Posts by usbac

Re: Windows is no longer a necessity...

Unfortunately, this is not true. Not for most business users anyway. Believe me, I would love to live to see Windows rot and die, but there are too many proprietary Windows applications out there for this to happen for a while.

I have several CAD/CAM applications that aren't easily replaceable on Linux or the MAC. I wish they were (and, yes before suggesting "xyz woks on linux...", I have done extensive research looking for a suitable replacement).

In scientific fields, they use proprietary software for running various instruments, the same with medical fields. Engineering also uses tons of specialized Windows applications.

I'm the last person that wants to run Windows, but I can't make the switch yet, much to my complete disgust! Many others are in the same boat.

Re: all with no carbon emissions

I was just going to post the same thing. Where does the power to charge this thing come from? Magic?

I'm so sick of this "no carbon emissions" BS!!

Re: Hilarious!

"They have what they want, not necessarily what *you* want."

We live in a small rural town where Walmart is pretty much the only option for groceries. I've noticed the same thing. They mostly stock items that have the most margin, not the items you are looking for. Most of the time this means one of their poor quality brands. Some of their own-branded items are okay, but most are just dreadful.

About once a month, I drive to a city about an hour away to shop at better stores. We also buy a lot of groceries online now.

Walmart has been going downhill for a while now. I'm sure partnering with Microsoft will really "improve" things!!

Re: Pedant? moi?

The problem is that quality control for EVERYTHING is becoming a thing of the past. It doesn't matter if it's software, airliners, or journalism, nothing is being checked for quality anymore.

My first instinct was that it is a cost thing, but I think the public is just starting to accept poor quality everywhere now. The more accessible everything is, the lower the quality of the output.

Take for example video/film production. It used to be that it took a team of professionals with expensive equipment to make a film or to shoot a video. Now everyone has a Youtube channel with highly variable production quality (it seems that nobody can get their audio levels right).

Newspapers used to send trained photographers out with reporters to cover stories, now the reporters are told "to just use your phone". An f'ing phone! Not even a proper camera!

Publishing a book used to require a publisher and a professional editor. Now anyone can self-publish. Typos, bad grammar , and all.

The list could go on and on. The threshold for "good enough" is getting lower every day. It seems that British Leyland was just ahead of their time...

Re: A gross understatement?

I see a lot of people on other news sources throwing blame at Alaska Air's maintenance organization while somehow forgetting the this airplane was TWO MONTHS OLD. Are they just Boeing shills?

As for "The relevant authorities will no doubt be working at figuring out which of the above applies and sorting out the details.", it should read:

The relevant authorities will no doubt be working at brushing the whole thing under the rug while being pressured from a few "well paid" congressmen.

A couple of years ago I dusted off (quite literally) my old original Apple ][. I had a box of 5 1/4" floppies, including the original Apple DOS boot disk. It was dated 1979, and the computer booted just fine from it after a little drive cleaning. I had a couple of disks with software I wrote back in the day. I was hugely surprised at how well everything worked.

I sold the Apple ][ on eBay for silly money. I put it up as an auction item, and was surprised how high the bidding went. The person that bought it was very happy to get it, and I was happy to get good money for it. It had been sitting in my garage for over 20 years, so I clearly didn't have a need for it anymore. I had bought it at a country auction for peanuts back in the early 90's, just to see if any of my old Apple disks would still be readable.

I do still have my first computer. It was an Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P (about 1977). A 6502 with a whopping 4K of RAM. That will need to be pried out of my cold, dead hand. It has too much sentimental value. I did a lot of lawn mowing, yard clean up, and chores as a kid to earn the money to buy the C1P.

Re: What is old, is new again

I've made good money in the past from buying pallets of old IT junk from a local county auction, and selling parts of it on Ebay. I once bought a pallet with a brand new label printer, a couple of new print-heads, and a ton of label stock for $10. Got over $1000 for it. Another had a box of rare network cards (about 10-12), I got $400 each on Ebay. The buyers were very happy to find them.

All of these pallets were shrink-wrapped, and you have no idea what is in them. But, for $10-$20, it was usually worth the effort.

Or, when you get a piece of equipment where the entire color coding scheme was "Red"

At a previous job, I was always fighting having everything in our ERP system entered in all caps. When I addressed the issue with our customer service department (the department where this was a problem), I kept getting told that the system requires everything to be in all caps. I kept telling them "No! It absolutely does not". They kept doing it any way.

