Posts by Chloe Cresswell

Search for phone signal caused oil spill, say Japanese investigators

...what is the Japanese for "left hand down a bit"?

Switch to hit the fan as BT begins prep ahead of analog phone sunset

Re: “Roads? Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads” (Doc Brown)

9 was the furthest from the finger stop? None of your phones had a 0 then?

(also, making it 111 with loop disconnect dialling would mean a slightly broken cable would tap out 1 1 1 and call the emergency call system. A faulty line tapping out 9 9 9 is much less likely)

Re: Connections..

We could get a Virgin leased line - it would be provided by Openreach though. And for the 4 members of staff, it would also be very expensive. This is the issue. The only choice we have is over OR, adsl2 or leased line.

Connections..

Client of mine was moved by BT Business from 4 channels of ISDN to VoIP Deskphones. Just one issue. BT can't provide a connection to run said phones, 16/1 adsl2 is the maximum the site can have as they are on the only cabinet not upgraded to FTTC on the exchange, and now that roll out is gone.

They did say they plan to provide FTTP between 2026 and 2028 to the site though...

So the deskphones? Each one has an EE sim in to give it connectivity to use VoIP.

The home Wi-Fi upgrade we never asked for is coming. The one we need is not

Re: Too pessimistic - Not always

Because when you have a requirement for a thermal reflective layer on the outside wall which can be done by simply using foil backed plasterboard, who is going to buy different plasterboard for the internal walls... *nods*

How is this problem mine, techie asked, while cleaning underground computer

On site dirt: Machines in Lime quarry. replacement policy was to buy a new machine, set it up for someone in the office, their old machine would replace the dead one out on site, to give at least some life span out of them. The Aircon for the computer room needed work every 3 years when the lime dust killed its external unit too.

Coffee company: all the desktop machines had between 3 and 5 cm of coffee grounds they had pulled out of the air in the bottom of the mini tower cases..

Machines that came into the workshop for work: "mouse issue" turned out to be "mouse has made a nest in the amstrad 486 AIO and used the motherboard as it's toilet"

BOFH: What a beautiful tinfoil hat, Boss!

Re: Salt lamps

I have no issue with them as a stand alone thing, but having seen a number of machines have the USB ports damaged (normally by blowing the USB protection ploy fuse..) by them, and fans, and other junk that people plug into the PC's usb ports... I keep throwing cheap USB PSUs at people so they can plug them into that, instead of a PC.

Salt lamps

Ah yes, the thing tying up a USB port on a desktop machine... No I don't have any clients with them, why do you ask...

Someone designed and sold on Amazon a 5G blocker for wifi routers. People bought them, and complained their wifi was crap.. because they had put their router in a faraday cage.

Tesla knew Autopilot weakness killed a driver – and didn't fix it, engineers claim

Re: WTF

Back when I was learning to drive, my driving instructor said the following to me: Think for other people, because you can be sure they won't be.

It's stuck with me, and yes, I'm always thinking for other people, in the "what stupid thing are you going to do next" way of thinking.

ISP's ads 'misleadingly implied' existence of 6G, says watchdog

I'm sure he won't last long around the Department of Administrative Affairs.

BOFH: WELCOME TO COLOSSAL SERVER ROOM ADVENTURE!!

Given who I follow on Twitch, all I have in my head now is "YOU AWAKE TO FIND YOURSELF IN A DARK ROOM!"

Tesla steering problems attract regulator eyes for second time this year

I did for a while. I had a 2005 Xtype, and if you pulled onto a fast road when it was cold, and tried to accurate upto 70 too fast, the variable turbocharger linkage wouldn't respond in time, and at about 65mph the car would go into limp mode. The fix was to turn the ignition off, then back on.

Difference is this was in a car that had covered over 295,000 miles, not brand new. This was also the reason that car was retired, although when I sold it to a scrap yard, it stayed on the road for another 3 years according to the DVLA.

The choice: Pay BT megabucks, or do something a bit illegal. OK, that’s no choice

Re: 100m goes a long way

Friend of mine had the opposite experience. He and friends were in a pair of terrace houses in nottingham, and one of them got the latest thing.. 128kbps cable modem. We wired all the bedrooms in each house to a central location, and even put a link through the cellar between the houses.

The landlord didn't object, he realised he could charge more the next year for a house that was wired for ethernet....

Linux lover consumed a quarter of the network

Friend of mine was at nottingham trent when cable modems (at 128kbps) were new. He NFS mounted sunsite from the uk source (IIRC, imperial).

