Posts by tip pc

Citrix has built a browser, and lost a CEO

As they say in Yorkshire

That'll do

Config cockup leaves Reg reader reaching for the phone

Cisco commands are live too

The SSR differed from Cisco hardware in a number of ways. Perhaps the most important was how configuration worked. "When changes were applied to the command line they were applied directly," explained Kildare, "rather than being held in a buffer and applied with a second command."

Cisco commands go live once entered.

A good routine is build your config in a text editor

Then save the running config on the device and a copy on your pc

Then reload in [x minutes]

Then paste your commands

If you make a mistake and lock yourself out then it’ll reboot and get you back to where you where before you started.

An out of band network (dial up, mobile or xdsl) is invaluable when working on remote systems.

We all (ok most of us) learn from our squeaky moments!!

VMware imagines 'memory servers' – a new source of shared software-defined RAM

Need to see the Numbers

With non volatile storage having quicker access and transfer rates than RAM of a few generations ago I’d need to see the numbers to understand the benefit of accessing off system RAM across some interconnection vs local sad. If it’s quick enough to not be noticeable then it’s a great idea.

An extension could be to pool all the ram under management (imagine 12 esxi hosts each with 200 GB ram with some hosts needing more than others) so existing hardware can be used to prove the concept with an eye for dedicated vsphere ram server later.

Would be a winner for bladed systems.

Facebook, Instagram finally end days of uptime by returning to some downtime

Again?

Maybe instead of running their own brew systems they need to look at cots with some support?

Intel's €80bn European chip plant investment plan not bound for UK because Brexit

Re: We could'nt offer

"The torys found out Intel wasn't a bank and therefore not worth bailing out....."

You do know it was Gordan Brown's Labour government that bailed out the banks last time!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_United_Kingdom_bank_rescue_package

We have some sad news about Facebook. It has returned to the internet after six-hour mega outage

Re: I love the Register

you can set passwords for BGP peering neighbours.

Re: Not a failure of testing - a failure of change enablement

“ The moral of the story is that, if you're modifying BGP automatically, you need, first, to design the safety-net, by writing, and testing, code that will reset it all to its last known working state -- reliably, every time.

To fail-fast, you must be able to reset-fast.”

Cisco

Reload in 10

Juniper

Commit confirmed

Critical infrastructure should always have out of band management!!

In a previous life, our HA product would always crap itself if the 2 MySQL db’s got out of sync for what ever reason. Replaying the log files always required some sacrifice to some deities. I always preferred to bin the errant db and resync from primary, not sure why that wasn’t the first solution in the published support manual.

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are Down!

And I never knew!

If it's going to rain within the next 90 mins, this very British AI system can warn you

Re: "you never know when it's going to rain"

I use the rainalarm app on iPhone.

It. Uses weather radar and tells you if your current location will get rain in x time.

Got enterprise workstations and hope to run Windows 11? Survey says: You lose. Over half the gear's not fit for it

Re: Immutable OS’s are the answer

there is also this explainer about SSV's

https://eclecticlight.co/2021/08/11/should-you-clean-install-big-sur-or-monterey/

Re: Immutable OS’s are the answer

I understand the reasons for going to web apps. But what SHOULD have happened is that they re-design the web so that apps could work easily.

the web is very flexible.

If its needed to just present a result or accept input then its fairly ubiquitous, so long as a browser vendor is not tied down then future browser security updates are taken care of by someone else (yes could mean borkage to your app too)!!

Apps that actually crunch data locally could still just have a web front end sending api calls to the app backend. Web presentation should provide greater presentation innovative freedom for the app designer and enables 3rd parties to potentially integrate.

A Web app could mean that huge compute resources can be centralised so the user needs far less capable rendering of a result or it could mean that a program is run in the local browser or it could be a bit of both.

Re: Immutable OS’s are the answer

I would have upvoted you but for the small fact that I think your scenario is even worse than reality. If you really meant immutable os and suggested building it in to the hardware in such a way that it couldn't be overwritten I might be interested.

see this handy register explainer

https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/18/kinoite_immutable_fedora/

Have you noticed that the screens aren't quite the same size?

I've been able to display my phone screen on my tv or monitor since my iPhone 4, I've also been able to use bluetooth keyboards with smart phones for a long time now.

