Posts by Fred Daggy

Opt-out is the right approach for sharing your medical records with researchers

Re: Shirley there must be an acceptable third option

There isn't because the 3rd option is how you "help mates" and give yourself a non-executive board position when you retire from politics.

And don't call me Shirley.

Australian PM and Deputy threaten Facebook and Twitter with defamation liability for users' posts

WOPR

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." - Joshua/WOPR

BOFH: You. Wouldn't. Put. A. Test. Machine. Into. Production. Without. Telling. Us.

Re: This week

Do remember that test servers get shutdown overnight and all weekends, also Xmas and Easter holidays. Because, cost savings, remember.

Devs in another timezone? no problem, just schedule to meet their needs. Done early enough it gets the message through, mostly.

EU readies 'antitrust charges' against Apple Pay for locking rivals out of iPhone NFC chip

Re: I agree

Everyone realises that the cost of cash isn't free either? Sure, between me and the merchant, handing over 20 zorkmids isn't such a pain. However, as soon as you have even a small amount of it in pile, someone is going to think it's a good idea of relieving you of it.

So, a few costs of cash off the top of my head

- Safe,

- Counting of cash,

- Safe transport of said cash to financial institution

- Losses due to conterfieting (probably small, but still, unless your unlucky)

- Bank processing fees on cash

- Staff time because counting/transporting any amount of cash, large enough to make that cash a target, should not be trusted to one person

- Training of cash handlers

- Losses during transactions

- Losses due to staff "helping themselves"

- Losses due to members of the public thinking a needle/screwdriver/fireare/knife at the throat of the poor sod at the till is a valid withdrawal mechanism

- Security systems to monitor cash transactions

- Plenty more I've missed

You might not see thoses costs baked in to every transaction, but the merchant still has to pay it.

(Worked at a Service Station during University, and at the cash office of a large department store)

EU, want to do something genuinely helpful for consumers? Standardise clothing sizes, so a M in Italy maps to an M in Germany, etc. This shit drives my GF nuts when she's ordering online. Would foster a lot more competition and drive down prices.

Windows 11 in detail: Incremental upgrade spoilt by onerous system requirements and usability mis-steps

Re: Windows 11 brings more into the modern UI but it remains a hybrid.

Alas that I only have one upvote to give.

Windows 2000 was the best Windows shell. It's nearly joyful in its simplicity. Recently made an installation in a VM - because of Zoom fatigue and it was either that or sleep. Now scratching a programming itch in that environment.

Under the hood, Windows 8.1 wasn't too bad - shame about the program list. At least they didn't touch Windows Explorer. Win 8.1 certainly has that "just runs" factor.

There was a reason that a certain J. Clarkson used to describe in very positive terms cars that had an "eager engine". Windows 10 and (from what I am hearing) Windows 11 don't.

Ransomware crim: Yeah, what I do is bad. No, I don't care. Yes, infosec bods are all mouth and no trousers

Re: I have no idea what the solution should be.

I admire your optimism. Remember Enron? End of the financial world. Much hand-wringing from politicians of red-tie and blue-tie variety.

What did it give us? Sarbanes–Oxley Act. A veritable gift to the same firms that allowed Enron to happen.

More useless compliance work that doesn't actually change anything. Forced paper trails.

Anyone stupid enough to be caught by info gleaned from a Sarbanes-Oxley audit would probably be hard pressed to steal candy from a baby.

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

Re: Fscking hell I'm sticking to Windows XP

Found an old copy of Windows 2000 Pro, and Sp4 disk. Installed it on Virtual Box on my mac. Indeed on a USB SSD. It just runs like it stole something.

Same config and Windows 10 mostly works, sorta. It's not the virtualisation that is the problem, it's the extra layer of crud that makes it 100 times slower than Windows 2000. I shudder to think what will happen to Windows XI.

Re: Environmental homicide

If ever there was a case for Governments starting to declare this as a man-made environmental disaster, this is it.