It worked well till a cron script kicked off that checked for some files. Which 2 days later was still trying to work it's way though the entire sunsite folder structure looking for what ever files he had told it too!

Chloe

Lamborghini's last remaining pure gas guzzlers are all spoken for

The only place I could charge an EV is public chargers. Wouldn't be a case of "regularly", but always. Running a cable out the house, across the pavement and into the road isn't really a viable option. Esp if I'm parked on the other side of the road that day. Who has a 40+ metre cable that can withstand repeated drive overs by other vehicles?

Re: EV - Not Yet...

My nearest rapid charger (16 miles away from home) is currently £0.79/unit.

there's another point to add. 185 miles is what you get in this example if you can charge at home. If you can't, 185 miles range might be 10 miles because that's all the charge you had when you got home the day before.

Brit broadband subscribers caught between crappy connections and price hikes

Connections...

I'm having fun with my Zen provided VDSL2 atm: When it was connected, it synced at 80,000/19,999, ie, near perfect.

Now, years on, the same line syncs at 52,682/19,999. Zen say OR won't look into it till it gets down to 46,000 downstream.

Quirky QWERTY killed a password in Paris

Re: Keyboards...

No it shouldn't.

1) If I was booting to dos, it was as a fix this issue, which means we weren't allowing config.sys and autoexec.bat to run.

2) Why would the config.sys/etc have the correct paramaters in windows 98 for German, when the default language/layout was English British?

I did say that: "So if you booted the machine you hand an English layout using the German physical layout."

Keyboards...

Back in the day of windows 98 we had a Austrian Managing Director at a company we supported.

He had a german keyboard layout (QWERTZ) on his machine.

He had the English version of windows 98 loaded, with the German layout as an option.

So if you booted the machine you hand an English layout using the German physical layout.

If you told it to switch, you now had the German layout, using the German physical layout.

And if you needed to boot to dos, you now had a US layout, using the German physical layout.

It could get a little weird at times, esp when hunting for | and \

Chloe

Techie wasn't being paid, until he taught HR a lesson

Re: Unique keys

For a while I had 2 passports, with different names and genders in them, yes.

Re: Unique keys

The last time the bureaucrats tried to introduce ID cards here, I was told I'd need 2 of them, which I thought sort of defeated the object of the exercise.

Virgin Media email customers enter third day of inbox infuriation

funnily enough, the folder structure on one of my client's VM mailboxes does look a lot like gmail. Esp the folder heading of "gmail" before the copies of the inbox/etc...

It’s official: Vodafone and Three to tie the knot in the UK

Re: Coverage - Mast sharing

One comms network in the UK? *looks out of the pub window at a decommissioned Kingston Communications phone box* Which one would that be then?

A toast to being in the right place at the right time

Re: Did it talk?

...why that was no accident! That was first degree toastercide!

Windows XP activation algorithm cracked, keygen now works on Linux

I'm currently using an SD to 2.5 inch IDE converter card, which is thin enough to fit in the slot when cabled tied to the sled (in the right way, put the cable ties with the lock section in the wrong place and they don't fit), so wearing out 64gb microSD cards. A decent Sandisk lasts about 3 years, which was better then the last 2.5 inch HD, which only lasted 2!

https://files.mastodonapp.uk/media_attachments/files/110/395/126/943/634/549/original/d2986915192e0e8d.jpg Want to put a 2nd HD in here? The metal plate is the drive sled. https://files.mastodonapp.uk/media_attachments/files/110/394/785/312/986/970/original/27f8e8955d3e8cbf.jpg This is the IDE connector. This is the only IDE connector, the motherboard's circuity is wired to that PCI style connector. And you still need a HD to image too that the machine can use. anything over 100GB won't be recognised. Well, I lie. it will be recognised, as 30GB. To duplicate it, you need a 60 to 100GB HD. The last of which will be over 15 years old now.

PATA to SATA won't fit on the drive sled. There's only 5mm of movement for the drive between the connector and the drive due to the mounting slots. I'm currently running it from a 2.5inch to SD card converted which is cable tied to the sled, and if you put the cable ties on the wrong way, it won't fit into the slot. https://files.mastodonapp.uk/media_attachments/files/110/395/126/943/634/549/original/d2986915192e0e8d.jpg the metal plate in the middle of shot is the actual drive sled.

Installing XP took an hour. XP working gives 100mbps ethernet, the backup is 8.25Gb compressed, and restores in about an hour. Activating takes 5 mins. Machine was back in operation before the end of the day.

Plus, even if you imaged it via ethernet, you'd still hitting the issue of finding a replacement 2.5inch PATA drive that the system can use. Anything over 100GB won't be recognised. Most imaging software I have access too won't image onto a drive smaller then the original.

