Posts by ITMA

Eat up, Windows 11 users – this is your last non-security preview update for the year

Re: WINDOWS 11 is NOT ready for main streams use....

"So was Windows 10. Widely despised, enough to where there was a group of 'Never 10' people who did all they could to block the 'up'grade."

That's not quite accurate

As one of those who rolled out Gibson's "Never10" on our estate I can tell you exactly why we did.

It wasn't because Windows 10 was terrible per se - it was because brain dead Microsoft were trying to FORCE the upgrade out whether you wanted it or not and at a time of Microsoft's choosing, NOT ours. That could be construed as possibly even illegal in some countries.

When to move our platform from 7 to 10 was going to be our decision NOT Microsofts as it should be. Microsoft broke that rule deliberately and willingly and deserve all the shit they got for it - and more.

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

Re: A hint from the future

I humbly suggest you check your Flux Capacitor....

Artemis I isn't just a test run – there's science to be done

Re: Another first for America's space agency!

"Yes, that is NASA-speak for 'We just sent fake boobs to the moon!' "

C'mon, wouldn't be the first time we've had "tits in space" - and I'm not referring to parts of female anatomy.

Alexa - emergency thrusters NOW!

Sorry I can't do that, I have a migraine.

World's richest man posts memes as $44b Twitter acquisition veers off course

Re: I'm going to need more popcorn

Be civil now... Call the right honourable gentleman by his first name... "Warwick"

Go ahead, be rude. You don't know it now, but it will cost you $350,000

Re: Well, manglement ....

My favourite response in such situations - when I am the customer - is to explain it to them simply and clearly:

"I'm profit, you are overhead".

I had an exerpience with a very good sales rep for a local Compaq dealer in the early/mid '90s.

I wandered in almost "off the street". I was in my early to mid 20s, not in the traditional suit (can't abide wearing suits) or anything. Certainly didn't look like a serious business customer. Just wanted to ask about desktop PCs for a potential upgrade.

The salesman, to his eternal credit, treated me as a serious customer and within 2 months I'd placed orders through him for hardware, software and trainng to the value of £234,000.

Upgraded the entire company IT from mixed DOS/Windows 3.1 on dreadful "build it yourself" smorgasbord hardware, mixed Lotus 123/Word Perfect to all Windows 3.11, standard Microsoft Office platform and 95+ new Compaq PCs. Training for the staff and brand new server.

OpenPrinting keeps old printers working – even on Windows

Re: Resource use?

Oh no! Not the HL-720!

Not the worst GDI printer I've ever came across (I used to own one until I could afford a PROPER printer) but still a God awful GDI printer.

Re: in business it is the applications that matter.

Here here....

Re: The problem is usually with printers Linux never had drivers for...

The same bullshit that means it is very hard to buy new PCs with Windows 10 or even drivers for Windows 10.

Meanwhille the ridiculous hardware requirements for 11 are all about selling more new tin boxes and throwing out perfectly good ones for no reason other than Microsoft's shite.

Re: The problem is usually with printers Linux never had drivers for...

So you would rather people throw out perfectly good, working printers and add to the mountain of WEE waste choking the planet. Plus further pilliage the resources of the planet for raw materials to build and sell new ones instead?

That's the sort of attitude destroying this planet.

PCL5 works perfectly well for the job of printing,

Please do enlighten us as to what earth shattering developments PCL6 and beyond bring to putting marks on paper that PCL5 doesn't that the world simply cannot live without.

"We know that some Reg readers still actually prefer Windows"

That's rather condescending...

I take it the author is a Luinux fanboy...

Is it horses for courses Liam. And for many business situations Linux just doesn't cut it because of a lack of applications in very particular area which Windows does have available.

Why do some people in IT forget that the OS is a tool to run application software. In business it is the applications that matter. If a particular OS (Linux or Windows) doesn't have the ones your business needs, then that OS is crap for your business.

Re: The problem is usually with printers Linux never had drivers for...

"As long as the printer does PCL or PS then you should be okay."

PS maybe, PCL definitely NOT so.

Using (say) a PCL5 printer with any current version of Windows should be easy - but it isn't. For some reason Microsoft, who let's be honest bully hardware manufacturers to "toe the line", don't want anything lower than PCL6 to work.

FFS WHY????

Microsoft hits the switch on password-free smartphone authentication

Erm..... Yup

Ah yes - BYOD

Otherwise known as Bring Your Own Disaster...

Demand for software experts pushes tech salaries higher in UK

Re: Diversity should be a consequence, not a goal.

Positive discrimination is still discrimination....end of....

Chinese researchers make car glide 35mm above ground in maglev test

Re: Cough

Just watch.... Today it will be a car, next week it will have morphed into a military grade rail gun.

Software fees to make up 10% of John Deere's revenues by 2030

Re: Are thjere no other tractors available

"They got out of that game and into what became British Leyland. The rest is, um, historical."

You mean hysterical, surely..... LOL

The International Space Station will deorbit in glory. How's your legacy tech doing?

