* Posts by groovyf

76 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2008

Page:

That long-awaited, super-hyped Apple launch: Watches, iPads... and one more thing. Oh, actually that's it

groovyf

Re: Something isn't making sense

Don't suppose that green/blue light can be turned off, or brightness reduced can it? It looks like just what I need, but those things can light up a bedroom in the dark like Blackpool Illuminations!

Outages batter UK's Virgin Media into wee hours as broadband failures spike 77% globally

groovyf

Uh oh...!

Sounds like the plot of Independence Day.

An ever-shortening outage period...

NASA's Christina Koch returns to Earth as the longest-serving woman astronaut – after spending 328 days in space

groovyf

Re: Question : What's more import ?

Agreed... With the drive for equality in all areas, we really should strive to stop marking events relating to the "first woman...", "first black person...". Any achievement for such a title is worthy in itself. Until such branding stops, we'll struggle to attain proper equality.

P.S. Thumbs up for Koch - I wonder how long it'll take for bone/muscle mass to return to normal levels.

Beware the Friday afternoon 'Could you just..?' from the muppet who wants to come between you and your beer

groovyf

I've had payments in bottles of wine and chocolates numerous times over the years for some help and advice I've given over the years to needy souls when working at a previous employer

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

groovyf

Shouldn't we be talking about this in the past-tense? As that light has taken so long to reach us...

Wait a minute, we're supposed to haggle! ISPs want folk to bargain over broadband

groovyf

Re: Sad times

Similar story with British Gas a number of years ago... didn't pay for gas/electric for 18 months, despite me contacting them a number of times. There was never any comeback either. Some issue with supplier/meter number/different provider, etc.

Off somewhere nice on holibobs? Not if you're flying British Airways: IT 'systems issue' smacks UK airports once again

groovyf

Hmmmmm

Weren't BA pilots wanting to strike Monday/Tuesday just gone... seems this IT issue is rather timely...

Me? Cynic? Never!

Fast food, slow user – techie tears hair out over crashed drive-thru till

groovyf

Re: Sad times

"Ronald"... not too hard to guess the drive-thru business!

Firefox hooks up with HaveIBeenPwned for account pwnage probe

groovyf

"I can't look up my details on that site because I own the whole domain, and I have thousands of unique email addresses at that domain."

...you can, you just need to use the "Domain search" option at the top of the page.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/DomainSearch

Apple grounds AirPort once and for all. It has departed. Not gonna fly any more. The baggage is dropped off...

groovyf

Re: Sad times

Go grab Ubiquiti's Amplifi HD kit... that'll be my port of call when the AirPort Extreme dies on me.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, look out for must-have toys that are 'easily hacked' ♪

groovyf

Good luck getting something useful from Spiral Toys...

https://www.troyhunt.com/data-from-connected-cloudpets-teddy-bears-leaked-and-ransomed-exposing-kids-voice-messages/

Please do not scare the pigeons – they'll crash the network

groovyf

We used to have a known issue with our microwave link for the phone system to the local BT Exchange down the road whereby trees in the line-of-sight would obscure the view if it got too windy or they grew too much (nothing some pruning/trimming couldn't solve). However, one day, we kept losing connection throughout the day for random periods of time before connectivity was restored... we knew it wasn't the trees this time.

On my way home, I noticed workmen on the roof of the BT exchange... then it dawned on me that with them wandering around up there that they would have been obscuring the receiving dish from our site from time to time.

Thankfully, we know longer use this system!

LastPass connectivity snafu locks out Brits from password manager

groovyf

No problems for me either (as a LastPass user)

https://www.troyhunt.com/only-secure-password-is-one-you-cant/

Ransomware scams cost Brits £4.5m per year

groovyf

Watched the piece about this on BBC Breakfast this morning... The closing comment by an affected (home) user was... "make sure your protection is up-to-date". I was disappointed that at no point did anyone mention backing-up personal data just in case such things happen and all your personal docs are encrypted.

Reinstalling Windows (presumably the OS of choice) and copying data from a backup is a lot cheaper than shelling-out to Ransomware chumps.

I appreciate that maybe your average Home User might not know how to re-install Windows, but don't new computers at least come with a small leaflet detailing how to restore a computer/laptop to factory settings via a hidden Restore partition?

Half! a! billion! Yahoo! email! accounts! raided! by! 'state! hackers!'

groovyf

What's really frustrating is the inability to delete user accounts on sites. Generally, there's no way to delete your online account from a system.

Modaco were breached, and I was notified earlier this week from haveibeenpwned.

I've not logged-on/used their forums for a good few years so had forgotten about the account - again, there's no way to remove the account, (though they did state in an informational post that you could email them to ask them to delete it).

