it’s a shame SME procurement still hasn’t been fixed
SMEs don't pay big enough bribes.
Posts by dogged
4790 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2009
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UK.gov tempts SMEs with tasty framework, then slaps them in face
NERDS KICK PUPPY 'bot in brutal attack
Why 1.6 million people will miss Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 date with fate
Tuesday 10th February 2015 12:22 GMT
> Not to mention an order of magnitude fewer security holes in the last 14 years in Microsoft SQL too...
That has nothing (or very little) to do with the actual software. MySql is free and given away like breakfast cereal toys wtih every damn webhosting package in the world. What that means is that it's configured by people who should not be allowed to operate an electric typewriter let alone set up a secure database and so what they set up was an unholy mess in about 80% of cases.
The requirement to actually pay for SQL Server means you get less (not none, but considerably less) incompetents building 'net-facing systems.
You know, you really need to stop trotting out MS's recent security record. It's not a competition, regardless of what any of Bob Vistakin's AC accounts claim. Everyone tries hard on security. Everyone is continually patching. Nobody is perfect.
I dunno about you but I'm not a salesman so I don't really understand this urge to say one OS or manufacturer is somehow "better" than another.
EE 'best' of the UK mobile network bunch, but how good is that?
Russian revolution: YotaPhone 2 double-screen JANUS MOBE
Received surprise new Redmond licenses? You might be pwned
hive mind informs climate change believers and sceptics
Satya Nadella, Year One: Has Microsoft's new CEO cut the mustard?
Thursday 5th February 2015 11:59 GMT
One quibble
On "Open Source .NET" you wrote -
> Chalk this one up to long-term strategizing from Microsoft's developer tools team.
which was a part of the Server and Tools division which in Ballmer's day was headed by, er, Satya Nadella....
Whether it was his idea we can't know and I find unlikely - the more likely suspect on this one is Scott Guthrie. But it would have been Nadella's call, just as it was Nadella's call on becoming CEO to, er, immediately promote Scott Guthrie.
Capita lands spot on mega £5bn NHS commissioning deal
Crap mobile coverage costs UK biz £30m a week, reckons survey
Basic minimum income is a BRILLIANT idea. Small problem: it doesn't work as planned
Monday 9th February 2015 16:08 GMT
Re: Inheritance conumdrum
> *except what they generously contribute as excise on booze and fags
Harsh. They also pay VAT on a lot of other things. They pay the same amount of VAT on clothes because they have to - try walking about without any clothes on and see how how much of a "non-essential luxury" that tax is levied on.
They pay VAT on women's sanitary products - rich women are unlikely to have more periods so that's just as regressive.
They pay VAT (twice!) and Green-based excise duty on fuel so that they can get to their shitty low-paid jobs and be sneered at by people who live closer and ride super-expensive tax-free bikes. They might also pay VAT on car parking in order to stay in their shitty low-paid jobs because they can't afford to live near where they work.
The system is rigged and you can sneer about booze and fags all you like but as long as the new lycra-clad middle classes keep on claiming their pensions and draining the NHS for thirty years past retirement, the problem is not the poor.
Sunday 8th February 2015 20:48 GMT
Re: Does it matter?
> If the cost to the taxpayer is reduced overall through the massive simplification of the system
But is it? This is what I've been asking various Greens of my acquaintance. They've costed their proposals at at about £265 billion and their proposals _require_ that you keep the state infrastructure for such things as housing benefit because £75/week in our current housing rent bubble is instant eviction.
Apparently (they tell me) the DWP costs 1.5 times the cost of JobSeeker's Allowance in maintenance/admin and this means scrapping it will release that money. But if we have 2 million unemployed then freeing up that money will only pay 5million. Then they talk about how much they'll raise by abolishing the tax-free allowance but even that's still subject to NI and will, naturally, cost a collection overhead. In any case, I never got straight answer as to where the money would come from.
The problem with the Greens is their insistence on Magic-based economics in which a deliberate permanent recession somehow raises more money and increases living standards. Sorry. I don't believe in it.
Linux 3.19 released for your computing pleasure
Start stockpiling tinned beans and ammo: This malware will end civilisation
Ubuntu smartphone to go on sale: It'll be harder to get than a new iPhone
GRUNTY CHIMPS 'blend in among locals' after moving to Scotland
You gotta keep a smart watch on the Swiss, Apple: Enter SWATCH
Friday 6th February 2015 13:45 GMT
Re: Commoditisation
the single most compelling app for a watch is, er telling the time. There is literally nothing else that even comes close. I have a hard time believing that "developers will create compelling apps" that could possibly add so much value that that Swatch won't still be comparable and cheaper.
Friday 6th February 2015 09:07 GMT
Commoditisation
Forget Apple (in the smartwatch market). They're charging too much for what is essentially a remote control for your phone and needs to be charged just as much as the phone does*. Even those iPhone owners who only bought it for the bling aspect are unlikely to cough up for this without a much better use case.
Swatch do watches. "Everyman" watches. Low margin, bulk sale watches. Swatch are promising no recharging and, for a change, they can probably deliver. To take a flawed car analogy, this is a similar situation to Google announcing that a self-driving car that looks like an albino minion from Despicable Me will be along in a year's time and then nine months later VW saying they've got one that looks like a Golf and doesn't need servicing.
* far eastern market provisionally excepted. The ability to draw characters on screen might be huge over there. No way to tell yet.
