Posts by Coastal cutie

Hong Kong hopes to trawl the world for tech talent to build IT city

Taking up this offer would put the biggest security red flag on your CV this side of being Putin's IT manager

India's IT services sector wants workers back in offices – but not all the new hires

Mess people around in the hiring process, they walk to a job elsewhere and tell others not to bother with you; mess them about when they work for you, they vote with their feet. Hardly rocket science that you then end up with a hiring and retention problem.

Japanese sushi chain boss resigns amid accusation of improper data access

Did someone maki him do it - I'll get my coat.....

You've heard of the cost-of-living crisis, now get ready for the cost-of-working crisis

Re: Email remains the most used communication method for work

When the gas bill does go up, it will still be way cheaper than the rip off costs of train travel

BOFH and the case of the disappearing teaspoons

Vintage BOFH

UK's largest water company investigates datacenters' use as drought hits

I'd love to but living by the sea, any items dried outside come in like cardboard, on account of the amount of salt on the breeze

Mouse hiding in cable tray cheesed off its bemused user

Re: "Out of Cheese" Error

He was a notoriously grumpy individual who hated cats with a passion at the best of times

Re: "Out of Cheese" Error

On one of my policing gigs, visited a station that had a stables attached, complete with cat to control the inevitable mice. The cat got banned from one office after he threw a furball up on one of the Sergeants - the consequence of that was the mice promptly invaded it and caused absolute havoc with everything from cables to the occupants' lunches. After many cables had been replaced and users freaked out, the Sergeant was told to swallow his pride and let the cat back in - it solved the problem, though there was further angst when one furry corpse was concealed under a radiator in mid-winter.

Mozilla finds 18 of 25 popular reproductive health apps share your data

Re: My advise to women

I'd say that quite a lot of your advice could usefully be followed by any phone user, regardless of sex

Our software is perfect. If something has gone wrong, it must be YOUR fault

Re: It’s your TVs fault, sir

Freeview are useless - any conversation with them always starts with a 15 minute argument about what transmitter I'm on because their postcode records are wrong for half of West Sussex. Then even if anything turns up purporting to be a fix, it arrives two days after the problem has either sorted itself or been sorted by random button pushing/change in weather conditions/god only knows what it's done

BOFH: Who us? Sysadmins? Spend time with other departments?

"I for one can't wait," the PFY says. "We'll finally get the chance to work closely with people and pool our resources to share the costs of any new equipment we might need."

Why did my mind instantly jump to the delicious irony of a department paying for the new surveillance equipment the BOFH and PFY will be using to upgrade their capability, based on their increased access in this new co-working heaven (hell)

Russian anti-satellite test added to a 'pressing threat to security' in space

Life imitating art

Legend (Channel 41 Freeview) are currently re-running the series UFO (1970). The subject of last night's episode "Conflict" - SHADO lobbying for space junk to be cleaned up so it didn't hit things or provide cover for malevolent activities.

Google sues Sonos yet again, claiming it stole IP and infringed patents

Re: I hope Google crushes them

This is like the Wagatha or Hamilton-Al Fayed libel cases - you're sorry that one side has to win

IBM board probes claims of fudged sales figures that led to big bonuses for execs

Here we go again

Is there anything that IBM won't obfuscate, manipulate or just darn lie about?

Google said to be taking steps to keep political campaign emails out of Gmail spam bin

Re: Seen this poo before

Fortunately in the UK, you can opt out of the list that is sold to marketing companies and anyone else with the dosh

BOFH: HR's gold mine gambit – they get the gold and we get the shaft

Re: And again

Knowing how the BOFH's mind works, I suspect there is a very cunning and very evil plan underlying this, probably involving amongst other things, emails thought to be deleted and footage (with audio) from carefully placed cameras in the HR offices. All the better to capture naughty goings on by HR staff, exploiting their power to fire and hire.

Cloudflare explains how it managed to break the internet

"One can imagine the panic at Cloudflare towers, although we cannot imagine a controlled process that resulted in a scenario where "network engineers walked over each other's changes."

Umm, left hand, right hand, have you been introduced? And have you been taught how to tell your derriere from your elbow?

Wi-Fi hotspots and Windows on Arm broken by Microsoft's latest patches

Borked themselves?

Judging by the state of Office 365 today, Microsoft appear to have managed to break their own stuff as well as everyone elses

AI's most convincing conversations are not what they seem

Between the article and the comments, I need to go and lie down in a dark room with an icepack on my head

BOFH: Tech helps HR investigate the Boss's devices

So beautifully played by the BOFH - and now the HR bod will be petrified about what else there may be recorded about them.

Leave that sentient AI alone a mo and fix those racist chatbots first

"A robot is performing interpretive dance on my doorstep." That is nearly as great an opening line as "I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand"

Teeth marks yield clue to widespread internet outage in Canada

Re: Not really novel

Umm, the beaver ate a tree not the cable.

When management went nuclear on an innocent software engineer

Re: Next time

They need the dog from the Stereo Underground pub quiz intro (an indie and punk show that goes out across BBC local radio in the south and beyond - most excellent it is too, you can find it on BBC Sounds)

BOFH: Where do you think you are going with that toner cartridge?

Now that's the way to start a Friday - another elegant BOFH takedown

BOFH: You'll have to really trust me on this team-building exercise

Vintage BOFH reasoned persuasion

The end of the iPod – last model available 'while supplies last'

Re: I think the original ipod was the last gadget that blew me away

I remember my Zen very fondly - easy to use, easy to pack for holidays along with a travel speaker, tough and reliable. Eventually it wouldn't charge up any more and Creative had dropped out the market so never replaced.