Re: Software Engineering - NOT

Can explain why across on the other side of the pond (North Amercia) they call train drivers "engineers"?

LOL

You've stopped taking your medication again, haven't you?

"That's why you never see Lizard People astronauts"

Don't get David Icke started FFS!

Voyager 1 data corrupted by onboard computer that 'stopped working years ago'

Re: 07734

Did it ever work? LOL

Early Sinclair electronics were not exactly known for their reliability. Especially containing Sinclair specific ICs

Amazon has repackaged surveillance capitalism as reality TV

Re: Sorry, but Benny HIll casting the first scone...

I used to have that as a 45 single when I was young! (back in the late Precambrian).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e1xvyTdBZI

NASA builds for keeps: Voyager mission still going after 45 years

Re: Multiples of less

"And also recommended, just in case one pops up on ebay:

https://haynes.com/en-gb/large-hadron-collider-manual

You never know!"

Just in case anyone was wondering - yes I WAS referring to a Large Hadron Collider popping up on eBay, not the book ;)

Re: Multiples of less

Surprisingly this is quite good:

https://haynes.com/en-gb/nasa-voyager-1-and-2-manual

And also recommended, just in case one pops up on ebay:

https://haynes.com/en-gb/large-hadron-collider-manual

You never know!

This is being a bit ambitious for an "Owner's Workshop Manual" LOL

https://haynes.com/en-gb/mars-manual

Re: Spacetime

And do you know why the BBC is only the BBC with the UK?

Elsewhere it is the British Broadcasting Company to avoid trademark infringement with Brown, Boveri & Cie

Early BBC micros had BBC on the clear plastic speaker/function key overlay strip. Later ones, including the Master series have British Broadcasting Corporation for that very reason.

Re: Multiples of less

You main "click bait" for the mentally challenged?

Perhaps those wanting that should stick to the "comics" such as the Sunday Sport, Sun or Daily Star.

If there is one thing this world could do with more of it is honest, accurate journalism. Not bullshit "attention grabbing" shite for the brain dead with an attention span that would make a goldfish MENSA material.

Re: Multiples of less

They are falling into bad habits, rather like the BBC who are fond of:

The best/worst/highest/lowest etc "in a generation" without specifying how many years they classify in a "generation". It is NOT a well defined quantity.

and...

"Since records began" without qualifying the statement by saying when that was. 100 years ago, 10 years ago, last month, last week or since they last buggered about with the way they measure the thing (like unemployment figures)?

Re: Multiples of less

"and transmits information back to Earth at a speed 38,000 times slower than 5G"

So what if it is 38,000 times slower than 5G. It is hard enough getting 5G here on planet Earth in cities that are supposed to have it! Never mind 14,599,462,103 miles away (Voyager 1 as at 18:30 BST today) and going at 38,000 mph using a maximum transmitter power of 22.4 W

Sudbury DTV here craps out in hot weather and that is 100 KW and only 28 miles away.

https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/

Mouse hiding in cable tray cheesed off its bemused user

Re: Mice? pah....

THREE mouse buttons???

I've not seen three "mouse buttons" on a laptop for decades!

Especially Dells

Re: and if you answer "No" they are killed, TOTALLY.

Don't give the buggers ideas!!

Re: Mice? pah....

I'd rather it was just turned off along with all other bloody "gestures" and left to those who like them to enable them - the option with the potential to do least damage.

For those, like me, for whom tapping and gestures don't work. It is not a matter of just not liking them. They are bloody DANGEROUS. For us it is like driving a car where every third time you put your foot on the brake it accelerates and every third time you turn the wheel left it lurches right. It is that bad.

Possibly a simple question durintg setup of "Do you want tapping/gestures?" and if you answer "No" they are killed, TOTALLY.

Found

Mice? pah....

"Grant visited the user, who moved the mouse pointer to a box – at which point it did indeed start to move despite no human hand upon the digital rodent!"

Dell laptop track/glide pads are (or used to be) notorious for this.

And why of why does every damn manufacturer keep shipping them with bloody tapping enabled?

If you get on with tapping fine... if you don't and, like me, find the bloody thing constantly misinterpreting my movements for tapping it is bloody dangerous. It is constantly selecting, dragging and dropping God knows what to God knows where until I can turn the stupid thing off....

The truth about that draft law banning Uncle Sam buying insecure software

Re: What with the what how?

In the same way the FAA were the agency responsible for certifying the Boeing 737 MAX as air worthy?

That worked SO well didn't it....

Hahahaha

Microsoft could be up shit creek without a paddle then....

NASA wants a hundredfold upgrade for space computers

Re: They're still around?

"Edit: a little googling shows the Mars Rover uses a PowerPC CPU"

Which "Mars Rover " are you referring to?

Sojourner?

Spirit & Opportunity?

Curiosity?

Perseverance?

