virgin media there at all.
"Moisture sensors that display messages on screens are, after all, a relatively recent thing. This hack well remembers taking a borked iPhone to a UK Apple Store and being told the thing had clearly got wet and he should not use it in the rain. In the UK."
As Louis Rossmann says on his repair videos. The pads, at least in iMacs are so easily changed to red (meaning water damage) even just my humidity in a room that they aren't reliable yet the Apple stores use it as an excuse not to repair and claim water damage.
Ah right. I'll explain
Been doing computers for years. Work as an simple desktop engineer. Always thought "I want a place to store all my notes, not ones specific to work that I possible can't share but general ones about fixing issues I came across".
Everytime I sit to do a website, I spend ages looking for a design. Because I was crap at HTML and CSS I'd eventually get bored and nothing would get done.
Years later I finally found Wordpess. Realised you have the free version you just need hosting and a domain. So bought both, set it up in 2010 or 2011 and been putting my notes on it ever since "A place for my notes so I have access to them anywhere, others may find it useful"
Some people would comment and thank me for some of the notes. Some notes where fixes I'd not found elsewhere. Anyway. Its not a job, it costs me £79 a year for the hosting, I'm with a nice host and wanted the middle tier package.
Decided maybe I could try and fund the hosting with adverts and the Amazon really shit affiliate link system. Got nothing from it. Then GDPR came in and it mumbled something about even private blogs will need disclaimer that a site uses cookies. Well I knew my ads must have cookies so assumed I had to put an "This site may have tracking cookies press OK" to cover myself as I'm a small 1 man band who couldn't afford a fine if it came to it.
After making the last comment I realised in the past 2 years since having the ads they've made me fuck all. So now gotten rid, along with the shit Amazon links. So assume I can remove the cookie concent now. Only issue might be allowing comments via discuss which I guess I could just disable.
That is the main issue. I run my own website, it was only for and still is an online place I can put all my IT notes, so no matter what job I'm now at, I have easy access to all my notes. Because I've suck adverts on the site (I think I'll remove them now, they make me no money, not even a penny) I had to put a message up that you're aware. Also because the site can take comments (which I might as well turn off) thanks EU, some things you do are good, this was always a stupid one, forcing hobby sites to also comply.
They may not be. I still run Windows 7 on the main PC and laptop at home as I know they work. However I use Windows 10 at work. There are parts of Windows 10 I like and miss when in Windows 7. Tempted to move the main PC to Windows 10 but still holding off as all working fine in Windows 7. Also don't want to lose the beloved Truecrypt (not tried it on Windows 10 yet)
But the company that supplies it will be against Right To Repair and will attempt to make it illegal to repair yourself, won't supply spare parts, will charge over the top prices for their engineers to fix who'll say its not repairable and you have to buy the new tank at a cost of £10k
and they don't show where all the plumping for that hot water tap will go? And speaking of that, you'd need to locate it near a water source and the extra cost of hiring a plumber (only to discover later they were a cowboy) to plump it in. Then the maintenance required on the boiler and pump.
Designers annoy me.
I applied for the "service" back in the 90s as I'd just finished IT in college and wanted to be a desktop engineer. They had a place but guess my families working class background, grades and lack of work experience (how do you get experience when no one will give you a fucking chace at a job) meant it was a no to even get an interview. I was sent a letter from "the service" and also told not to tell anyone I'd even applied. Guess thats why they have had issues with people applying over the years.
Assume the "Don't tell anyone you applied" is defunct now and cause I never even got offered a fucking interview.
Might help if you pay even just the desktop engineers a decent fucking wage.
A Parliamentary spokesperson said in a statement: "We have robust cybersecurity measures in place and work closely with partners in the National Cyber Security Centre. In line with guidance from the NCSC we would always encourage MPs to use parliamentary email, which offers significantly higher levels of security than external providers."
If someone was spoofing the MPs address, why don't they have anti-spoof on for all MPs so the spam filter should pick that up straight away.
Don't get me started on gmails issues. Unable to control its spam filter, it decides so someone within a company can abuse it by flagging all legit emails as spam until gmail AI agrees with no control over this in the gsuite console. Its shitty UI and search. It lack of auditing for the desktop sync meaning anyone in the company can sync emails to their person PC with desktop app and their be no audit.
They were using a knock off charger from Amazon or even ebay. More reason more needs to be done to regulate or crack down on Amazon due Chinese sellers being able to sell stuff that shouldn't be sold in the UK. Home furniture with no fire labels etc. The other day I ran into one device a Chinese seller was selling. Their company name "Nottingham Shopping Centre" clearly hoping people see that and assume they are a UK company.
The IT department or at least some of them in the IT department would of mentioned about GDPR and been ignored. I've worked in NHS IT before and it's shit. Upper management just do what they are told by the trust directors instead of stearing them in the right direction. If you question it, expect a bollocking. Or maybe its just the shitty trusts I've had the misfortune to work for.
