* Posts by s. pam

799 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2007

Dell's Ubuntu-powered Precision Sputnik now available worldwide

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

Anyone remember DellUNIX or the DellStation?

The mystery of Dell is they've done UNIX for years. All the way back to the first HQ at The Arboretum before we were sent to Braker C as a team. Dell once upon a time had a real UNIX development team -- I know as I worked in it. The rest of Dell did everything they could to kill us/ our UNIX but there was such a market they never knew what to do. We even had Dell UNIX laptops, if you could find someone who knew of them!

Them was the days -- I recall our midnight appropriation of HW to build the first internet www.dell.com too. Gosh what stories we could tell El Reg....Dell just never had a clue!

Irate IT distributors chase Amazon over unpaid bills

s. pam Silver badge
Angel

Wait just a damn minute....

We all know that Amazon does NOT have any staff, operations, or sites in the U.K.!!!

We know this as our Chancellor said so which is why they don't pay any/enough taxes.

Shirley this must be a mistake!

Investigatory Powers Bill to be rushed into Parliament on Tuesday

s. pam Silver badge
Holmes

I've just written to my local MP

I'll be very curious as he's an IT professional if he would vote for it!

British Airways, IT staff job cuts, an outsourcing biz ... you get the point

s. pam Silver badge
FAIL

Basically Airworthy (just)

I've flown just shy of 3M miles in the last 20 years with B/A and their brand cachet is lower than A/A in the US. Which is not an admirable position to be in.

You see it everywhere except their shiny check in at LHR. Run down planes, short staff, screw the loyal Exec Club members, lowered quality in their lounges.

I have a new motto for them "BA, nothing special in the air" and that's not a compliment I promise you. The cruddy part is what is a business traveller living near LHR or LGW to do? Getting anywhere in Europe and not spending 2++ hrs in a taxi or driving the M4/M25/M23 means LHR. Or, G*d forbid that hell hole called LGW!

Sorry for the rant but I'm f-a-r from alone in these views. I'm not surprised their outsourcing their staff to our Commonwealth cousins. When it all goes titsup.com then they'll realise the end is near for them as a carrier.

Lonely bloke in chem suit fuels Mars orbiter

s. pam Silver badge
Happy

Reminds me of the time....

We had the 35ft IOR sailboat I crewed on up on stands at Berkeley Marina to strip the bottom and repaint it before the start of the racing season. Bloke from the marina walks up, looks at the paint and says "Are any of you guys planning to father children?" We kind of stood there thinking, W-T-F over?

He then quipped, "Using that stuff you'll never father children".

And I never have (to my knowledge!!)

Become an Andre Previn in your time: DevOps for star conductors

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

Its PREVIN, Andre PREVIN who is the Conductor.

FFS get it right El Reg, you’re better than that!

Wi-Fi operators must notify device users of potential data processing

s. pam Silver badge
Holmes

Several of the mobile operators already do this!

Vodafone bought a company last year that their entire business plan is on WiFi harvesting, WiFi directed advertising and the ilk so the harvesting is well underway already.

I doubt the operators (Mobile OR Wifi) will take ANY notice of this new instruction from the ICO. It'll be nigh on impossible to police and even harder to prove an extraction was done.

Of course, it just dawns on me that with the Snoopers Charter, the ICO may be trying to preempt likely snopping by the commercial sectors and solely wants that for the Spooks!

Vodafone puts hundreds of Brits on the 'at risk of layoffs' list

s. pam Silver badge
Thumb Down

Must be a damn fine comfort to those involved

That Yoda is advertising for hundreds of jobs all over the Interweb right now for positions in Newbury and beyond. I've had recruiters calling/emailing me like mad for the last several months "due to continued expansion and growth...." is comforting...!

EMC's Chad Sakac once made a Gangnam Style parody music video

s. pam Silver badge
Alien

I paused Radio3 for *that*?????

Crikey, there are things that I'll never be able to un-see and that video is one...!

Ordnance Survey unfolds handy Mars map

s. pam Silver badge
Coat

Those damn Martians....

Had better have paid HMRC the taxes due for O/S wasting British taxpayers ££'s on this kind of crap.

No wonder UK.Gov is broke

Uber, Taskrabbit, other Silicon Valley darlings urge Europe not to screw their business

s. pam Silver badge
Megaphone

I look fwd to putting some out of Europe!

