Posts by theDeathOfRats

Rejecting a promotion sent field service tech into support hell

Re: I've done informally that type of IT...

No.

Re: I've done informally that type of IT...

You, sir or maam, are a cruel barsteward.

And I'm adding that to my book.

Re: I've done informally that type of IT...

Nice one!

Re: I've done informally that type of IT...

I suggest you invest in some kind of Molly Guard, or make your own (some solid plastic lids and tape are a good start).

Don't ask me how I know ;p

Dutch tax office ditches Microsoft 365 cloud for on-premises alternative

Re: Personal Data About The Dutch

Dunno how to create a link on The Reg

The HTML a Tag seems to work ;p

Microsoft accused of leaking Dutch civil servants' names to U.S. government

And thanks for the article! ------>

Techie was stung by a wasp, held overnight by Chinese police, then trapped in a 13-hour meeting

Re: Flight delays are such fun

Upvoted. But you have to share it with your "new boss".

The one on the right you don't need to share --->

Microsoft cells out, crams multiple values into Excel boxes

Re: Yo dawg!

Spreadsheetception?

Re: Zzzz

I think we are reaching Quake level, here.

Boss bought cheap 'printer' from a catalog and was left without a leg to stand on

Re: Had that recently with an supplier

You've never lived with a cat, have you?

AI slop is good for business if you know what you're doing

Re: A half slop squared

Fair point, but... It was just there and I couldn't restrain myself.

Re: A half slop squared

"I am sure this has been tried. I wonder what the result was."

... amanfrommars1?

Debian is 33, Haiku is 25, and neither is standing still

All of these OSes

Getting older as we do

The DC feels cold

Be a hater all you want, AI's here to stay

HA! No, silly. Robots are expensive.

That fry handing job is quite safe.

For now.

Deepfake hiccup unmasks suspected digital certificate fraudster

Re: Perfect way to trump the investigation

Air Fart One.

IT department put sticky notes on the laptops to help employees log in

Re: Providing Negative Incentives and then Clutching Pearls: However could this have been avoided ?

There are 171,000 actively used words according to the Oxford English

Now try that with some other languages. English is just but one.

Microsoft says 8 GB of RAM should be enough for anyone running Windows 11

Re: Surely a better fix is doing the following:

And, sorry, I forgot about this:

It would be good if at sometime in the future linux was able to somehow integrate/interface/use the native drivers that were supplied by the hardware manufacturer.

Then maybe you should talk to the manufacturers. They are the ones providing the drivers, after all. And it's not like the GNU/Linux/FOSS world is trying to stop anyone from interacting with them.

Re: Surely a better fix is doing the following:

Please allow me to repeat myself:

I mean, if you have something that ABSOLUTELY has to go through MS Windows... Well then, yes. The OS should be there to run the programs|drivers|applications|whatever.

What I'm saying is that it WILL NOT BE good enough for everybody, but it IS good enough for most.

Re: Not a chance

Probably an improvement.

Windows has always been my favorite OS because

Because, as many others have said before, it WORKS FOR YOU.

If the software you need to run only runs in there? Well, there's not much of a chance for you.

And i'm not saying that as a bad thing. You need something to RUN something. You use what you have.

Re: If you don't want to do anything

And eat that NVME in no time.

I got the cheap laptop (new) I'm using to write this for about €220. It's not a great laptop if you wanna play (recent) games. It's good for me, though. The processor is some silly Intel 4cores N100 or something, but it packs 16GB of RAM, a (upgradable) 512GB SSD (NVME? M.2? Dunno). I can do anything I need locally (mostly) and, when not, I use it to connect to my VMs. I know this is is not something a user would use. Nor should they. But this shit is more than enough for most home users.

And I haven't even talked about the touchscreen and 180º hinge that let's you use it as a tablet.

Now, the thing is, this came with a Win11 "preinstalled" (I've saved the disk image). The installation was PAINFUL. It took hours of "updates" and whatever. And then it finished. And it was eating about 4GB of RAM before I started cleaning the house. Which I wasn't gonna do, but I was curious. Just not so curious. And then I dd'd this other image just in case.