1, FORCE microsoft to keep the patches flowing on pain of death (ok, large enough fines that they hurt the big shareholders), or

2, FORCE microsoft to keep lower the requirements for Windows 11.

In the general sense, though, if any company has a DRM lock on their hardware and/or remote activation, then they should be forced to lodge the WORKING source code and build specifications with a 3rd party (or govt). So that devices can be released and perform their functions until end of life. Not the life of the company, or end of life of the profit stream, end of life of the actual consumer hardware.

Your choice Microsoft.

My ancient iPad mini got a security update just this week. It IS possible to keep supporting older operating systems, its just not profitable to do it.

We do rolling upgrades of PCs at work - we are NOT going to scrap those.

Microsoft slips out Windows Server 2022 with extended support for 10 years

Control Panel

The most important question is, "Has it done a away with the Control Panel?"

It just worked. Which is to Microsoft the reason it should be first in line to be given the 'old yella treatment. Someone could have looked at it and perhaps said, lick of paint there, fix this bug there.

Managing anything in Settings is an excercise in frustration. My particular pain point is Network settings and Regional option. There are others.

Sadly, it's not the only aspect of the Microsoft GUI that causes pain, either.

Microsoft fiddles with Fluent while the long dark Nightmare of the Print Spooler continues for Windows

Re: here we go, again and again

The TV has an OS is the one that gets me every time.

I need just a bunch of HDMI inputs, and be able select one. Volume and brightness and connect to the remote with infrared. My internet company provides IPTV, My Ps3 (to play the occasional bluray and some skyrim when insomniac), Apple TV - because it nice to show the wrinklies photos when they are all on the couch rather than passing the phone around, kodi/xbmc for everything else. I do not need smart ANYTHINK. I don't need it connecting to the internet, no monitoring me, listing or sensing anything in the room AT ALL.

TV: You are a screen - do that and do it well.

Firefox 91 introduces cookie clearing, clutter-free printing, Microsoft single sign-on... so where are all the users?

Firefox was very late to the party with a native MSI installer, rather than just an EXE installer file. However, it has a bug (after more than 3 years, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1505436) and doesn't pass the detection rule without some fudging. Google created an MSI installer, that just works, and Group Policies for managing Chrome for years.***

Firefox aren't alone in this, in the GPL/FOSS realm. If success is measured by bums on seats (Or in this case devices installed), then one needs to have a good MSI installer, and ideally some manageable parameters. And anything beyond an "accept" button on first run is too much for some end users, so needs to be hidden behind some deployment parameter, ideally no scary dialog boxes on start.

Chicken and Egg here. Some users in the enterprise want 'software x' because they use it at home/recommended by family or friends, others will use 'software y' at home because they use it at work.

MSI installer is key to making it easier for mass deployment in the enterprise. Most medium to large enterprises will be using either Intune or MECM (nee SCCM), or similar for managing desktops. Native MSI support means its easy deployment for overworked administrators. More corporate deployments is a quick win, if install and use statistics count.

If it wasn't for a core group of privacy minded German users, then I could never justify providing Firefox for our users workstations. However, outside of that group and IT, every man, woman and dog uses Chrome.

We need Firefox as a viable alternative. We need it for the same reasons it was created. Lest the walls start to cave in a second time.

*** Also, let us no forget that Chrome was one of the first pieces of software outside of viruses to install itself to the user's application data folder in windows, bypassing restrictions on users ability to install software. Since copied even by Microsoft.

Windows 11: What we like and don't like about Microsoft's operating system so far

Re: I'm mystified

"The TPM excitement kind of infers maybe there are security improvements, but if so, they're not telling us anything about them."

No, they're not telling us, because the improvements are not for us. They are for Microsoft's benefit. They are going to slowly turn the screws two ways:

1 - No sideloading code. It will be all through the store or a management application such as Intune. If you want to install a cracked bluray player to rip your collection, then this is not the OS for you. Or scratching your pet itch with local code. Also, paying for every application you install with MS taking a cut. (See, they have learnt from Apple!)

