Posts by SuperGeek

Help! My printer won't print no matter how much I shout at it!

Re: Out of tree error

"Someone once handed me a massive stack of paper for their work. It was written only on one side of each page, and every other line."

My Aunty recently had me proof read a book she wrote. The file was 630 pages. Thinking it was a big book, I opened the DOC file. She's written it as above! One line, then every other line, only one side of a sheet! And she wondered why a publisher wouldn't look at it! I bet it was only 50 pages total, even if duplexed. I didn't bother re-formatting it, i'd have charged her £500 an hour!!

We have bad news for non-US Microsoft fans: The incoming Surface Duo is underspecced, overpriced, and over there

Re: Battery capacity for starters

My UMIDIGI Power 3 phone has a 6150mAh battery in it, and that was only £144 off Amazon. Cracking phone too, running AOSP with no bloat!

The power of Bill compels you: A server room possessed by a Microsoft-hating, Linux-loving Demon

It wasn't a spirit....

But an Earthly poltergeist!! Wearing a yellow/green cloak!

Cops called to Singapore golf club after 'wrongdoers' use scripts to book popular timeslots

Re: Is it hacking?

Or even using AutoFill. I do it a lot, is that hacking too?

Amazon spies on staff, fires them by text for not hitting secretive targets, workers 'feel forced to work through pain, injuries' – report

Re: This is news?

The companies that work on behalf of Apple do it too. Foxconn, and all the poor buggers out in the mines in dangerous conditions risking their lives to mine ore for the next iShiny.

Re: Dystopian Nightmares Inc.

"You are constantly worried that you'll receive an anonymous performance warning or someday after a shift you'll get a text telling you you're sacked (or a message coming through the air delivery tube"

That can happen at any company. I've worked at lots of independent repair shops that hit the wall overnight.

Putting the d'oh! in Adobe: 'Years of photos' permanently wiped from iPhones, iPads by bad Lightroom app update

People really ARE stupid

"Two-plus years of edits are just gone, lost, unrecoverable," sighed one user. "I do photography as a hobby so I never saw a need for backing up photos and I never paid for the subscription (which would include cloud storage) because I didn’t use any of the tools that came along with the subscription."

Your own damn fault. I'm a photographer too, and ALWAYS make sure I clone my SD Cards, and have extra ZIP backups of them. I'm a tech guy, but I still would even if I wasn't.

Huawei Matebook X Pro 2020: Nothing too crazy but at least it's more fixable and cheaper than comparable Apple wares

Ha. Says an Anonymous Coward! Where's your name?

Intel talks up its 10nm Tiger Lake laptop system-on-chips as though everything is going according to plan

Re: Is it just me,

I saw Colonel Sanders in him before Rolf Harris....

Apple's at it again: Things go pear-shaped for meal planner app after iGiant opposes logo

Re: How about saying ‘Sorry’, Apple?

"You can have something of appalling quality which is highly repairable"

Ah, right. Appalling quality! I thought you said APPLE quality that is repairable! Apple? Quality? Repairable? Nah, they don't fit together!

What happens when holes perfect for spyware are found in the engine room of millions of Qualcomm-based phones? Let's find out

Re: Why do us customers bother?

Exactly. The more complex the system, the more points of failure that are introduced :(

Whoops, our bad, we may have 'accidentally' let Google Home devices record your every word, sound – oops

Re: Or more likely ...

"but they don't care whose things they're selling as long as they don't make one of the items concerned"

Not entirely true. I work for Amazon. They have opened the floodgates to third party sellers over the years, and now realise it's all third party brands being sold which is eating their profits. They've now started copying these brands and creating their own clones (UMI and Find being two, as well as AmazonBasics) to muscle out third parties and make more profit.

Trump administration labels WeChat, TikTok ‘threats’ to national security, bans transactions with both

Wait, what?

"further highlight the Trump administration’s unique governing style"

Style? Where? Unique, yes, but in a baby throwing toys from pram kinda way!

UK insurance biz Direct Line drops 'misrepresentation' claims against IBM in £36m database platform lawsuit

Look at..

