There is Morgan and Caterham too.
Posts by mmonroe
38 posts • joined 11 Jul 2019
Planning on buying a new motor? Chip shortages set to hit UK carmakers this year and next
UK government has 'no clear plan' for replacing ageing legacy IT estate, MPs report
Microsoft gives Notepad a minimalist makeover to match Windows 11 style
The pandemic improved the status of IT workers … forever
UK schools slap a hold on facial scanning of children amid fierce criticism
How Windows NTFS finally made it into Linux
LibreOffice 7.2 release candidate reveals effort to be Microsoft-compatible
Windows 11 still doesn't understand our complex lives – and it hurts
Tuesday 13th July 2021 08:33 GMT
That syncing feeling
We foolishly ditched shared drives and had everyone move their files too Teams. Apparently, company hosted shared drives weren't secure enough !?! Now we get regular calls that Teams hasn't synced. "I've put a file on Teams and nobody else can see it" or more inconveniently "I did some work on my home PC and it isn't here in the office". Thankfully, I still use a shared drive and memory sticks and I never have sync problems.
During lockdown, Team meetings were a nightmare. I couldn't use it on my Linux box (not a fault of Linux - it doesn't have mike or speakers), so I had to take an M$ laptop home. The installed program was unreliable; at least the web version seemed to hold up.
Lenovo says it’s crammed a workstation into a litre of space – less than three cans of beer
What you need to know about Microsoft Windows 11: It will run Android apps
Do you come from a land Down Under? Where diesel's low and techies blunder
Monday 14th June 2021 08:56 GMT
Me too!
When I worked for a large facilities management company, they decided to do a disaster recover test at our site. The power company shut down the electricity supply, the UPS's told the genny to kick in, which it did, and management were all beaming smiles, showing the assembled clients how safe our site was. Beaming smiles right up until the genny ran out of diesel after about 10 minutes. Seems the blokes who drove the nightly backup tapes to the off site storage had been filling up the van from the genny tank.
43 years and 14 billion miles later, Voyager 1 still crunching data to reveal secrets of the interstellar medium
Wednesday 12th May 2021 08:09 GMT
Re: Often overlooked
I think digital TV was a bad idea. Back in the analogue days, I could always get a picture. It might have had snow, but I could always watch the program. Now, if it rains, or if the atmosphere isn't right, I get extreme pixalisation and the picture keeps freezing. I have line of site to the transmitter too.
As to Voyager, long may it continue on it's merry way.
Mayday! Mayday! Microsoft has settled on a build and Windows 10 21H1 is inbound
Words to strike fear into admins' hearts: One in five workers consider themselves 'digital experts' these days
Wednesday 28th April 2021 08:04 GMT
Re: Buried the lede
"This year will be the 40th anniversary of the IBM PC and the 45th of the Apple 1."
There-in lies the source of these "experts". When I was a young, spotty faced programmer, working on various Big Irons, you really had to know what you were doing if you wanted to use a computer. When I was doing my Computer Science degree in the 1970s, we learned about logic gates, truth tables, DeMorgan's Laws, etc, all things which has been the foundations of code I write. Ask any of these "experts" about this stuff and you'll draw a blank.
Putting a computer on every desk was a double edge sword. Democratising computers was good; creating these "experts" very bad. At the college where I work, most teachers, whether they teach Biology, Mathematics or Languages, consider themselves an IT expert. They will discover a random piece of software on the Internet or have it recommended by a friend, and then find they can't get it to work. They think a quick call to IT support will help. Nup! We don't support random bits of software, only stuff that we approve of. Trouble is, the teacher then goes crying to the Principal pleading "I really need this to teach" and we in IT lose countless hours trying to get whatever piece of carp to work.
When I first started out on the long and frustrating road of a Computing career, my first boss told me the definition of an "expert". Ex - a has been, Spurt - a drip under pressure.
To have one floppy failure is unlucky. To have 20 implies evil magic or a very silly user
Friday 16th April 2021 07:35 GMT
I've done the same thing
The Pick Operating System that I worked on back in the early 1990s was mostly floppy based. A client had sent us some of their data so I could test a new report before sending it to them. I inserted the floppy disk, without really looking what I was doing and got a read error. No worries I thought, I'll eject the disk and try it on anther machine. Back then, you could often read a disk on a different machine - something to do with floppy drive head alignment. I was very mystified when no disk popped out.
Quality control, Soviet style: Here's another fine message you've gotten me into
Monday 12th April 2021 08:11 GMT
Re: Such value for money
I don't know why people diss Ladas. I had one for a decade. An annual service and the odd tank petrol, and I did many trouble free miles. I rate it as the most confortable car I had for long distance travel. It was a Samara, the GL model. This meant it had sunroof and speakers. If you wanted a stereo, you had to fork out for the GLX model. A £10 radio/cassette player from a market stall saw me right. Always started first turn of the key on the coldest of mornings - it laughed at the UK idea of winter.