2 - No tinkering with the bootloaders, so no alternative OS, nor even bypassing restrictions for 1, above.

It might not happen with W11, but the groundwork is being set out right now. Watch for W12 shortly and full walled-garden experience.

(I like my apple devices, but I am aware I am renting the device from therm, with a single payment every 2, 3 or 4 years, basically, as long as I can keep the hardware going. But I also like to tinker and that's why i have linux on various boxen, where I own the freedom)

IPv6 still 5–10 years away from mainstream use, but K8s networking and multi-cloud are now real

Re: Is this the most sensible Gardner report ever?

"Legacy" - ie IPv4 addresses, are just a special case of the IPvNext space. Pad with zeros or all '1'. Ok Zeros might lead to crashing poorly coded stacks, probably coded in C

Well coded IP'v4 could, theoretically, be turned in to IPvNext by just increasing the address space, compiling and testing. But in the real world a whole lot 'oh shit, that just won't work' because of the way xyz was coded.

Re: Is this the most sensible Gardner report ever?

IPv6 has lost the war. It will never see serious use. For the average sysadmin punter, what are the real, day to day problems that IPv4 has? The biggest by far is publicly routable IPv4 exhaustion. Solve that one, with backwards compatibility, and you have a winner.

Of course, incentivising/forcing organisations with Class A and B addresses that they use internally and never see the light of day, to release those addresses, is probably going to be a better short term winner.

Radioactive hybrid terror pigs have made themselves a home in Fukushima's exclusion zone

Re: Three words:

Fairly certain Human-Bear-Pigs are a real thing. Photographic evidence is available. Last one I saw was being hunted in the wee small hours, (ok, chatted up and felt up), by a mate after a suitably large amounts of beer. Pre-Covid.

Not sure if he mistook her for a curry or what. But he'll never live that one down.

Scientists identify sleep-like slow waves as responsible for daydreaming and... sorry, what were we talking about again?

Re: familiar

This happened to me at High Cchool, and University, and continues to this very day.

I am a reading type person, but voices (alone) I cannot fix on. Music, no problem, nor an active combination of voices and visual stimulation. Powerpoint does not count. Just finished a 2 hour Teams call. I know I spoke. I can neither remember anything that was said nor what I said. However, the meeting notes will make perfect sense when they come out. On the other hand, did manage to make progress on another work related problem, because otherwise I would have fallen asleep after 15 minutes.

Pyjama bottoms crew, listen up: In 2022 we'll still be at home

Most of my colleages are in different countries. Some on different continents.

Just how *(^&*^% big is that water cooler going to be?

Monitoring is simple enough – green means everything's fine. But getting to that point can be a whole other ball game

Re: Its a partial description of your IT farm.

That sounds to me like someone's running production in the test.

Mostly so they can bypass the various approvals, tests, signoffs, go live. Or even purchase of equipment.

On the other hand, development (not test) might need to be monitored. I am thinking about highly paid (and not so highly paid) developers needing development systems to be up.

What job title would YOU want carved on your gravestone? 'Beloved father, Slayer of Dragons, Register of Domains'

Re: No gravestone for me

And broke.

Hubble Space Telescope sails serenely on in safe mode after efforts to switch to backup memory modules fail

Re: And shut the door on your way out ...

I would hope that NASA would fix/refuel all the bits that they could on that one mission, if it ever took place.

So much great science from the Hubble Space Telescope and JW will expand our understanding. Hubble will continue as well. But, it could also (for example) be turned over to the kids, I imagine that it would inspire two generations of future scientists. We could get another CERN or 10 full of smart people in science with that type of inspiration.

Tech contractor loses IR35 tribunal appeal: 'Right' to substitute didn't mean he could, say judges

Re: Yet another push for us to all go work at Tesco

If the purpose of Income Tax was to wage war on France ... then it's high time we did it again. There should be enough in the kitty now.