Then I tried Ubuntu (mainstream, probably better drivers) and... The screen ended upside down (this is a "convertible", or whatever they call'em, so, the camera is on the lower left corner when in "laptop" mode). I just found it funny, and would have probably corrected it should I have wanted to keep with Ubuntu. But, alas, I did not. So I installed Mint and... Everything was right? I was expecting a bit of a fight here but... No? YEAH! The clickpad is not behaving. Quite anticlimatic, just install "the other" driver.

So... About 15' of installing Ubuntu, having a laugh, switch to Mint (15', 25' with the clickpad solution) and I'm working.

Again, I'm NOT a normal user, but you ONLY need MSWindows WHEN you need MSWindows.

Sorry (not really) for all this shite. Guess I should go to the pub and bother those who deserve it :p

Re: Linux: electricity (optional)

I mean, you gotta move those beads REAL fast if you want it to work. And no GUI for you boyo. Who am I kidding, I'm pretty sure you could play DOOM there.

And now I'm guessing not if IT can be done, but if some other sick barsteward has already beat me to it (most probably).

Re: Surely a better fix is doing the following:

But it DOES work.

I mean, if you have something that ABSOLUTELY has to go through MS Windows... Well then, yes. The OS should be there to run the programs|drivers|applications|whatever. And then get out of the way until it's called again to do something.

You WORK and FIGHT with an OS when you're piloting a Helldesk. No one else should.

As blu3berry said: "it's definitely not a solution for every user and every task".

Though, for most home users? Hell yesss. They don't even notice the difference as long as you leave the same desktop background.

Headteacher had the most guessable username-password combo you could imagine

Re: Not a problem

As for 7? Yes, it can be done.

It will not use many of the actual thingies we are used to, but it will work.

Haven't tried it with XP, though. I might give it a try in a few weekends time (as Lon24 said, a VM works, but I wanna try a "bare metal" approach).

Comment in code read 'Dear future me, sorry I wrote this'

Re: Isn't Who, Me? .....

Shush! I'm hoping the boss doesn't notice so we can all go home for a looong weekend.

Tech support chap told angry customer to think inside the box – and solved the problem

Re: Read things myself? Never!

Depending on the brand, by the second|third cartridge it would've probably been cheaper|easier to buy a new printer.

Re: Too many to mention them all....

I can't upvote you enough, so -------->

Molly guards

The missus' box has the Power and Reset buttons on the upper side because some idiot decided it didn't compromise the frontal look so it looked "cool", I guess.

We live with three cats :p

Re: Not an equipment issue, but...

HOLLY! FSCKING!! SHITE!!!

Did he have a Clue By Four in his toolbag? Or wasn't it mandatory to have one back then (it should be mandatory).

Re: "when many phones still had removable batteries"

And the screen, if I'm to believe the "Battery Use" info.

Now, this barsteward has a 10000 mAh battery, so I'm usually good for 3|4 days.

It can also be used as a hammer or an impromptu weapon, sooo...

I still miss my Nokia 6600, though...

Dev says Google warned him about account hijack – then charged him $11,000 anyway

Re: I'm sure if you ask Google

Everyone should have an AI agent running 24x7 that monitors their resource usage, and can shut down their services if the agent believes it has been compromised. In case that agent is compromised, you should have another agent to monitor it. You won't need a third agent for monitoring it because the first can watch the second - they watch each other.

Sooo... A reverse Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, then?

But, no. What if the 1st agent is compromised and the 2nd one shuts it down and then it gets compromised? Who's watching the watcher, now?

I'm afraid you're gonna need agentic watchers aaallll the way down.

New humanoid robots from China look like creepy pop star action figures – complete with slightly dodgy lip-synch

Re: Did anyone actually say sexbot?

OK.

That was brutal, definitely NOT politically correct, and made me snort my coffee (good thing it wasn't whisky this time, that shit hurts).

HP customer claims firmware update shoved printer off support cliff

Re: Think of the shareholders

With one of the '90s Tanks LaserJets you're probably going to need a new toe.

Classic 7 is Windows 10 LTSC cosplaying as Windows 7

Oh yesss! O&OShutUp and OpenShell have been godssends.

Add a bit of PowerShell and another bit of Registry tinkering and the thing works (for a domestic machine).

There are more "debloating" tools now, and I seem to remember some article wrote by you(?). Quite useful when preparing my nephews' new W11 laptops.

I've commented before that 'I' only have one Windows machine at home (10, as neutered, declawed and defanged as I would risk without killing it already). The rest, of which are several, run on a variety of 'Nixie OSes.

