Posts by The Original Steve 667 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009
@Lglethal.
Thanks you for the reply. I genuinely didn't consider how the mid-terms impacted that side of thing and now you've mentioned it then I'm inclined to agree.
The house has a refreshed mandate due to the mid-terms and as you rightly say, they oppose The Donald's wall. So yep, I stand corrected, and the Democrats blocking it seems entirely democratic (and sensible too of course!).
Thanks again - Steve
Oh dear God no, please don't get me wrong - I'm in NO way at all endorsing or supporting the moron who sits in the Oval Office nor the ridiculous wall policy!
Forget the person, and forget the specific policy. All I'm trying to saying is that if the Executive in a democracy gets voted in after campaigning / about a certain policy, then is it not rather undemocratic for the House to block / prevent / refuse funding for the policy?
Let's say there's a general election June 2019. The Vulture Party have some insane policies and promises in their manifesto. One of the foundation / core / headline policies during campaigning was to build a wall between England and Scotland.
The election takes place, and The Vulture Party form a minority government propped up with the DUP.
Now, with The Vulture Party in power, they put their budget together and attempt to get it through Parliament. Now at this point, Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition vote against it and say they'll only vote for it if the PM removes the funding request for the mighty wall. (I know that my comparison falls apart here as in theory The Vulture Party should have a majority).
If party gets voted in based on a manifesto which has a policy about building a wall, then it doesn't seem very fair for the opposition party to block it. The executive has a strong mandate to implement the policy that came straight from the electorate.
But please, do not think for a moment that I support either Trump or his ridiculous policy!
Not being super clued up with the way my American cousins implement their particular flavour of democracy, I wanted to float an interpretation to see if I "get it"...
Is this essentially the same to us Brits voting some nutter into power (some party that is close to the far left / far right), and then when the nutter Government tries to pass the budget which has us spending £20bn on a wall the MP's don't let the budget pass? However spunking £20bn on a wall was in the party manifesto in which they campaigned on.
Is that re-interpretation of it into a UK version anywhere near accurate?
Trump is clearly deranged, and the wall "policy" (can you even call it that?) isn't going to work and is a huge white elephant. The fact Government employees getting paid is being used as bargaining chip is disgraceful.
(Now for the downvotes...), Saying that, if my understanding is right then surely Congress should allow the money for his ridiculous wall to be released as it was a campaign promise. Clearly Trump doesn't care if it's needed, effective or required - but I don't think it's right for House to prevent the President from implementing a policy that was a big campaign promise.
Think I'm right in saying that in UK that this doesn't really happen as our Executive should (in theory) have a majority (we don't do this silly mid-term thing) so it should pass the MP's, and the Lords always pass budgets and legislation for issues that were in the ruling parties manifesto.
Of course the sensible thing would be for Trump to just drop the whole wall thing entirely, but I would argue he does have a mandate for it being that he was voted in promising this wall.
(Getting out the bleach and brillo pads as I walk to the shower - I feel disgusting in defending Trump! No, actually I'm not defending him - he's a bellend - but I am defending that the POTUS should be able to implement his campaign promises without Congress blocking funds.
Still feel disgusting though!)
Regardless of your views on Brexit, Scottish independence or us joining originally (well, just after we joined the EC), when a Government writes to your house to say they will hold a referendum and will implement the result I would expect them to do so.
The electorate was explicitly told this was a once in a generation vote, and that the outcome will be implemented.
By refusing to do so then every other referendum in the past and the future would be void, the exercise pointless and trust entirely lost from the electorate.
The Government maybe making a dogs dinner of it, it maybe a huge mistake and people may have been misled, but attempting to saying AFTER the vote that it doesn't matter because you disagree is nothing if not undemocratic. The time for that argument was prior to the vote I'm afraid.
Whilst I'm technically a millennial (early 80's) I do love giving the younger generation a good bashing.
However, I am for once with them on this. If I want a curry, I'll be getting it from a curry house either via the pub or via an app.
I can cook. I can do a decent curry from scratch. But living alone means cooking as we know it is a rare treat I'm afraid. Given society I fear this is a growing trend.
Great article, and bloody marvelous to see Lester's name back on El Reg!
