* Posts by Soruk

556 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Aug 2007

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Take my advice: The only safe ID is a fake ID

Soruk

Re: Aliases are fun

This reminds me of Jim Naughtie's slip up on pronouncing his name when referring to him as the Culture Secretary (as he was at the time) - and a couple of hours later Andrew Marr made exactly the same mistake.

Attempt to clean up tech area has shocking effect on kit

Soruk

Re: Grounding the work force... permanently.

Upvoted as I am familiar with the piece of music that you are referring to.

Soruk

Re: It's not always the cleaners

> Ah, I'd have asked if they meant with a car or a bat :)

A car, surely. Bats are protected species, and you really don't want those PETA oddballs after you for mistreating the bat.

Remember when Apple's FaceTime stopped working years ago? Yeah, that was deliberate

Soruk

Re: Give and Take

> my Samsung phones are the only ones I've ever had that have received any updates at all.

Not in my experience. My HTC Wildfire, Huawei G300 and Y300, and my current phone, the Moto G5, have all received updates (okay, only the Moto has had any in the past year).

My Samsung Galaxy S5 and Tab Pro have never so much as received a single update. Thankfully most apps still run on KitKat, as that tablet is, in itself, quite a nice bit of kit

Sysadmin misses out on paycheck after student test runs amok

Soruk

Re: Naming Schemes

Where I work, all the Windows and VMware servers have generic names, but the Linux servers all have names which, if you think sideways, are connected with what they are or what they do. Calamari - squid server. Postbox - internal SMTP relay. Termite - log reducer. Pigsty - has a lot of grunt. Stirfry is at our site referred to as WOK.

VMware 'pressured' hotel to shut down tech event close to VMworld, IGEL sues resort giant

Soruk

Somehow I doubt they would run into that problem holding their show in Basingstoke..!

Abracadabra! Tales of unexpected sysadmagic and dabbling in dark arts

Soruk

Re: Needed a jolly

I did similar just last weekend. Hard disc in a ziplock bag, with USB adapter and power connector, in a chest freezer with the cables coming out. I was able to 'dd' the entire disc without any errors, suitable for writing out to a SD card, which via a suitable IDE adapter, became the machine's replacement hard disc. The machine in question is an Acorn StrongARM RISC PC, and in all other respects it is working perfectly despite its age.

Congresscritters want answers on Tillerson's rm -rf /opt/gov/infosec

Soruk

Re: We all know the US doesn't need cyber-security...

It's an off-site cloud backup.

Grad sends warning to manager: Be nice to our kit and it'll be nice to you

Soruk

Re: This is normal in every human endeavor.

That is my on-call ring tone. As performed by the Portsmouth Sinfonia. It has to be heard to be believed.

Soruk

Re: Elphin safety

That sounds like a job for a certain Samantha.

VPNFilter router malware is a lot worse than everyone thought

Soruk

Re: Ditched SOHO kit

I'm running ClearOS on a re-purposed HP thin client (with USB Ethernet for the uplink port!). Being a Linux system it also quite nicely hosts my IPv6 tunnel and my site-to-site VPN with my datacentre hosted (virtual) machine.

Boss sent overpaid IT know-nothings home – until an ON switch proved elusive

Soruk

Re: Way Back...

The opposite is quite common in China. Sockets with switches, where the socket is permanently live and the switch operates a light.

Of course, the socket can be wired through the switch, but it's not guaranteed, even varying from socket to socket in the same house.

Two's company, Three's unbowed: You Brits will pay more for MMS snaps

Soruk

Re: Maximizing profits

Google Hangouts?

WeChat?

The Register Opera Company presents: The Pirates of Penzance, Sysadmin edition

Soruk

Re: Ooh, tempting

I will need to dig out my rework of "When I'm cleaning windows", appropriately named "When I'm cleaning Windows".

User fired IT support company for a 'typo' that was actually a real word

Soruk

Re: Smartphone keyboards

> No one ever means to type 'ducking'...

A tour guide in Canterbury would be out of a job in a nanosecond if they mistyped the Weavers' Ducking Stool as something slightly different.

Java EE renamed 'Jakarta EE' after Big Red brand spat

Soruk
Joke

Re: I say, I say, I say

Jakarta? No, she went willingly.

Wileyfox goes TITSUP*: Smartmobe maker calls in the administrators

Soruk

Re: Shame, it did what it said on the tin

Replying to myself: Finally, my phone received an update - to the November 2017 security level. So, I take back that bit about not getting any updates, as it finally happened.