Unless they will:

1) Respect and abide by European Laws

2) Pay their full taxes, in-country

3) Operate as any in-country business would in a free-market, competitive manner

I look forward to helping wreck their business plans! I'm one of 100's of thousands actively screwing Uber and I'd do the same to other companies!

Don't mention the F word: Adobe releases Animate CC

s. pam Silver badge
Mushroom

They're fucking dreaming

It ain't getting into our machines or browsers!

Die Adobe!

Private clouds kinda suck, you know?

s. pam Silver badge

Re: It's relabelling but with a twist

Erik one cannot for a second presume Enterprises have the wherewithal to do this as they either won't have the source code, or the talent pool to do so.

This is where the larger vendors are salivating and wetting themselves -- you really have to dump your current Apps and move to theirs to gain anything.

Otherwise a "Cloud" is nothing more than Marketing Bullshit and better known as a Remote Data Centre...

Health Secretary promises NHS £4.2bn to go 'digital'

s. pam Silver badge
IT Angle

He better not look in the Ward Sister's offices in Hillingdon!

Their offices are little more than piles of patient files from floor to ceiling! I've seen them for myself so this is just more of Jeremy needing a C* on his last name. Completely bogus when they're still running Windows XP in wards I've recently been into in my local GP's surgery and seen at a NHS hospital!

*= Discriminating El Reg readers know how to move letters around!

BlackBerry axes 200 jobs – including a third of its HQ staff

s. pam Silver badge
Thumb Up

Well, they're hiring off of LinkedIN

Just today I was looking at an opening with them and I didn't apply because of reading this story even though I desperately need work!

UC Berkeley profs blast secret IT monitoring kit on campus

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

Janet from another planet has landed

And the spies are crawling from the woodwork like Lice on a damp afternoon!

Who'd of thunk it?

Leak – UN says Assange detention 'unlawful'

s. pam Silver badge
Alien

I could sooooo care less about what's his name!

Talk about using all avenues and protesting too much!

Why didn't he just man-up, meet with the team accusing him on safe ground, and save everyone a helluva lotta bother?

I hope this is the end of this noisemaker but I doubt it is!

Did you know ... Stephen Fry has founded a tech startup?

s. pam Silver badge
WTF?

I'd hate like hell to hear the elevator pitch

Mr Fry would wibble on incessantly for hours on the what's why's and wherefore's! As I've done a fair bit of technology assessment/ advising to VC's that'd be one startup I'd skip attending and funding meeting!

BT blames 'faulty router' for mega outage. Did they try turning it off and on again?

s. pam Silver badge
Coffee/keyboard

Horsefeathers -- was it a DDOS or a failed upgrade?

To air is human but to really fuck things up is a oft overused phrase.

You don't take down a couple hundred thousand users without either being hit by a DDOS or an upgrade gone wrong. No one could be so cheap as to have a SPOF or could they?

Perhaps, BT couldn't get through to the scummy helpLESS lines in OpenReach to get help? That'd be fitting karma!

Home Office lost its workers' completed security vetting forms

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

No worries, we can trust them all!

Ole Teflon will make lotsa noise in the press about what a hard job it is then nothing will change. Repeat cycle, spin, rinse, repeat cycle.

Apple’s retail chief: ‘Touching customers’ key to retail success

s. pam Silver badge

Re: How about touching a REAL UK Keyboard?

Wrong-O

I bought a new iMac 21" in September from apple.com/uk (their UK store!) and it came with a USA keyboard, and NO option to get a UK one.

s. pam Silver badge
FAIL

How about touching a REAL UK Keyboard?

That'd be a first -- I'm sick and tired of Apple not getting the fact that not all of the world likes to touch a Yankee only keyboard.

Every damn new Mac comes with a USA keyboard -- epic fail! I have to spend at least 10 mins remapping all the keys!

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

"IoT will go mainstream"

For those brave enough, have a follow of the Twitter account @InternetOfShit.

That'll turn anyone into a permanent luddite living in a cave in NW Scotland forever!

Microsoft: We’ve taken down the botnets. Europol: Would Sir like a kill switch, too?

s. pam Silver badge
Flame

Seriously? Are they delusional?

