Posts by Charles Smith

The damage...?

I buy Magix software for my company, but will think carefully in the future about making such a choice if this story represents their policy in dealing with security vulnerabilities in their software.

Typical - forget the operators.

A beer in Iceland costs about a pound a pint more than it does in London. What would the BOFH have say about locating a Data Centre there?

Deja Vu

In many ways Microsoft is very like the old IBM of the 1980s. The Microsoft way is the only way. If you don't use us you don't understand the problem...

Microsoft used to have the sparkle of brilliance, now it is just a large corporation with an over bloated marketing budget. It is why we now have to suffer the marketing speak rubbish from them.

Oh My God

Woah, hang on there! You mean to tell me that the Microsoft Product I purchased as new contains faults and design flaws? I don't believe you. There is no way that Steve Ballmer would allow his brilliant technicians to release an incompletely tested product.

I think you misunderstand Microsoft's press release. They must refer to minor feature enhancements. It is very considerate of them to add these enhanced features quietly so as to avoid worrying their highly valued customers. I'm really impressed when they manage to improve on their previously "best ever" products.

Farts are not green

There should be a global campaign to suppress farting. A lot of the released gas is methane which has worse greenhouse properties than carbon dioxide.

Unless of course the methane is ignited to convert it to CO2 + water vapour...

SneakerNet Rules

With Islam as the major religion in Egypt the impact of closing mobile phone and Internet services will only have a limited effect in slowing down the "underground" network. Many Egyptians regularly attend the mosques. Coordinated "telephone tree", "Fax tree" and photocopier leaflet distribution of news based around the mosques will provide a fast and difficult to suppress alternative communication network. This is pretty much what happened in Eastern German and Poland under Soviet rule.

Terminator disposal

The Ex California governor proved in his films how difficult it can be to destroy malignant technology. Make sure *everything* from the server rack is dissolved in a massive crucible of molten steel.

Then do a brain wipe of the politicians/civil servants who dreamt up the crazy idea in the first place.

The fool

If he'd waited a few months he could have flogged the Ark Royal plus assorted Harrier jets. No wait that's Dacam's boys isn't it; I must rerun the search on Ebay.

No grenades for sale though.

Kill this damn stupid idea, there are simpler and better ways.

Vehicle Excise Duty rate: - based on potential usage and potential carbon output;

Congestion Charge: - based on potential usage and potential carbon output;

Fuel Duty: - based on actual usage and carbon generated;

Proposed Road Charging? Why? We have already paid for the roads many times over.

A couple of years ago I spoke with the CIO from the transport agency and asked how they proposed to overcome the inaccuracy of GPS for the road charging schemes and the cases where different roads run closely together. She couldn't answer those questions.

RFID Waltz

If my local authority starts to "chip" the rubbish/trash bins I'll be busy organising people to run RFID waltz's late at night so the bins will progressively migrate around the locality.

I'd use my iPhone to call and complain

... but I'm left handed.

Not to mention the low use fine..!

If you have a BT line and make less that 2 calls (BT) on that line each month, BT will fine you £1.50 a month, ie £18 a year for not making calls.

We have a line like that, just kept for incoming calls in a disaster recovery situation. We might keep that line but we are going to "fine" BT a whole lot more than £18 in terms of lost business for them. On current reckoning we'll be able to shift close on £2.5K business away in retaliation.

..and the iPhone 4 has a new feature

We added this special feature to allow spouses/partners to claim that the signal is fading and they will call their partner back soon. This improvement helps to prevent iPhone addiction, particularly when you at the pub after work.

Like Kaspersky's blocking of apple.com?

I run Kaspersky 2010 and find it quite effective. Sometimes it is too effective. It also blocked my access to www.apple.com. Eventually after some googling and rooting around on the Kaspersky tech support website I found a solution/work around. I had to specifically declare apple.com as a whitelist domain on each of my PCs using the Kaspersky product.

Outrageous

I demand my money back from Adobe for this flawed free software.

Biter bit.

I listened to the video. What a nice polite policeman. He was not aggressive and treated the arrestee well. What pity that the person arrested hadn't committed any offence other than refusing to open his wallet for the policeman. Meanwhile the person who committed the "offence" of hitting someone in the face with a foam ball walks away.

The police Establishment then make matters a whole lot worse by trying to lie about their use of the technology for recording the scene by using excuses than would fail basic training in a Help Desk school.

You expect us to buy Dell in the future?

Ah well, that's just deleted Dell from my suppliers list and also from my recommendation list for my clients. My most recent order was for 100 PC's and they were Dell.

I'll have fun when the Dell rep next calls me. "Tell me about your business practices Mr Dell?"

Send the officials to jail!

What these officials have done is called "Misconduct in a Public Office." They should be paid a visit by the Boys in Blue. There is a suitable explanation on the Crown Prosecution Service Website.

DNSAPI not found

After the "fix" my XP PC would not load isasse.exe (i.e. wouldn't boot properly) because it could not find dnsapi.dll

It looked like the directory structure was knackered. Eventually fixed it using dskchk from the install DVD. It may not have been directly linked to the MS patch, but the timing is distinctly suspicious. Previously the PC had been well behaved.

Stealth 9% increase

This is a bit like BT's stealth 9% increase on domestic call charges for "out of plan" calls that will take effect on 1st April 2010 (really, the date is true) announced in fine pale type at the foot of an email.

Ole Fogie

Since starting in Computing (IT) in 1970 many things have improved access to IT facilities. Mobile IP using the iPhone is one of those things. Sadly my eyesight has failed to keep up with this progress. I'd use the internet on the iPhone if I could reasonable see the screen without having to read a character at a time.

Now if only I could work out where to plug in a proper IBM 3270 keyboard.

Help the misguided child

Give the young lad two warnings to behave. If he ignores those, give him the phone number of the local Social Services so that he can arrange his own accommodation for the evening as he won't be sleeping under your roof.

I just used to port lockdown the router when my little angel insisted on playing World of Warcraft into the wee hours. He soon took the hint.

Don't forget the boats

Also withdrawn are two active service Naval vessels - that will take the Royal Navy down to 25 vessels (excluding auxiliaries)?

Dear Labour Politicians ....

As Members of Parliament you are supposed to be representing the public, not ruling over them. We are not your subjects you are our representatives.

Why do you seem only to want to listen to the authoritarian police and the sales guys of the identity card systems?

Perhaps this system is needed because to want to track the 1 in 11 people living in the UK who were not born in this country?

Even the EC say you have got it wrong.

Instant Legacy solutions

The problem with Excel spreadsheets is that they tend to create instant legacy solutions where only the originator can maintain the model. By all means develop the original model in Excel, but if it becomes production status - look at getting it written in a compiled language along with decent documentation. A well crafted compiled version will inevitably run a lot faster and if done properly make proper use of multiple processors.

There are of course Excel Compilers which go some way to handling those issues.

As a retired APL programmer I hold up my hand and confess "Poacher turned Gamekeeper"

A chance for fame...

Right I'm just off to start a website where disgruntled users can record the identity of the vendors who advertise using these in "your face adverts". Next step boycott ....

A word of it I do not believe

Misinformation is just one of the tools of espionage.

ISP Tax

The ISP's should clearly identify the additional costs arising if these proposals are enacted and highlight them on any customer invoice as separate invoice line entitled "The Mandleson Tax".

This will be poorly conceived legislation that penalises the innocent with extra overheads costs. To cap it all the public will have to pay VAT on those extra costs.

Oh no!

Does this mean I won't get my $15,000,000 after all? The Reverend was such a nice guy too. Maybe if send him another $5000 he will find a way to dodge Operation Eagle Craw