* Posts by The BigYin

3080 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Mar 2008

Microsoft beaten down 16pc on software sales to NHS

The BigYin

@AC

"...I expect they just looked at the resultant horror show when a number of German & US municipalities, school districts etc ditched MSO for Gnu/Open Office a few years back.......the financial cost of the initial migration and then crawling back to MS was terrible and, probably more importantly for negotiators, ended the careers of many involved."

Nice spin, but not the dull truth. In Germany there was an election and a power shift. The new incumbents were more closely tied to Big Business and keen to help their pals rake it in. Even the internal analysis conducted by the German equivalent of NAO seemed to show that the F/OSS solution was value for money.

I say "seemed" and I have no way of knowing how independent or unbiased that report was.

The BigYin

Solution?

Well, if you don't want to spend money on re-training everyone/re-writing all integrations; don't upgrade. There's a solution for you, won't work forever though.

If you are going to spend millions (probably billions the way government IT contracts go) in retraining/recoding on the same application from the same vendor, then there is a very good case for at least thinking about the alternatives. It's shame that in the NHS (heck, UK in general) that beyond a few examples such as "Open Molar" this simply does not happen.

"Open standards are a great goal, but it's the work of years to transition to them."

And it begins with one contract stating something along the lines of "All files and communications will be in openly documented standards that can be implemented by any person or vendor without fear of patent, copyright or trademark infringement. In perpetuity."

Still, we live in a country that would rather spend billions off-balance sheet, lumber future generations with crushing debt and not prosecute fraudsters than do the right thing.

Unlike the previous AC, at least you have the courage to use you forum name in the clear.

The BigYin
FAIL

@AC

"Training about 1m people in how to use a new office package"

So they can NEVER move beyond Office 98 or whatever they have now? Office 2010 is a big change, a F/OSS version could be made to ape the current interface to cut the training budget.

"Rolling out a new office package across several hundred thousand devices"

So they'll NEVER upgrade?

"Supporting a new office package across a user base of 1m people"

So they'll NEVER upgrade?

"Rewriting every internal application that interfaces with Office"

So, once again, they'll NEVER upgrade?

"The loss of productivity through use of an inferior product that users are unfamiliar with"

And again, they'll NEVER upgrade?

"Would represent a SAVING for the NHS?"

I'll give you a choice. You can spend millions to upgrade to a product with the same brand name from the same vendor that will cost a massive reduction in productivity, increase your training bills and force you to buy entirely new kit; OR

You can spend millions on a F/OSS solution will cost a some reduction in productivity, potentially increase your training bills but you can keep your current kit. The first hit will be the worst. After the that, the traction gained from your investment will reduce future costs and the improvements you sponsor will be available to other departments, NGOs and society in general.

You clearly have not thought through your argument as everything you state as being anti-F/OSS counts double for MS Office. That does not mean there is no place for MS Office or MS back-end software, just that it is not the be-all and end-all of corporate IT.

Once last thing AC - grow a pair. Use your "real" login and reply to me directly.

The BigYin

Umm...

...the NHS is a big customer. Very big. I am sure if they said "Standards only" people would have obeyed. If the NHS had any spine.

NHS.

SPINE.

Geddit?

Maybe if the NHS spent less on lawyers to attack whistle-blowers, they'd be able to afford better IT.

The BigYin

Windows runs IE6

This is still the standard in the NHS because they blew so much on MS-only ActiveX and IE6-only sites back in the day. If they had gone with the standards (and helped shape the standards where none existed) they would not be in this mess. The vendors would have to compete on a level playing field and on merit.

But today's economy is not about open competition.

The BigYin

I agree

Whilst Open/Libre Office are not perfect, I would think that it would cost less to throw money at one of those projects and having the missing/non-working parts sorted than splurge on MS.

Either that or the code used on the projects should be opened, the custom code was paid for with public money, the code should be public as well.

The BigYin
FAIL

So...

...they are still hostage to a single platform from a single vendor, just for slightly less?

Jimbo Wales ponders Wikipedia blackout

The BigYin
FAIL

@Turtle

Is everything black-and-white in your world? One is anti-SOPA so one must be pro-Google?

Do you think by being anti-SOPA, I am pro the BBC's actions on orphaned works?

Or that by objecting to Israeli policy I think the Palestinians are a swell bunch of guys who would like flower arranging?

Here is a clue: the world is not black-and-white and SOPA goes way, way too far.

The BigYin
Flame

The fools

They should have done an ACTA. Had it all agreed behind closed doors, then signed into law before the people have a chance. That is democracy.

Open debate and consensus is, well, communism. And better dead than red!

