Posts by Russell Preece

Office 365: This cloud isn't going to put any admins out of a job

My experience

...of Office 365 is pretty much the same as the article. General setup was ok, although the move for one of my clients from BPOS was a bit of a pain because of some weird auto discover issues which ended up with me having to manually remove entries from Windows Credential Manager.

It works well as a general rule, and is fairly well featured, but little things (big things for my clients!) like the daily recipient limit can be a right pain, and Microsoft's stance is essentially "tough".

Powershell is pretty powerful, but some of the things that you have use Powershell to do could have easily been included in the web admin, like password expiry options and the ability to create Email Contacts.

One amusing thing about the whole setup is the fact that their quarantine notification messages for spam appear in the Junk Email folder for quite a few users... :)

Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online users suffer outages

Explanation?

How do you mean? Would you expect a small business (4-5 people) to spend thousands upon thousands buying all of the server hardware, then the Microsoft licenses and Exchange and Office for each PC, then the cost of setting it all up so that it actually works and is secure etc etc, or are you saying that they shouldn't use Microsoft at all and they should already know how to set up a linux box as a mailserver and use that instead, allowing for all the non-familiarity that the users will experience?

This kind of hosted solution makes a lot of sense for a small business, but then maybe i'm thick or something.

Would you care to explain?

MS to WinXP diehards: Just under 3 more years' support

"I've yet to see a Win7 installation running faster than XP on the same hardware.."

Strange. Every PC I've done a clean install on from XP to W7 has flown.... what are you doing wrong?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a M$ or Apple or Linux lover, just stating facts....

Nintendo lumbered with lawsuit in 3DS patent row

Agreed...

What if I filed a patent for a teleporter with a picture of a guy stepping into something, a wavy line and then him stepping out the other end. I could be quids in by the current patent system's rationale...

Apple's 'App Store trademark': A farce of Jobsian proportions

Simple

Just call it an "App. Store". Surely the full stop should define "App" as an abbreviation of "Application" and Jobsworth can shut up, especially as he is claiming that "App" in their sense is an abbreviation of Apple. If anyone sees "App.", they'll instantly think of Application, not Apple.

I don't put an "Oran." or a "Bana." in my step-daughter's lunch for school, but she opens an App. to play a game on my phone...

I think that made sense - it's late...

Facebook boobs over breastfeeding page... again

Am I really the first to say....

"bitty....."

That is all.

Bummed-out users give anti-virus bloatware the boot

Being able to completely uninstall

I always found it highly amusing that McAfee, Symantec and AVG (maybe others) have had to write an application specifically designed to remove their products from your system, although half the time even these don't do the job properly.

Surely instead of admitting failure by writing these it would be better to have an uninstallation process that works?

(Yes I realise that there are probably other reasons for these apps to exist, but still...)

Gordon 'to sacky' Wacky Jacqui

All that needs to be said is....

I'm not a religious man, but THANK GOD for that.

See you later, you incompetent moose :)

Smut email hubby claims iPhone glitch

I know it's not perfect, but...

...I'm referring to the JesusPhone as the iPonse at the moment. If you forget about the "h" then a quick jumble of the letters produces the exact sentiment for people that purchase these devices, no?

Paris, because I'll probably need some of her oral skills to get Orange to give me an HTC Touch HD for free when my contract comes up in December...

Amazon UK pulls Scientology exposé for 'legal reasons'

Thanks you stupid cult...

Just ordered my copy from Waterstones! :o)

Joke, not because I haven't bought it, but because that's what the Cult of Scientology is...

Hoon: Not building überdatabase would be terrorist licence to kill

http://www.writetothem.com

Get your comments into your MP here. Somebody accused me in a previous comment section of bleating about it but not doing anything, so I sat down yesterday and wrote a 2100 word analysis of the risks and effectiveness of this proposed database. I have now sent it to my MP, my MEP's (in case it gets that far) and to an Earl concerned with privacy issues.

I suggest you all do the same. If people want to see what I've written for some guidance, drop me an email or i'll post it on here (not sure if the reg comments will allow 2100 words).

Jacqui Smith trails überdatabase plans

@@@ Russell Preece

Exactly AC.

The thing that gets me the most is that all this money will be spent on this huge project, and eventually it will become redundant and the money that could have been better spent on useful things like, dare I say it, more police on the streets instead of sitting behind keyboards, will be wasted.

One thing I find amusing is that the angle being presented by jacqui (deliberately lowercase) is that they need to keep up with changing technology to being able to intercept terrorist communications, and I've heard the use of Skype being brandished around as an example of the need for the database.

Problem is (and I'm relying on things i've read here, so I might be wrong) Skype's communications protocol is encrypted, so that puts a damn great FAIL on that reasoning alone.

If they have no understanding of the technology and the problems in implementing it, they have no right whatsoever to waste our taxpayers money on it.

