* Posts by DavyPaul

10 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Apr 2021

More than half of UK workers would consider jumping ship if a hybrid work option were withdrawn by their company

DavyPaul
Thumb Up

Re: Losing

if you don't ask, you don't get :-)

DavyPaul

i've seen my overseas co-workers ...

... more since we rapidly rolled out TEAMS .

we have implemented 30:20 onsite:wfm and ocviously, when we have to install something or have an on-prem commissioning.

I do miss the travel to Amsterdam, Cologne & Barcelona.

Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?

DavyPaul

one of my favorite...

...youtubers.

he's great fun :-)

DavyPaul
Facepalm

the assistant treasurer and chief rent accountant did the same...

the assistant treasurer & the rent accountant wanted to work the weekend, to extract IDMS database date onto the unix machine for further processing.

(ICL S39 & ICL DRS6000)

However, they were not willing to pay me the overtime to set them up for the day, so they worked in the (converted stables) datacentre unaccompanied.

Naturally, they wanted a cup of tea, but unfortunately moved the kettle from the dataprep area closer to where they were working.

Anyway, said kettle was boiled, but they overfilled it and caused it to short-out. This caused the circuit breker to trigger on the ring main.

Now, unfortunately, they'd moved the kettle from the 'dirty' supply to the datacentre 'clean' supply.

Well, the DRS300 '7501' terminal clusters plus the DRS20 'Oper' console for VME were also on that supply....

The VME detected that the Oper console had disappeared and promptly restarted itself - but not automatically restarting the IDMS/TPMS services that the AT was using.

At least the AT bought us a new kettle :-)

Mobile mobile museum looks to chart the history of portable phones

DavyPaul
Pint

1996 NEC P800 got me home

Just after local government reorg, I was issued with an NEC 'brick' the P800.

I was living in Newport at the time.

Coming back from Cardiff on the last train, I fell asleep and woke up in Abergavenny (basically the Manchester train!)

I had £5 in my pocket and the taxi driver gave me a quote of £12 to get me home.

I called ahead to my lodger in Malpas, Newport and asked how much cash he had... (yes, £20)

So, I went full-assertive mode, gave the driver the fiver up front and said "get me home and I'll pay you another tenner."

I had my first personal Panasonic G520 gen.2 with SMS in '98 - funnily enough on VodaFone.

ISTR you had to type in the varius SMS hubs until it became standard - say if you wanted to text Cellnet from Vodafone. Happy Days.

One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it

DavyPaul
Go

about time.

USB-C seems to have been rapidly adopted and is pretty much the de facto standard.

Remember all the weird and wonderful charger/data cables we used to have to use before micro-usb?

Check your bits: What to do when Unix decides to make a hash of your bill printouts

DavyPaul
Facepalm

Advertising Company halts bill printing

back in my local government days, we used to print out Business Rates bills etc.

Suddenly, one batch of printing would just stop after printing MORE O

more o "what"?

Turns out it was a bill to More O'Fearal advertising/hoardings company - and that was the problem.

After scanning the VME LIST_RECORDS output for the print file, I eventually learned that the rates junior had updated the customer name from

More O'Fearal to More O`Fearal

Did you spot the difference?

they had used 'grave' apostrophe rather than apostrophe , which the ICL Line Printer (upper case only) had interpreted as HALT.

took days to find that one. :-(

Chromebooks fighting for mind share at PC makers with higher-margin Windows 11 machines in the lead, says IDC

DavyPaul

we like both kinds - country and western!

we were very happy with our aged Sony Xperia Z4 tablets with keyboards for on-the-go typing, but they were starting to show their age - and also I was starting to need a bigger screen (or a better specs prescription!)

Anyway, my partner selected an Acer Chromebook and I went with a Dell 7275 hybrid.

I wanted Win11 so just upgraded to an Asus Flip and it upgraded to Win 11 recently.

So, he uses the google services on his chromebook and I use the microsoft services on my laptop.

horses for courses.

both seem to integrate well with our Samsung S20's and are easy to connect to the LG TV for a better seminar and viewing experience.

it's great we have a choice.

Happy birthday, Sinclair Radionics: We'll remember you for your revolutionary calculators and crap watches

DavyPaul

Re: I missed, and miss, the QL.

ISTR that the QL was packed into the BT Merlin Tonto and the ICL OPD (One per Desk) integrated computer and telephone?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Per_Desk

You want me to do WHAT in that prepaid envelope?

DavyPaul

Re: Club 50+

i just turned 60 and received the poop-lit 2 weeks later.

I didn't know it was 'a thing'!

good to know - prevention is better than cure.