So bend over and take it for freedom!

Oh, I don't mean your freedom. Not personal freedom. Corporate freedom! That's the freedom that counts. We should do away with this silly idea of people voting, shares should vote. Whoever has the most shares basically calls all the shots.

It'd at least be a bit more honest than the farce we endure now.

Red Cross: 600m videogamers may be war criminals

The BigYin
FAIL

Not the same

It's one thing to find that piece of enemy scum, place your crosshairs over them and blow their brains out in a game. It's quite another to do it in real life where one knows someone is actually going to get hurt/killed. And the kind of person who would willingly do it IRL is so far gone, I rather doubt the game has much influence.

Are they considering "Risk" a breach of human rights as well? Chess?

This is just a piece of PR grabbing straight from the PeTA game book and it is shameful for an institution such as the Red Cross to stoop so low.

British athlete puts self on eBay

The BigYin

Heh

More "I sponsored this guy and 66 of his friends with by annual bonus - thanks tax payers!"

The BigYin
Mushroom

@AC 101

Win or lose, he's got more drive an courage than you have.

The BigYin

Only £30k?

Surely one of our highly-bonused financial geniuses or CEOs could spare that from their pocket changes?

Top marks to James for trying to get the funds together like this.

Microsoft seeks to woo developers with Windows 8 store

The BigYin

@Hoagiebot

"I was currently working on a small Windows Vista/7 sidebar gadget for the members of a small local social club that I am part of that would provide updates pertaining to the club on their desktops."

You mean like an RSS feed? I don't mean to be rude, but it reads like you are solving a problem that has already been solved. If you are doing for yucks and to learn, that's cool (I do it myself) but a more widely used app will have more features, be more stable and less of a burden to support. Just join a team and get going. Of course, maybe yours is better than all the others, in which case release that sucker as free software! Consider it a job hunting ploy. :)

"I would prefer to write and distribute my own software however I darn well choose to, just as PC developers have always been able to do"

Well, don't expect me to download it. I want to see the downloads signed, md5 hashes etc. I want to be sure what I download it what I expect to download. Which it why I use the repositories and don't download random stuff off random sites. Way too dangerous.

Unfortunately Windows is so far behind the curve that Windows users are conditioned to think this is "normal" (and that every piece of software needs to run its own update mechanism, rather than rely on a central one). Thus the culture shock when some more resilient and secure comes along. Not that repositories are perfect, just less bad.

The BigYin

@AC (why is it always a coward?)

Apple market share - ~6%

MS market share - ~90%

Guess which one is the effective monopoly and has to be regulated?

Not that this makes Apple's actions correct, just not a matter for regulators (yet).

The BigYin

@Mikel

"And of course, antitrust issues."

That's the big one. Canonical has one store that they control, but you could create your own I guess. They are a tiny fraction of a sub-1% market, so no big issue there.

Apple have one store, you cannot add you own (without rooting etc). They are around a 5-6% share (more on mobile) so no huge issue there (even on mobile, there is competition from 'droid).

MS is circa 90% of the market. If they do not allow other stores on to their platform, then I could see that being a major issue for the regulators and rightly so.

The BigYin

Hmm...wha?

Oh, MS rocking it like it's 3 years ago. Or longer if one considers the various package systems that have been around for over a decade.

Having used Windows 8 (yes, really, the dev version is downloadable) I have reached the same conclusions for it as for Gnome3, Unity etc. Pretty, nice on a handheld device, utterly terrible on a desktop. The other issue with Win8 is that if you want to do anything "proper" you have to leave Metro and the transition to the knobbled desktop is dreadful.

Why the companies/teams feel they need a "one size fits all" policy beats the hell out of me. Different devices, different use cases - they're different!

Navy pays 2x purchase price to keep warship docked for 5 years

The BigYin

HMS Victory...

...should be made ready for active duty. There's no way by 2020 that the RN will be able to afford the diesel to run their single aircraft carrier!

LG chisels wedge-shaped Ultrabook

The BigYin

I see a lawsuit in the offing

At first glance I thought the pics *were* MacBook airs being used for illustration.

As for UK pricing, it'll be around £1,500 (unless Apple get an injuction) given the conversions normally applied by tech companies.

Microsoft to Aussie gov: Privacy rules stifle e-Health

The BigYin

Ha ha ha ha!

Yes, because MS has such a good reputation for security.

If the data specification is an open standard, fully documented and can be fully implemented without infringing patents.

If MS full implement the spec as written and without undocumented features.

If the crypto/other measures are open, fully documented and can be fully implemented without infringing patents.

If the crypto is implemented if code that is fully open, documented and can be updated without infringing on patents/copyrights/trademarks.