But my partner has her own box. And that runs Windows 7. And I've been trying to make her change her OS since times immemorial (OK, about 10 years). She seems allergic to Linux, which is stupid (which I wouldn't tell her to her face cos I tend to like breathing when I wake up in the morning), because she mostly uses it for web browsing and a few old games that most probably would run with WINE (I know some of them do, I've tested them).

I've offered her a Win10 install such as mine, I even have an actually unused 500GB SSD for it, and she has always declined (in quite NSFW terms).

But now comes this. AND SHE HAS ACCEPTED TO GIVE IT A TRY!

I feel a bit like crying. I know any stupid thing that doesn't work or is not how she likes it will be MY fault. And yet, it will be better than telling her one or two times a week when she comes asking for tech support that the problem is the OS and she should change it.

I don't know how it will go. But I feel hopeful.

Wish me luck, if you will.

LocalSend puts your sneakernet out of business

Well, yeah. CDs also had quite an unreliable flightpath unless you put them in a hard plastic case first. Which led to a different kind of problem thanks to all of those fast flying corners hitting a coworker in the eye. Or teeth. Or somewhere else.

Though I wouldn't know, really, your honour. 'twas just hearsay, I swear.

Attention data hoarders: Alexa loses its Plex appeal as voice feature gets canned

Re: "Smart"

<scot>ELEVEN!!!</scot>

Artemis II astronaut: 'I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working'

Re: I Have NO OutLook...........

And I MUST SEND A MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS!

Microsoft's Project Silica promises eternal storage. It can't get there from here

Or they just don't understand it.

Keir Starmer declares 'months' timeline for social media age clampdown in UK

I'd say the North-American one is the most dangerous for the children, nowadays.

Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder

“Abuse” is an interesting choice of word

Maybe it's some kind of silly not-really-an-acronym?

As in Ad Blocker USE -> ABUSE

Guess I'm an abuser, then.

Notepad will now tell you all the ways Microsoft has enshittified it

Re: Answers on a postcard to,...

Notepad--

I think we have a winner ---------------->

Techie banned from client site for outage he didn’t cause

Re: Workig for a Dialup ISP in the 90's...

Too late to edit, so...

Going by his previous posts, I'd go with NOT A CHATBOT.

Re: Workig for a Dialup ISP in the 90's...

A couple of grammatical and ortographic errors. Soo... Maybe not?

And, then again, maybe yes if the poster is a chatbot prompt warrior.

The story itself is not too nuts. If you leave some USofA specific details apart... It might be one of me own tales :p

Re: It's always the DNS...

And sometimes (as mentioned in the interlude in the story) it's the OOOPS!

CES 2026 worst in show: AI girlfriends, a fridge that won't open unless you talk to it, and more

"Tea is simpler."

BURRRNNN THE HERETIC!!!

;p

P.S.: Just joking. To each, its own.

Tired of sky-high memory prices? Buckle up, we're in this for the long haul

Re: Good timing for purchasing my new computer

This is insane. I bought 64GB of RAM just one year ago:

02/12/2024 - Kingston FURY Impact SO-DIMM DDR5 5600MHz 64GB 2x32GB CL40 - 203.48€ (VAT included).

Right now. Same vendor:

20/12/2025 - Kingston FURY Impact SO-DIMM DDR5 5600MHz 64GB 2x32GB CL40 - 939.48€ (VAT included).

I built a full home "miniserver" with a Ryzen 7, 2x4TB NVME storage and the aforementioned 64GB of RAM for the price the two fscking sticks are selling now.

This is a joke.

Hot for its bot, McKinsey may cut thousands of jobs

Re: Obelisk shaped

Now try it with "fewer employees at every lower level, starting at TOPLEVEL-1" and modify the level of reduction appropriately as you descend.

You probably could write a PERL one-liner to implement it.

Techie 'forgot' to tell boss their cost-saving idea meant a day of gaming

Re: Dension DMP3

Nowadays? Yes, that's one option.

Back in the noughties? Not so much, unless your car was a heavily modified Delorian.

User insisted their screen was blank, until admitting it wasn't

Re: Reminds me of the time ...

A developer at a previous job used two mices, left and right. He'd use one or the other, depending on what he was doing at the moment. Didn't have the left one configured for left-hand, either, he said he was used to it.

It worked for him, so...

Pretty nice chap, by the way.