* Posts by DenonDJ DN-2500F

41 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Mar 2019

Hacking is not a crime – and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative

DenonDJ DN-2500F

I'm so old that

a hacker was someone who could skilfully build something physical or code something using a quick and dirty method (big ball of mud programming?) that worked whereas a cracker was someone intent on breaking into a system for nefarious gain, information gathering or showing off to other crackers. A former colleague was one of the original phone-phreakers in Italy. In modern parlance, he would be described as a hacker.

This Brit biz's seven-screen laptop is something to behold

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Look under the desk

They havent shown the hole in the desk under the keyboard with the HDMI, power and USB cables to the workstation under the desk.

Synology to enforce use of validated disks in enterprise NAS boxes. And guess what? Only its own disks exceed 4TB

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: Apple Too

And various Dell PERC adaptors. We had a number of different PERCs in the racks and once we got permission to get some new 2.5" discs, a number of (major brand) 4Tb SAS drives were installed. They worked in most servers but a few refused to recognise them.

Windows might have frozen – but at least my feet are toasty

DenonDJ DN-2500F

I got called to our Felixstowe office when a panic call came in saying all the PCs in a couple of rooms had stopped working. This was the room where all the trainee legals ( the sort you speak to for your "legal protection cover" on your car insurance ) worked.

They'd decided to change the room layout like young people who are bored want to do do they'd unclipped all the cat5 cables ( no chance of structured cabling in a room designed for 3 but with 8 people in )

In the process they had laid all the CAT5 cables across the top of a storage heater but failed to notice the signs saying do not cover,

All the plastic on the cables had melted leaving strands of 4 twisted pairs and a nice acrid smell which no one claimed to notice !

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

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: "top business and technology professionals"

If only this were so. I've accepted a permanent position for 25% less than I'm on doing the same role as a contractor but with the job market as it is around here, I'm glad to be employed and able to work from home,

Backdoored SolarWinds software, linked to US govt hacks, in wide use throughout the British public sector

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: No Cause for Concern in the UK

No XP in the NHS hospital I work in - nor for that matter Server 2003. I still have about a dozen 2008 machines that will be gone in a matter of weeks.

Windows 7 would be gone by now but something cropped up this year - can someone remind me?

US Treasury, Dept of Commerce hacks linked to SolarWinds IT monitoring software supply-chain attack

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re:Don't Panic Too Much,They're Surely Insured.Successfully Sue Bill or George or Mike or Who?

Surprised the share price of Solar Winds Corp. is still on the way up. Highest it's been in 5 years.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=solar+winds+share+price&cvid=76cd4450948941f99b3b819c0f95fce0&pglt=163&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=U531

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: Don't Panic Too Much,They're Surely Insured.Successfully Sue Bill or George or Mike or Whoever

Surprised the share price of Solar Winds Corp. is still on the way up. Highest it's been in 5 years.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=solar+winds+share+price&cvid=76cd4450948941f99b3b819c0f95fce0&pglt=163&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=U531

On the 11th day of Christmas TalkTalk took from me... the email address of my company

DenonDJ DN-2500F
Go

Re: Car Mechanics are not IT people

My local (independent) garage has a complete online booking ( pick what you need, eg, MOT, headlamp fix, air con, etc) and invoicing system with their own fancy domain

https://www.motburystedmunds.co.uk/

As for old systems and car diagnostics : https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/227828-the-mclaren-f1-supercar-can-only-be-serviced-with-this-ancient-compaq-laptop ( also covered somewhere in The Register)

Not on your Zoom, not on Teams, not Google Meet, not BlueJeans. WebEx, Skype and Houseparty make us itch. No, not FaceTime, not even Twitch

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Put the other parties off with a dirty picture

Stick a couple of magnifying lenses or a couple of layers of Sellotape in front of the camera.

People will soon ask you to turn off the camera

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Anini3x-cf4gxJ5_DPxcVGCOY8kO1g?e=ZbcKE0

The revolution will not be televised because my television has been radicalised

DenonDJ DN-2500F

The Grauniad is still worth a sub for the digital version. The I is pretty good and the Independent can be advert light with a DNS sink.

Other good ones worth a sub are Bylinetimes and the New European ( not just Brexit these days !)

https://bylinetimes.com/

Tax working from home, says Deutsche Bank, because the economy needs that lunch money you’re not spending

DenonDJ DN-2500F

EU - really?

Where do you get the idea that this idea is socialist? It's nothing to do with redistribution of wealth but simply a way for the banks to lend more money. It's got fsckall to do with the EU.

Have a read of this - you might learn something

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Usborne-Politics-for-Beginners-by-Alex-Frith-author-Rosie-Hore-author-Louie-Stowell-author-Kellan-Stover-illustrator/9781474922524

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: "Rather, it is an example of yet another Banker finding reasons to screw ordinary people"

Fortunately taxation is used to fund a few more things than wars these days.

Agreed some ( ok - lots of) wastage but social & health care, infrastructure ( roads, etc) , education and pensions didnt exist before taxes were introduced

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/budget_pie_ukgs.php

DenonDJ DN-2500F
WTF?