Malware figures out it's running on VMs and refuses to execute

groovyf

Re: Hide, hide, hide ...

thumbs-up for the Floyd reference...

Dropbox: Leaked DB of 68 million account passwords is real

groovyf

Re: Can someone explain

Interesting blog post here: https://www.troyhunt.com/the-dropbox-hack-is-real

Lloyds Banking Group puts 640 techies and backroom bods on chopping block

groovyf

...including a few more sites for good measure. [Copley being a rather large data centre just a few minutes away from Halifax town centre.]

"Rob MacGregor, Unite’s national officer, said 640 staff will lose their jobs under Wednesday’s announcement.

Unite said the cuts will affect staff in the following areas: Group IT sites in Halifax, Copley, London, Edinburgh, Bristol, and Manchester, with additional impacts in Pudsey, Leeds, Banbury and Birmingham"

Source: http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/news/calderdale/job-losses-at-lloyds-sites-in-halifax-and-copley-1-7988411#ixzz4D2v5XYgM

Which keys should I press to enable the CockUp feature?

groovyf

Windows RG

I recall once going round a room full of PCs with a colleague and firing up the Windows RG flash jape in Internet Explorer then going full screen with it.

Amusing somewhat!

TalkTalk: Hackers may have nicked personal, banking info on 4 million Brits

groovyf

I see from the TalkTalk incident info page it suggests:

"Check your credit report with the three main credit agencies: Call Credit, Experian and Equifax."

Aren't they paid services? TalkTalk should be footing the bill for for all customers who want to check.

BT fixes home hub drop-out glitch ONE YEAR after denying flaw existed

groovyf

Good timing...

Back end of Jan I moved to BT Infinity, and received the HH5. Doddle to setup, etc. A couple of weeks ago I got home to find the hub constantly rebooting. Unplugging the power didn't make a difference after it powered-up again.

After a call to BT, and performing a full reset, it stabilised.

A week later it happened again, and after going through the same trouble-shooting steps (this time a full reset didn't fix it), they decided to send me a new HH5.

After I'd ended the call to BT, I tried another full reset which seems to have worked again as not had a problem in the intervening days.

I now have a brand new, unopened HH5 sitting doing nothing as I wasn't going to replace it until things went pear-shaped again. By the sounds of it, I may not need to, if they're rolled an update out.

Euro broadcast industry still in a fug over that 4K-ing UHD telly

groovyf

Decent audio on the HD channels wouldn't go amiss either. I'm certain since C4 added Film4+1 to the same mux as C4 HD, that the movies they *do* show on C4 HD are now only in two channel stereo and not 5.1 as they used to be.

Apple's ONE LESS THING: the iPod Classic disappears

groovyf

I bought an iPod Classic just the other week to replace a 120GB model. Mainly for car use and for travelling. All this nonsense about Cloud and streaming comes to nothing when you're abroad or with no signal/wifi. I appreciate each person has differing needs, but the iPod Classic suits mine to a T. I like the choice I have too by having all my music on one device, plus the iPod works very nicely with my car as the media console has a dedicated iPod option.

I've used memory sticks and they take an age to read in the info especially when you hit over 32GB... with the iPod it's seamless.

As someone's mentioned, maybe it's time to grab a backup Classic, just in case the current one goes tits up.

Pimp my lounge and pierce my ceiling: Home theatre goes OTT

groovyf

I'm still hanging on to my trusty Yamaha RX-V650... just has enough optical/coax inputs to suit my current needs. One more device adding to the mix and I'll upgrade to something that has HDMI inputs.

Chap rebuilds BBC Micro in JavaScript

groovyf

Ah, this has taken me back over 30 years to being hunched over the keyboard playing the rather remarkable Defender clone. Top stuff.

Microsoft's ALREADY telling of bugs in Fondle-Office for iPad

groovyf

I've not checked App sizes in the Apple App Store myself, but I've read they're in the 200MB range for each (Word, Excel, Powerpoint).

No Notch niche: Minecraft man in rift with Oculus after Facebook gobble

groovyf

I'm wondering if there's anyone with anything positive to say about this acquisition?

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/

Steve Jobs AIRBRUSHED from history by APPLE months before his death

groovyf

@Cheesenough

It does indeed function as an exit as well. Have been into the place a couple of times. I do have to say it looks pretty fantastic when viewing from the outside when lit up in an evening.

INSIDE GCHQ: Welcome to Cheltenham's cottage industry

groovyf
Thumb Up

I see what you did there...

"The polite response to the latter request was that pictures would be considered on condition the article could be viewed before publication. That's against our editorial policy, but chances are they've done that already."

Subtle.