Samsung has DEX which has been a thing for a while,

https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_DeX

take a look at what is actually possible

Immutable OS’s are the answer

Separate the OS from the apps and data and you then start caring a lot less about the os.

Web apps have been the future for over a decade now, remember Steve Jobs didn’t want users to install apps but came up with a way for people to save html5 apps on your idevice, still works today but few know about or even use it.

With cpu independent languages like Java, html etc and the proliferation of web delivered apps there is little future need for a paid for OS when it can all be done on a chrome book in a browser window.

The os vendor then take care of os security and patching, leaving the user to get on and do their work.

Windows will have a fight on its hands to remain relevant in a world where people will wonder why they need an expensive Intel powered machine to use their web app when their expensive phone and tablet can do the same task.

IKEA: Cameras were hidden in the ceiling above warehouse toilets for 'health and safety'

Disgusting!!

how could they state that installing cameras in a toilet void is part of health and safety to record people doing drugs?

Why would people do drugs in a ceiling void.

what else have they got? are there microphones in toilets too just in case they can listen to people talking about or doing drugs?

Revealed: How to steal money from victims' contactless Apple Pay wallets

Re: A better solution...

with Express Pay, an iphone that has shutdown due to low battery can still be used for paying for travel.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/sec90cd29d1f/web

Xero, Slack suffer outages just as Let's Encrypt root cert expiry downs other websites, services

Lets Encrypt consultancy?

they should do this every few years and cream some consultancy fees from the ensuing borkage

It great they provide an easy to use service for free

UK MoD data strategy calls for social media surveillance on behalf of 'local authorities'

where does this come from

There seems to be a consistent drift to an authoritarian regime & not just in the UK but across the globe.

We have governments constantly wanting to see into more of our data, we have Apple's CSAM thing and gaining in frequency is a push via the media to denigrate social media companies using encryption for their "customers" interactions.

We have a billion cameras installed to enforce congestion charging & motorway speed limits plus monitoring peoples movements through towns, cities & even shops.

Mobile phone companies for decades have been mandated to triangulate handset location and keep that data for extended times this was a requirement well before phones got gps.

marketing companies harvested wifi and bluetooth Mac addresses from shops and other businesses they'd know how long you spent in each shop and what shops you went to next.

the intelligence services don't need to monitor our Social media. They need to monitor the other places that criminals congregate to do their communications.

It won't be long before they run out of criminals and start creating criminals out of ordinary law abiding soles in order to justify their own existence.

FYI: Catastrophic flooding helped carve Martian valleys, not just rivers of water

Climate change

Mars is a warning of what happens when you don’t listen to Greta!!!!

Catastrophic flooding followed by the atmosphere and all surface water leaving.

We’ve been warned!!!

Email billing blunder meant MVNO iD Mobile told 24,000 customers to pay up or have their service suspended

Re: But...

https://mbnl.co.uk

Yes, probably true but if, like us, you have no choice but to use EE as they are the only one providing a signal, what can you do?

If only there was some way of overriding the laws of physics.

Three & EE share masts and backhaul across their networks. no overriding physics needed, just jump to Three or an mvno of three or EE.

Kent County Council names eight suppliers on £500m education framework

Half a billion

"establishments with the tools for the collection and management of data, providing efficient reporting and a means to communicate effectively to all stakeholders with access anytime, anywhere."

how on earth is that worth £500 million of tax payers hard earned cash?

Thats £125 million per year, thats a quarter of a billion £ every year.

apparently there are 1.85 million people in Kent.

that is £269.46 per person over the 5 years.

Surely Kent have better things to spend all that money on.

REvil customers complain ransomware gang uses backdoors to filch ransoms

Just goes to show

You just can’t trust anyone these days!

If anyone can explain why Jupiter's Great Red Spot is spinning faster and shrinking, please speak up

Obviously climate change!!

Jupiters spot is both speeding up and getting smaller.

The climate of Jupiter has obviously changed over the years.

clearly something we’ve done on this planet is causing what we see on Jupiter.

We must do something and do it soon. It must be something on a global scale and something everyone must contribute to.

It’s not a punishment but if we don’t do it it’ll have a detrimental and catastrophic impact in the next 10 years!! We’ve already seen the situation change for the worse over the last 10 years so it’s undeniable it’ll continue to change.

We must act now in unison to ward off any future changes.

