* Posts by EricPodeOfCroydon

23 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Feb 2020

Barclays Bank signs 100k license Copilot deal with Microsoft

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: I didn't think Barclays could get any worse.

No Barclays in Northumberland's county town!

Trump thinks we can make iPhones in the US just like China. Yeah, right

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Skills

That's because they're working in the doughnut industry.

Windows 11 adds auto-recovery, kills offline setup loophole

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Where lies 'added value' in Microsoft products?

Doesn't have to be an "old" application, just one not available on Linux. I really wish Affinity would make the leap - after all, they have an Apple version, so how hard can it be?

GCC 15 is close: COBOL and Itanium are in, but ALGOL is out

EricPodeOfCroydon

Ah... Micro Focus CIS COBOL on the ICL DRS20... those were the days!

AI summaries turn real news into nonsense, BBC finds

EricPodeOfCroydon

You too!

UK government using AI tools to check up on roadworthy testing centers

EricPodeOfCroydon

Yep, the article is just plain wrong. There are no MOT testing centers in the UK. There are, however, a great many MOT testing centres

Copilot+ PCs? Customers just aren't buying it – yet

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: making AI PCs an inevitability rather than a choice

3D televisions anyone?

Lego's Concorde is the only supersonic jet you can build for the price of a fancy dinner

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: What is the max skin temperature?

Isn't Ryanair famously all-Boeing?

BASICally still alive: Classic language celebrates 60 years with new code and old quirks

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Anyone remember...?

Early 1980s, working for a software house in North East of England, writing software packages for the British outpost of those lovely Italians, Olivetti. The BCS 2099 was probably one of the last 'visible records' machines, capable of keeping records on large cards which could be fed into a printer, printed on, but would also store data on a magnetic stripe up one side. Earlier machines (I think the immediate predecessor was the BCS 2030?) were programmed in a kind of 'high level assembler', called BAL if memory serves, but not related to any BAL I can find on t'internet now. The 2099 introduced HAI BASIC, of which I can also find no trace. Maybe I need to Google in Italian!!

EricPodeOfCroydon

Anyone remember...?

... Holland Automation International (HAI) BASIC on the Olivetti BCS2099?

Nope, I expect not...

New cars bought in the UK must be zero emission by 2035 – it's the law

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Screw the Hoi Polloi!

Your first suggestion implies that you can guarantee being able to park in the street directly outside your property. Is this realistic? And does anyone know what the legal position is re trailing cables across the public pavement (sidewalk for our US friends)? Who gets sued when someone, perhaps with sight issues, trips over a cable?

Microsoft unleashes Copilot preview on Windows 10 insiders

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Display requirements are 720p

On the plus side, this is a good argument for using a vertical taskbar in Win10!

LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

EricPodeOfCroydon

Ok then

... that's LG off the list for any device I buy in future.

Looks like my super-dumb 42" Panasonic plasma will have to do me for a few more years.

Open source 'Office' options keep Microsoft running faster than ever

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Options are always good

I could get behind the ribbon a lot more if MS would allow it to be positioned at the side. Having it stuck across the top of a wide-screen monitor, restricting vertical space, is just annoying.

File suffixes: Who needs them? Well, this guy did

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: extensions and version numbers

VME on ICL mainframes also provided a version number for files. Very useful it was too.

Amazon tells folks it will stop accepting UK Visa credit cards via weird empty email

EricPodeOfCroydon

I'm confused now... cards or wives?

D'oh! Misplaced chair shuts down nuclear plant in Taiwan

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Confirmed

Ah, but it also had Soolin!

There was a crooked man who bought a crooked M1 iMac, and we presume they lived together in a little crooked house

EricPodeOfCroydon

Corners? On an Apple device? What corners??

Shuttered call centre sours Capita's £58m contract extension with Tesco Mobile

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Customer Services???

My experience only, obvs, but I've always found Tesco Mobile's customer service really easy to get hold of and (mostly) extremely helpful. Based on being a customer for the last six years or so, with about four or five interactions over that time. YMMV of course.

The torture garden of Microsoft Exchange: Grant us the serenity to accept what they cannot EOL

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: "if Microsoft did things well"

And mice. My daily user is a wired MS optical mouse circa 2001. I think it will outlive me.

NCSC's London HQ was chosen because GCHQ spies panicked at the prospect of grubby Shoreditch offices

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: They have Cyber in their name

Hatfield and the North, surely?

If you think Mozilla pushed a broken Firefox Android build, good news: It didn't. Bad news: It's working as intended

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Couldn't be worst update ever

My needs might be really simple, but I've used Opera exclusively on Android for several years now without any issues (apart from its habit of dumping an unwanted icon or two on the homepage after an update, but they're easy enough to delete). I'm sure there must be a downside (I'm sure someone will tell me!), but for me it just works and I love being ad-free!

Latest battery bruiser Android from budget Moto G range appears ahead of MWC after an Amazon whoopsie

EricPodeOfCroydon

Re: Can't hear you!

So buy one of the many earphones which combine both stereo channels into one ear? My wife has one for cycling, so she can listen to death metal and still hear what's going on around her.