Soruk

Re: Shame, it did what it said on the tin

> it was good to have a 4G phone with a removable battery, FM radio, 3.5mm socket and two SIMs, all at a very competitive price.

My Moto G5 has all of these. Shame that what it doesn't have is any updates.

Soruk
FAIL

Re: A pity

> I can vouch for Lenovo/Moto being the same... good enought for me.

Not my experience - My Moto G5 has not received any updates at all, apparently being on the January 2017 security patch level means my phone is up to date. Shame, because otherwise it is a very nice phone. Twin SIM and SD card, 3GB RAM, octa core CPU.

Crunch time: Maplin in talks to sell the business

Soruk
Mushroom

Re: Remnant of the 1980s

Having a local shop got me out of a hole last Sunday - my desktop PSU went bang on Saturday night, and Maplin was the only local outfit to have a suitable PSU in stock (PC World had the same item, same price, but no stock). If not for them it would have been a 40-mile round trip.

Icon: What my PSU did.

EE unveils shoebox-sized router to boost Brit bumpkin broadband

Soruk

If you're inside the M25, have you checked to see if you're inside the coverage of relish.net? Unlimited 4G broadband.

Due to Oracle being Oracle, Eclipse holds poll to rename Java EE (No, it won't be Java McJava Face)

Soruk

Upvoted for the musical pun. Definitely struck a chord with me!

‘I crashed a rack full of servers with my butt’

Soruk
Stop

Re: Just finger trouble

Too many wires in the study / computer room to allow the mini-monster to toddle in - I've fitted a stair gate across the doorway.

Long haul flights on a one-aisle plane? Airbus thinks you’re up for it

Soruk
Stop

Re: Size matters

> You'll be doing Stansted to Newark in a no-frills plastic seat before you know it.

For some reason that is giving me the mental image of the airline equivalent of a Pacer. (For those not unfortunate enough to have experienced them, those were those cheap railway carriages based on the body of a Leyland bus.)

Accused Brit hacker Lauri Love will NOT be extradited to America

Soruk

Set a precedent?

Maybe this will also set a precedent where an alleged offence is deemed to have taken place where the alleged offender is physically located, not where the remote system is located.

Who's using 2FA? Sweet FA. Less than 10% of Gmail users enable two-factor authentication

Soruk

Re: SMS 2FA shouldn't even count as "security"

@AC using a corded landline, you'll find that Digital Dorothy will call you and read the message out to you.

'Twas the night before Y2K and a grinch stole the IT department's overtime payout

Soruk

Re: Dismissing Y2K

Wall up the French end, use the tunnel as a reservoir to ease water shortages in the South East.

'Please store the internet on this floppy disk'

Soruk

Re: Ah Eudora

At my old university, back in 1994 everyone was expected to use 'elm' for email on the Unix boxes. Now that was awful. Later on, an unofficial Pine binary became available, and it was eventually installed properly and supported as just about every Unix user used it in preference to elm. Round about the same time, Simeon was introduced for the Windows users too scared of the command line, but one look at that I decided to stick with Pine.

User dialled his PC into a permanent state of 'Brown Alert'

Soruk
Go

Re: USB mice are fun...

There was a driver, one shipped by Dell, but worked on Compaqs too, that would offer some USB support to NT4. I successully used keyboards, mice and USB storage (flash, hard drives and CDs) on it.

Oracle 'systematically denies' its sales reps their commissions, forces them to work to pay off 'debts', court told

Soruk
Stop

Re: So Oracle sales

Stop giving them ideas!

Asterisk RTP bug worse than first thought: Think intercepted streams

Soruk

Re: You should not be using RTP outside your own LAN in the first place

A VPN will help if it's a private VPN with the endpoint on your network.

Linus Torvalds may have damned systemd with faint praise

Soruk

Re: Cannonlake, kabylake, coffeelake, skylake

> And is there going to be a Tealake?

I believe that has been planned - with the launch announcement to take place somewhere in (or around) Boston.

May the excessive force be with you: Chap cuffed after Star Trek v Star Wars row turns bloody

Soruk

A better one would be the Death Star vs Borg Cube.

Soruk
Go

Re: This is the correct order

In "Clangers vs Predator", the Predator would HAVE to be voiced by a kazoo.

Virgin Media to close flagship Oxford St store in August

Soruk

Re: They still have stores?

They still have a store in Basingstoke's Festival Place shopping centre (though, it appears, not for much longer).

Not that I have any reason to go in there, I don't live in a cabled area, not interested in their TV offering and quite happy with my VDSL service.

Fresh cotton underpants fix series of mysterious mainframe crashes

Soruk
WTF?

Re: Mobile Phones

One Shell station I was at recently had a sign inviting the user to sign up for - and pay - for their fuel by scanning a QR code attached to the pump. They even provided WiFi for this. And right next to the sign, another one warning that mobile phones were not to be used.

BOFH: Putting the commitment into committee

Soruk
Boffin

Re: Yes, I used lynx for this

> There was a treatise about the width of vehicles and the like, culminating with the width of a SRB for the space shuttle.

This could be traced back to the width of the average Roman horse's arse.

Faking incontinence and other ways to scare off tech support scammers

Soruk

If the caller is Indian (or that neck of the woods), I sometimes do...

"May your gods smile upon you and bless you with many children. All of them girls."

....and if their accent is so thick you can barely make out what they're saying...

"I'm very sorry, I don't speak Urdu".

[Yes, I know, Urdu is spoken in Pakistan, not India]

WannaCrypt outbreak contained as hunt for masterminds kicks in

Soruk

Re: Intel

> Notebooks? That's a different story.

USB3 gigabit NIC. For older machines, a USB2 100Mbit NIC will suffice.

America 'will ban carry-on laptops on flights from UK, Europe to US'

Soruk
Joke

Re: "And think of what this will do for Citrix and Cisco. Local companies make good!"

> Now, that is just not cricket.

If you're using golf clubs to play cricket - you're doing it wrong.

Microsoft promises twice-yearly Windows 10, O365 updates – with just 18 months' support

Soruk

Re: Dear gods...

I got someone on to Linux, who has less technical knowledge than a teaspoon. After their WinXP system collapsed irreparably (and the manufacturer restore DVD loaded an image that bluescreened on boot) I gave them CentOS 6 with LibreOffice (which they were already using on WinXP).

They have needed far less help with their system, indeed the only time they needed help was wgen the hardware died. One replacement box and hard drive transplant they were up and running. A very painless experience for all involved!

TPG to create Australia-wide mobile network

Soruk
FAIL

This could very easily turn into another One.Tel ....

Mark Shuttleworth says some free software folk are 'deeply anti-social' and 'love to hate'

Soruk
Go

Re: Weird

I decided I hated Unity after trying it. Did I post everywhere badmouthing the developers? No. I just installed MATE and got on with my life.

That flexibility is one of the things I like about Linux. Don't like one way of something being done? There are alternatives out there (though some are easier to get going than others) to choose from.

Alabama man gets electrocuted after sleeping with iPhone

Soruk

Re: so much wrong here...

I've made a variant of that - a 4-way connected to an IEC male attachment. (Only intended for powering things like laptops and phone chargers). From server deliveries where I work I've collected a few local plugs to IEC "kettle-lead" cables, including USA, France/Germany (plug that works with either configuration) and China. Works great.

Barrister fined after idiot husband slings unencrypted client data onto the internet

Soruk

Re: Online backup?

> Do I need to replicate in next door's shed?

You could get arrested for that...

BT agrees to legal separation of Openreach

Soruk
Facepalm

Re: legally separated. means F**K all as ......

I'm probably going to sound like a communist here, but it would probably be the best for the country as a whole for Openreach to go into 100% public ownership, owned by the government but operated as a separate commercial entity (a bit like Channel 4 is owned by the government).

Chinese bloke cycles 500km to get home... in the wrong direction

Soruk
WTF?

Re: Sun

With all the pollution, it's amazing they even know what the sun looks like. They don't stand a chance of trying to navigate with it.

President Donald Trump taken on by unlikely foe: Badass park rangers

Soruk

Re: About time

How long before Kim Jong Trump tries to force the media to report only his world view? Faux News is pretty much there already.

BT installs phone 'spam filter', says it'll strain out mass cold-callers

Soruk

Re: A Typical Scam Call I Get

In my case, if they call my VoIP-in number or my landline (also plumbed into my VoIP), I transfer the call to a Rick Astley recording, then add their caller ID to my blacklist so when they call back they get the rickroll directly.

Now that's a Blue Screen of Death: Windows 10 told me to jump off a cliff

Soruk

Re: If you're running Windows 10...

And you'll have to go through the installation process again, if you plug it in to a different USB port.

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