And buy into a service and notice a few months later they change it. I was about to do a video on how to get unlimited drive space for just over £100 compared to the cost of Amazon Drive, Google Drive etc. It involved a little bit of knowledge, paying for a domain name, paying for small bit of hosting then paying the business package of Gsuite. Set it up and you have unlimited drive space for one user for only £11 a month, and if you set it up you can use the email, google docs etc. Altogether works out cheaper per year than Amazon drive etc.
I was on the basic package originally as last company used it. So wanted to keep the knowledge up. Realised the above was cheaper than the drive only packages and I could use it as offline backups for all my home stuff. Noticed on my bill the name had changed, so looked it up. Found out they'd scrapped my package (although I've not been forced off it yet) and if you want unlimited storage you now have to pay for the enterprise package.
Bastards.
Whats even worse is they are starting to serialise everything. Take a Apple battery out of an Apple phone and put it in another and the 2nd phone will tell you its an unauthorised battery. They claim stuff like this is for security and safety. Bullshit, its clear its parts of their business model. Make it difficult to repair your products so people just buy new or charge 10x the price of an independent shop so you can make money on repairs.
That ignore warnings. Like the parking fine companies I pointed out had issues. Had no contact details, only snail mail address. Then to silence the report they falsely claimed copyright on my YouTube video about it. No matter, copy of it is on Odysee and LBRY, then a whole article was written about it for my blog.
Knobs.
Forced subscription for applications like this need to be curbed. For big tech companies like MS who have a clear monopoly on apps like Office they should be forced to make available a paid for once copy and not be forcing people into a yearly sub. Yes, sometimes a yearly sub could work out cheaper for people but then I'd point them to Libre. But should still be the option for Office offline. I still enjoy the 2013 Office ISO I have and I believe I have an 2016 ISO somewhere but we can no longer get 2019 as an ISO :( as it's that shitty Click To Run bollocks.
So in the late 90s it use to be "Visit my website. Here's a link to my website. Come visit". That has been going on for years with people selling their services to get you in high search rankings etc.
Now it appears the news media is saying "Come to our website. Here's a link. Oh but you have to pay for that link now, to host that link. Then pay to actually get to the rest of the article behind a pay wall" well fuck off then, we just won't read your paper.
Same. And I've collected all (but the very early ones as Microsoft lost them, I asked) the old Case of the Unexplained videos Mark used to do (sadly stopped). Every time I watch them (very much worth several views) there is something little that I'd missed before.
Even David Solomon's (sadly retired a while ago) talks were good. Watched a really old one the other day and heard him mention when explorer crashes. Mentioning when it does, it almost always crashes with a specific error code and that is what causes it to restart. If it crashes with a different code, that is why it sometimes won't restart.
They were saying Trumps YouTube channel was now available on LBRY blah blah. I'm a supporter of LBRY, I'm on LBRY but people were then having a bit of a go at them on Twatter. But their point was, and they do appear to admit they didn't explain this well. That Trump should have free speech, doesn't mean you have to agree with what he is saying but that he has a right to say it. And if you allow him that free speech, we can see all the bollocks he is saying and point out that what he is saying is bollocks. Yes, I guess we have the issue that a lot of Trump supporters are stupid enough that they will only listen to his view but still. If you start silencing him for being a cock, what is next?
Its much like the Track and Trace apps and data they hold. I guess we agree they are useful but now, after all the worry that it was going to happen, Singapore have now said all the data their apps hold, the police will now have access. If you want the public to start distrusting you, that's the way to do it. Don't expect them to cooperate if there is another outbreak of something else.
And back to Twatter, not that I care for it much but it has been amusing watching Trump have a breakdown on it. But what he did last Wednesday was the worst. I've been critical of him all the time he's been on there. But I do like posts to be factual on both sides. Lucy Lawless or Xena: Warrior Princess fame also dislikes Trump but incorrectly said about a video played, that Trump was in the tent watching the riots happening and enjoying it. I had to point out that
"He's a cunt but that was before it all kicked off. You can't make out it was after as it wasn't. He's still a cunt though".
Appears Twotter didn't like this and this morning I have been given a 12 hour suspension for "Hateful conduct". Ironic. Apparently I can get that down to 9 hours if I delete the tweet they dislike, so I did. But while reading the message "We've temporarily limited some of your account features" it jumped back up to suspended for 12 hours again, so that's clearly a bug. I assume if I had millions of followers and making them a nice chunk of change from adverts, I'd have probably just gotten a warning.
Not that fuss really as not a fan of Twitter and yes, they are their servers and they pay for the bandwidth but when does it become and issue when a massive media platform decides what can and can't be said? It is a difficult one as obviously the threat of violence to others is never good.
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