Re: Back When I Was Younger*

It's also based off the previous times this machine has killed a drive! There's nothing like "this is how we fixed it last time" to keep you backing the system up.

I really wouldn't want to make an image of a 60GB drive, with 25Gb of data, over usb 1.1 Which is all this machine has.

That's why we have backups. Reinstall windows, restore backup, activate windows, machine back in production.

Re: A copy from the blown hard drive? Erm...

We have backups. Imaging I find to be a pain when the machine only has USB1.1, and getting a replacement drive of the right size is an issue.

Easier to install XP, and restore the backup, which doesn't care if the new drive is smaller then the old one.

Re: Back When I Was Younger*

That's nice. In this case the drive was working, but half the windows folder was missing, and the actual software folder for the control software wasn't accessible.

I don't know why you'd bother trying to clone a bad drive, when you have a backup ready to restore to a new install.

Re: Really?

Yeah, but 9x windows never claimed to be secure?

Take a copy of the HD that had failed? No, it was easier to install XP, restore the backup, then activate XP.

Can confirm the telephone activation worked last week when a Kaltenbach saw/drill/etc machine blew it's hard drive and the CANbus ISA card won't work in anything other then the industrial PC it runs on...

Tesla batteries went from fully charged to fully disabled after botched patch, lawsuit claims

I'm not against EVs, they just aren't practical for my situation yet.

I am in my own home. You think I should move house for the reason of buying a _CAR_? Sorry, my car isn't the overriding feature of my life.

Re: Taxes

"Now what do you do when people are charging from their own solar panels?" You think the smart meter can't tell when the power isn't being drawn from the grid?

https://www.motorfuelgroup.com/ev-power/ is who runs my local charging site. I say local, it's 16 miles away.

But you have to remember it's a business, they get their energy at business rates. None of the caps/etc applied to residential power apply.

Re: Taxes

You missed out one. Smart meter required for EV charging tariffs. The car talks to the meter so it knows exactly what is going to the BEV, and what is "normal" use. This is how the low tariffs work: the car gets say 10p/kWh to charge for a few hours, while anything else is charged at your normal rate at the same time.

Depends on personal situation for costs - I can't charge at home, I do 700 miles a week. 2 fast charges at 79p/kWh means will cost me roughly £30 more a week to run a BEV,

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

USB3+HDMI KVM at a clients, works fine to the old machine, to the new machine the keyboard and mouse vanish after a couple of days. Cue installing a USB2 hub between the USB 3 KVM and the USB machine. No issues since then.

An important system on project [REDACTED] was all [REDACTED] up

Yes. The more common size at the time though would be 100/150GB to boot. The server I saw this on a lot with a client had 100GB to boot, so if it dipped under 10GB you got the refusal to accept messages. At which point you nuked the IIS logs, the CBS old logs, and the temp files, and normally end up around 35GB free.

There's 2 versions of the pst file. The early version (limit 2Gb) and the later versions that can go larger.

A couple of versions of outlook would ask which format you wanted if you manually made a new PST.

This is how you end up with 50GB psts, and really want to slap the person who's storing that much email in one file.

I remember that. IE 4 for Unix I believe it was branded.

"To add to the fun, the access control software demanded ten percent of the drive be free in order for it to create its temp files – which is madness."

Madness that Microsoft copied for Exchange? Hit a fault where incoming emails were bouncing, turns out if you have less then 10% free space on the boot drive, some versions of Exchange refuses to accept incoming emails, regardless of how much space is free on the drive/partition where Exchange itself is installed.

Is there anything tape can’t fix? This techie used it to defeat the Sun

Re: Not only mice

My school sun issue was mouse related. Kids couldn't use the mice, the staff could.

Issue was it was a primary school, the teacher's hands covered the mouse, the kid's smaller hands didn't, and the sensor for the horizontal input from the mouse ball just happened to be where the kid's hands didn't cover the mouse.

Parts of UK booted offline as Virgin Media suffers massive broadband outage

"Whomever runs the underlying infrastructure then...you know what I meant." That would be.. Openreach for over Openreach connections, Virgin Media for Virgin connections, KCom for Kcom connections, etc... You know, the individual companies. None of which are the local authorities.

As for the rest, congratulations, you discovered ISP peering. And just because your packets went that route today, doesn't mean it will go that route tomorrow if something happens.

I used to have fun with that, when Demon was around, because packets to the US could go via LINX, or via Demon's own link to NYC and come out from the NYC office.