* Posts by Chika

1774 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Oct 2007

Microsoft: Yes, we are going to kill off Enterprise Agreements

Chika
Big Brother

Re: Does this mean no Windows installations will be free from forced updates?

I suspect that, ultimately, yes they are. That is unlikely to be their primary motive though.

Microsoft are in the business to make money. Nothing more than that, nothing less. They provide a product that needs to be funded in some way but they realise that they have to draw the line somewhere to prevent larger users from buggering off somewhere else like Apple or Linux. All they have really done is change the shape of that line in their favour.

Uni of Manchester IT director resigns after chopping 68 people

Chika
Flame

You are assuming that you know what is in the secret parts of these people's job descriptions.

And there you strike at the heart of a problem I have lived through on more than one occasion. Such people will wander the work landscape, chopping heads from companies and public sector organisations alike, only to take their ill-gotten booty and move on to the next location to do the bidding of those that don't have the guts to do their own dirty work.

In some respects I feel a degree of pity for these folk that have to do this sort of work. Otherwise I have no love for such characters in the workplace. All they do is put people out of work and destroy the morale of those left behind, both at the time because they fear for their own jobs and afterwards when they have to tidy up the mess.

Met Police: Yes, outsourcing IT to Steria has 'risks'

Chika
Trollface

Yes, there are risks...

Just ask Lincolnshire Council...

Lincolnshire council shuts down all IT after alleged 0-day breach

Chika

Re: Do I smell-

Oh no, not again!

Odd that I should be quoting Douglas Adams from the same passage twice in three days like that. Don't worry too much about the other quote - it was a wingless pegasus!

Microsoft hammers first nails into Enterprise Agreements' coffins

Chika
Trollface

Microsoft refused to comment.

Probably because there's no profit in it.

Dixons Carphone to shut down 134 shops

Chika

Re: oh well

Blott On The High Street?

So where is Lady Maud?

Arista slaps Cisco with countersuit in network hardware row

Chika
Trollface

Now let me get this straight.

Cisco are trying to sue somebody for the use of a CLI? Well, that's no good since CLIs have existed for a very long time.

Cisco are trying to sue somebody for the use of certain reserved words and command structures? That could be difficult to support if the company or companies prove that the code behind it is original and not of Cisco design.

Cisco are trying to sue somebody because they want to be paid for the use of some thing that they previously gave away freely? Not so easy to defend - the devil's in the paperwork, methinks.

Cisco are trying to sue somebody because they want money and the flawed Merkan legal system could give it to them? Probably closer to the mark...

Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

Chika
Trollface

Whut?

You mean nobody has mentioned the death of COBOL? It's an annual staple! ;)

Chika

Re: Five technologies you shouldn't bother looking out for in 2016

>Most recently a couple in their 60' s who installed Linux Mint without assistance

Technology illiterate people wouldn't even be able to select a distribution, never mind install one. They'd not have a clue where to find drivers, or how to configure the OS once they'd got it loaded. Patching? Won't happen. Securing? Won't get done.

Mint, like many mainstream distros, attempts to minimise all this by automating updates and detecting drivers, much as Windows does. Usually they do a good job as well unless the PC being used has something particularly exotic or obscure, but then the same thing applies to Windows too.

I know you want LotD to be true, I know you do. But wishful thinking isn't going to make it happen.

> It's Windows gives yer average user grief

It doesn't though, does it. It installs itself if it isn't already installed when they get the computer home, it makes a reasonable fist of securing itself, and it even updates itself. It's pretty bloody far from perfect, but for a home user, there is no substitute. Windows Phone has a greater market penetration than LotD will ever achieve, and that's a rounding error at best.

I've been in the support business for a while and I can categorically state that the problem is ALWAYS between the chair and the keyboard regardless of the OS when dealing with older users. Once they are used to whatever it is they are using they're fine.

You're confusing you pushing Mint onto people you know for it having gained traction in the market. My friend could have named all her children Mildred, but it doesn't mean the name is making a come back.

