Re: Inquiring minds want to know...
In the UK national lottery 10,000 people pick 1,2,3,4,5,6 every single week
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/nov/17/national-lottery-numbers-20-years-katie-price-win-jackpot
Posts by blokedownthepub
30 publicly visible posts • joined 23 May 2013
Data hackers are like toilet ninjas. This is not a clean crime, you know
Congrats from 123-Reg! You can now pay us an extra £6 or £12 a year for basically nothing
Saturday 27th October 2018 19:19 GMT
That's not a "Save" button, ... You have to change them to "Off" and then exit the page without clicking anything else.
That didn't work for me. It let me disable one, but not the other two. I have 5 domains but only 3 appear on that page.
Migrating 5 domains to Gandi. Their domain hosting includes 2 free free mailboxes, which is all I need.
Saturday 27th October 2018 18:37 GMT
I got the email on 23-Oct. Funnily enough it only mentions 3 of the 5 domains I have, and I've never requested Domain Privacy on any of them
The control panel show those 3 domains with Domain Privacy but will only allow me to switch it off for one of them. I've logged a complaint / support ticket with them.
One domain is due to expire next month, so I'll migrate that this week.
I only use the domains for email, not websites. Can anyone recommend hosting for mail only?
Friday 26th October 2018 14:29 GMT
"Any customers not wanting to be migrated can turn Privacy off within their Control Panel in advance. Those who do not read the email will have an extended period of time to request a refund if the service of Domain Ownership Protection is not wanted."
So we're going to get charged by default for something we didn't ask for. It's up to us to make the effort to avoid the charge.
I received the email last week but don't remember anything about being able to opt out.
I thought there were laws about unsolicited goods and services.
BT did this by giving all BT&Sky customers the BT sports channel free, then after a year sent an email saying it would be charged at £5/month, requiring a phone call to opt out of something we didn't ask for.
Azure certifications are awful, Microsoft admits, so it has made new ones
Wednesday 18th July 2018 13:40 GMT
Re: I'm done with this
The ramping-up and the brain-dumping are mutually fulfilling.
When someone with 15 years' experience of Window Server takes the exam without study and scores 670, then spends a year reading the books and watching the videos (at expense) then scores only 430; then a £30 brain dump becomes very attractive.
Just saying - the above is just an example of course...
MS are cheating by making the later exams harder with absurdly detailed questions, so candidates cheat with brain dumps.
It's justified cheating.
That's why I'm done with this.
Tuesday 17th July 2018 14:24 GMT
Re: I'm done with this
An exam will start off easy when first released, then get very difficult over the next year or two.
MS choke off the pass rate as they become more popular by making the questions more obscure. The usual trend in my experience is for the later exams to require detailed knowledge of obscure nooks and crannies of the product.
So if you want an MS cert, do the exam when it's first released.
Tuesday 17th July 2018 11:49 GMT
I'm done with this
I am MCSA in Server 2003 and 2012 R2, but never again.
MS exams start at a reasonable standard early on, then as more people pass they make the exams steadily harder. One trick is to introduce more complex question formats, with potentially hundreds on wrong possible answers - one small mistake with a PowerShell drop-down parameter and you get zero.
I had five attempts at the final 2012 R2 exam. Loads of studying over a year and my scores were getting lower.
First attempt with no study: 670. One year's study and experience later, expecting I'd smash it: 430
It's like narrowly missing a GCSE, then resitting it a year later and finding A-level questions on the paper, but you still only get a GCSE.
I've wasted too much of my life of this.
Google Chrome ad-blocking to begin in February – but what is it going to block?
Misco UK chops majority of workforce, pulls down shutters
UK PC prices have risen 30% in a year since the EU referendum
Wednesday 20th September 2017 11:57 GMT
Dell prices
In June 2016 I bought 50 medium-spec Dell PCs at £390 each. At the time Dell said they could keep the quote open for only a week.
In November I asked for a further 20 of the same config and was quoted £510.
That's a 30% increase in 6 months.
What were decent affordable PCs are now out of the reach for a state school like us. We just can't buy computers at prices like that. I had to buy inferior machines from another vendor.
Life is... pushing all the right buttons on the wrong remote control
Microsoft's cringey 'Hey bae <3' recruiter email translated by El Reg
Admins in outcry as Microsoft fix borks Group Policy
Thursday 16th June 2016 11:45 GMT
2 hours wasted
I think I've just been caught by this, but my symptoms were different.
A GPO that only added mapped drives just stopped applying. It was listed in Group Policy Modelling, but no mention of it (applying or failing) in Group Policy Results.
Solution was to delete and recreate a similar GPO.
Two hours of this morning wasted troubleshooting why mapped drives had disappeared overnight.