That's just for starters and it's a lot of "ifs".

It would be far, far better for the Oz government to say "We want to solve *that* problem, lets hire someone to do it and request that all the tools be 100% open/free". Why 100% open/free? If the first contractor screws it up or goes bust, another competent entity can be hired in to carry on.

Also, they the HELL would I want my *extremely* personal data being held in the USA where is can be used and abused under laws which grant me no recourse? You want to do business in Oz/EU/Anywhere? Be beholden to local laws and shut-up.

The BigYin

@AC at 07:17

You have more chance of winning the lottery than of being the victim of a terror attack.

Terrorists are scum, not going to argue that, but why make the 99% suffer just because 1% are arseholes? Oh, wait, that's policy isn't it? The 1% screw the world over and the 99% pay for it (including bonuses for the 1%).

Anyway, back on point. Any freedom one loses in the "fight against terror" is a victory for the terrorists. Maybe it's because I'm a Brit but I think the only response to a terrorist is two fingers and total defiance.

If you want to "protect yourself", put down that burger and go for a walk. You're less like to peg it from heart disease (a greater risk than terrorism) and more likely to be able to outrun the bastards if you have to. Also, talk to your children and help them not fall into the 1%-arsewipe category.

UK's first stealth jumpjet rolls off line – but we don't want it

The BigYin

Do I understand things correctly

We have a new aircraft carrier that isn't nuclear, so has to return to port/be refuelled constantly.

We're buidling a second that will never be used.

We can't afford to buy/convert Eurofighters to put on it due to the massive over-runs of that monstrosity.

We have just rejected the other "modern" options.

We have scrapped Tornado and Harriers which, for all there ills, are the mainstay of the RAF.

We now have no viable air force or naval air presence.

Does that about sum it up?

NHS minister's bombshell: I get emails from dead people

The BigYin

Template emails?

I thought the House of Commons would have filters in place to deal with template emails, they're just another from of SPAM. I thought this was why lobbying groups tended to give you a list of points/ideas and ask you to write in your own words.

US quakes before MENACING TURKEYS, snow globes

The BigYin
Joke

*Deep fried* Turkey?

Is this story from Scotland or the USA?

Hero dev writes the CODE that COULD SAVE THE WORLD

The BigYin

@Pete 2

For a NEO to be of concern it's going to have to be either very big or very hard (most others will just burn-up or be of no real consequence - just evacuate the strike zone). Very big and very hard are going to be a right bugger to smash up into small enough chunks to pose little-to-no risk.

You are going to have to coordinate a lot of rockets carrying a lot of bang to arrive at the right time and strike in a predetermined manner (all of which will be compounded by the target moving like absolute buggery and tumbling whilst it does so).

So one is back to softy-softly, gravity-well-catchy-monkey. You don't have to move it out to beyond Mars or something, just stop it from passing through a "keyhole" (where Earth's gravity *will* cause it to impact at a future time; and even then you'll have a few years to try again).

The BigYin

You don't destroy

Because then you have *lots* of NEOs and they may still be capable of causing havoc.

You throw up a probe and then have it use its gravity to gently pull the NEO into a safe orbit. Or you coat one side in a reflective material so that light/solar wind pushes harder on the NEO. Or you land on the NEO and use a thruster to push it. All depends on the exact nature of the NEO.

All these would take years, but if you see the NEO early enough, then years one would have.

Microsoft to offer dual upgrade path for Windows 8

The BigYin

Makes you...

...buy a new PC?

Cracked emails again deployed against climate researchers

The BigYin

Bollocks?

Probably not. All the data points to the climate changing (the current trend appears to be moving everything towards the extreme).

What's causing it? Well, that's where a small amount of bollocks rears its head because the climate is a rather complex thing and even if it very simple, it's a massive feedback system as chaos theory has a few things to say about it (i.e. it's not accurately predictable as it is sensitive to initial conditions).

So is it all/mostly natural? Possibly, at least in part (e.g. volcanoes, sun cycle etc)

Is it all/mostly man-made? Possibly.

Is the consequence off getting it wrong a "Bad Thing"(tm)? Absolutely!

So which gamble do we take? Carry on as now and run the risk of committing species suicide; or tighten our belts slightly, stop being total dicks, and try to tread as softly as possible? If the major portion is natural, our measures will have little effect; but if we ARE the major cause (which seems likely) then we might just yank our collective asses out of the fire.

Sitting around and doing sweet F.A. is not really an answer.

Fake doc cuffed in concrete arse shocker

The BigYin
Flame

Why are you?

When you clearly lack the ability to read.