They routinely crash PCs with bad updates, or cause lock-ups due to their poor Q/A. So to seriously suggest a kill switch seems counterintuitive as their own product is more than capable of doing just that already!

Engineer's bosses gave him printout of his Yahoo IMs. Euro court says it's OK

s. pam Silver badge
Angel

Bwahahaha what a tool!

There's no real surprise in this decision! Companies have Acceptable Use Rules for a reason and clearly the guy felt he was above that rule.

Add in the fact for more than 10 years now, Chat sessions in a corporate environment are likely in many companies to be logged, just as email is for compliance &/or regulatory reasons.

He should not be moaning for sympathy -- which BTW is between shite and syphilus in the O.E.D. !

Stephen Hawking reckons he's cracked the black hole paradox

s. pam Silver badge
Thumb Up

Let's send Jeremy Hunt

To test out Hawking's new theory as he clearly is smarter than everyone!

Come in Internet Explorers, your time is up. Or not. Up to you

s. pam Silver badge
Boffin

I'd say the bookies should make a mint

Holding book on which banks get pwned first for still running IE6 and IE7 although I know a UK bank with instances of IE5 still in place!

Boozing is unsafe at ‘any level’, thunders chief UK.gov quack

s. pam Silver badge
Headmaster

Which cash-sucking consulting firm is involved?

I've just done the survey.

It has too much consultant-speak and should simply say "drinking whilst pregnant may injure, deform, or destroy your unborn child". Or it should say "drinking too much may damage necessary organs, cause you to injure yourself" or "drinking too much in one session will cause you to have spawn just like yourself"!

The instructions to the pubic are filled with thousands of words when 10-20 would suffice!

Spooks, spyware, Ashley Madison and Windows 10: What you read in 2015

s. pam Silver badge
Thumb Down

If El Reg had any cajones......

You'd have taken aim at Adobe Flash and the scourge of the interweb it truly is!

Chat messages in Skype for Windows are bang out of order – so here's how to 'fix' it for now

s. pam Silver badge
Pirate

Mac version is a 3-D cluster...

The last 3 Mac updates are utter butt roll leftovers of non-working code. It's gotten so bad we've had to keep a spare DMG around our home to clean up when a new turd arrives.

How could someone so fuck up a working product..??

Patch now! Flash-exploitin' PC-hijackin' attack spotted in the wild by Huawei bods

s. pam Silver badge
Mushroom

"If you haven't already enabled click-to-play for Flash in your browser".....

Did that, we've purged Flash is Trash from ALL computers in our family. And extended family. And closest friends.

Adobe should have their doors forcibly closed for perpetuating Flash!

UK says wider National Insurance number use no longer a no-no

s. pam Silver badge
Holmes

Aegon is sure as hell using NiNo !!!

I've got a long standing mess with Aegon where they've LOST my home address yet cheerfully accepted monthly Pension contributions that I think I've finally fixed.

The proof you may ask?

Today I received a form from Aegon demanding all the stuff I've already provided 7 years of proof for, AND a "fill in your NiNo here" boxes for it to go into.

Having no choice as I want to get 15 years of Pension moved to another company I've had to comply. Hopefully they don't fuck up management and securing my personal data!

Man faces 37 years for sarcastic post insulting royal dog

s. pam Silver badge
Pint

Que Pasa Bato, Fido Tacos anyone

I once went to a upscale taqueria in Mexico City with some co-workers whilst working there. The meat was grey, but tasty and with a few beers, seemed ok.

They asked me on the way back to the office how I liked DOG Tacos? Perhaps a nice Dog Pud Thai would be more to the King's liking?

Mozilla looses Firefox 43, including Windows 64-bit variant

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

How about "World has flushed Firefox"?

The lack of modernisation coupled with the malware and lack of security updates mean to many it is flushed from their $home, $work, and $life.

Shame, they fscked things up so badly they handed the market to Chrome.

Adobe: We locked our customers in the cloud and out poured money

s. pam Silver badge
Thumb Down

Now, FLUSH Flash

If you're really wanting to make some money Adobe, FLUSH Flash and see customers return.

The Ebola virus of network security nightmares ='s I won't spend a pence with you until you do.