Post Office, for example? Mismanagement and denial through and through

Canon not firing on all cylinders: Fledgling cloud loses people's pics'n'vids, then 'Maze ransomware' hits

Re: "...offers 10GB of long-term storage space for people's personal photos and videos"

I agree. I back my SD cards up to BD-RE discs too. No need to rely on third party, because we all know what happens there *cough* MegaUpload *cough*

We're suing Google for harvesting our personal info even though we opted out of Chrome sync – netizens

"wish to return to it, rather than use a different browser, once Google stops tracking unsynced users"

Haha, that will be the day Shergar turns up with Lord Lucan astride him!

What the duck? Bloke keeps getting sent bathtime toys in the post – and Amazon won't say who's responsible

Like politicians...

I thought Amazon may have "ducked" the question. The poor ducks just want a father figure to take them under his wing. Awww.

Re: As funny as this is...

You don't have to accept it and then start a return. Just refuse it in front of the driver. I've done it with neighbour's packages, as well as my own when I decided I didn't want them.

Butterfingers who don't bother with phone cases, rejoice: New Gorilla Glass 'Victus' tipped to survive 6ft drops

Re: Is dropping your phone common?

@Gobaskof: You're the kind of real world tester manufacturers DREAM of!

Capita's bespoke British Army recruiting IT cost military 25k applicants after switch-on

Re: Again & Again & Again

"Capita has the brains and still keeps coming out on top even when they mess up"

Really? "has the brains", "capita" and "mess up" in the same sentence? Let me FTFY:

"Capita has NO brains and still keeps coming out on top even when they mess up royally, which is all the time, cause they're a pile of runny brown poo-brains"

There. True to fact!

Teardown nerds delve into Dell's new XPS 15 laptop to find – fancy that – screws and user-serviceable parts

"the USB-C ports are part of the logic board. If you bend or break these, you could be looking at an arse-clenchingly expensive motherboard replacement."

Not always. As long as it's just the port being stressed from normal insertions (oo-eer!) the port support solder joints (the port casing to board support and earth) just loosen. If you get it fixed quick enough and are lucky enough to not have the pads or traces on the motherboard of the actual connector break, a simple desolder and resolder is enough. Even the pins can be resoldered with a soldering iron and fine tip, if you have a shop magnifying lamp to hand.

I've even re-traced them with solder wire, and epoxy, but Micro USB and C are near impossible without eye strain and stress migraines from concentrating too hard. A connectors were easy. I wish we'd go back to the old days. Do connectors for frequently inserted and unplugged stuff REALLY have to be so small?? Goes to prove that they never perform "accelerated wear tests" to real world standard!!

Apple: Don't close MacBooks with a webcam cover on, you might damage the display

Disable camera in BIOS....oh...wait!

You can't do that in a Mac! Most normal laptops let you disable the camera in BIOS (my two Dells do), and the hacks don't work as the OS never sees the hardware.

No cover needed, and the mic still works when I unmute it.

Linus Torvalds banishes masters, slaves and blacklists from the Linux kernel, starting now

Re: what about the arcane art of black magic?

No, he sits there eating boxes of chocolates! Black Magic = Brand of chocolate. Guess that will have to change name too.

Android 11 will let users stop device-makers from killing background apps, says Google

Re: iOS

iOS... is a shitty walled garden controlled by crApple control freaks, "optimised" to run on outdated hardware to make it look like latest tech.

Re: So...

Not really. What about apps such as banking that won't run on a modified device? You going to suggest getting a second phone? O;O

Re: Give me the power!

"I have a 1TB microSD card so my phone is pretty much s laptop replacement for casual tasks"

A phone with 5" - 6" screen is NO replacement for proper laptop with proper keyboard. I bet I can get through my work faster than you, without going cross eyed at a smalll keyboard and having to scroll all the time!

Microsoft to pull support for PHP: Version 8? Exterminate, more like...

"Of the decision itself, our reader, Alain, commented: "Personally I don't care as I am a Linux man and am wary of touching Windows with someone else's barge pole."

If you're so paranoid you shouldn't be using ANY tech at all. Chuck McGill says Hi!

When open source isn't enough: Fancy a de-Googled Chromium? How about some Microsoft-free VS Code?

It's the new "app for that"!

"There's an extension extension for that!"