Now there I've got more sympathy for your argument, especially as I tend to take umbrage with those that insist that Linux == Mint. And I've taken plenty of umbrage.

Chika

Re: Linux on the desktop

Already here and everyone in my family have been using it for years and I am not getting any support issues from them.

None? None at all? I've been using Linux for many years now and I can honestly say that it has not been a completely bug-free life. No operating system ever is.

Try it for yourself - just download an easy distro e.g. Ubuntu or Fedora.

Umbongo maybe. Fedora... well I won't stop you but it is known to be a bleeding edge distro.

Or carry on using Microsoft's shite and wonder why your employment prospects are reducing because you can only go so far as a "desktop" guy and companies have switched to Linux servers.

That's a bit short sighted, methinks. Whatever you may find is your preference, at present the market is filled with users of all types. I should know considering that I'm searching right now!

The biggest problem is that the world is full of mis-information and FUD, Linux, Microsoft or Apple included.

Waving Microsoft's Windows 10 stick won't help Intel's Gen 6 core

Chika

Re: Innovation?

"Innovation" has simply become a buzz word. It's just a replacement for the "Wow factor" that was bandied about not too long ago. A lot of these companies wouldn't know real innovation if it bit them in the bum!

They are all just desperate to shift units to unsuspecting droolies.

Chika

It's all about cost cutting in that side of things. In years gone by, the cost was all centralised in the purchase of minicomputers or mainframes which provided a service to dumb terminals which were comparatively cheap to buy and run.

Microsoft and Intel buggered that all up by decentralising to PCs and only now seem to realise it without taking into account that even by trying to recentralise, the desktop machine is often powerful enough to keep right on going for many years more than they want. That was the idea behind such things as Citrix after all - use something that is just powerful enough to run a terminal session on another system.

So if you have a PoS machine on your desk that can run a session on a powerful server, why bother buying new computers? It gets worse too, because the people behind such systems have been busy developing clients on a lot of different OS platforms. I've had Apples (MacOS and iOS), Linux (including Android) and multiple Windows versions running sessions and I can recall even RISC OS running sessions in the past (though I think that's no longer possible now).

It all comes back to the simple questions I always ask when somebody asks me about buying a computer. What are you going to use it for? What are you using at the moment? Does it do what you need? What's your budget?

That's all stuff you can normally answer before you even get to manufacturer hype.

Chika

To be honest, I've found that the whole three year cycle thing has increasingly been all about the OS and had little to do with the hardware which, if you know how to handle it, will keep going for a damn sight longer than three years.

And that pleases the beancounters.

Sorry, kids. Microsoft is turning Minecraft into an 'educational tool'

Chika
FAIL

There has to be a purpose for using technology

There is. It's just that Microsoft aren't making the kind of money that they want so they aren't above dictating to the market what a game like Minecraft should be used for.

That's the Moralising Merkan Media Magnates for ya!

How to get root on a Linux box, step 1: Make four billion system calls

Chika

You expect me to swallow that? ;)

Microsoft: We’ve taken down the botnets. Europol: Would Sir like a kill switch, too?

Chika
Holmes

Hello. This is Windows Technical Support calling...

We have detected that your compewder is infected with verry bad software. Just go to duhbloo duhbloo duhbloo dot microsoft dot com and we will fix it for you...

And we know where this goes, don't we?

Twitter goes titsup

Chika
Trollface

Twitter has failed us. What we need is CROW REVOLUTION!!!

Chika

Re: Oh no not again

Got in through Tweetdeck though it doesn't allow me to tweet. Only certain folk can...

Seems like a good enough excuse to switch it off.

Chika

Re: Twit's up!

I know what it was. What it seems to be these days is a file sharing forum inhabited by bots and afk's.

Damn shame.

Chika

Re: I miss the Fail Whale

Again, the irony is lost within the cold, hard text world. :(

Chika
Thumb Up

Twit's up!