Make cool shows, make money: Netflix's SHOCKING TV strategy

groovyf

Re: Nice, if you can watch it

@James 51 - No, House of Cards was accessible without paying extra on your Netflix subs.

Angry Birds fire back: Vulture cousins menace UK city's mobiles

groovyf

Re: share this article

@AC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-22144488

Twenty classic arcade games

groovyf

Re: tastes changed over time

I remember that exact same pinball table too. Handles like pistol grips sticking out of each side (top) of the table? Only thing I recall was that it was made by Williams.

groovyf

The article is about arcade games... ie, games that could be played outside the house in video arcades, not home computer games. I think a few have missed that point (or, not to be condescending, are too young to know about arcades).

Late 70s through to late 80s... that's when it was all really happening with coin-ops.

Maybe there's a market here for just such a retro arcade place - maybe stocked with MAME cabinets (though I doubt that's entirely legal...)

groovyf

Glad to see I'm not the only Xevious fan here!

groovyf

A pretty good list there. Defender ranks as #1 for me personally and yes, where's Galaxian or even Scramble, though let's face it, too many to mention and to nail into a top 10 easily.

I threw far too many coins into Xevious myself.

Also worth noting, Bradford's National Media Museum has a room with some cabinets and sit-downs in for retro-gaming goodness, and still at the original 10p per game too. They have Defender too... I'll always try to find time to have a blast on that when I'm there.

Have Brits fallen for Netflix, or do they still LoveFilm?

groovyf

Re: LG TV

How old is your TV? Mine's a recent LG and have both LoveFilm and Netflix apps on there.

Are your landlines buried in the stone age?

groovyf

Agree with the cash cow comments. I'm a very low user... I make maybe one call a month, if that, on my landline, and I called up BT to ask about their low-user scheme only to be told it's only for those on certain benefits.

Damned annoying.

Google maps app is BACK on iPhones, fanbois spared death

groovyf

tomtom?

Rumours of Apple looking to buy TomTom. That would pretty much give Apple the "fix" that Apple Maps needs - simply replace it with a TomTom-based app.

2012: an epoch-defining year for home entertainment

groovyf
Stop

...depends...

Personally, I find Netflix on the Apple TV works like a charm. I've yet to see Netflix/Lovefilm, et all on a Smart TV though.

Lawrence 'Empire Strikes Back' Kasdan to pen future Star Wars script

groovyf
Coat

A New Hope?

Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7in Android tablet review

groovyf

Thumbs-up for Steve Hillage in your music collection.

Underdone iTunes put back in oven for another month

groovyf

Since either the last IOS 6 upgrade or iTunes update Home Sharing has completely stuffed up foreme (and many others) on both iPad and iPhone. When selecting the Shared library via the Music app, it sticks at a grey half-moon of death when loading the library. Sometimes it *might* work but you'll only see a small amount of albums, artists, songs. Sometimes it'll work but mostly not.

Thanks ever so much Java, for that biz-wide rootkit infection

groovyf

Disabling Java add-on in IE doesn't actually disable it...

Tested and verified on my own PC... went to Java's test site and it still detected and found it to be working even though it was disabled in IE's add-ons.

http://techlogon.com/2011/11/05/how-to-disable-java-in-ie/

Beck's open-source challenge to freetards: play it yourself!

groovyf

Re: Meh

Each to their own, of course.

Personally, I found his highlight was Sea Change, (as opposed to the hit and miss of his first two albums - and didn't latch onto anything else other than Sea Change).

Booth babes banned by Chinese gaming expo

groovyf

Watch the attendance figures dwindle...

Canon debuts EOS M compact system camera

groovyf

Warehouse Express have pre-order prices up: http://www.wexphotographic.com/search/?q=canon%20eos-m

£130 for the adapter alone...

YouView launches with pricey premium DVR

groovyf

As a happy, long-time user of a Toppy 5800 for the last 7 years, this unit may be the one that gets me to upgrade. Sure, the £300 price tag isn't cheap, but considering a Humax twin tuner HD 500GB PVR costs around £230 or so (according to a quick google), I don't think it's too much of a premium to pay.

Apple pulls in TomTom, kicks Google off iPhones

groovyf

TomTom iPhone/iPad app

If the new maps are using TT data and as they're also going to be turn-by-turn, I wonder how that'll affect the TomTom app for iDevices.

Carphone Warehouse touts cut-price iPads

groovyf

Apple Refurb Store

Pick up a refurb iPad2 16GB for £259 from the Apple Store. Bargain if an iPad 2 is what you're after.

US, Euro e-car makers back 'standard' AC/DC jack

groovyf

Re: Is it just me....?

I see the bottom part of the plug has taken its cue from Bender's face.

Page: