Posts by Boothy

Re: Another reason private PC sales are flatlining

Even with multithreaded tasks, quite a few of Intel's CPUs now underclock with all cores in use, so you can't simply assume your going to get a full speed CPU at 100% with all cores running. Especially on the more budget Intel CPUs.

This guy on Youtube has a quite well done video on the topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O98qP-FsIWo

He also covers quite a few related things, such as latest AMD vs Intel, price vs performance of GFX cards, the impact of crypto mining etc. He seems to spend a long time doing the work as well. Worth checking the channel out if you are into that sort of stuff.

Did you actually read the article you linked to? No mention at all of shortening anyone's life, let alone by twice as much as previously thought.

All they've said is they think there is ... a two-fold or more increase in cancer risk compared to the conventional risk model for a Mars. Key word here being risk.

So that's an existing small risk that's been increased. Even two times small, is still small!

Re: Glastonbury have one answer

You could do something similar with electronic tickets (I've not seen a paper/card ticket for any venues I've been to for quite a few years now).

i.e. send your profile pic in on ordering, and it's bound against the ticket.

When you are scanned in at the venue (often a mobile app these days), your profile pic pops up on the screen of the scanning device and they can see if it's you.

Does mean the venues need up to date scanners though!

Went to Sheffield arena a few months back, and their scanners were old school red laser handhelds (like in a shop check-out), that could only read tickets if they were printed out on paper (they can't scan a phone screen)! Kind of defeats one of the point in having electronic tickets :-/

The outside siren box also alerts neighbours (something an internal siren is unlikely to do unless very very loud) and acts as a visible deterrent. Granted in won't stop everyone, but all it needs to do is make one would be burglar go, 'hmm, I'll try next door', and its done its job.

Re: Stable Door Bolt Etc.

I've also used uBlock Origin to block the ad-blocker blocker.

I've had a few sites that have done large, or full screen overlays over the entire article, complaining that I'm using an adblocker. (This on sites with annoying ads). So I just used the pipette tool in uBlock Origin to select the warning, and hey presto, the article is back :-)

I forget how bad the web looks these days for people who don't use ad blockers:-/

Re: That farmer...

Many moons ago (mid 90s) I worked for a company that provided data conversion services, for getting things like bulk extracts of customer data (postal addresses etc) out of existing platforms, and imported into new ones. (Such as when moving from one customer management system to another).

One of my old managers had a standard letter, that was sent to new clients, providing details of this customer data migration services. With various options of how to get the data to us, both format and medium.

This included things like kermit, zmodem and FTP over dial-up, plus floppy disks, CDs, or hard-drives via courier etc.

Against each data transfer option, he listed max speed, and latency.

So for example, modems would be something like 56 kbit/s and 150ms.

He listed floppy disks, CDs and HDs down as effectively limitless bandwidth, but a latency of several days! :-)

Re: Just a thought

Depends if they are all active/enabled, as Windows (like any OS) will use as many cores as it can.

An idle OS, with no apps running will likely have 100+ separate processes running at any one time (drivers, services etc). Each of these will run on any available CPU core.

Many modern heavy duty apps, now assume multiple cores are available, and so will try to max out all of them if they can, (especially encoding/compression type apps that are easy multithread).

Good, I was worried a Daily Mail reader had inadvertently found the Reg. :-)

Re: IoT?

Sky broadband (UK) also don't allow changing of the DNS settings within their routers, it's hard coded to their own DNS servers.

Last time I checked, Sky had ~25% of the UK market, with only BT (including EE and plusnet) being bigger.

Re: I'm pleased with my 5.

Still happy with my 3, does what I want/need, doesn't do things I don't want, and still lasts 2-3 days on a single charge.

No plan on replacing anytime soon, as what would be the point? (I'm not a 'look at my new shiny shiny' game player, and really couldn't give two hoots about what other people think of the phone I use).

Re: Link ATM?

My favourite level is the one that repeats a question already answered.

For example...

1. Services offered: Balance check, Cash with Balance check, Cash without balance check...(other services).

2. Select 'Cash without balance check', as I already know how much I have in the Bank.

3. Next screen: 'Would you like to check your balance? yes/no'.

4. Erm, is this a trick question? As I already told you I don't want a balance check!

5. Select 'no', can now enter cash amount and continue.

The designers of the UI really ought to get a basic handle on good interface design practices, i.e. don't ask the same question more than once, (except when it's something you can't recover from, like deleting an account for example, 'Are you really sure?').

Re: Google really is your friend for this kind of stuff

Quote: "Answer, stop engine, then press start/stop 5 times, then get out and lock with remote - simples........Not."

That's bonkers (assuming true ;-) ), all I need to do with mine is tap the fobs lock button a 2nd time quickly, one click, lock, 2nd click alarm disabled.

Re: Already turned off on my One+3

Same here, just checked, also off, also no memory of doing this myself. Also a One+3

Re: I'm one of the 6.1%

<pedant> I assume you mean 8 Mbps, not actually 8mps?</pedant>

If so then you have way more than enough even for iPlayer HD content, let alone SD.

SD in iPlayer is 1.5 Mbps, it maxes out at 2.8 Mbps for their HD content

Your issue seems to be either a local problem (like poor wifi), or an over subscribed ISP, rather than actual bandwidth per se.

Re: Reasons to be cheerful

Are you a MS Insider, and asked for the update specifically?

If not, then as mentioned in the article, it's not out yet.

Re: 2009 ?????

I've had similar with emails with + chars in them (essentially an alias).

Create a new account, + is fine, log in, no issue, then get to some internal settings page that includes the email, and it refuses to accept the +! So edit the + out, save settings, then go to the main admin page and change the email back again, as that page is fine with the +!

Promptly followed by two emails arriving asking me if it was me that changed the address!

Quite: "Honest question here. Why would I need to download a driver for a USB device?".

Basically USB provides connectivity to the device, but doesn't necessarily provide the driver to actually use it.

Many USB devices, such as keyboards, mice, data drives etc. Follow a USB standard, defined for that device type (the 'class'). For example keyboards and mice should be using the USB HID class (Human Interface Device).

The idea being you plug any keyboard or mouse in (and other devices) and USB, and so the OS, knowns how to work with it automatically. A driver is still used, it's just that it's included as standard with the OS, and so is basically transparent to the user. (It's also why you can plug USB keyboards into devices like an XBox One, smart TVs, Sky box etc. and they actually work).

But for rare devices, not covered by a specific class (recent examples being VR headsets for example), as mentioned in the article, they may not be covered by one of the standard USB device classes, and so need a specific driver to be installed to be used (the computer knows a USB device has been plugged in, but not how to use, or at least not properly, it till the driver is installed).

In the early days of USB, many USB device needed it's own driver, these days it should be fairly uncommon to need to install a separate driver..

See here for a list of the standard USB classes:( I know, wiki!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Device_classes

Re: Versatility

Including presumably the legal maximum speed for a HGV, which certainly isn't 55.9mpg on a single carriageway in the UK (It's 50 in England and Wales, 40 in Scotland).

Re: Glass half-full interpretation

I had a quick look, and this looks more like improving granularity in permissions.

In that answering the phone, and reading phone numbers, can already be done by applications. So this isn't adding something that couldn't previously be done.

The new permissions, as far as I can see after a quick bit of looking around, are around creating a specific permission for that specific function (and some improvements to related APIs), rather than giving blanket access to the phone.

Although of course this does need developers to update their apps to use the new permissions.

Part of the issue here is that the data still needs to be useful.

Remove too much information, and it's no longer of use.

That anonymous data could potentially be cross-checked with other data sources, and you can then de-anonymise it, despite no directly identifiable information being left in the original data.

For example it might be work absence data, just containing dates and a reason for the absence (holidays, sick etc), and no other details. With the company using the data to predict things like cover requirements (like getting temps in over summer etc).

But someone with access to their time management system, could correlate the dates in the anonymous data, against absence dates in the time management system, and de-anonymise it again.

I think it's this type of scenario that the new law is trying to block.

Still need good laws on the creation of the data in the first place of course :-)

Re: Symantics

Also a lot of corporate machines around still with Win 7 desktop on.

Gone (for the most part) is the automatic replace/refresh after ~3 years, to a replace/refresh when it breaks.

If your 3+ year old laptop still works, good chance it's still on Win 7.

I also guess a lot of people who'd like an updated corp laptop, are holding out on a refresh, as they don't want to loose their Win 7, and end up being put on 8 or 10!

Oneplus 3 here (original version, not the updated one), and I get OTA updates every few weeks.

Current Android version is at 7.1.1, at a security patch level May 2017. It's rarely more than a month behind Google themselves.

Any other manufactures better than that? I'm genuinely interested to know?

It doesn't help that the popup is over keen as well, turning up a few seconds after boot up, warning that the AV client is out of date, this before the AV client has even managed to check online for updates (which it completed a few seconds later)!

Re: PC World still exists?

@Aladdin.

Thanks for the link, it's worth a read of the page if only for a laugh!

Some highlights: (bear in mind this is an RJ45 Ethernet cable!)

Quote:

What do these people smoke!?

Part of the content issue is time.

It takes 3+ years to produce a AAA title, plus a lot of the big risk averse studios, want a bigger market before diving in, so you end up in a catch 22 situation of people don't buy VR, as there is nothing of interest, and studios not producing, as there isn't enough user base.

Things should start to change over the next 6 months or so, as some of the larger games start to come out (i.e. more than the 4 hours long, and are not just basically the $5 tech demos you have now (other than ED)).

Fallout 4 VR should be an interesting test of the waters, a full AAA tittle in VR.

I would also suspect moving forwards, that a new non VR 3D game will be easier to convert to VR, as long as it has been designed appropriately from the beginning (i.e not used 2D overlays for weather effects, or weapon selection menus etc, which are common issues with porting many existing games).

If it's all already fully rendered in 3D, with a bit of forethought, then less effort (and so less cost) to make it VR friendly.

There's no real reason why the next CoD/Battlefield type game couldn't be VR ready with only minimal effort, if planned in from the begging. (All mainstream game engines, as used by almost all AAA titles, have VR built in now, and have done for some time).

Doesn't fix the other issues though, although as someone else already mentioned elsewhere in the comments, about 25% of existing Steam users already own a VR capable machine, and about 25% more only need a better GFX card, and for entry level VR, that's about $200. Meaning about 50% or so off the current PC gaming userbase, is either already VR ready, or not too far off.

We just need to content!

Why would ARM be a direct threat to Intel?

ARM don't produce chips themselves, and Intel are licensed to manufacture ARM based chips already.

Even if ARM do take off in the server and/or desktop space, it could well still have an Intel badge on it, and you can bet the budget holders when given the choice of purchasing and 'Intel ARM' chip, or some other brand, would likely stick with Intel simply as they already have an existing relationship with them for their existing x86 estate.

The one thing it could bring is some better competition, but even then, Intel probably have the most advance FABs around. So could likely produce some decent chips, if they put the same effort into ARM as they do currently with x86.

Re: How do you abort the update?

@Steve

The last personal Laptop I bought was a Acer, back when Win 7 was still newly out. (So 2009, maybe early 2010).

Acer released a grand total of one, yes just one update for it, over the next 5 years. This despite the hardware providers (chipsset, sound, GFX etc) releasing many updates for the underlying hardware, some of which fixed real issues, or improved performance etc.

Seems Acer just couldn't be bothered to do the work needed to add these patches to their update service :-/

I eventually (a couple of years back) did a clean install, from my own media, and just let Windows install what it wanted. Result, a much cleaner, more stable, and fractionally faster system.

Don't think I'll be bothering with Acer again.

Re: Uber driving definitely contributed

Dangerous driving and speeding are not the same thing (one could contribute to the other of course).

I'd be curious on the legality side in the US around dangerous driving in this case, if this happened in the UK, and speed was considered a factor in causing the accident, even if the driver was still within the posted speed limit, the driver could still be prosecuted for dangerous driving.

Re: ->The V22 has a less than stellar safety record, bring back the Fairey Rotodyne

Quote: "Why is it that modern aircraft, designed and built entirely with modern CAD/CAM techniques and the latest materials, are a lot less reliable than the old designs drawn by hand and made by the lads in the shed out the back before they tootled off to the pub for lunch?"

It's called over engineering.