So, finally one evening I went around with some pliers and wire cutters, and removed all of the caps lock keys from their keyboards (wire cutters to make sure there wasn't any part of the key-switch sticking out that they can press on). There was a loud uproar the next day, with demands for new keyboards, and threats to "ruin" their keyboards, so that they would need to be replaced. I told them that any replacements will not have a caps lock key on them.

Re: Self destruct

There is a big difference however with SLS. Boeing has a blank check drawing on taxpayer's money. SpaceX does not.

With SLS going many billions over budget, and the money keeps flowing with no controls, if the public saw rockets blowing up routinely, there would be a lot of backlash. The fact that there isn't backlash at the cost overruns as they are, just shows the value of lobbying...

Re: RCA

Look up the Swiss Cheese model that is used in aviation safety.

I have read many NTSB air crash reports. Almost every accident occurs due to a number of often small events all lining up just at the wrong time. In most cases, several of these items happening at the same time would not have led to the accident, but just the right combination happened on that day, and people lost their lives.

Re: multiple generator failures

I've never understood this. Companies are quick to point out that they "exercise" their generators once a week. They test them by idling them for a few minutes, and then shut them down.

I would ask: When was the last time you ran them at 80% load for a solid week, at a hot time of the year? How about in subzero temperatures?

Many years ago I was shopping for a mid-sized diesel generator for agricultural use. I visited a company in a nearby state that sold and repaired generators. They took me out to the back of the building and showed me their load testing setup. It was a large, two-story metal cage with a whole bunch of very big resistors. They could load test up to 500KW continuously. They told me that once they repaired a generator, they would run it at 100% load for 24 hours before they would release it.

At my previous job, I supported a bunch of barcode scanners that ran WinCE. I also did .NET development for them. As you said, it was great being able to write in .NET, and run it on the scanners in the warehouse.

I wrote several custom apps for our warehouse crew. We had Wi-Fi running on the scanners, and they talked to a SQL database on one of the servers.

At one point we bought a new Android based scanner to test, but incorporating it into a very MS-centeric infrastructure was not going to be easy.

Re: iMacs...

Years ago, (mid 90's) I was the service manager for a computer store. We serviced both PCs and Macs.

One day we had a very good customer of ours bring in his Mac. He was having problems with the electronic eject on his 3.5" floppy drive. I was never a big fan of the whole electronic eject concept, not to mention the whole "drag the floppy to the trash can icon" to eject the disk being the stupidest UI decision I've ever seen.

So, I took his Mac into the back room. I popped a key-cap off of an old, dead keyboard, straightened out a piece of a heavy duty paperclip, mixed up some five-minute epoxy, and glued the paperclip wire into the key-cap. I then crossed out the letter on the key-cap with a pen, and wrote "Eject" below it. I stuck this whole thing into the tiny manual eject hole on the 3.5" drive, and took it back out to the customer.

This was a customer that I knew very well, and I knew he had a good sense of humor, otherwise I would never have pulled a stunt like this. This eject problem had been an intermittent issue for a while, and was annoying the heck out of him. When I handed him back his Mac, he looked at it, and started laughing. At this point I told him that I was just messing around, and that I would order him a new drive unit, and I would call him when it came in. He said: "No, this will work just fine. how much do I owe you for the repair" I told him "No charge."

He brought the Mac in almost a year later for another unrelated problem, and it still had my "Eject" button on it.

Re: first time I saw MS Windows

Back in the late 80's and through the 90's I used to do a lot of IT work for law offices. They were pretty much standardized on WordPerfect (for DOS mostly). I did see IBM's Display Write for DOS a few places, but I never saw MS Word in use by the legal profession in those days.

Re: About Bloody Time

It's too near the source of the reality distortion field...

Re: A quick question

A couple of years ago, at my previous employer, our customer service manager called me to com look at a problem she was having with some software. She shows me the problem in this software, and I ask bluntly "what the heck is this?". I was about to give her some grief over running unknown/unsupported software on our company network when she told me "you should know, you wrote it".

For the life of me, I didn't remember writing it. I went back to my office, and started looking through a folder with a bunch of really old projects, and sure enough, I found the source code for it. I didn't recognize it at all, even after looking through all of the source.

Re: Excel for dodgy databases

The big problem I had at my previous employer was all the company execs thinking it was a serious tool. They were using it for things like financial reporting, business forecasting, and product life cycle management. There was no stopping them. You would have to pry that piece of crap out of their cold, dead hands.

Our CFO at one point had an Access database that ran major financial functions. This thing had four macros that each ran 30+ queries, and another macro that ran the four macros. Guess who was often tasked with debugging that nightmare?

