Posts by rjsmall 32 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Oct 2019
Cloud is just the latest IT fad that non-technical management thought was going to solve every problem. I've seen it with Citrix / RDP, thin client, virtualisation and now cloud. The hosting platform doesn't really matter if your technical implementation is fundamentally bad and not suited to the environment.
No doubt all the consultancies that flogged "migrate to cloud" services will now be selling "on-prem repatriation" services.
Although the ESA may have European in it's name it isn't an EU department / organisation - it exists outside of the EU. https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/ESA_and_the_EU#:~:text=ESA%20is%20an%20intergovernmental%20organisation%2C%20whereas%20the%20EU,aim%3A%20to%20strengthen%20Europe%20and%20benefit%20its%20citizens.
It makes sense to co-operate with them on scientific missions but it seems like commercial space is going to be dominated by private companies such as SpaceX or Blue Origin.
As the contactless card section of their site is still down it is also not possible to claim back incorrect fares where you have been overcharged (usually a "failed to touch out" reason) many of which will probably be forgotten about by the time it is back.
I am amazed how long this has been out considered TfL isn't exactly a small transport operator. Wonder if their CTO and Business Continuity chiefs will get nice bonuses this year for good work in eventually restoring the service.
In London the clean water system was privately built - the New River Company built the first clean water supply back in the 1600s. Water supply wasn't taken into public ownership until the early 1900s.
I think military / defence backing rather than government backing might be more accurate when it comes to backing.
I'd actually say PST files are a must not for enterprises. From their introduction nearly 30 years ago they have been a dumping ground for messages that people "might need later" but in most cases were never looked at again. I dread to think how much storage space is wasted with these files.
With modern e-mail storage capacity, archiving and records management PST files don't really have a place in the enterprise.
After the change from 0171 and 0181 to 020 there was no longer a differentiation between inner and outer London for the purposes of area codes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Number_Change#Geographic_number_changes) There was also the addition of the 3 prefix for London phone numbers.
One of my very sad bugbears is companies still displaying their number as starting 0207, 0208 or 0203.
I still remember that NT4 SP2 bug as I was just starting my life as an IT professional circa late 1996. Luckily my senior IT bod and I only installed SP2 on our devices initially and I think it bluescreened when you tried to access the floppy drive. (which was quite important back then)
Fortunately Microsoft quickly released a hotfix (which was the first one I can recall) but a good lesson on ensuring you always deploy to test devices first.
Not sure they are on the right track with accusing Microsoft of copying a competitors product and then bundling it. OneDrive grew out of Live Mesh which was released about a decade (or more) ago and then gradually morphed into a cloud based product once cloud storage became more accessible and home internet links faster and more reliable. Looking at Nextcloud's webpage they were established in 2016 so a little bold to be suggesting others were copying an existing product.
Possibly the bundling could be an issue but then again that could be said for Google Drive with Chromebooks and Apple devices with iCloud.
That is correct - PSD2 mandates this. There is an exemption that allows you to make contactless payments without PIN but the maximum single transaction is £100. (just went up) If you make five contactless transactions in a row or a specific total is reached (not sure what it is now) then you need to enter your PIN.
I am curious as to how any of these tracking / tracing apps are meant to account for primary school (or lower) aged children. Most of these children probably won't have their own device so isn't this a rather large chunk of the population (who are potentially very good at spreading the virus) that are going to be missed?
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