'Privacy is DAMAGING to PROGRESS' says Irish big data whitepaper
Net neutrality: Someone WILL sue. So will the FCC's rules hold up?
Internet lobs $$$s at dev of crucial GPG tool after he runs short of cash
Big Data, empty bellies: How supermarkets tweak prices just for the sake of YOUR LOVE
Friday 6th February 2015 08:51 GMT
Re: What?
> You live in the city and you didn't convert your building's flat roof in to a food plot to help with the environment?
No, I live in a little village which is bad for broadband but great for my little boy learning about how food works and what lives and dies. Not as effective as the farmer's boy childhood I had but it lacks the poverty aspect so on balance it might be better.
I can't get skinny jeans past my calves and I do not have a beard or need glasses so I fail at "hipster".
(Upvoted for amusement value anyway)
Thursday 5th February 2015 11:51 GMT
The bag packing threw me to start with.
Then my missus explained it to me. You go to the till, put all your stuff on the conveyor, it gets run through, you put it straight back in the trolley. Once you've paid, you go to those big-ass window-sills they have and pack your stuff into bags there. Apparently it's to speed up the tills and it works.
As for the rest you can everything pretty much delivered which is handy with the whole wheelchair thing.
Veg - http://www.abelandcole.co.uk/
Milk/Dairy/Eggs - http://www.findmeamilkman.net/
Meat - http://www.meatpacks.co.uk/
Groceries - http://www.milkandmore.co.uk/home (but support your local milkman! just get groceries!)
I should note that I am not affiliated with any of these companies and don't even use any of their services - we used to get a veg box from Abel and Cole but decided to support the farm shop instead - and this is just stuff I found in 2 minutes' browsing. It may not all be great but anyone can do it.
Anyone can stop feeding the gaping maw of the supermarkets and enabling them to bankrupt their suppliers.
It's up to you.
Thursday 5th February 2015 11:04 GMT
fuck 'em all. We've been avoiding the big supermarkets entirely.
Fresh produce - farm shop.
Fruit - street market
Meat - local butcher
Preserved meats, snacks, canned goods, cleaning products - Lidl
Nappies - Amazon.
To be honest I'm not keen on Amazon but they sell job-lots of nappies very cheaply and deliver for free.
Microsoft's Nadella: Congratulations on 12 months of not being Steve Ballmer
US anti-backdoor bill: If at first you're shot down in flames – try, try again
Thursday 5th February 2015 16:10 GMT
Re: Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Yep. Quoth wikipedia -
Sensenbrenner introduced the USA PATRIOT Act to the House on October 23, 2001. Although the primary author was Assistant Attorney General of the United States Viet Dinh, Sensenbrenner has been recognized as "one of the architects of the Patriot Act"
So he's trying to undo some of the damage he did?
CHAINSAW HORROR advert earns GiffGaff a slap from regulator
BT coughs £12.5 billion for EE as fourplay frolics pay off
'Tech' City hasn't got proper broadband and it's like BT doesn't CARE
Behold: The touchy-feely future of Office on Windows 10 fondleslabs
Thursday 5th February 2015 09:56 GMT
> There are many more options, for iPad especially, because they can have bluetooth keyboards and keyboard/covers. These are also less restrictive, Surface keyboards must be connected in landscape while bluetooth allows portrait mode or disconnected use: eg tablet on aircraft table and keyboard on lap.
Because none of the Surfaces have Bluetooth or can connect to a wireless keyboard except for all of them.
Twin Adam Sandlers shake El Reg's movie unwatchablathon team
Microsoft takes lid off .Net Common Language Runtime sauce
Wednesday 4th February 2015 16:10 GMT
Re: Copying Java 15 years too late
oh yes, I forgot that MS are a branch of the NSA and that obviously all software released under the GPL is so virtuous and holy that the NSA cannot approach it without shrivelling up like a vampire in the sunlight, BEGONE IN THE NAMES OF LINUS, AND STALLMAN AND ESR I COMMAND YOU
Yeah. Totally.
i think we found another donkey.
of course, if it worries you, it's on GitHub using the MIT license (RTFA) so you can go look for yourself.
Google boffins PROVE security warnings don't ... LOOK! A funny cat!
Spent the weekend watching Game of Thrones? You're a FAT LONELY SADDO
Wednesday 4th February 2015 13:24 GMT
@jake - Re: Hey, ElReg
I missed your post, I guess it was disapproving or something, I dunno.
I think most honest parents would agree that toddlers are capable of being little shits for days at a time. Doesn't mean we don't love them. I love mine. I don't think his mother's cat loves him though.
Get internet access to those POOR country bumpkins, says UK.gov
Wednesday 4th February 2015 12:53 GMT
> You can get tax credits if you're self employed. The reason they don't is because despite their protestations of poverty, as they're buying yet another new BMW on the orders of their accountant, is that they earn too much to qualify for them.
Okay, that was just being an arsehole and you know it.
Yes, you can get tax credits if you're self employed. However, in asset-based professions such as farming your income is averaged based on theoretical sales value of saleable assets - such as your cattle that you're feeding up for beef or the crop you've planted. Because you could sell them. Except that if you do sell them before they are ready or before the crop grows or before the milk-yield is calculated, you are now unemployed. So you don't.
That's also the reason that way back when there were student grants, I didn't get one. Theoretical worth.
I have never seen a tenant farmer with a BMW. Or even a Land Rover that was less than ten years old.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