If you want to see how tenacious Ladas are, pop onto Garage54's channel on youtube. Vlad and the boys subject Ladas to all kinds of abuse and they always rise to the challenge.
Beloved pixel pusher Paint prepares to join Notepad for updates from Microsoft Store
Friday 9th April 2021 07:35 GMT
Re: MS Paint has never been so bad
I find MSPaint really useful. If I want to wack some text on a screen shot, it is far easier to do with Paint than GIMP, or Adobe suite, both of which I have on my work box.
Notepad has its place too, as a scratch pad.
Sometimes you just don't need all the bells and whistles.
IBM creates a COBOL compiler – for Linux on x86
Yep, the 'Who owns Linux?' case is back from the dead
Use Windows and POS in the same sentence... Yes, that's right: Point of Sale. What were you thinking?
Another Windows 10 patch that breaks printers ups ante to full-on Blue Screen of Death
Friday 12th March 2021 08:55 GMT
Re: @Totally not a Cylon - "in some apps"?
"Pardon me for asking, the 8in were they single sided ?"
I've still got a box of 8" DS/DD floppies from when I worked on System/34s. I have no idea what is on them and I have nothing to read them with. I tried holding them up to the light but that didn't help...
8" disks where quite robust. Many a time we received data from a client on a disk with a crease and you would leave it overnight under a filing cabinet to flatten it out, so you could read it. It wasn't unknown for us to iron them - not on the cotton setting and definitely no steam!
NASA sends nuclear tank 293 million miles to Mars, misses landing spot by just five metres. Now watch its video
This product is terrible. Can you deliver it in 20 years’ time when it becomes popular?
Friday 18th December 2020 15:23 GMT
Wired remote controls
When I was a poor uni student late 1970s Australia, colour TVs were getting more affordable, and TV shops were accepting old b/w sets as trade-ins. What happened to the old sets? They sat out the back of the shop for the taking. The share house had a big console model, all polished wood, with doors to hide the TV screen. The wired remote would roll up automatically when you pulled the cable. The remote even have two 3.5mm headphone jacks, so two people could watch TV and not annoy anybody else in the room.
Arecibo Observatory brings forward 'controlled demolition' plans by collapsing all by itself
Wednesday 2nd December 2020 10:30 GMT
Re: Very sad, but...
The Iron Bridge, 1781, still going strong, although it doesn't carry traffic now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Bridge. I see the beautiful Galton Bridge, 1829, every day when I catch the train to work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_Bridge
Yep - they knew how to build stuff then, unlike today. A five year old building of classrooms where I work, has a leaky roof, and when a truck goes by on the road, the internal walls shake so badly, the teachers can't write on their interactive whiteboards.
The GIMP turns 25 and promises to carry on being the FOSS not-Photoshop
It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?
Thursday 30th July 2020 07:59 GMT
Re: Nope
"I thought Windows XP SP2 was adequate, but maybe I have low standards or am forgetting how to count."
I agree SP2 was great. I found SP3 slowed the XP boxes down too much, and don't forget it introduced the annoying Windows Genuine Advantage - I never found Windows to be an advantage :)
I think the mulitple desktop idea isn't used much for two reasons. Windows users aren't used to such inovations, as they come very late late. Don't forget that IE didn't support mulitple tabs for many years after other browers had them. I've been using mulitple desktops on Linux since 2000. The other reason, is it a faff to get to the other desktops. On my Linux box, there is a nice little window on the task bar, with four small squares. Click on one if the small squares and you are at another desktop (4 in my case).
I find a WIndows interface so primitve compared to a Linux interface. Multiple items in your clipboard only came 2 years ago. Again I've had this on my Linux box since 2000, and it was probably there before. I didn't get onto PCs until then. Before that I was working on Big Irons.
Microsoft decrees that all high-school IT teachers were wrong: Double spaces now flagged as typos in Word
India says 'Zoom is a not a safe platform' and bans government users
Cloudflare goes retro with COBOL delivery service. Older coders: Who's laughing now? Turns out we're still vital
If you're looking for a textbook example of an IT hype cycle, let spin be your guide
Tuesday 17th March 2020 10:43 GMT
Base 3
When I was started my computer science degree in 1976, we were assured binary was on the way out and ternary computers would take over by 1990. I've got two more years until I hang up my coding forms and flowchart stencil, and still no sign of them. Nearly everything is hype. There was a CDC Cyber 173 when I was at uni, which occupied an entire room. We used to joke that one day computers would be small enough to fit in your pocket, and you might accidently step on it as it was so small. Indeed this happened, not that I have one.
As Australia is gripped by bog roll shortage, tabloid says: Here, fill your dunny with us
Thursday 5th March 2020 09:59 GMT
Deep Drop
When I lived in the bush, we had a deep drop as a dunny and Mum would tear up old newspaper and hang it on a piece of string. It did leave your botty with a few black marks though! That was back in the days when you got your fish and chips wrapped in newspaper; they definitely tasted better.