Booming Ballmer bellows 'bulls**t' over Microsoft's cloud revenue run rate

s. pam Silver badge
Alert

I guess it's no different than the $40B

That MSFT were telling all SW developers was the revenue to be made supporting $harepoint. Glad that wasn't bullshit then SteveO.

Microsoft Office 365, Azure portals offline for many users in Europe

s. pam Silver badge
IT Angle

It's raining turds and birds

Oh gee what a surprise -- I can't get into email for the company I'm contracting to due to MSFT. I've been trying to get into their email for 2 hours with little luck, even tried reboots, different browsers.

I guess I'll go remove the caulk in my shower that's leaking then.

Oh em gee – Adobe kills Flash Professional (it's called Animate now)

s. pam Silver badge
Flame

Now fucking kill Flash completely!!!!

In the name of all things Holy, PLEASE,

Get your Ebola virus of an app off of the Internet once and for all!

All hail Firefox Dev Edition 44 – animations, memory and all

s. pam Silver badge
FAIL

Isn't FF a painful orifice tool?

FF, pah humbug. Rubbish SW.

Deleted from all our systems for FF's owners sins.

End of transmission.

Lights, power, action! Smartplugs with a twist

s. pam Silver badge
FAIL

Americans are so lazy...

FFS -- a plug to turn something off? W. T. F. ...?

It'll all end in VERY expensive epic fail when all the plugs are behind furniture.

Oh well, they'll never make a UK equivalent Americans never go overseas or over the border anyway!

Remember Windows 1.0? It's been 30 years (and you're officially old)

s. pam Silver badge
Thumb Down

What about: Windows for Whackos?

You forgot the Ebola Virus of MSFT OS's: Windows for Workgroups which routinely barfed all over the network. WfW was short for "we ain't got a fucking clue about networks, but we're the Borg and damnit, you better do as we say".

WfW was a great believer in networks should all be set to a netmask of 255.0.0.0, or in other terms, it only worked in a Bridged network...

Brit cops accused of abusing anti-terror laws to hunt colleague

s. pam Silver badge
Holmes

Wow -- who'd have thunk it?

Police abusing their power?

Never!

Trident test-shot startles West Coast Americans

s. pam Silver badge
Black Helicopters

Americans get all dazed and confused

By brights lights and shiny objects.

Spanish town trumpets 'Clitoris Festival' thanks to Google snafu

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

Finger-licking good

When consumed with a Bud or two...

In-a-spin Home Sec: 'We won't be rifling through people's web history'

s. pam Silver badge
Boffin

Liar Liar, pants on Fire

Sorry but anyone who believes Teflon Theresa May be sectioned at no notice!

HMRC 'reluctant' to crack down on VAT fraudsters – tax ace

s. pam Silver badge
Facepalm

HMRC Goon Squadies would rather bugger taxpayers

The Goon Squadies would rather bugger the likes of you and me for small mistakes by driving a Eurostar train up our backsides than actually do something that could grab the real criminals.

I've just finished the end of a 4 year nightmare with them for a £202 mistake. End result was a £9,100 fine, yet they won't get off their arses and go after YodaPhone, Amazon (hint: they're in Dumfermline Scotland HMRC) or others.

Scum.

Volvo eyes kangaroo detection tech

s. pam Silver badge
Mushroom

Fix your sodding DSG transmissions first

Volvo needs to fix their self-destructing, "That'll be £5,500 please" gearboxes before worrying about not killing Skippy! Volvo's Epicfail answer is "TADTS" which is far from good enough!

This burned us so badly on a 2010 V50 a temporary fix was done and we dumped the car.

NATS climbs into the cloud to fight legacy software snafus

s. pam Silver badge
IT Angle

All Flights are delayed to/from LHR due to The Cloud

Who the "£$%^ are they listening who are smoking G*d knows what?

NATS has proven itself as expensive and flaky with shiny new things as The Met.

I can see this decision will end in hours of hand wringling whilst consultants make gazillions!

Online pharmacy slapped with £130,000 fine for flogging customer data

s. pam Silver badge
FAIL

So what happens?

If you've actually bought something from these c-nuts? I bought some stop smoking thingies from them. So are my personal details out in the wild, and if so what's my reward?

Seems to me a years free Experian would be a good start!

WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

s. pam Silver badge

No Carly, you cannot make the other Presidential debaters wear those!