Ofcom denies privacy to drunk-dial-and-drive trucker

The BigYin

I remember that show

He used a mobile whilst driving.

He drank whilst driving.

I for one am glad he is no longer a professional driver and in unlikely to ever be again!

Teacher investigated over mysluttyteacher smut site

The BigYin

@AC at 12:47

Would depend exactly on the terms of employment but yes, dismissal could be on the cards. The story does not state if she was using the laptop at home or in school. I presumed she was doing this "after hours" from her home, but using a school resource to do so.

"What is it with [commentators] on the reg thinking that every decision in a case that involves smut is some sort of knee jerk moral issue to do with the smut?"

Because is usually is? Especially in the increasingly puritanical USA (to be fair, the UK isn't much better but at least we don't teach the Creationism fable in school).

"You wouldn't do it for Indians, Pakistanis, etc, don't do it to Americans."

If the Indians or Pakistanis were so mentally deficient and money-grubbing as to classify paratha or something as a vegetable, I would.

The BigYin
FAIL

FFS

Did she show the sites to the kids?

Did the kids work on the sites?

Were the kids product testers?

Did the kids even know before this story broke?

No?

Ok then, using a school computer for "outside" projects. Slap on the wrist, nawty-nawty, don't do it again. Next!

There again, what do you expect from a nation that considers pizza a vegetable? (Given the sugar levels, it would be better classed as dessert!)

Pickles plans curry colleges to halt Indian immigration

The BigYin

There is no such thing...

...as British food. That died a good 60-70 years ago and we should lament its passing. Hell, it's nigh-on impossible to get a decent loaf of bread in this country never mind anything more challenging.

If it's not cheap, Brits simply don't want to know.

Clooney fingered for Steve Jobs role in Hollywood biopic

The BigYin

Fer real?

I know Jobs got all the hipsters and creatives wet in their pants and there is no doubt Jobs was a smart man, but does he really deserve all this adoration and worship? There are people who are far more important in IT who seem to get no credit at all.

Dennis Ritchie (to name but one). Let's see the movie about his life first. Without Ritchie there would have been no Apple! At least, now Apple in the form people drool over today.

Cue the downvotes from the Jobsian collective.

Punters hate copyright, says Steelie Neelie

The BigYin

Ummm....

I would have thought that "preview" in the URL for a *very* well known shortener would have been a bit of a clue. It goes to TechDirt.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111114/02034116758/gema-once-again-demands-royalties-creative-commons-music-it-has-no-rights-over.shtml

Happy now?

Have everything. Own nothing. Learn the difference

The BigYin

It's simple

It's a "property" when in favour of the company and you are a piece of dirty scum who should be pursued to the maximum extent of the law and equated with those who would commit rape and murder.

It's demote to a "right" as soon as you try to exercise any action you would normally do with a property. You are a piece of dirty scum who should be pursued to the maximum extent of the law and equated with those who would commit rape and murder.

And this is why the whole IP thing is screwed up.

The BigYin

I will agree

Which is why using services like Amazon Kindle, iTunes etc is stupid. You are paying near-full-whack to "rent", not "own". If you understand and accept that, then fine - it's your choice.

Me? I'll keep buying my books/CDs/DVDs/etc thankyouverymuch

Think your CV is crap? Your interview skills are worse

The BigYin

Can I summarise?

"I follow basic personal hygiene and can read a watch. I will happily work with others, but don't always need my hand-held. I understand the limits of my knowledge and not adverse to reading a book or asking for help to get things done."

Hey presto, perfect candidate.

Windows 8 aims to make security updates less painful

The BigYin

@Def

I thought it was down to the new file being created at a different inode, and the executing program continuing to use the original inode. Or maybe that only happens in some cases?

The BigYin

Indeed and agreed

But Windows seems to be much more prone to *requiring* a full restart as opposed to other OSs. Even installing an entirely new app causes it to want to reboot (that might be a fault of the installer I guess).

Any idea what happened with KSplice? Not heard much about it after Oracle swallowed it.

The BigYin

"correctly in the first place"

What an idea! Let's just do things properly from the beginning!

Cars will no longer burst into flames after a crash!

Planes will no longer drop out of the sky due to failure!

Building will not longer fall down!

Bridges will no longer collapse!

Pencil tips will no longer snap!

Glass will no longer break!

DO IT RIGHT FIRST TIME! My god! It's a paradigm shift! You should patent that *RIGHT NOW*!!!! You'll be bloody minted you will!

What did no one think of this before? WHY?????????????

(idiot)

The BigYin

@AC at 09:44

*sigh* The same is true on Windows as one is not forced to restart. I assume you are the same AC as before - you clearly do not know how non-Windows updates work, I suggest you do some research before commenting further.