I think therefore IAM: It's not cool, it's not sexy, but it's one of the most important and difficult areas in modern IT

Re: HR is the key

Agreed. HR around here want to have NOTHING to do with authorisations.

Despite the legal requirements and being told several times by the Board, HR never inform IT when someone leaves. Except to wield the scythe. No ticket, not email - just a quick phone call to someone with sufficient permission. Not even an official announcement when gardening leave is up. Of course, the fluffy bunny HR lets the said leaver go without so much as confiscating the phone and laptop - even when there is much scullduggery afoot. You know - evidence.

Typically they also sit on hiring information until the friday before the hire starts and then demand new equipment (that during Covid has a lead time of a month - so they can blame IT).

It would be generous to say they are good at protecting the company from the personnel. I don't even think ours do a good job of protecting themselves. At best one can say that they snakily do senior managements wishes in getting inconvenient people out of they way.

It's the UK contractor tax factor: IR35 outsiders gaining leverage in skills market, survey finds

Taxes also. Although, I prefer the water analogy for taxes.

Taxes always seek to the lowest point. Helped by a few pumps to get over a few hills of course.

Apple sued in nightmare case involving teen wrongly accused of shoplifting, driver's permit used by impostor, and unreliable facial-rec tech

Re: I would expect them NOT to

Lack of evidence never stopped (1) Bent coppers, or (2) Honest coppers with a quota to fill, (3) Honest coppers chasing a promotion, or (4) cops who don't like your skin colour, religion, personality, sexuality, age, chosen social activity or (5) cops having a bad day or (6) cops having a good day.

They work a bit like the US Patents Office. Press charges, see what sticks.

Tesla owners win legal fight after software update crippled older Model S batteries

What? Like Ford?

https://www.spokesman.com/blogs/autos/2008/oct/17/pinto-memo-its-cheaper-let-them-burn/

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? Detroit waits for my order, you'd better make amends

Re: Wot, all of them?

IT Director was great. A Lad, never a Cad.

Most of the time you hear "work hard, play hard" - should be interpreted as "Run away". In this case the IT Director really lived it.

Similar to our situation, incompetent bosses "Can you block Facebook, our employees spend too much time on it". IT Director "How about you do your f#cking job?"

Wot, all of them?

There is a special breed of user that prefers to pick up the phone rather than attempt even the simplest of resolutions.

Oh hell no. All of them pick up the phone.

One particular cretin (almost all other users in need of help are not cretins, this one was and still is), who is now CFO, rounded up IT Director (not CIO) because no one had been around to replace the AA batteries in his mouse. Double A batteries on a mouse with the battery door visible, it slid off. And therefore, he could not work.

IT Director called his shit and dragged him to the CEOs office and called him every name under the sun. Unfortunately, both kept their jobs for a few years. The money man should have been sacked for just being a complete arse - every day of his life.

Said CFO became a dad a few years later. It was speculated by everyone in IT, to a person, that this only happened because a favourite device of his wife also ran out of batteries.

Activist millionaires protest outside Jeff Bezos' homes to support tax rises for the rich

Re: $1M a year — is that a lot?

Sort of agree. I have no qualms about paying more, if those who "have lots" are paying their fair share.

Those who have only a little are not given a free pass. But obviously a smaller share.

The PAYG taxpayer never gets to exploit the loopholes that the mega rich can. I can't shift my income to a lower taxing place. The use of trading companies and artificially inflated "management services", royalties, etc, etc from mega corporations and the mega rich will lead to them being "the first against the wall when the revolution comes".

Train operator phlunks phishing test by teasing employees with non-existent COVID bonus

Re: But isn't this what (real) criminals would do?

I wish I had more thumbs to thumbs up.

Evil. Watch HR squirm as they then announce that there is in fact, no Covid Bonus after all.