Metro Bank techies placed at risk of redundancy, severance terms criticised

typical doubles speak

stating "while investing in our colleagues and technology to enhance accessibility for customers." while putting almost 90 roles into "at risk of redundancy" & then wanting to retain 65 of those roles.

I'd hang on for redundancy and then take a break while looking for that next role.

Here's an idea: Verification for computer networks as well as chips and code

Re: Does this suggestion APPLY TO THE INTERNET AS A WHOLE?

“ From a security standpoint, there are fewer points of entry for any network offset by the far worse level of compromise achieved should one be breached. Good CIOs these days should be expecting a breach and looking to achieve the shortest elapsed time possible from problem isolation to fix.”

Most people use SDN to increase the number of points of entry, instead of private circuits (mpls, ipvpn etc) many are turning to cheap dsl circuits and wanting SDN to overlay on top. Many SDN systems will encapsulate and encrypt over the top but you’ve not got multiple sites plumbed directly to the internet instead of centralised internet breakout.

Once your SDN is found to be compromised you’ve got a big task on your hands update your SDN infrastructure.

One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it

Re: Innovation

Thunderbolt is more or less identical to USB-C and in fact some variants have USB-C connectors.

Usb3.1 does 10gb/s while tb3 does 40gb/s

It’s a huge difference

Tb3 uses usb-c as its connector interface so enables 1 port to do usb, or tb, or display port over thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt was developed by Intel and apple.

Usb4 is effectively TB3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB4

You want thunderbolt but usb is cheaper and therefore more ubiquitous.

My 5 year old Mac book pro is still relevant in terms of connectivity so I don’t need a new machine to get 40gb/s

charger dealer

Of course you will be able to buy as many chargers as you want from a bloke down the road, but police will be keeping an eye on that - it's always good to keep police away from corruption and other serious crimes.

is that guy pinging you on whats app too?

some people use that connection for hi speed data transfer too.

Re: The Apple isn’t green

As an iPhone owner this comment bugs me. It’s entirely obvious that USB-C should have been adopted by Apple, not only for environmental reasons, but also for performance reasons.

usb-c came well after apple adopted lightning and teamed with intel on thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt adopting the usb-c port confused a lot of things, but thunderbolt has always been faster than usb.

for reference usb3.1 can do 10gbs while thunderbolt 2 did 20gbps. my 2016 MBP does tb3 at 40gbps.

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/computing-components/peripherals/thunderbolt-vs-usb-3-0-vs-esata-931343

usb4 released in 2019 is based on tb3.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#USB4

Apple consistently pushed the performance envelope, first with lighting (usbv2 speed but a smaller connection) then with intel and thunderbolt pushing multiple gb/s.

there are a number of fast usb charging standards that can supply more wattage and voltage than than the basic usb spec if both ends are compliant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#USB_Power_Delivery

that is outside of apple's influence though.

I can charge all my PD spec & non PD spec devices happily off my MBP & iPad Pro high 20+w wattage chargers.

not wrong with the chargers, getting the right cable though is yet another amazon purchase. Do remember a charging cable won't do hi speed data transfer, at best you'll get usbv2 (480mbps) speeds.

Re: So it "stifles innovation"

all my apple chargers have usb-a connections, I can plug any usb-a cable in to them and use them for powering all sorts of stuff, I even have usb-a to dc round connectors for different things. Amazon sells some usb-a to dc cables that you can change the output voltage, useful for powering stuff from those cheap power banks.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Apple told The Reg

you lie!!!

in all seriousness though, what happens when someone comes up with a new connection standard that is somehow better than & incompatible with the current usb thing the EU want everyone to use?

we would then have 2 connections and increased cost?

what if Apple decide not to have a connection at all, will they be forced to put a USB port on all their portable stuff when its not needed?

I'm all for standardisation but enforced standardisation seems a bit to far.

are the EU mandating mini/micro usb or is it usb-c?

I'm happy with usb-c connector and would be grateful if everything used it, would cut down the number of cables I need, but I do have a load of cables with usb-a on 1 side and 3 connectors (usb-c, lightning, micro usb) on the other that are useful especially in the car and our hallway where I have a usb-c connected wireless dock & can still use the micro usb & lighting connectors, all 3 at the same time if I need.

Lastly, the cheap usb-c cables tend to only permit charging & are no good for data transfer, or only permit usb2 (400mbs) speeds on transfer.