Even in remotest Africa, Windows 10 nagware ruins your day: Update burns satellite link cash
Monday 6th June 2016 11:58 GMT 
I've lost important data
I've lost financial data* due to the crappy power management drivers with Windows 10. My laptop just dies instead of sleeping when I close the lid, corrupting open documents or databases.
Lenovo haven't developed Windows 10 drivers for my model (and there's no reason why they should), the upgrade is forced, and I'm stuck with the MS buggy drivers which kill the power, trashing documents.
My expensive high-spec laptop is now less reliable and useful than it was with Win8.
* (I got it back, thanks to Carbonite).
Microsoft again offers free certification exams to failures
Monday 13th July 2015 13:30 GMT
Re: MCP - not so interesting now
I recently completed the MCSA 2012 (having done the MCP and MCSA 2003 many years ago).
The final exam was ridiculous. I had five attempts over 12 months and my scores (until the fifth attempt) were getting lower: 620, 630, 520, a gap of 10 months, then 450. The 450 was especially galling as I'd done a lot of study for it.
The exams were just getting harder, with steadily more emphasis on obscure details of the OS and PS cmdlets. I just passed the fifth attempt with 700.
There's little requirement to understand concepts, it's just about knowing MS products is minute detail.
I'll never do a MS cert again. I intend to stick to vendor-neutral certs from now on.
Disk drive shipment numbers set to spin down
Friday 24th April 2015 12:07 GMT
Re: Don't forget the third reason...
The same happened to floppy disks in that late mid 1990s. The prices fell and so did the quality.
Floppies from the 80s cost about £1 each (if you bought in bulk) were still good 20 years later. I needed a few floppies around year 2000 and they were barely use-once quality.
Swedish National Font marches to the sound of whalesong
Facebook pays INFINITELY MORE UK corp tax than in 2012
The 'fun-nification' of computer education – good idea?
Tuesday 21st October 2014 12:53 GMT 
Where are the teachers?
I'm IT Manager in secondary school, and have been for 12 years. I have yet to meet an IT teacher who has a formal background in IT, let alone software development.
It's not the teachers' fault.
The problem is that people with the skills necessary to teach development aren't interested in becoming school teachers. They can make good money by staying where they are. They just isn't any incentive for such people to make the jump and retrain as teachers.
Our IT teacher (bless her) is a good hard-working IT teacher but couldn't code to save her life. She's terrified by the new curriculum emphasising coding.
I've been involved in IT for 25 years now in various capacities, yet couldn't teach it. I tried teacher training years ago and just couldn't hack it, so I stuck to doing IT rather than teaching IT.
Windows 10: One for the suits, right Microsoft? Or so one THOUGHT
Drunkards warned: If you can't walk in a straight line, don't shop online, you fool!
Listen: WORST EVER customer service call – Comcast is 'very embarrassed'
Wednesday 16th July 2014 12:50 GMT
Re: Just refuse to discuss it
I think he was so calm because he was recording it and knew what was going to do with this.
I've thought about doing this in the past with some call centres, but I read somewhere that it's illegal (in the UK anyway) to record a call without the other person knowing. Chances of being prosecuted in cases like this is very slim though.
I'm surprised that more people don't record calls like this - they're far too common.
Wednesday 16th July 2014 12:31 GMT
Re: BT did this too
I had a painful experience attempting to cancel my BT broadband. Not quite as bad as this, but very long-winded. After the first person had finished their long routine, they passed by to another who would supposedly cancel my contract. The second person just started going through the same script as the first...
Who else have I had terrible call centre experience with...
Microsoft
Philips Whirlpool
Yorkshire Water
Smoothwall.net
Serif.com
Nationwide Building Society
I like it when the recorded message says the call is being recorded for training purposes. It usually means that the operative knows they're being watched.
For balance, just one company who are really do call centres properly: Coventry Building Society.
Middle England's allotments become metric battlefield
Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED
Friday 4th October 2013 13:19 GMT
Re: There's a very simple cure
I tried this.
After having trouble with one of these, I went to a manned checkout. Whilst stood at the traditional conveyor belt, a 'helpful' Tesco droid enthused how good the new machines were. Before I could protest (it was late and I was tired) he took my stuff to the machine where he had the same problems I'd had. He went to get help and I walked out to without my stuff.
IT mercenaries and buy-to-let landlords are my HEROES - here's why
Wednesday 19th June 2013 12:08 GMT 
Interesting article
It does mean, however, that as employment demand varies around the country over time and that a large part of the workforce is immobile, then there will be areas with high demand for employment.
For each area of high unemployment due to immobility, there will be another area with employers struggling to find workers. I suppose those employers will have to pay over the going rate to attract staff and they'll become uncompetitive.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