It's so evil I might start spamming that one myself. I don't need an excuse to get one up on HR. Just an opportunity. (Never saving nor recording passwords of course, I use my evil powers for good).

FSF doubles down on Richard Stallman's return: Sure, he is 'troubling for some' but we need him, says org

Arms length, literally

I think this is where the FSF have really shot themselves in the foot.

Need an ally, a thinker, but someone a little bit dodgy? Time for a technical committee, or academics forum, a think tank, or other such thing that is slightly at arms length. Close enough to be associated to get the credit, If something fishy turns up, the plausible deniability kicks in and most (never all) bad smell stays away.

This can let the board take care of "business" type matters while letting the more creative types get on with their part.

Bork to school: Apple kit management service Jamf pulls a sickie for IT crews trying to get pupils on iPads

i see you have your use case. Great, valid and works for you. However, there are many other use cases out there and the iPad fits many of them. Don't dis on others that have different use cases. HTPC? Kindle?

While I could support the notion that all our choices have implications (free software, ethical sourced coffee, etc), banging on about makes one sound like a zealot. Or worse, a vegan. Or worse again, a cyclist ... in Lycra.

A nice UI, solid ecosystem, full privacy control, but without the google spyware, that would actually pretty good. There is a lot of room for a lot of choice.

We'd rather go down in Down Under, says Google: Search biz threatens to quit Australia if forced to pay for news

Let insanity prevail

OMG. The holy trinity of evil. A group of politicains, Google and News Corp.

If the politicians do something, anything, they will inevitably piss off one group. There is almost no possible good outcome. I only hope that the honorable members mange to show their usual competence and make it worse for everyone. Us, the great unwashed, will of course come off worst, but that's a small price to pay for an annoyed Google or an annoyed Murdoch.

Watt's next for batteries? It'll be more of the same, not longer life, because physics and chemistry are hard

Re: EV charging time

Thats not the use case for an EV. Keep the fossil fuels for that.

I would estimate that 90% of all driving is commuter traffic plus a quick shopping trip and perhaps drop off the kids at school. Easily done in say 200km per day. 300km a day.

More than that, the EV is not useful for you. But it IS useful for a great majority of people.

I have a work colleague that has to do nearly at 200km round trip every day to work. Never been a problem except one time screaming baby made him forget to plug in. Next day he just went for lunch, plugged it in, picked up a few groceries and had enough easily to get home.

For other issues the Tesla powerwall (and I suppose copycat solutions) help with many things, including spreading the load from wind (unreliable) and hydro (quick startup times) and then base load. Can be used to supplement the grid or just power your own home. Of course, can power your Tesla, or other EV. Someone more knowledgeable can fill me in if that can be a quick charge or slow.

'Best tech employer of the year' threatened trainee with £15k penalty fee for quitting to look after his sick mum

Re: "top business and technology professionals"

Considering a degree costs more than that, and one may not be paid for 3 or 4 years. Perhaps this is cheap?

Theoretically an upside of completing a degree, is ... well, a degree.

You can't spell 'electronics' without 'elect': The time for online democracy has come

Re: Advantages of hand-marked, paper ballots

Never said the punter has it. Can be displayed behind glass. That was the point about using clear mechanics. Often used in lottery draws to help ... transparency.

Plenty of hard writing type fonts available, ballots can be stuffed, no matter what.

Re: Advantages of hand-marked, paper ballots

I think a hybrid system has some chance of working.

Basically, enter your selections on a computer. Ballot is printed (works well with first past the post systems, not so much the Australian Senate Ballot paper). Printed paper is available for perusal and verification. If it checks out, punter clicks "ok" and paper ballot goes in to sealed ballot box. Pnuematic tubes and all that, clear, so it can be seen to go in by said punter.

Upon clicking "ok", the electronic ballot is registered. Printed paper means that the there can be a recount in case of suspected fraud or tampering. There is still the possibility for manual, postal, ballots Special ballot papers for the blind and visually impaired.

