Posts by Monochrome

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

It wouldn't be a Microsoft account...

to be period accurate it would be a .NET Passport account. Anyone remember those?

Microsoft likens MFA to 1960s seatbelts, buckles admins in yet keeps eject button

Bring back Apple Watch support!

With Microsoft Authenticator, it used to be you'd get a tap on your wrist, and with an already authenticated Apple Watch (for Apple Pay, etc.), one could simply tap "confirm". No idea why they took it away. I prefer to work with my phone in a drawer, or at least out of sight. It was so convenient, user-centric, and well designed that I guess Microsoft just couldn't keep it.

Windows 11: The number you have dialed has been disconnected

Tim Cook's punishment?

The new screensavers in Sonoma are only downloaded when selected (except I assume the default one, which is included).

They also automatically get removed when the disk getting full full. See the Ars Technica Sonoma review page 8 under the heading "macOS uses purgeable storage to “prevent” screen savers from eating up disk space".

Thousands of subreddits go dark in mega-protest over Reddit's app-killing API prices

The API is still free - for open source

I think most people would agree that apps like Apollo, whose author claims to have a revenue of about half a million USD per year (50,000 subscribers paying $10/year), shouldn't expect to be using the Reddit API for free and should compensate Reddit for displaying content from their API without the ads Reddit would usually show to make money. Yes the amount Reddit are asking for is arguably too high, but isn't this just a case of two companies negotiating, and in this case there not being a satisfactory outcome? I don't see the big deal. I'd like an iPhone for less money but I don't see it as immoral of Apple not to provide it. Reddit are giving the API away for free to open source apps, after all.

We've got plenty of AI now but who asked for it? El Reg's vultures chime in

Re: AI is a Tool. It creates nothing.

“It takes in questions, queries its database, then offers an answer.”

This is not how LLMs like GPT work. No database involved. They are simply predicting the next characters and words from the prompt supplied. Bing is likely feeding in the contents of the web page into a prompt to rewrite or summarise it.

You are correct for systems like Siri/Alexa which classify text into intents, and then query database/API etc. based on that intent.

Corporate execs: Get back, get back, to the office where you once belonged

Work habits are like eating habits

I enjoy working from home, but like eating tasty food, it is possible to have too much of a good thing, so I do make an effort to go to the office about once a week.

If companies really wanted to make offices desirable, then allowing individuals to have a private office, with a door might help (in knowledge working sectors at least).

No, Apple, you may not sell iPhones without chargers

Include one and up the price

Include the charger (doesn't have to be in the same box), increase the price by £30, and offer those who opt not to have the charger a £30 App Store voucher.

Internet Explorer 3.0 turns 25. One of its devs recalls how it ended marriages – and launched amazing careers

IE5 brought 'auto complete' for form fields. Can't imagine the web without it now.

Dev creeped out after he fired up Ubuntu VM on Azure, was immediately approached by Canonical sales rep

Re: I really don't see what all the fuss is about

Isn't this the whole idea of LinkedIn or social media in general? Having an online profile to facilitate communication and in the case of LinkedIn, business? If the guy's that worried about privacy then he should surely delete or hide his online accounts. I've had people Google my name, find my website and email me. But that's kind of why I have a web site *shrug*

My website has raised its anchor and set sail into the internet oceans without me

Registered for a free dialup account in 2001, website is still online

Back in 2001 a bunch of school mates and I made the site, registered a domain with Freenetname and pointed the domain to the dialup account's free web hosting. Amazingly the ISP in question is still running the free home page server. I am hesitant to mention the name of the ISP in case someone notices and turns it off!

If you want another blast from the past, https://www.maximumpc.co.uk is still running and hasn't been touched since the day it was abandoned in 2001. It's been upgraded to TLS, and the certificate renewed however.