Posts by PPCNI

Google dragged to UK watchdog over Chrome's upcoming IP address cloaking

Blocking clicks on ads based on IP addresses

Sounds good in theory but in practice it can't be done effectively in Google Ads as you can only exclude (from memory) 500 IP addresses not 5 billion.

Your next PC should be a desktop – maybe even this Chinese mini machine

Thanks for he info everyone.

I did mess around with powertoys for hours and hours, but never managed to get round the problem completely. Then I decided life was too short and just ignored it... :-)

I've been using the following for 3 years now (with a 4k monitor and a quad hd monitor).

Kingdel® Mini Desktop Computer, 4K Home PC with Intel 7th Gen. i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 4096x2304, HDMI, DP, 4*USB 3.0, Card Reader, WiFi, Metal

(Fanless) (Win10)

I got Win10 on it as there is one app I *need* for work that only works on Windows or MacOS.

Cost £420.

Value for money? Maybe? The first one I got gave blue screen of death within a few weeks and had to get it replaced. Since then there have been a few niggly issues which I'm not sure is just what you always get with Win10 or specific to this configuration. Performance is a bit disappointing for an i7 (I know it's only lower power a laptop version). Coming out of sleep mode is a bit slow. I also have to turn the monitors on in a specific order and get the timing to within about 0.25 seconds of bringing the PC out of sleep mode, otherwise Win10 will rearrange all my carefully arranged windows over to monitor 1 and/or randomly all over the feckin place.

IT outage at Scotland's Heriot-Watt University enters second week

Re: "hinting at some severe trouble within the university's on-premises infrastructure"

I know someone who works at a university...

To be fair to the IT staff, there is probably only two of them (one if the other guy/girl is on holiday).

They probably have to deal with a huge number of PCs that are almost unusable after being upgraded to Win10.

At the same time as this sort of thing is happening - https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/11865/Vice-chancellor-pay-exposes-cavernous-gap-between-staff--management

Northern Ireland aims to break free from BT's 27-year reign with £125m procurement of land registry systems

For more info on how this part of the world is run see - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/13/burned-cash-for-ash-scandal-sam-mcbride

Happy birthday, Linux: From a bedroom project to billions of devices in 30 years

Re: I've got a suggestion...

I agree for what it is worth.

But well done to everyone involved in the whole project which proves that... I don't know how to put it succinctly... That humanity isn't necessarily doomed?

Your private data has been nabbed: Please update your life as soon as possible while we deflect responsibility

Brilliant.

Especially this -

my Dad: GPS-trackable golf balls, app-connected smart handkerchiefs and such crap. He wasn't so much a technophobe as someone who simply found tech toys fabulously uninteresting, designed to appeal to dullards. Every year, I understand him better.

Negative Trustpilot review of law firm Summerfield Browne cost aggrieved Briton £28k

They also need some professional advice on how negative online reviews should be responded to - https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.summerfieldbrowne.com?stars=1

Up yours, Europe! Our 100% prime British broadband is cheaper than yours... but also slower and a bit of a rip-off

With ADSL wherer I live the best I could get was 2Mbps, along with having to get BT out approx once a month when my line went crackly and boradband became unusable.

I have been using a Three Mobile 4G (previously what do you call the 3.5g - HDSPA or whatever) for more than 4 years I think now. Am currently getting

Ping ms

70

Download Mbps

58.75

Upload Mbps

18.80

for £16/month. (Unlimited data).

As the other poster stated tough in common with most broadband in the UK - it is not consitent. Somteimes you'll be watching netflix or whatver with no one else in the house using the connection and the quality of the video will drop off to barely wacthable for short periods (a much larger cace would be nice Netflix and other streaming service but that's another story).

Also the last few months when they have been working (scheduled and unscheduled) on my local mast it has been up and down like a yo-yo. Toally unrealiable. I spent ages complaing and they gave me (wait for it) a £2.50 rebate! To be fair, before this it has been pretty reliable.

The perils of building a career on YouTube: Guitar teacher's channel nearly deleted after music publisher complains

Google Support

Going off on a tangent slightly but sticking with the 'companies owned by Google have very few employees in support, and it is practically impossible to speak with a human who can do anything apart form say 'computer says no' ' topic - it is the same with Google Ads. I have had a very very bad experience recently with them.

A client was spending not insubstantial amounts of money with them but when an automated system decided that there was a specific problem with their website which went against the Chocolate Factory's TOS (there wasn't) traffic to the site was badly affected.

It seems that unless you spend like £1 million a month, your business ain't worth jack-shit to them.

Larry Ellison abruptly pulls rug from under philanthropy foundation after two years to 'focus on COVID-19 fight'

Re: a "laboratory for health and wellness powered by data"

Best quote ever! (One of those wee smilies with tears running down face).

Dutch national broadcaster saw ad revenue rise when it stopped tracking users. It's meant to work like that, right?

You Don't Love Retargeting?

I've worked in PPC for maybe 13 years now.

I agree 99% that most display retargeting/remarketing (and display advertising in general) is a joke.

Last I checked, Google gave publishers 68% of the revenue they charged advertisers. So they do take a hefty cut, but for smaller publishers, it is incredibly easy to set up and maintain hence why so many do.

Search advertising (where you search for a blue widget and are shown adverts for blue widgets) is obviously far better (and totally necessary now since Google make sure that no organic search results ever appear on smarphones for search terms with commercial intent).

I think the majority of display (non-search) spend is from advertisers who have too much money and are prepared to spend megabucks on 'getting the brand out there', getting millions of views and impressions without worrying about whether they get a single direct sale from the advertising. Google now make it pretty easy for advertisers like this to set up campaigns with a few clicks and a question like 'how much would you like to give Google every day until further notice'. I'm sure Facebook are every bit as bad but I haven't touched Facebook in about 10 years now.

And, as an aside, seeing as how Google make only about $1 billion every second, they obviously can't afford to employ anyone in their support department (I use the term loosley) who has had more than 2 days of basic Google Ads training. It is a sign of things to come for sure, that nowadays it is extremely hard to speak with a human at Google who will say anything other 'computer says no...'.

Having said all that, this research was conducted by the privacy focused Brave browser people, and has data from *one* not huge publisher for only a couple of months, showing a decent increase in revenue year on year. There are always lots of factors involved, and and we are not privy to all the changes that were made prior to the revenue increases (were the ad unit sizes and position identical before and after, did online viewrs increase significantly year on year etc, etc?).

If Fairphone can support a 5-year-old handset, the other vendors could too. Right?

Re: Consumers aren’t being served by Android

I still have an LG G3 with lots of spare batteries. Still works fine for me. The other thing that you don't get when upgrading is a sensible aspect ratio for your screen. If you only used for watching super-widescreen video fair enough, but who is going to do that?