Frustrated dev drops three zero-day vulns affecting Apple iOS 15 after six-month wait

Mitigation?

"The bugs are neat, but unlikely to be widely exploited," security researcher Patrick Wardle, founder of free security project Objective See and director of research at security biz Synack, told The Register. "Any app that attempted to (ab)use them would need to first be approved by Apple, via the iOS app Store."

Bug is present but not readily exploitable.

Just maybe it’s lower on their priority list?

More people are likely pissed about the intentional snooping than a potential issue if some rogue app dev decides to intentionally exploit a bug that gets through apples approval process.

Check your bits: What to do when Unix decides to make a hash of your bill printouts

Re: Not a Cossie, but...

Vauxhall Nova SRi, was a proper death trap.

I was asked to drive 1 back from a service, I blipped the throttle and it literally jumped from 1 side of the road to the other.

it didn't weigh anything & the 1.6l engine was far too powerful for anything on it to handle.

The Cossie was the rs500 sierra cosworth

Legendary sierra cosworth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Sierra_RS_Cosworth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywooLVq3tws

https://drivetribe.com/p/ford-sierra-cosworth-rs500-QzZQeRatTEyQ16uWGl7teQ

From what I can tell the escort cosworth came later ~1992.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Escort_(Europe)#Escort_RS_Cosworth

I always wanted one but couldn’t afford one and didn’t want to do what everyone else did, I.e stole one.

SpaceX successfully sends four amateurs into orbit for three-day tour

Re: Crappy video

That video is no longer available

I’m sure your camera is far superior to the potato of the other guys!

BT Wholesale wants the channel to give SMBs a nudge before copper sunset in 2025

Re: Cellular are the winners?

I've been saying for decades that wireless is the future.

1 day you'll go to Tesco's and buy a laptop with no ethernet port that has an amount (months) of cellular bandwidth in the purchase price, you'll attach to your cellular plan and that'll be it. No mucking about with home broadband or wifi passwords.

It's why fixed line phone companies (ok BT & VM) have been busy buying mobile carriers, VM had to hook up with O2, yes Telefonica wanted a buyer but VM would have been in trouble had they not hooked up.

5G is already quicker than most wired broadband right now.

look at the reality, I've already got ~50 devices in my home on wifi (tv's x 3, games consoles x2, washing machine, dish washer, lights x 5, thermostat x 2, phones x 2, tablets x 4, car, printers x 2, laptops x 4, sky boxes x 3, smart speakers x 5, cctv, smart cameras x 2, watches x 2, kids toys x 4, kindle, DVD player, av systems x 2, Garmin, that's actually just 49 off the top of my head all on 1 apple airport express timecapsule & yes I get 4k streaming everywhere even in at the edge of the garden )

the point is not many people actually connect their devices via a wire to their broadband.

My ageing iPhone X used to get 70/70 mb/s between 7am and 7pm on 3 in the worst wifi reception spot in the house which was more than my 50/x mb/s on VM I was getting at the time, 3 has gone to pot recently and is now more like 20/30 mb/s now while I get 200/20 mb/s (I got a stupid deal for £25 pm, now £33 pm) on vm.

I'd happily trade my 200/20 mb/s for a 100/100 mb/s.

a test on her iPhone 12 max on 3 5g delivered 500/400 mb/s while driving which is more than enough for all our households needs.

in a few years we won't be worrying about a fixed connection to our homes.

Remember all those claims about 5G masts in lamp posts

The magic TUPE roundabout: Council, Wipro, Northgate all deny employing Unix admins in outsourcing muddle

Re: Are they being paid?

“ this would have meant they were jobless”

Implies a possibility that never occurred.

“this meant they were jobless”

Would be clear they where no longer employed or being paid.

Re: Are they being paid?

Where does it state they where contractors to WiPRo?

I thought they where TUPE’d to WiPRo then mean to have been TUPE’D to Northgate, hence why they took the council and Wipro to court too.

Re: Are they being paid?

“ I don't think it's so much whether they are being paid”

I’d like to know if they are being paid and if so by who?

The article makes it sound like someone is still paying them for their job.

Re: Are they being paid?

“ You would obviously try to find another job while the mess is sorted out, sou you live instead of starving if you fail in court, and you can put a huge compensation into a savings account instead of using it to pay back your debt if you lose.”

This is why I asked are they being paid. If not then yes they should have moved on and taken through the courts.