In enterprise systems, one would be using some kind of management system (e.g. Puppet) to push and control updates (i.e. only applying them after testing them).

For office systems there would (should!) be a policy about when reboots happen to suck in the updates.

For home/end-user-controlled system - it's up to that user. In the vast majority of cases, simply bouncing the service (e.g. Samba) or stopping/starting the program is enough.

MS's way of doing it is, IMO, the worst one as it leads to people disabling the whole thing to stop the bloody nagging. I also despise the way Win7 sneaks in updates with little when I go to shut down. I want to know what the updates are and why they are being applied, I may have very good reasons for NOT wanting an update (e.g. compatibility with other systems).

The BigYin

@AC at 09:44

I think you might be misunderstanding (assumption: OS X behave like GNUN/Linux and given the Unix heritage of both, I think this is a fair bet).

When a file on a Unix-like system is updated, it can be moved to a new inode (a point on the disc). Anything using the "old" file can carry on using the "old" inode and see that version. When the program closes and then opens, when it gets the file it will get the "new" inode and thus the new version. (This is not quite technically correct, but good enough for now).

The upshot is that you only need to reboot when some critical system (kernel, vital system service) gets file updates and needs to stop in order to grab the new files. Even then, there can be ways to restart critical systems and grab the update without doing a reboot.

Windows cannot do this as its file system works in a fundamentally different way.

The BigYin

That was y thought exaclty

The only person in a position to decide what is critical is the user (be they an end-user of a sys admin). No one else. Often my PC site here 'idling' but as far as I am concerned Samba is a critical app as I am sat in front of the box watching a movie off the HDD.

If it chose then to reboot (which it wouldn't, but if it did) I'd be one pissed off geek.

The BigYin
Linux

Err...

...you mean enact repositories like in the GNU/Linux world, but do a really bad job of it?

Join the dark side, we have fishies. Err....cookies.

The BigYin

@AC at 05:21

Windows shares all drives by default. I have just checked my Win7Pro install and I can indeedy see C$ and D$ as shares. Fair enough, you need to know a password for an admin account (or of a local user who is admin). But the fact remains - all your content is on the network for anyone to (potentially) see.

Compare that to other operating systems that actually implement security.

The BigYin
Mushroom

Translation

"MS lawyers have not managed to get the patents approved for mechanisms that are used on other operating systems to ensure that the OS and applications are updated in a coherent manner. Once the patents are approved, we will sue the F/OSS operating systems into oblivion and then have a big PR campaign about the new paradigm we will have 'invented'".

The BigYin

It doesn't

Linux has no centralised way of updating software, nor can it ever have one. GNU and it's ilk do provide such systems - "package managers" (apt-get, pacman etc.). Even these have limitations though. One must either have originally installed the software from the package managers, or installed it from some kind of approved package (e.g. ".deb") so that the package manager knows about it. If you are using software that you have just downloaded as a TAR or something, then it will not get updated unless you do it yourself. This is why GNU/Linux users are urged to use repositories rather than download random crap off the Interwebs like Windows users are. Repositories and their downloads are also often signed to prove that they are legit and thus not malware (it's not perfect though, nothing is).

However the package manager finds out about what you have installed, it will periodically check the version currently installed against the version in the repository. If the version in the repository is newer, that fact is remembered and at some point the user will be asked if they wish to download and install (or some job will update the system or whatever).

Once the download happens, things update and no reboot is required due to the way the file systems work. When an updated program closes, the next time it starts it will be running the new version. The only time you need to reboot is if Linux itself (the kernel) or an in-use module (e.g. graphics) gets updated. And even then you only need to update if you want to use the new version right now. Bar one message at the end and perhaps an icon changing, there is no nagging.

The actual details of the above will vary slightly from distribution to distribution, but the general ideas remain the same.

Microsoft moving embedded systems to Windows 8

The BigYin
Unhappy

What you do not want...

...when you are in the operating room, lying on that bed, lines and needles going into your arms...is to look around and notice that the machine which will help hold your life in the balance for the next few hours is running Windows!

NEWSFLASH: Chips cheaper than disks

The BigYin

@Tomato42

Windows? Oh, in that case you're looking at around 20GB minimum before you even add applications.

Looking at the system I have here, the full OS install is about 500gb, 482gb-ish of which is my personal files (settings, media, virtual images). The actual OS portions is only 18gb and of that 9gb-ish is games related executables etc. So that's about 9gb for actual applications and important stuff.

Just because Windows doesn't do a decent job of separating executable/configuration/data files doesn't mean that every OS is like that. :)