Designers of old (my Dad was one), had to work things out by hand, (my dad always used a slide-rule, and a handful of reference books). Materials science wasn't as well known/accurate then, so you'd add a bit more here and there, 'just-in-case'. A lot of this would have been gut-feeling, based on experience. My Dad designed gear-boxes and turbines for large vehicles (think quarry trucks. shipping container vessels, hi-speed trains etc.).

Theses days it's all done in the software, to the exact amount they think is needed, with little room for tolerance other than what has been asked for in the specification. I would suspect if they were to add 5% for strength/resilience, 'just-in-case' on top, the weight etc. would all go up too much, and the design would no longer meet it's targets of speed, range or whatever was needed, and of course, the cost would go up!

Old engineers built things to work, to last, and hopefully built something they (and their team) could be proud off.

Modern engineering, like so many other industries, is all about cost, period.

Re: Puzzled

@AC

And what relevance does any of what you said, have to the (quite sensible imho) question asked?

Quote: People learn far more from their mistakes than successes. Sure fire the IT dept, but can bet your boots those guys/girls won't make the same mistake twice.

Except in this case, they obviously have, not once, but multiple times. Their databases have been deleted on several occasions, and replaced with warning messages, and they have had to restore the databases each time, and yet apparently, at no stage did they wonder why this was happening, or investigate ways to stop it.

They are most likely different people/teams. The devs were probably hired to build the system, and have likely long since gone. Being replaced by a likely cheaper support team (or person), who probably doesn't know much about MongoDB itself.

Re: You probably can't turn EVERYTHING off but

Quote: "By default the power-off button in Windows 8.x and 10 puts the computer into a suspend state. It's not actually off."

Don't know about 8, as never had a copy other than a very early pre-release to have a look at (shudder).

In Win 10 doing a shut-down does power off the device, it's not a suspend (does by default for all the Win 10 Home machines I've set up so far anyway).

But, and here is the catch, Windows 10 uses a hybrid hibernation when you select shutdown, rather than being a 'proper' shutdown.

Basically it closes all the the running Apps and logs you out, just like a traditional shutdown would, but then hibernates the PC. The idea being that you've basically hibernated a running OS, that's already completed its initialisation processes, and so booting back up should be faster.

Within Windows 10, it's know as 'fast startup', which you can disable in settings. Disable this, and shutdown becomes a normal shutdown, and boot up, becomes a cold boot each time, rather then the restore from hibernation that it is by default.

I decided to disable fast startup (and hibernate) on my main PC at home, it's running on SSDs, the boot up time did increase, but only by a second or two.

I suspect, unless you're running on a slow HDD, the 'fast startup' option just isn't really needed.

Plus disabling fast startup reduces writes to the SSD, (as you are basically hibernating every time you switch off), so seemed like a good idea to turn off anyway from an SSD life point of view.

Re: Streetmap App

Never really liked Uber as an entity, but at least they seemed to have shaken up the Taxi market somewhat.

In the past 20 years and until very recently, the only real customer facing technology changes most taxi firms seems to have adopted, were SMS notifications that your car is nearly there, and phone number recognition when ordering, i.e. "Press 1 to be picked up from <blah blah>, otherwise Press 2 to talk to an operator".

But now, even my local Taxi firm has a mobile App (I'm guessing some branded app that multiple taxi firms use), that includes favourite locations, geolocation pickups (i.e. "I have no idea where I am, just come pick me up"), shows where your taxi is on a map in real time, with a real time ETA, a call-your-driver button, payment processing if you want/need it, so no need for cash or messing about with cards in the car, automatic notification when you car is a minute away, so you can make your way outside to meet it etc etc.

I'm fairly sure, if Uber didn't exist, then little would have changed in the last 2 or 3 years.

Re: 3310?

We had the 6310 as company phones back in the day. We only needed to charge them about once a month!

I think I was still using my 7110 at the time as a personal device, although by then (2001/2002?) you had to manually slide down the bottom plate, as using the spring-loaded release would propel the plate, which held the mic, at great speed onto the floor.

This then mean having someone on the line (as it answered the phone at the same time), going "Hello? Are you there?", whilst you tried to refit the front plate, (with the mic in it), before the person hung up!