Can someone explain to an Infrastructure guy what the rules are with these kind of things please?
As a layman (for API's and development), it appears at first glance that this is entirely appropriate and fine behaviour from Logitech. They've been notified about a security hole in their product, and apparently one way of removing the vuln is to remove an API. The API isn't public and isn't documented. So presumably Logitech made changes internally so that their software which uses the private API no longer depends on it, and kills of the API.
Now a load of people are screaming because their "hacks" (applications, scripts etc.) which uses a private, undocumented API no longer works.
If the above statement are correct, then from an outsiders POV I don't see what Logitech have done that's so terribly wrong...
Is there some unwritten developer rule or code [of conduct] (pun half-intended) where API's don't get discontinued - even if they are private and undocumented - without a lot of notice to prevent these kinds of problems?
Thanks in advance
Worked in a crisp factory years ago as their Infrastructure guy.
The lab wanted a new microscope for QA which has an ethernet port and some "server" software to run on the client PC.
One unique requirement was that QA wanted the output text files - which were stored locally by default - to be sucked up by the ERP system.
Salesman assure the buyer that we can just SMB into it and pickup the file. He hinted that it was just Windows underneath too.
So I had a look about how to secure the SMB share or to see if I could have a script on it which uploaded the output file to our ERP inbound file share, and peeked under the hood.
It was running Windows 95, had no security at all and amazingly also had a telnet server running on it without any authentication at all.
This was in 2012, and the microscope cost many tens of thousands of pounds.
When QA said they were thinking of buying more of them I tried to raise objections, which obviously fell on deaf ears.
In the end I put them on their own VLAN and firewalled them off. Best I could do without "invalidating the warranty".
Same here - brought the Mate20 Pro at the weekend and my word it's impressive. Other than the hefty price tag it's hands down the best phone I've ever used. Now I've ditched the stock launcher (using Microsoft Launcher - it's actually really rather good) the rest of their flavour of Android seems more than acceptable to me.
If the PC's are the same quality, I'm very much interested.
I disagree.
After your review singing it's praises (other than price) I brought myself a Huawei Mate20 Pro on Saturday. My S8, whilst having lovely hardware, has been terrible on the software front (lag, freezes etc.). Due to shitty insurance (give to us for 3 weeks and we'll consider sending you a refurb) the screen cracks on the S8 were too much to take, so needed a decent phone "now", and the latest Huawei ticks every box other than SD card slot (NM instead) and 3.5mm socket.
And to be honest, now I've changed the launcher to Microsoft Launcher (I know, but it's really rather good) I can truthfully say that in fact I now prefer the Huawei UI to Samsung.
Early days, but my first look at a Chinese handset is a very positive one.
Thanks Andrew.
I have the LED cover on my S8 and love it. Although this is the second one I brought after the first just packed in working after 3 months (not uncommon so I've been told).
Will have a look at the Note 8. I forgot to mention that supporting Project Treble would be a big bonus too, just so I can ensure I don't get left behind should the hardware somehow last me more than a year or two!
Thanks again
I admit it, after 20 years in IT I'm now stumped. Maybe I just can't be arsed to spend hours researching any longer, but I've just entirely lost track with phones.
I love my S8 hardware, but the software is rather flaky, requiring a reboot once a week. But I can't stand Apple so soldiering on with Android is the best I can do.
More than happy to go with a Chinese brand like Huawei etc. I just need the ranges explained to me!
A 5" - 6" screen, QI charging, reasonable camera, waterproof, SD Card slot, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C fast charging, battery that can last a day and a decent screen. Fingerprint unlock under the glass is a nice to have, but can live with a normal fingerprint reader if necessary. Not a fan of the notch.
Budget is around £700 max, would prefer the £400 - £500 "mid range" if possible. (My last car cost me under a grand which lasted 9 months with no other maintenance costs. If you think I'm paying £1000 for a phone you can think again!)
Any suggestions from my peers?
I'd wager that Active Directory is one of the top multi-node database systems in use across the globe, and whilst I've seen issues in my two decades of experience it's been so incredibly rare compared to this type of SQL split brain I wouldn't count Microsoft out as being able to produce a DB which is top tier in terms of it's resilience during a disaster.
"Arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has defended his financial company starting new operations in Ireland because of Brexit."
The operation in question being a fund. Not an office, not employing staff, just an investment fund. I believe SCM also have similar funds in other EU countries as well as Asia and the US - like all large investment companies tend to do. JRM has said that the decision was taken before we even had a referendum, and is not because of Brexit.
Source: Live phone in on LBC's breakfast show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=httYzdk2lYo
Bollocks.
You're clearly willing to put up with uncensored (e.g. profanity) in textual form by reading this mighty website. The fact you are reading the comments even more demonstrates that you may not be as precious as you first make out.
Because you don't like hearing certain words doesn't mean people stop having the right to say them around you. Actually berating you with swearing is one thing, overhearing someone muttering a phrase you dislike is something else - and it does not justify infringing on their freedom to express.
Equally you are more than entitled to tell the co-worker to pipe down and tell them how much you disapprove, but actively censoring is fucking stupid.
As it was under his leadership (and continuing since, sadly) that I found myself unable to follow my heart and historical trend of voting for the Lib Dems, quite frankly I'm rather glad he's pissing off from the UK entirely.
And the values the Lib Dem's supposedly hold, yet he's working for FB.... says everything you need to know about modern politics (or just politics?), regardless of colour.
Um... Perhaps they should consider using "pockets" for things like your phone. See nearest man for reference.
At least that way not only can this segment of the population be alerted without noise to an incoming call, but they might be able to actually answer it before the caller hangs up!
And think of the time saved in not having to pull out what can only be described as a physics defying amount of "life's necessities" (or shit, depending on your POV) from said bag.
Just a thought. :p
The cost of these HCI "appliances" from Dell, HPE, Cisco and Nutanix are eye watering.
Plus complexities of a new interface and managment stack coupled with vendor lock in make it seem to me like a terrible idea.
X86 tin with a common as muck OS that has virtual SAN, SDN and VMs sounds like a much cheaper proposition to me. Not sure why ElReg keep banging on about HCI being appliance based. VMWare, Microsoft and the OSS community all have their own HCI take built into the tools we all know. Coupled with cheap and entirely compatible X86 tin and it's a no brainer to me.
When you said roll your own, I was hopeful of an article on how Windows Server 2016/2019 Storage Spaces Direct and Hyper-V on Supermicro tin (or Dell/HPE if you have 20% unused budget that needs spending) is a very compelling offering.
Made our own Nutanix style offering for our clients which scales well and is about 1/3 the cost of traditional HCI boxes from the big vendors.
I'm sure Linux has an equally good offering too.
Forget what you know about Windows 10 on the PC, I standby my view that Windows Phone / Mobile actually is really rather good for all by Millennials / those who want lots of 3rd party apps.
Not being one for Snapchat, Twitter, Starbuck, Uber and all that crap, I was more than happy with my £300 flagship 950XL so long as it had Outlook, Skype for Business and Barclays Mobile Banking.
Interface was clean, and it sipped the battery wonderfully. Camera is to this day one of the best you can find.
My mum now has it and I'll end up moving her onto this when her hardware packs in. (She loves the clean and easy to use interface too)
I left my permie role in August and didn't have something to go straight into, so seriously considered contracting and freelance.
After a lot of digging and research as well as getting offered a few public sector (NHS mainly) contracts I ruled it out PURELY due to the tax and IR35 ballache.
Nightmare
This was a new feature in SfB 2015. If you have Exchange integration too (pre-req sadly) then get your admin to run:
Set-CsClientPolicy -EnableServerConversationHistory $true
On your particular client policy. Seems to be solid across desktop and iOS, less so fluid on Android sadly.
"I find the DVLA driver license verification tool* effective and modern..."
Only if you know your "Government Gateway" ID and passwords. My brother tried to change the address on his driving licence last week
He gave up after countless attempts so came to his sibling with two decade of professional IT experience to do it for him. Involved a reset of his password, then we didn't know the randomly generated username which the government send him via the post 5 years ago, so had to then "re-register" countless times, before giving up and creating a new ID from scratch.
Took us over an hour.