Just managed to get in, though my first tweet of the day had to struggle through "internal server errors" before it finally went.

Chika
Coat

Re: Nice

Didn't you do those comic inserts wearing a lab coat in Vision On?

Chika

Re: Umm...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3550/3444045862_434bbcaae9.jpg (NSFW)

Chika
Mushroom

Re: I miss the Fail Whale

Mmmmust tweet.... must tweet... must tweet.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!

Chika
FAIL

Alright, own up!

Who broke it? Don't make me come over there?

Of course this shows the weak point in the process given out by certain companies responsible for infrastructure that insist that they only give out details of "major disruptions" and that other folk need to go to Twitter.

Riddle of cash-for-malware offer in new Raspberry Pi computers

Chika
Trollface

Re: Oracle, Adobe

That's why I download the full redistributable versions of their products. No crapware is included in those...

Of course there's an obvious response to this but why should I deny anyone their bit of fun with picking out the glaring flaw in this argument!

Microsoft herds biz users to Windows 10 by denying support for Win 7 and 8 on new CPUs

Chika
Trollface

Ooo! Already my downvoting shadow has moved in! More, please!

Chika

Re: Enough of this.

*Oh, hi, systemd!

Pro: Mint doesn't force it on you in current releases.

Con: Mint haven't said that they won't in the future.

Bloody Poettering...

Chika
Gimp

Icon = typical Win10 user.

Gimped, in other words? ;)

Chika

Re: Anti-Trust suit impending.

"Also, make a note of the word 'twatdangles'. I like it. I want to use it more in conversation". (Gen. Melchett, sort of). Certainly applies here ;-)

I suppose so, but cockwombles is the one I'd probably use.

Chika
Flame

Now we see some of the reasoning behind UEFI. Now we see the thinking behind the original lock down proposals for the XBone.

Now we see that the monopolistic practices of Merkan corporates have no interest in providing an open playing field and will resort to cartel-like tactics to bully the market into line. Their line.

It's nothing new. Microsoft and IBM did this before to get the likes of MS-DOS and Windows going in the 1990s, killing off nearly everything else because nearly everything else brought in nothing for the cartel.

I'm disgusted. Not surprised, but absolutely disgusted.

Eight-billion-dollar Irish tax bill looms over Apple

Chika

Re: Oi! Ireland!

Don't forget to claim wear and tear on the hammer then!

El Reg mulls entering Robot Wars arena

Chika

Re: And in the red corner

Ummm....

They aren't having the Plunderbird folk back, are they? >.<

Chika

Re: Depends on the rules...

My biggest hope is that it doesn't descend to the level of that boring pushbot Tornado.

Chika

Oh, I don't know. The Liftshaft did have its analogue in RW of old. They simply referred to it as the Pit.

No escape: Microsoft injects 'Get Windows 10' nagware into biz PCs

Chika

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

@Stoneshop

Now anybody who has known me long enough knows exactly what I'm about to say...

Linux is NOT Mint!

Bloody vikings!

Chika
Holmes

we all loved Windows 2000 (XP was at SP2 before I started widely installing it), but how many of us are still running it...?

I have VMs with W2K, WXP, Neptune, W98 and W3.1 to hand. I don't run them much but they come in useful sometimes.

Chika
Trollface

But if Microsoft is going to ram 10 down my throat they can Fuck Off.

Yeah, but my name isn't Off.

Chika
Facepalm

Re: A Question of Consistency?

How many people here...

We know, we know! Just because we bitch about Microsoft here, we aren't ignoring Google et al. and their slurping habits. Pointing this out isn't an argument, it's just a provocation.

Chika
Trollface

Re: @JeffyPooh Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

FUD, FUD, glorius FUD!

Nothing quite like it for stirring the blood...

I do seem to be in a musical mood today for some reason!

Chika
FAIL

Until about the middle of 2015, automatic updates were a great thing!