We've paused Sigfox roof aerial payments, says WND-UK, but we'll make you whole after COVID

Re: How's this...

Unfortunately, Walking Dead style zombies don't exist, so we just use Apple zombies instead! Dangle a few fake new iPhones on a string, job done, and no sci-fi needed! There's hundreds of thousands of them out there too!

CEO of motherboard maker MSI dies after plunging from headquarters' seventh-floor

My condolences, such a shock. MSI has been good to me over the years, used a lot of their motherboards back in the day and they were reliable.

It's not a Windows 10 release without something breaking so here's a troubleshooter for your OneDrive woes

Re: Again?

"Disclaimer.. not a Win10 user. I'm in the Linux world with Win7 for a VM. Happy as a hog in a waller as they say and not looking back."

And what's the marketshare and intended userbase of your perfect Linux heaven again? Oh, right. Small marketshare, and aimed at geeks and webserver owners. So it's not viable as mainstream OS. Been there, tried that. Some customers get used to it, most don't. Most of my customers are music producers and photographers. No native Photoshop support, and Cubase runs like crap on Linux.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a geek and webserver owner, and run Linux. But when things go badly wrong (and with kernels and drivers they often do in Linux) normal end users don't want to be faffing, or even know how to faff, with a terminal, and all the rest of it.

Windows may be beta software, but where's the alternative for your average Joe? Mac OS? Don't make me laugh.

Barclays Bank appeared to be using the Wayback Machine as a 'CDN' for some Javascript

Re: Data not at risk?

"I'll need his account numbers, PIN and a sample of his signature to verify it."

I've got my old pal George Agdgdgwngo on speed dial, I'll get him on the job!

Cool IT support drones never look at explosions: Time to resolution for misbehaving mouse? Three seconds

A not-so-close shave

I repair computers, home appliances, consumer electronics, and also help out with small healthcare devices. Mobility scooters, powerchairs, heart monitors, TENS, that kind of thing. Recently got a call from a customer saying her Ladyshave had stopped working. "It's worked fine since I bought it two years ago, now it's not cutting!"

Guided her to where the cutter button was, and told her to open it over a bin, and clean the blades. "Ooh, didn't know it needed to be emptied and cleaned!" Same with Hoovers. The amount people drop off to my shop not sucking that just need deep filter cleaning. They empty the cyclone can but forget the filters, and motor filter. They think the detritus just evaporates. Unbelievable. Humans are so cute!

Analogue radio given 10-year stay of execution as the UK U-turns on DAB digital future

DAB+? Where's the +?

DAB+ was introduced with higher quality AAC codec yet most stations are stil using old 32kbits quality, and that includes a lot of BBC stations! No wonder they sound crap!

I bought a PCI Modular Technologies DAB card years ago, and it is now as rare as hen's teeth. I don't think it is DAB + as there were never any firmwre updates as Modular went bang a few years after it launched. It has a brilliant aerial, and is great for recording radio, as the only other DAB recorder I know of and own is the KAOS PDR1 portable, which records to MicroSD, but is frankly crap, and cost £60!

DAB is like 3D TV. Great idea, poor and costly execution.

Apple said to be removing charger, headphones from upcoming iPhone 12 series

And brakes, it would seem from recent experience I've had of Brainless Moronic Wanker drivers speeding through red lights and roundabouts!

Beware the fresh Windows XP install: Failure awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth

Re: chewed wires

"I figured this several months ago whilst battling HR for a chair that could be raised an extra inch to give me a comfortable working position. Unfortunately the monolithic HR department I was dealing with couldn't understand that someone wanted something that had never been asked for before, and which didn't fit their policies."

You have the legal right to walk out of work if the environment is unsafe. Hurting your back or neck is an unsafe workplace. I walked out of one job because the computer repair workshop was too cold and the boss didn't see why he should get heaters. Once I refused to work and pointed out he was breaching Health & Safety, and mentioned the word "tribunal" the attitude soon changed....

Wheels aren't the only danger!

"ensuring that the life of a precious pet was not prematurely truncated with a damp squeak by a thoughtless roll of a wheeled office chair."

Or a nasty electric shock sending it flying across the room. Oh look, a flying pig! SSSQQQQUUEEEEEAAAKKK!