I kept threatening to disable the execution of Access through group policy.

Re: Is that it?

The thing is, their "customers" are the banks and other lenders. It's not their customers data that they lost. It's the data on all of us that we have no choice but to give to them if we are going to have a bank account, credit card, car loan, or utilities at our homes.

If we had an actual working government or court system, they would have been sued or regulated out of existence for this.

Re: It is sad it is taking such a massive case

I've always thought the presidential election should be a national lottery.

It could be televised nationally with all of the class and dignity of a typical game-show. Spend almost an hour on mindless nonsense leading up to the actual announcement. The cheesy polyester clad host is handed an envelope: "The next president of the United States is... Jim-Bob Smith from Sheeps Dick, Oklahoma...". Followed by a live broadcast of a film crew showing up at Jim-Bob's mobile home...

It couldn't be any worse than the human garbage we have been electing for the past 40 years or so!

The older Dell laptops were great. At least Dell makes the service manuals available online. And, for Dell stuff (servers to laptops), parts are plentiful on places like Ebay.

My main workhorse PC that gets about 90% of my computer use outside of work is an older Dell latitude. It was given to me because it would not power on. I bought a replacement motherboard on Ebay for $40, and it's worked great for many years now. It was a LOT of work to change, however.

Re: learning experience via cat

Years ago I worked for a company where in our internal audit group we had one of the worst human beings I've ever worked with. This woman was a total c**t. When a support ticket would come in for her, we would literally draw straws to see who had to go.

I was working out the last couple of days of my notice period, when a ticket came in from her. I stood up and said "I've got this one". My two co-workers looked at each other dumbfounded. They of course followed me as I went to take care of the problem.

It turned out that she had hit the famous hot-key sequence for the Intel display driver, and flipped the picture upside-down. She had this enormous 25 inch CRT monitor (she threw one of her usual fits some time before, and demanded a huge monitor - total c**t, remember). The thing must have weighed about 60 lbs.

I walked over calmly, picked up the monitor, flipped it upside down, and not very softly plonked it down on her desk. I then walked out of her office without saying a word to her.

When we got to the hallway, my two co-workers burst into hysterical laughter. We could hear her shouting from all to way down the hall.

Re: It's a good question

I keep wondering that myself. If the AV was driven by a human driver, would the driver have been able to see the that the hit and run was about to happen, and brake sooner?

I use Vivaldi as my backup browser when Firefox has problems with a site. I don't even have Chrome installed, since I don't trust it.

Re: Something, Something, Security!

Getting closer? I thought we are already there...

Re: Similarity to "BMW's pay-as-you-toast subscription failure" article in The Register?

Same thing at my previous employer. We were leasing a non-VOIP phone system for just under $2000 per month. Add to that, we had several PRI's coming into that system.

I set up a new VOIP system based on asterisk. We purchased our phones outright (Grandstream - big mistake buying Grandstream). For an initial outlay of about $4500, we had our new system. Our monthly usage costs went from about $2300 to $150. So, all of this combined, we paid for the new system in one month's time. That's one hell of an ROI.

The previous phone system provider, and our former service providers were not very happy, but they couldn't come close. They thought we would be running back to them, they even told us so. Three years later, everyone still liked the new system much better. The cost savings were huge!

Re: How to survive a "ground fault"...

I learned why they make these special high-voltage test leads when I once (and only once) tried to use a regular test lead to measure the CRT cathode voltage! It was an old CRT O-scope, and I was about 13 at the time...

Re: connected services as a strategic imperative and a driver of future revenue

Except, 12V power in an ICE car is not exactly "free". The more electrical load on the system, the more torque the alternator needs to turn. In many (mostly older) cars you can see a small drop in idle speed when you turn on the headlights. These days, the electronic throttle controls compensate for that kind of stuff.

Re: $cientology $nakeoil?

I was just going to add that, if I were dragged aboard an alien spacecraft, I'm sure my Electrodermal activity would change.

Re: Outlook...

Yeah, same here. I had a boss (VP of IT) that filed all of his important emails in the delete items folder. That is until I enabled to policy to empty it every night!

The guy was a total dufus (English degree, no IT knowledge or skills). Hi qualification for the job was going to collage with the CEO.

Re: Wait, their milkshake maker works like an HP printer ?

This is what happens when you shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.

Since we in the western world can't manufacture anything anymore (no skills, no one willing to work for $2.25 a day, etc.), everything is now based on how to make money screwing the customer for as long as possible. Building junk that breaks, and thus requiring lots of service, is the new model. Stuff just needs to work long enough to get through the warranty period.