But that's one of the problems. The mechanism might have saved time for the most part but it also allowed Microsoft to introduce patches that were shockingly buggy. By disabling automatic patching you avoided this but you also placed the onus on the user to check all patches coming down the line. If there were no bugs (i.e. quality testing was adequate on all patches) then fine, leave the automatic updates on.

On every other system I use (Linux, pre-Windows 8 Windows) I can make that decision for myself based on how much I trust the person/company doing the patching.

Chika
Linux

Lord, here comes the FUD!

We'll say goodbye to poor ol' Tux

If again the drives are silent

in any still alive

(typed from a machine with functional UEFI and functional Linux installed and booted with no trouble whatsoever).

Microsoft’s Get Windows 10 nagware shows signs of sentience

Chika
Trollface

So you aren't happy with Windows, you don't like Linux, you believe that Apple, Sourceforge, Github and Microsoft are killing functionality and you even criticise packages for not having features that fit in with your view of what you need. At least you let RISC OS, Amiga OS and OS/X alone!

I suspect that the solution to your troubles is to switch your computer off and unplug it.

Trolls! I ask you!

Chika
Linux

Re: @Ghost, which distro?

Usually the advice for "what Linux system" is "Mint".

And my usual response is Linux is NOT Mint.

Yes, Mint has its advocates, and it has its uses, but my usual advice is to do a bit of research on your own. How computer literate are you? How much time do you have to devote? What machine are you using? Do you have any preferences about GUI, CLI, packages and so forth? What are you going to use it for?

Start at Distrowatch for example and work from there.

Chika
Joke

Just one more reason to jump to Linux.

Is that a subliminal advert for openSUSE Leap? Oh noes! It's Linux upgrade nagware!!!

Chika

Um, no. It usually means proprietary file types used throughout an industry rather than just by any one firm, and moving away from it is essentially suicide.

That's not a de-facto standard, that's an imposed proprietary imposition, but I get what you mean which is why I said; "some".

For example, I work for an architect. I hate Adobe with a passion.

I feel your pain!

Every three or four months, I check out the open source alternatives to the whole creative suite, and I point out that, for example, Inkscape and GIMP would pretty much allow us to dump Photoshop and stop paying £45/head/month for Creative Cloud. My boss then invariably points out that we have to work in .psd and .indd files, because everyone else in the whole construction industry will be sending those and expecting them in return, and will not be able to look at our output (or us theirs) if it arrives in any other format.

Your boss bases his views on what he knows of the industry and that's reasonable. However it doesn't necessarily justify inaction in trying to find alternatives so I can applaud your efforts, though it does illustrate (pun not intended) the way that product lock-in works.

Chika

Re: how to nuke this krap

I've made some tools to help put an end to this coerced Windows 10 installation nonsense.

Fair enough, but do they do anything above and beyond the GWX Control Panel (ultimateoutsider.com/downloads)?

Chika
Trollface

Re: Stop resisting

Are you therefore saying that Microsoft are without honour? Then they shall never go to Stovokor...

Mind you, we are talking about a Merkan Corporate here. The alleged amount of honour and integrity they might have is a debate on its own!

Chika
Mushroom

Ah yes. Exactly what I was getting at. "Professional software", which means brand names and "imitations" implying that the software we use in Linux is somehow inferior.

I can accept that there will be those pieces of software that, for whatever reason, will not run on Linux but that does not mean that any analogue on any other system, whichever OS might be used, is inferior. In some cases the use of a specific brand name is purely down to obstinacy, ignorance or just laziness.

You are right in one way - the OS is immaterial to that particular problem, but it's one that certain Microsoft fanboys are wont to hit Linux, Apple and other users over the head with, even if the user in question is another Windows user that is purely looking for something better in some way than the accepted "de-facto standard" (which, as you really must be aware, isn't really a standard at all).

Council of Europe gets tough on net neutrality

Chika
Trollface

has anyone told the FSB? Or Theresa May?

Probably. Whether any of them took any notice is more to the point.