The article isn’t clear to me and suggests they are still being paid, if someone is paying them then who. If WiPRo then they will likely help their case as they can claim costs and Northgate will take their legal challenge more seriously.

If Northgate then effectively the 2 are being paid to not do anything.

It’s a small detail but crucial to the understanding of the story.

Re: Are they being paid?

This, the company claimed, meant TUPE shouldn't apply and therefore Fulke and Reid's sysadmin jobs would be someone else's responsibility. Unfortunately for the two sysadmins, this would have meant they were jobless, stranded between three organisations that all said they weren't responsible for employing the duo.

The article doesn’t make it clear, (I’ve emphasised the ambiguous words in the article) it makes it seem like the claimants are still employed and paid by someone.

Is WiPRo still paying them or is Northgate?

If their function moved to Northgate then Northgate need to pay them or make them redundant and pay what ever the claimants contract state, could be quite generous given they where ex council and could have had generous severance arrangements.

Maybe Northgate didn’t factor that in on their bid and will be out of pocket?

Maybe the claimants have moved on after not getting paid post transfer and are claiming unfair dismissal when they should have transferred with the contract?

TUPE is becoming more prevalent with more businesses deciding they are not IT shops and think they can save money by having someone else do their bespoke work for them.

Are they being paid?

Who is paying for them?

You want us to make a change? We can do it, but it'll cost you...

Re: Screw-up?

Who, me? Has turned into do the job your paid for, aka BAU.

I had thought that 8 would be the number of appendages and it broke over vm a bank holiday weekend or Christmas where some jurisdictions where still operational and doing file updates that effectively exceeded the appendage limit.

UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead

How is that different to a credit rating agency who has details in you that you never provided and can’t account for its accuracy?

“ With the bonus of removing all those far right / anti-vax / flat earth echo chambers!”

The bonus is just that Facebook wouldn’t exist.

Report details how Airbus pilots saved the day when all three flight computers failed on landing

Re: "Seems the pilots did a good job,"

@Dave

Boeing released a press release pre reinstatement stating training was needed

https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=130596

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings#2020

I do hope your not a pilot

Computacenter, one of Europe's largest resellers, struggling with data centre kit, up to 6-month lead times

"Added benefit: less energy used, reduced shipping and reduced use of raw materials"

Where is the tax incentive in that?

VMware announces tech preview of Arm hypervisor – Fusion on Apple's M1 silicon

Interesting

Just need the rumoured new Mac mini’s and this could be of interest.

Dependent on if OS X will report me for running virtualised software.

Guntrader breach perp: I don't think it's a crime to dump 111k people's details online in Google Earth format

Re: denying their actions amounted to a criminal offence

there are plenty of people like me who would not know the difference between a non working replica and something that would hurt me or those around me.

plenty of kids been shot by police | soldiers because they where carrying something someone thought was a gun. The current leader of Londons police force was even responsible for the team who took someone out because........

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Harry_Stanley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

Apple engineers complain of hostile work environment to US labor watchdog

Re: Is it just me ?

American company but UK office, 1 job I went for, I ace'd the interview and tech review from my potential colleagues.

The HR manger idiot had me go back twice for additional interviews.

At the end he said the team wanted to offer me the job but he didn't want to pay me what I was asking, which was at the top of the pay scale advertised, because it was ~£6k more than he was being paid but only ~ £1k more than I was already being paid.

I really felt for the 2 guys in that team as they truly needed help, I had ace'd their tests (basically i completed correctly the tasks in 20 minutes instead of the hour they allocated) and they where obviously happy to have found someone with the skills they needed. I obviously didn't take the job as I felt I'd not get any support from HR, actually I thought HR would be looking to muscle me out if an issue occurred like I got sick or encountered an unpleasant work place situation.

US Air Force chief software officer quits after launching Hellfire missile of a LinkedIn post at his former bosses

Re: To be fair ?

“Head of IT. You should definitely know who has access to what. That's not rocket science. That is your responsibility.”

I’d truly hope that the head of IT wouldn’t know intricate config details like that, they should have many more other things to be worrying about.

Perhaps they should know that members of the same discipline should have the same access, but I’d not expect them to know individual status.

That’s like saying the ad leader should know what groups every individual is allocated in. Would be impressive when you have 100k staff and 250k domain groups.