Where is the saving?

We're not all car driving, car park using, readymade sandwich eating, shopaholics..

It's costing me money to work at home

Paying to boil the water for hot drinks

Paying for electricity to power the laptop, 2 large screens and dock

Extra water usage ( drinking , loo flushing, hand washing)

Keeping the heating on during the day

Soap - hand washing before eating ( every little cost adds up)

Paying to light my office - extra electricity and the LEDs will wear out sooner

Extra wear and tear - carpet in my office ( those chair castors soon fsck up a nice carpet), stair carpet, kitchen fixtures and fittings ( eg: kettle, )

I used to walk or cycle to work and I'd make my own lunches. Could someone from Deutsche Bank explain how I am better off being forced to work at home for the last 9 months?

OK - I know in the UK I can claim my £6/week tax free from my employer ( yeah - try that with a huge public organsiation) or ask HMRC to adjust my tax code accordingly. I'm also saving a small amount on shoe wear & tear and the chain and tyres on my bike might last a bit longer.

Excel Hell: It's not just blame for pandemic pandemonium being spread between the sheets

DenonDJ DN-2500F

To quote Sylvester McCoy as Dr Who.

A bad workman blames his fools

In order of foolishness

#excel

#intern

#developer

#BA

#Harding = #SlapHandcockMP

Who watches the watchers? Samsung does so it can fling ads at owners of its smart TVs

DenonDJ DN-2500F
IT Angle

Re: Good reason not to upgrade

Managed to avoid most Nestle products since they bought the chocolate factory in Norwich that most of my family worked in - and then closed it a few months later.

Other boycotts are proving difficult - what with ultimate ownership being hidden by many companies and many brand names are just licenced badges for shit produced in China.

DenonDJ DN-2500F
Black Helicopters

Re: Likewise

I wouldn't gamble on GDPR still being a thing in the disUnited Kingdom after next year. Have a read of what chief SPAD "The Brain" had to say about it in his ranting blog of April 2018

"The GDPR legislation is horrific. One of the many advantages of Brexit is we will soon be able to bin such idiotic laws"

Brain and Pinky reference: https://eatingreadingsleeping.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/pinky-and-the-brain.jpg

Brexit travel permits designed to avoid 7,000-lorry jams come January depend on software that won't be finished till April

DenonDJ DN-2500F

With the new border between Kent and the rest of England, at least the benefits of being in the EU will presumably apply to the good folk of Kent.

We're not getting back with Galileo, UK govt tells The Reg, as question marks sprout above its BS*

DenonDJ DN-2500F

If an anonymous Cummings spokesbod has denied it, I'd expect us to be using Galileo very soon.

I can imagine the meeting before this idiocy took place . What do you mean "wrong type" of satellite?, no such thing. You can use a hammer as a screwdriver. Just make it work.

We don't need maintenance this often, surely? Pull it. Oh dear, the system's down

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: Also works for hardware

It's a bit pre internet but you might find "Voyager 270 CD-ROM jukebox" by Next Technology

We built a few between 1989 & 1991

Used SCSI networking ( I dont remember how )

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/eb047042/full/html?skipTracking=true

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: The people who wrote it said that it would take them weeks to fix, at a cost of ~£5k

Only Toyota follow that process these days. One example of many

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-8722609/The-UKs-unreliable-car-VOLVO.html

Nvidia to acquire Arm for $40bn, promises to keep its licensing business alive

DenonDJ DN-2500F

From what I've heard, its a pretty awful place to work. I don't think there will be a shortage of people willing to leave.

Dido 'Queen of Carnage' Harding to lead UK's Institute for Health Protection because Test and Trace went so well

DenonDJ DN-2500F
Flame

Yet more Tory cronyism. Contract your mates to do a job ( badly) Appoint the least qualified with no recruitment process. Give those who have fscked up the most a job at the top table. Seat in the Lords - yours for a bung. The list of Tories and their corrupt, sycophantic or idiotic pals who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes is now getting so long we'll need some sort of algorithm to sort it out

Microsoft Teams goes free, as free as the wind blows... up to a point

DenonDJ DN-2500F

We moved from the annoyingly named and feature weak "Skype for Business" (used to be Lync) to Teams as soon as it was available to download ( I used to work for a software company and they loved new toys) .

The next company I used it for had beefed up the OOB security ( they were a multi-office cyber security company after all) but used it for everything ( comms, file sharing, etc as it fitted the bill perfectly.

Now using it at the NHS.

I'm sure there are bits that are better in other products (screen sharing in Zoom for example - i only want to share a small part of one app's window , I cant see how thats done) and why when i click on a meeting does it open a browser page prompting me to open the app. FFS.

Going Dutch: The Bakker Elkhuizen UltraBoard 950 Wireless... because looks aren't everything

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: "as your mum once told me"

Yup - once worked for a horse welfare charity that keep some poor knackered beasts ( one blind, others were in terrible health as they had been rescued from bad treatment) as they knew they got lots of money for looking after them. Going back 7-8 years, i got told to sort the blackberrys out (when the whole blackberry network was down, iphones were of course bought for the execs. An then expensive 40" TV was in the reception area even though the site wasnt open to the pubic , only to a select number of visitors.