Sojourner - 80C85

Spirit & Opporunity - RAD6000 (Power 1 architecture)

Curiosity - RAD750 (PowerPC 750)

Perseverance - RAD750 (ditto)

To add a bit of variety, the New Horizons spacecraft uses a Mongoose-V (MIPS R3000) clocked at 12MHz.

As the line in the Apollo 13 film goes - "(electrical) Power is everything"

The Sojourner rover used an 80C85 CPU.

And highest speed isn't everything. Power is a very finite resource on spacecraft. The general rule with processors is the faster they go, the more power they need.

If you run out of power - brown out - at a critical moment you can have a dead spacecraft. Aka LOV (loss of vehicle) and thus probably LOM (loss of mission).

Then you really are buggered...

Plus older "hardened" electronics are worth their weighrt in gold compared to new "non-hardened". Sheilding is heavy compared to hardened electronics and costs you dearly to launch.

Re: Extra redundancy

"with lots of built-in flexibility that can later be upgraded with software updates, similar to what they did with Hubble"

Even Voyager 1 and 2 could - and did - receive software updates and virtually every NASA mission since.

I think you are getting confused with Hubble's capability to be have HARDWARE upgrades. At least until the space shuttle fleet was grounded.

https://hubblesite.org/mission-and-telescope/servicing-missions

Security needs to learn from the aviation biz to avoid crashing

There is another apspect...

They (the appointment security people) coming up with the proper procedures and policies but having to work under senior management without the backbone to enforce those policies - in case they "upset" people or just don't take it seriously.

Re: Preaching to the chior

The very same Dido Harding who was CEO of TalkTalk when this shit storm happened:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-46264327

https://www.itpro.co.uk/security/24136/talktalk-hack-two-men-plead-guilty-to-talktalk-hack

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/talktalk-cyber-attack-how-the-ico-investigation-unfolded/

The hack was in 2015 and at the time TalkTalk didn't even use HTTPS on their customer login page. Despite customers having told TalkTalk about it many many times.

Apparently this made her an ideal choice to run the governments COVID Test & Trace IT project....

Re: Preaching to the chior

Two words sum that up....

Dido Harding

Major IT outage forces UK emergency call handlers to use 'pen and paper'

Re: To doctor or not to doctor...

Don't worry about it.

One of our UK "eccentricities" LOL

And and as Fruit and Nutcase quite rightly pointed out

"Our Members of Parliament expect to be addressed as 'Honourable'..." and certain MPs on the Privy Council go by the title Right Honourable.

More like "the wheezers and dodgers" (though such a comparison is likely to insult the real Wheezers and Dodgers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Miscellaneous_Weapons_Development).

And as for "honourable" - if they shake your hand, be sure to check your wallet and watch after...

Re: Per Ardua....

We've had a fleet of new Fiat ambulances which a significant number of ambulance crews can't fit in properly to drive!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61847310

Re: To doctor or not to doctor...

Absolutely...

Once consultants, especially surgical consultants, they can then behave like Sir Lanceleott Spratt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVWjAeAa52o

And while were on the subject of "titles", why is that some in the USA seem to get very upset about who can and can't call themselves "engineers" again all based on bits of paper and/or membership of a professional body. Despite some not actually being able to physically make anything themselves.

And yet in the USA you call train drivers "engineers". We prefer to call them more accurately "train drivers".

Re: To doctor or not to doctor...

"(UK usually doctor)

a medical doctor, especially one who has general skill and is not a surgeon

The latter addressed correctly as 'mister' and not 'doctor' of course..."

Sorry but don't try and impose your Americanisms here in the UK especially as this is a UK based item.

Plus UK surgeons can often also be referred to as "doctor" depending on their experience and seniority. You are confusing them with the much more senior "hosptial consultants" who are called "Mr/Mrs/Ms" to differentiate their higher seniority from more "lowly" doctors.

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/international-doctors/life-and-work-in-the-uk/toolkit-for-doctors-new-to-the-uk/doctors-titles-explained

Homes in London under threat as datacenters pull in all the power

Re: It's all about cities AKA a systems problem

"The north and south circulars eventually had to be replaced by the M25"

The North Circular at least feel like a proper actual single purpose built road.

The South Circular is a line some twat drew on a map along a random swath of existing roads that happened to be going in roughly the right direction and labelled it "The South Circular"

Re: Not near wind farms

The problem is NIMBYs don't want pylons to bring the power across land from the windfarm landfall.

I bet they wouldn't want data centres either.

But I guarantee they don't want to pay the significantly higher cost of buried cables - and would almost all object to them being buried on "their land".

It's pretty much a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

Lapping the computer room in record time until the inevitable happens

Quake Deathmatch with the Bombs8 QuakeC patch used to be WAY more fun in the IT office at one former place of work. LOL

Especially if one or two "colleagues" were not "informed" about the new weapons HEHEHEHE

The expression on their faces when hit by a homing rocket or the gibgun was pure joy!

Google: We had to shut down a datacenter to save it during London’s heatwave

Re: Hot cloud

Or on fire..... OVHCloud...