An unfortunate bit of product placement for Microsoft as Liverpool celebrates winning some silverware

I thought Bork meant "break"

Therefore this article isn't a bork, it simply needs a key, it hasn't crashed, blue screened, caught fire or shown an error, it's simply an informative message.

Slow news week??

CompSci student bitten by fox after feeding it McNuggets

Re: Poxy Greys

"It is just as well red squirrels live higher up and out of the way, cute as they are, UK red squirrels carry leprosy.

So try not to kiss them frequently."

Or as the World Health Organisation recently advised, "Don't have unprotected sex with wild animals"

Chime after chime: Apple restores iconic Mac boot sound removed in 2016

Sentimental even

A bit like me. I like the startup sound of Windows ME (the only part of it I DID like mind!) so have baked it into my imgres.dll.mun file in Win 10!

The sounds never leave you..... You can take the sound out of the OS, but you can't take the nostalgia out of the sound!

Faxing hell: The cops say they would very much like us to stop calling them all the time

Re: I called the cops

"so wasn't even there to explin when the cobs showed up"

You must have been on a bread roll after that!

845GB of racy dating app records exposed to entire internet via leaky AWS buckets

Re: Can we say blackmail these days?

Coerce?

An Internet of Trouble lies ahead as root certificates begin to expire en masse, warns security researcher

Re: Of course if they weren't so greedy ....

So, then, can you explain why when I take the HDD out of my YouView box, I can view the SD programmes TS files with VLC just fine, but HD ones won't play?

Encryption is my first guess, so the guy above you WAS right.

Repair store faces hefty legal bill after losing David and Goliath fight with Apple over replacement iPhone screens

Technically you don't "own" a device

As more and more devices have more and more semiconductors, which in turn contain their own embedded software/firmware, which you DO NOT own, only a license to use, so technically Apple have a point. If the screens are indeed counterfeit they're likely to have counterfeit firmware in the control circuitry.

Look at what John Deere tried with their tractors. Stopping mechanics or farmers tuning/repairing the vehicles because of copyrighted ECU code. The more software controlled semiconductors we get, the bigger this grey area becomes, unless everyone in the semiconductor industry switches to open source firmware, which in the case of vehicles will NEVER happen for safety reasons. And profit, of course!

So why didn't you buy parts off eBay or similar, from a Mac with damaged motherboard for example? Going to Apple or third party isn't the only option, especially if you really do" know about computers".

Western Digital shingled out in lawsuit for sneaking RAID-unfriendly tech into drives for RAID arrays

Re: Forcing us to the Cloud 'Solution' and Subscription Hell?

"Best I can figure is all manufacturers have lost interest and are persuing the sweet subscription stream that is the 'cloud' and making home kit more and more cost prohibitive and offering kit that is no longer reliable."

Exactly. BUT, and this is a big BUT, home/business broadband needs a kick up the arse SERIOUSLY as todays speeds are nowhere near enough when you need to back up terabytes and petabytes of data nightly/weekly.

The "cloud" sounds oh so good until you factor in the total cost in a year, plus the poor speed of internet vs. the cost of hard drives. Hard drives are NOT dead yet.

Re: up to 2TB, it makes no sense to go mechanical

HD Sentinel is great for that, it monitors my drives in realtime and I can watch ANY stat dropping as they happen, not just the "old-age" variables.

Wrong credit.

"The use of SMR in WD Red NAS drives was uncovered by The Register's sister site Blocks and Files, whose investigatory work is highlighted in the lawsuit's paperwork."

Uncovered? Don't you mean, "reported on"? The DataHoarder community on Reddit likely discovered it first, and now typical journalistic parasites are trying to take the credit for it.

Linus Torvalds drops Intel and adopts 32-core AMD Ryzen Threadripper on personal PC

They say you can tell a man....

By the PC he runs. And Linus's is just like him, and his attitude. Overpowered. Linus, you ain't THAT great. I hold Berners-Lee in a higher regard than you. At least he ain't an arrogant son of a bullying bitch. Hey Linus, where's your husband, Steve Jobs? Oh, right. Dead. Where bullying attitude deserves to be. 6 foot under.