Motorola benefits from delays in the UK's emergency services network, says govt

And in other news, bears do smelly things in woods and the Pope is the head of a worldwide religion

Switch off the mic if it makes you feel better – it'll make no difference

Four......

Who on earth has a slice so bad they need GPS in their golf balls!

Apple's return-to-office plan savaged by staff

Re: Where are the metrics?

The Passport Office and the DVLA have periodically ground to a halt every few years, long before remote working was a thing. And I hear rumours that in the case of the latter, the backlog is due to manglement demanding a full return to work whilst Covid was still rife and without proper precautions, thus creating a mass outbreak, which left a big gap in the workforce.

Meetings in the metaverse: Are your Mikes on?

Even the real world is weird

My late partner had an aunt (also now sadly no longer with us) who worked as an Account Director in a major advertising agency in the 70s and 80s. One day, the MD decided on the spur of the moment that they should extend a meeting and take a new client to meet the creative team who would be handling their campaign. They walked into the office, to find that after a rather good (3 Martini) lunch, one of the creatives had been trussed up into a ball and was being rolled at makeshift skittles down a long table by his colleagues. The client looked dumbfounded, the MD, rooted to the spot, went white, then purple and it was down to her to save the day. She ushered both men out, whilst uttering soothing words about how the company encouraged new and innovative ways of freeing up creativity by the use of play. God only knows what they could have done with avatars, the mind boggles. Beer in lieu of a Martini emoji.

Study: How Amazon uses Echo smart speaker conversations to target ads

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

Robots are creepy. Why trust AIs that are even creepier?

Re: Robot Barman

Upvote and beer for the HHGTTG reference

Re: Pitchforks

And the mad priest leading the mob waving a crucifix

AWS's Log4j patches blew holes in its own security

Whack-a-mole time...…..

AI models to detect how you're feeling in sales calls

Re: I have a special track for that...

I take my hat off to you for such a highbrow response to them - I'm afraid I'm an unsophisticated oik in such matters and just test the smoke alarm with the phone an inch away

When the expert speaker at an NFT tech panel goes rogue

Re: Opinion

You're quite right - they can't, possibly to stop them being sick when galloping at full speed, when the stomach comes under repeated pressure from the intestines, which would force the contents out if they were put together the same as other vertebrates including humans (apologies to anyone eating whilst reading this)

BOFH: The evil guide to upgrading switches

Re: Shelf by the window ...

Damn - you beat me to it - have a beer or beverage of choice, on the principle that it's 5 o'clock somewhere...

Bank had no firewall license, intrusion or phishing protection – guess the rest

Re: What I don't understand...

The ATMs were just the last stage of getting hold of the $1M+ that they'd stolen, providing nicely untraceable funds once withdrawn

UK arm of Sungard Availability Services goes into administration

Re: Ah the stupidity of greed at any cost

Exactly - in the large village where I live, a single landlord owns most of the shopping parade. When non-essential shops had to close, they did everything they could to keep the tenants afloat - rent holidays, lowering rents for a while when they did reopen, installing canopies over the pavements so queues could stay dry etc. The result is all of these shops are still thriving and not one has closed.

BOFH: Putting the gross in gross insubordination

So, Mutually Assured Destruction principles rule for now..... Perhaps it is time for the PFY to fly the coop to become the BOFH another IT department so desperately needs and for a new PFY to enter the den, to learn from a master.

UK Ministry of Defence takes recruitment system offline, confirms data leak

Re: "sources finger Capita-run system"

You can't put previous performance in as part of the requirements anywhere in the procurement process - much to the frustration of many in the public sector IT world. Even if you could, it still doesn't stop behemoths like Crapita et al buying up the decent company you did manage to give the contract to and running it into the ground

OVHcloud datacenter 'lacked' automatic fire extinguishers, electrical cutoff

How to break every basic rule of fire protection all at one go

BOFH: Gaming rig for your home office? Yeah right

Re: Simon is on form, these days!

Gotta love a BOFH takedown - so elegant

Trio of Rust Core Team members take their leave

I had one that was partial to garlic & coriander naan bread but turned his nose up at the plain variety

When forgetting to set a password for root is the least of your woes

Never underestimate the ability of Plod to bend IT to make things "easier"

BOFH: What a beautiful classic car. Shame if anything were to happen to it

Ever alert

"The Boss provides the information, which will no doubt be used in the future by his insurance company to verify who'd purchased the primer cord and timer." Nice piece of forward thinking

COVID-19 was a generational opportunity for change at work – and corporate blew it

Depends on your home insurer - mine provides cover for employer's equipment, but only to reimburse me if my employer forces me to pay for a replacement because they think the damage/loss was my fault.

Nothing's working, and I've checked everything, so it must be YOUR fault

The louder they yell.....

I've found that the likelihood of the problem being with something the user has done/not done/not checked even though they say they have is directly proportional to the volume with which they are yelling at you that "OF COURSE I'VE DONE THAT/NOT DONE THAT/CHECKED THAT, I'M NOT SOME SORT OF IDIOT" (excuse the shouting).

A proposal to beat below-the-belt selfies: Crowdsourced machine learning using victims' image stashes

And because it's nigh on impossible to stop the ruddy things, whatever you do. Most of the ones my friends and I have suffered from come from anonymous accounts - once blocked, they simply morph into a new one. None of the social media platforms take it seriously - it's a helluva job to get Twitter to ban someone and then, you've guessed it, they get back on with another anonymous account (they're quick enough to put a photography site on the naughty step though, for too many retweets of pictures of beautiuful beaches). The police don't have the resources to chase all this down and can't do anything if the IP address leads to abroad or the phone number is a burner phone.

Who you gonna call? Premium numbers, but a not-so-premium service

Ah, Angry of Angmering - first cousin to Riled of Rustington, Grouchy of Goring and Fed Up of Ferring