That'll be the rape accusations that he was interviewed about in Sweden at the time, case was closed and they said he could leave the country. Then once in the UK it got reopened, he said he was happy to be interviewed by the Swedish police in the UK, and which the authorities dropped the investigation on back in May 2017.
He's a prize bell-end, and he shouldn't have skipped bail, but the now dropped rape charges sound like bollock.
Two things:
1. Rather than a VIN, maybe a number that could be generated via the ECU and presented in the dash / iDrive. Appreciate the Evil Valet can still do it, but it's harder than walking up to the car and reading the VIN from the dashboard (some cars even have the VIN on the windows!)
2. If there's a dedicated button that needs pressing to connect the car to the online services, why not just have it so that if you press and hold the same button for - I don't know, 10 seconds? - the car will disconnect from the service?
Doesn't prevent the issue if the new buyer isn't aware, but both would help and could be implemented via a software update.
I've found the difference to be marginal personally. Image and video search I find is far superior on Bing, WHILST Google is slight better at Web / text searching.
Working in a team of geeks, I actually opt for Bing just because everyone else uses Google. A little difference isn't a bad thing.
Certainly Bing isn't terrible, to the point if you changes the styling and branding I doubt the majority would even notice.
That's certainly NOT what the Exec Summary states.
The summary says that neither ZTE nor Huawei answered the committees answers adequately, which in their own words does not prove they are a risk / are doing anything wrong - but does not answer security related questions the US state has.
Report seems to suggest that they cannot be trusted, but that there is no proof - yet.
I'm a HPE ProCurve / Aruba man personally, however after needing a DCB supported 10G switch for a project and a budget of just £5k (one of my team failed to estimate the networking costs earlier in the project) I'm now buying my first Huawei kit. £6k for 2 x 10Gig SPF+ datacentre grade switches is a price worth paying compared to £13k for HPE. As the switches are not going to be internet facing I'm comfortable with that trade off.
May I respectfully suggest that requesting Class A, controlled medications should be left to Doctors rather than patients, particularly if you fail to read the warnings or understand that Fent is an opiate that's used to knock out Great Elephants. It's clearly labelled at every junction how addictive it is, as all opiates are.
Sounds very odd to me that one of the most powerful and addictive controlled drugs were prescribed on request. I take oxycodone regularly and if I walked into any GP and asked for it, morphine or Fent I would be kicked out of the surgery. After the doctors finished laughing. If I'm not in handcuffs.
For what it's worth, in my unscientific view it seems that developers opt for AWS (PaaS) whilst infrastructure geeks opt for Azure (IaaS and SaaS).
I'm the chief geek for a mid sized MSP (circa 90 clients).
MS have a "story" with hybrid (I hate myself for using that term), and can be so very easy to use for even a small thing like as a file share witness in a cluster (great if you have a single site), as well as a massive hook with Office 365 and licensing. Amazon have development nailed from what my dev department tells me. They tell me that Azure is about 85% feature comparable to AWS with them both being equally easy to use.
Literally heard nothing about Google Cloud or others outside of the odd SaaS service (Salesforce, one Oracle for a cloudy CRM etc).
Two horse race, and personally I think it shows the true value of healthy competition. We have at least two very, very good cloud providers to use that continuously try to keep up with each other. I'm no economist, but this looks and feels to me like a textbook example of free market capitalism at work.
All of that said, I still would rather have business critical infrastructure hosted in a date center we can access on tin that we own. I'm enormously proud that multiple HA Exchange and SfB environments I've designed and implemented over the past 3.5 years have 100% uptime which beats Office 365.
Have you used the insider preview of 1803? There's a boat load of additional controls added to let you turn off lots more of the slurp.
So as it goes, release on release, we can actually rudce the slurp - it's not increased.
But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant
I work for a MSP and for a large client about 3 yeard ago I put in place a 4 node Exchange DAG with a pair of load balancers across 2 sites. Not a minute of downtime since it went live.
Hearing they were moving to O365 about 6 months ago saddened me after putting in place a system which I was extremely proud of. (Had a site failure and users didn't even know).
Whilst I'm sure this won't change their plans, hearing today from them that they had email issues for the users they've migrated did at least put a smile on my face briefly...!
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