Chill everybody...

What everyone has to remember about this "database" bollocks is the following:

For every "serial number" there is a keygen

For every "Locked CD" there is a CD-Crack

For every "DRM encoded file" there is a torrent (etc)

If that stupid political whore decides to create her massive spy-database, there will be a group of people, like ourselves, that will devise a way, no less a protocol, to defeat it.

The idea of spamming the system is one I favour. I'm sure some kind of peer to peer system where everyone who signs up "spams" everyone else, with a specific algorithm or technology which lets us filter out the crap at the mailserver or mail client, will appear. If not, let's bring in PGP (et al) signed mail where they can't read the content.

I don't know that much on the security side of things but at the end of the day, for every scheme that has tried to thwart the freedom of communication on the internet, there has been a quicker and more advanced counteraction to it.

If you think about it, they're actually shooting themselves in the feet. If they want us all to use anonymous proxies and totally encrypted IP communications where they can't fathom a single byte of useful information, they're going the right way about it. We may not have anything to hide, as the majority of us don't, but we respect our privacy even if they don't so we will do everything in our power to make sure that we can, for example, send a quick email to a family member without it being logged as a potential piece of crimial evidence.

Jacqui: do your f**king worst. I for one am welcoming the idea of shattering your pathetic little database.

Paris: because she clearly doesn't mind people invading her privacy...

(and yes, I use commas, too much,,,,)

BT and Siemens slammed over prisoner call rates

Missed a trick?

How could you not find a use for a "cell" pun in there somewhere? Come on El Reg!

Mine's the one with the upward pointing arrows and the large serial number.

UK developer trio accused of game plagiarism

@Mark

The signature at the bottom of that post is even more conclusive!

"kind Regards

Steve Bovis

MAJESTIC STUDIOS"

Well, at least he was researching how to do *some* of the hard stuff.

Paris, because she made her scenes look easy...

And even more amusing...

He's thinking of developing a sequel? Presumably to pay for all the legal fees that the first game incurred??

http://forum.dead-code.org/index.php?topic=2904.msg18305#msg18305

Shocking - utterly shocking!

UK cops arrest six alleged BitTorrent music uploaders

Encryption Keys and Passwords

In the broader sense of forcing "suspects" to hand over the encryption keys and passwords, what would happen if you had the following setup for logging into your accounts.

On creating your password, you type a password into it then get somebody else (girfriend, wife, sibling etc) to type a password directly after yours. On logging in, you can only get in if both of you type your passwords in the same way, but not disclosing each others passwords.

Surely the authorities demanding the password would be stumped, as the other person wouldn't be a suspect, and therefore you have duly given them your password, but that doesn't make the complete string. They still can't get in, and can't make the other person a suspect without proof...

Anybody know if this would be sufficient? It would be a hassle, granted, but would be a good way of securing against this preposterous ruling.

Of course you could just tell them that was the situation and get the other person to agree to saying they have the other password :)

London teen orders 'cab, innit'

Good!

I hope that the ignorant little chav now realises that speaking like a tw@ doesn't get you anywhere (literally).

Paris, because she knows how to use her mouth properly.

Couple sue over Shanghai metro snog vid

Good one Register...

...perpetuate the poor couple's lack of privacy!

Tom Cruise Scientology vid leaks onto net

Pillock!!

The guy, and the rest of the crazed scientology nutcases, should be locked up.

"Being a Scientologist, when you drive past an accident it's not like anyone else. As you drive past, you know you have to do something about it because you know you're the only one that can really help."

What!?? I think you'll find, Mr Cruise, that any decent human being - religious or not - will stop at the scene of an accident to provide aid if the emergency services are not already at the scene. Why does being a scientologist change that?

And also, stop brainwashing Katie. She still will be my future wife when she wriggles out of your clutches! :o)

Most home routers 'vulnerable to remote take-over'

Has everyone missed the point...

...if you don't go to dodgy websites in the first place where these people are likely to have put the crafted flash, then you haven't got a problem.

Again - common sense and having half a brain prevails.

I'm leaving my UPnP on, thankyou very much, even if I don't have many applications that use it.

PC superstore unhinged by Linux

@ But the disk...

I agree, all they do is reformat! We had a PC in recently which had been taken to PC World with a system32/config hive error (easily fixable, and with other data still on the disk!) and the guys had just whacked an XP disc in and started to reformat and reinstall. Our customer had already told them not to do anything until he had given the go ahead, and just as they had started the setup he called them to say he was taking it for a second opinion (us). They obviously just turned the machine off mid-format as we could only *just* recover some of the data that was left, but with no filenames (MFT gone).

I did press our customer to complain/sue but he was just happy he got a few documents back...

Worst thing is they give independent computer outlets like ourselves a bad rep!