Provided training and employment for loads of folks in numerous locations in the UK. The hundreds of horses seemed to be an aside.

What do you call megabucks Microsoft? No really, it's not a joke. El Reg needs you

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: You will obey!

So few Windows breakages down to updates over the last few years. Last problem was down to a colleague pushing out stuff via sccm in the wrong order for our soon to be decommissioned Svr2008 machines recently. My (big name) droid phone has more problems (but no crapware like many) and the manufacturer will give up on my 6 month old hardware in 28 months. At least MS somehow keep supporting the majority of old kit for 10+ years.

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: The wolf enrobed in penguin feathers.

I would have said Bad Wolf but apparently its a real TV company now

UK.gov is not sharing Brits' medical data among different agencies... but it's having a jolly good think about it

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Enough mugs were fooled during the last election for them not to care about the truth for the next 5 years at least. Party before country = profit before people = 100% true tory.

'Unfixable' boot ROM security flaw in millions of Intel chips could spell 'utter chaos' for DRM, file encryption, etc

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: – a tiny window of opportunity –

Boris Johnson - one in a million CHANCER.

The Wristwatch of the Long Now: When your MTBF is two centuries

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: Beware survival bias

http://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/s_drives_howto.html - or if your time is more precious than the contents of the disks, I'd pay someone to do it.

BOFH: Darn Windows 7. It's totally why we need a £1k graphics card for a business computer

DenonDJ DN-2500F

So glad I kept 3 brand new Microsoft Trackball Optical when I had the chance after an office clear out - especially now they seem to be worth about £150 each.

Remember that Sonos speaker you bought a few years back that works perfectly? It's about to be screwed for... reasons

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: Why indeed...

Nice - had to search that product code , thought for a mo they were Quad electrostatics. I always fancied a pair of Technics SB-10000 but bought a car instead.

We’ve had enough of your beach-blocking shenanigans, California tells stubborn Sun co-founder: Kiss our lawsuit

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Ramblers

The Ramblers ( UK ) will only follow marked footpaths and not wander around the edge of a field Reason: insurance policy - if a walk leader is "off route" and an attendee on a scheduled walk is injured or any property is damaged as a result of being "off route", the insurance wont cover any costs. Most farmers will mark out the route of a footpath across their fields to prevent people wandering off and destroying crops. Farmers have a statutory duty to mark out paths and to keep them clear of dangerous things or crops.

The difference between October and May? About 16GB, says Microsoft: Windows 10 1903 will need 32GB of space

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Re: Let’s get real.

The world has moved on (especially in the murky world of security) - and the company who made your equipment then would like to see you something new and shiny. Your mobile phone is probably more powerful these days.

DenonDJ DN-2500F

They are all the same. Planned obsolescence is how business works.

All these folks moaning that their 32Gb storage machine wont run the latest version of WIndows - didn't you realise these ultra low end dirt cheap devices were designed to be as long lasting as an Android phone which you would bin (put in for recycling) after 2 -3 years because Google's clusterfuck of an OS will never be updated on your otherwise adequate phone.

Sorry folks - all the tech companies are behaving the same way

Microsoft , Google, Apple ( ok - a bit longer support for the OS but not indefinite - I suppose the iDevice will have developed an unrepairable fault before the OS stops being supported )

Other consumer equipment - built in sat navs, etc in cars, upgradable washing machines ( the updates were promised for my AEG but never appeared)

Smart TV ( Apps & OS abandoned after a few months in some cases)

Broadband routers - your mileage may vary but very few will support more that 12 months

consumer IOT stuff - just throw it all away as it was built to a price which didn't allow upgrades or security fixes of any sort

I'll, er, get the tab? It's Internet Edgeplorer as browser pulls up chair to the Chromium table

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Yup : http://www.candicepoon.com/

Probably better qualified to comment here than you. Better qualified in general I would suspect.

We run 4 browsers (Edge, FF, IE, Chrome - some may be running Opera?) here due to incompatibilities on different apps ( oh yes - and FF can bypass the company proxy )

I tend to stick with FF & Edge. Chrome is only for sites that have video ( the video card on my Dell is pre-windows 10 and videos only show as a green screen on anything other than Chrome )

They're BAAACK: Windows 10 nagware team loads trebuchet with annoying reminders to GTFO Windows 7

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Your figures are interesting in isolation but don't match up with sales figures anywhere. I like Linux but it has less than 1% on the desktop, Mac is less than 5%. Droid on phones - now thats a clear leader despite what Apple have to say

DenonDJ DN-2500F

Never so happy as when they are moaning

I bet most of the moaners on here hated Windows 7 when it was released because XP was just right and some of them still reminisce about Windows 95 as it was so uncluttered.

I've been in this business for 30 years and yet I'm still surprised about the number of Luddites (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite) that are employed in IT

Yes - there will be problems with any major upgrade ( or even very occasionally patches) but you have made backups and got a reversion plan haven't you?

Change is difficult - and its not always for the best but times, requirements, security needs and end user expectations change. Change with them .