Discrepancies *should* be in the low single digits per polling place. Except for the human factor of course.

Goddam it, if we want to then the flunkies could even organise so that each ticket has a qr code the punters could scan so that the whole lot is pre-selected, then the above mentioned steps take place.

Shopped recently in a small online store? Check this list to see if it was one of 570 websites infected with card-skimming Magecart

"Virtual Credit Cards". Regenerated from within the app. I don't think I want to wait for a piece of plastic to be delivered when I make an impulse buy.

Paypay isn't your friend. Don't use them.

A lot of the Fintech companies have interesting products around single use virtual credit cards. I use a Fintech that starts with 'R' and the account usually has a enough money on it for a train ticket, a beer and a mars bar. Load more only when required.

Usual caveats apply. Caveat Emptor. Check for a banking license, insurance, WHERE it is licensed, etc.

Best use, the GF occasionally buys stupid shite from late night TV. Her one non-fun vice. And forgets to pay the invoice. Single use, virtual, credit card means its done and dusted when she makes the call.

It could be 'five to ten years' before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4

I am going to repeat my comments from another Reg article on IPv6.

---

So, around the mid 90's what should have been done is IETF "We need everyone coding a TCP/IP stack to update their #DEFINE LEN_IP_ADDR from 32 to 64 bits and the same for LEN_IP_MASK. Front PAD any v4 TCP addresses with 4 x 0 when translating between V4 and V6 addresses. If you can't reach the next hop send the DESTINATION NET NOT AVAILABLE code in the usual manner".

Recompile. Test.

This will be IP protocol V6.

New IP stacks could have been rolled out in as much time as it took the BSD crowd to code it, and others to implement the code in their OS/device. Weeks or at most months. IPv4 only devices would be museum pieces by now. A wistful Reg article on the passing of IPv4, commented on by a few greybeards, while a PFY mutters OK Boomer would all that marks its passing. "Imagine that, IP protocol with only 2 to the 32 addresses!"

---

I will add to the above:

IPv6 might have won the engineering war (debatable). But it has LOST the marketing war. It has failed to win hearts and minds. Admit it, move on. Learn the lessons. Start again (but steal whole chunks of ideas from what has been done before, and window dress them in a prettier shade green).

10 years is more than enough time to have become the dominant force - but it hasn't.

If you want an example of how user concerns do not drive software development, check out this Google-backed API

Wrong, dead wrong. The software is for the users. The users are the advertisers. For them IT'S PERFECT!

Vacuum up ever last detail of demographic information, each eyeball gaze, letter typed, click and scroll. Aggregate and SELL, SELL, SELL!

The customers of Google/Alphabet are the advertisers. You are their product. Don't think a single piece of Google's ecosystem is built for your benefit.

We are absolutely, definitively, completely and utterly out of IPv4 addresses, warns RIPE

So, around the mid 90's what should have been done is IETF "We need everyone coding a TCP/IP stack to update their #DEFINE LEN_IP_ADDR from 32 to 64 bits and the same for LEN_IP_MASK. Front PAD any v4 TCP addresses with 4 x 0 when translating between V4 and V6 addresses. If you can't reach the next hop send the DESTINATION NET NOT AVAILABLE code in the usual manner".

Recompile. Test.

This will be IP protocol V6.

New IP stacks could have been rolled out in as much time as it took the BSD crowd to code it, and others to implement the code in their OS/device. Weeks or at most months. IPv4 only devices would be museum pieces by now. A wistful Reg article on the passing of IPv4, commented on by a few greybeards, while a PFY mutters OK Boomer would all that marks its passing. "Imagine that, IP protocol with only 2 to the 32 addresses!"

(Errors and omissions are the fault of Surface horrible gummy keyboard)

Next year's Windows 10 comes bounding into the Slow Ring, which means 19H2 waits in the wings

Notepad ... for the love of god

The list of things broken, sorta working or causing user or admin frustration is near endless. Yes the thing they choose to fix was .. notepad. Which wasn't broken.