Re: "Correct question"......an update.....

I know I'm going to get down-voted for saying this, but most of our information security problems come from poorly trained (and lazy) developers. As Mike 137 above says, databases can be much better secured if the developers take the time, and have the training to do it.

The problem is that we have armies of "developers" out there that do not understand security at all, or care really. It's easy for an unskilled developer to string together a few frameworks, past in some code from Stack Overflow, and build a website for someone. The result will be a security nightmare.

I think we should entertain the idea of licensing developers like we do with civil engineers. You need a license to design a bridge or a tall building. As a professional engineer, your license and reputation depends on the safety of the structure you are designing. With so much of our daily lives (and in some cases safety) depending on software now, why aren't the people building it licensed?

As I understand it, in engineering, it's common for non-licensed engineers to do a lot of the design work, but the whole project has to be reviewed and signed-off by a licensed engineer. Maybe that is where we should start with software?

Re: You might be better putting the money elsewhere

At our current rate of inflation, $1,919,188 will just about buy you a cup of coffee 100 years from now...

Re: bizarre state of affairs

We do the same thing. The only issue for us is that there isn't really a local place to buy them. We live in a fairly remote small town.

I buy used DVDs from Amazon (or eBay) sometimes, but everyone gets you with the $3.99 or $4.99 shipping. The actual media mail shipment costs them about $1.30, so sellers are making up with additional profit on the shipping. Box sets are a better deal when it comes to shipping.

We used the Netflix DVD by mail service until just recently. I won't pay for streaming, especially now with so much fragmentation. I refuse to subscribe to 4 or 5 different services.

Re: Well...

"Are they streaming video to a dark room full of preteens trying to score 1000 points for hitting a pedestrian? (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105629/)"

Not yet. Wait until some teenage hackers get into one of these companies systems...

Re: I'll assume this was America

I can assure you that in most (all ?) states, docking someone's pay like this is illegal. The problem is whether you will have a job after you raise a fuss.

Many years ago I had a situation where an employer tried to dock my pay, and I ended up filing a complaint with the state labor commission. They actually acted fairly quickly, and I got a phone call from my employer saying that the would be sending me a check right away.

Granted, I was already leaving the company anyway. Would I have files the complaint if I intended to keep working there, maybe? That is how companies get away with this kind of stuff, regardless of what the law says.

Re: I ditched HP printers

Even Netgear's higher end managed switches need an online account to be able to configure them. I bought a new 48 port managed switch a while back, and when I found out that it needed an online account to be able to login, it went right back in the box. On a corporate network, I don't think so!!

The problem is that their newer firmware is causing their older switches to require an online account. I made that mistake at one point, and had to junk a perfectly good switch after a firmware update. Netgear products are on my permanent ban list now.

Re: Like what happened Adblock plus on Firefox (I think that's what it was called)

The white list being on by default is plenty for me to drop it like radioactive waste. It shows that the author has the "selling out" mindset. It won't be long until you can't turn it off...

Re: I have had power steering fail in an ICE car

Growing up, my first three cars didn't even have power steering. Two of them didn't have power brakes either.

Back then I took a job where I had to occasionally drive the company van somewhere. It had both power steering and power brakes. People would not ride with me in the van because I was giving them whiplash when I applied the brakes and I would steer too sharply.

The first vehicle I ever drove (and started learning to drive on) was a large diesel tractor. It had no power steering or power brakes either. I remember being about 13 at the time, and having to stand on the stiff clutch pedal with both feet to be able to shift the thing. It also had separate brake pedals for each back wheel.

Re: Variation

I still have a few BASIC programs in a box somewhere on paper tape from an ASR33. That was how we stored or "local" backups for programs we wrote on the CDC mainframe.

It's funny to think just last week we were discussing vendors for backing up our cloud data. The need for local backups never changes.

All of this "cloud" nonsense has just taken us back to the 70's...

I'm sorry, but I expected something better from the Reg. This give up, and get over it attitude is why we have very little privacy. The register is the last place I would have expected such bullshit to be spewed. The Register is becoming just another bland tech news site. The Americanization of The Register is not doing it any favors (and I say this as an American).

The fact is, opt-out telemetry is NOT acceptable in any software from any vendor, at any time, and especially from open source.

If developers think they must have it, they need to look into another line of work. We had computers and software that worked (in most cases much better than it does now) for four decades before there was any mechanism to relay telemetry back to the developers.