Are we going to resort to edlin to edit or view a config file gone nuts? (for anything that isn't now in registry or having been SystemD-ed and now a binary log file.

Microsoft Windows team have the prioritisation skills of a rabid dog on LSD while painting the Mona Lisa.

Here's to beer, without which we'd never have the audacity to Google an error message at 3am

One particular Thursday evening, we got stuck in to the Whiskey. Aided by 3 colleagues and a bored barmen. Then the lock-in. Finished when I should have already been at work and called in sick. Cue three hours later and our biggest market local Exchange 5.5 raid bites the dust. Spend Friday arvo feeling a whiter shade of pale while talking them through a tape restore of MSX databse.

Then drove through the night to Germany for a 21st birthday party the next day. Party finished also during the daylight hours of sunday. Talked colleagues through Exchange integrity check of MSX database from midnight to 6am monday morning, while driving back to said abode. 4 hours sleep over three days.

Home, shower, shave, off to work I go.

Turned up looking worse for wear and I am sure smelling like brewery. To a nice smiling boss and an thank you from Senior Management for saving the business.

Not that young anymore and I'm sure a hangover like that one would now take me a week to recover.

If the answer can be found by (1) on the helpdesk page (now a wiki), or (2) as one of the top 3 sites in Google, the coworker owes me 5 zorkmids, or a beer, in local currency. Nearest working colleague owes me his firstborn (grandchild).

Microsoft flings the Windows Calculator source at GitHub

Modern Apps

V0.99 Used to be that software wasn't done until it had an email client.

V2.0 Now it it isn't done until it includes a dating app.

V3.0 Uploads your every keystroke to the data aggregation service of your choice to be packaged and sold off, then backed up by the 5 eyes and Russians and Chinese?

Which one comes first to Calc.exe?

Why does that website take forever to load? Clues: Three syllables, starts with a J, rhymes with crock of sh...

Re: Every web site should...

I want every web front end developer to sit in a sealed glass room (one at a time please). Just a computer and a 33 k modem to the internet in the room. Freshly booted but logged in computer with a web browser open. I control the oxygen supply.

The web jockey types in their URL. At the moment they hit enter, oxygen is completely evacuated and replaced with an inert gas. Oxygen is only released when their page finishes loading ... and does NOT jump around the screen to the slightest scroll or mouse movement. (So called "progressive" pages count as "not loaded" and don't release oxygen until loaded).

Extra time penalties before oxygen is restored:

Auto playing video +5m

Auto playing music or other sound +20m

Auto playing multimedia requiring flash +1 hour.

Marketing Managers that request that shit receive double the penalty and are required to sit in the room too.

All penalties are cumulative.

Anyone surviving may continue their craft, er cruft, er um craft.

iPhone price cuts are coming, teases Apple CEO. *Bring-bring* Hello, Apple UK? It's El Reg. You free to chat?

Re: The reasons for the iPhone sales slump were threefold

... and security updates. And not have to reinstall from scratch media just to get it working.

Microsoft lobs Windows 10, Server Oct 2018 update at world (minus file-nuking 'feature') after actually doing some testing

Re: What is this "Past" of which you speak?

No.

Most of Oceania believes it is Spring.

And Fall is what you do. Not what you have.

Cyber-crooks think small biz is easy prey. Here's a simple checklist to avoid becoming an easy victim

Re: Good recommendations but...

Yeah. Backups are good. But it's only half the story. And that's where it gets complicated.

You need a strategy. Most SMBs don't put the resources in to a strategy, many don't even recognise the risk.

Backup is central to the strategy. Testing restores is another key part. Then there is Business Continuity Planning, Encryption, Compliance, etc. You can see why this goes over the head of most punters and even people paid to pay attention to this stuff.

Which scientist should be on the new £50 note? El Reg weighs in – and you should vote, too

Brian May

Brian May - Get two for the price of one!