* Posts by Chika

1774 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Oct 2007

Radiohead vid prompts Trumpton rumpus

Chika

I know it has been a while since this item was posted, but...

Gordon Murray, RIP 1921-2016

Chika

Re: I wonder...

Is The Donald the mayor?

Only if he's wearing a wig these days.

Chika

Re: Bah!

Could I have some mustard on that burgher please?

Chika

Re: Lets MASH UP!

How about U2 and the Flowerpot Men?

(At least until the man who works in the garden finishes his lunch!)

Chika
Trollface

Re: Parody?

So, it's a pastiche of The Wicker Man and Trumpton/Camberwick Green. Case closed.

There was an episode where Windy Miller is called in to remove a swarm of bees from a tree next to the bakery...

Chika
Happy

Optional

I don't see it as being all that bad, especially as more than one person in Camberwick Green no doubt wished they could have burned Mrs. Honeyman at the stake on occasion!

Having said that, Trumptonshire always struck me as more of a ducking stool sort of area than a burning area...

Managing infrastructure, a newbie's guide: Simple stuff you need to know

Chika

Re: @moiety

To be fair, that is an emotional response like the one you highlighted in point 1.

In some respects, yes, but consider why Microsoft elicits such a response. It's a large American corporate that often incorporates features into its products which seem like a good idea until users get hold of the product and something goes wrong. Now that's not that unusual, but it's what happens afterwards.

A good example is the recent Windows 10 business where an update screen, when "cancelled" by clicking the red cross, went ahead and installed anyway, believing that clicking the cross meant "go right ahead and do it" despite Microsofts' own published rules on GUI behaviour. This problem continued for some time until somebody actually got a ruling against them. Could it be that these two things were related? Possibly not, but the perception is that Microsoft are not in the business of listening to their customers, and that's what tends to make people wary of them.

I said in this forum months ago that Microsoft needed to back off and lie low for a while to try to restore a level of, if not trust then at least apathy. It seems, however, that they didn't read that comment...

Holy kittens! YouTube screens go blank

Chika

Re: But inquiring minds want to know...

Seems like the perfect time to wheel out a classic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDkNCJ8xrJk

Chika

Re: But inquiring minds want to know...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDkNCJ8xrJk

Chika

Re: Why is it

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Ook.

ZTE flagship elbows aside Xiaomi

Chika
Thumb Up

Hmm. Got to admit, having been using Huaweis for my last couple of phones, that the whole idea of this is very appealing as if anything, the biggest turn-off with Huawei is that damn EMUI business. Had an original Blade (well, an Orange San Fran) a few years ago which was a pretty sturdy beast overall.

Time to re-file your patents and trademarks, Britain

Chika
Coat

Re: Complete Tosh!!

All these doom and gloom worst case headline are complete tosh!

Yes, but that sort of headline sells.

Rather depressing really. Just shows how low the press have sunk.

Chika

Re: "Never was so much lost by so many due to one stupid decision"

However "broken" the EU is, and however slowly reforms happen (and they did happen) it simply can't be better to run the risk of returning to the UK of the 1970s at best, or the 1920s at worst?

We won't. The Britain of the 1970s (or 1920s) had different settings. They had various connections, treaties and arrangements that they had to rid themselves of to join the EEC and leaving the EU now won't automatically bring any of those back. We are starting from scratch, pretty much, and any agreement or arrangement that we do get back from the old days will only be where the other end of that arrangement wishes for it to happen. That's very unlikely for two reasons; first, the length of time and second, the opportunity to screw the crap out of us is likely to be very tempting to any given politician.

Having said all that, I'm of the opinion that the politicians on both sides of the argument made this happen and that the whole business has been building for years. Let Juncker poke his finger at the UK about all the concessions and opt-outs we negotiated; he isn't interested in why we did it, nor is he really interested in why we are leaving, though he really should be interested because we may only be the first to go down this path. The only way that the EU can save itself from further embarrassment and other countries looking to distance themselves from it is to look at why we have voted to leave and, more importantly, why there was a referendum in the first place.

But as for the UK, it has to sort out a place for itself in a world that is very different from what it was back when the British Empire was winding down. The governments of the last few decades have sold off the family silver to other countries, the infrastructure never truly recovered from the last World War in some ways and any superiority that we might have had has long since disappeared. Yes, we have (or will do once Article 50 is triggered) taken back control, but of what?

We live in interesting times, it seems.

When Capita job ads go BAD

Chika

Hertfordshite?!?

Crapita indeed! I was exchanging tweets only yesterday about how easy it is to hit the adjacent key in a hurry or even to miss a key. Don't they have any poofreaders there?

PC market sinking even faster than first thought, thanks to Windows 10

Chika
Coffee/keyboard

Re: An Untimely Conjunction

(Whispering voice) Windows application store, stoooore, stoooore.... secure boot, boooot, booot.... Telemetry....Teleeeeeeemetry... Teleeeeeemetry....

The greater good... the greater good... the greater good...

Chika
FAIL

Talk around, Windows 10 has a worse reputation than Windows 8. And these are by people who have no idea what Windows 10 is really doing.

But then this is what is liable to do the most damage; Microsoft's reputation will suffer because of the public perception of the system, not necessarily the reality. The fact, for example, that Microsoft were making noises about crippling support for W7 in some upcoming chipsets. People generally couldn't give a dingo's kidney about the chipset but the idea of crippling anything will certainly frighten the crap out of them.

W10 is certainly not getting the best reputation when it comes to ordinary users. The real problem is that it follows up the poor GUI design and flaws of W8 and still insists on pushing a number of features that users weren't keen on (I wonder if the "problem" would have been as bad if W10 was released after W7 rather than W8.x). That and the insistence on pushing services into the cloud which isn't necessarily what people want. I'll leave all the slurp business as you've heard it a million times already.

What Microsoft (and a few others too) need to remember is that "PC" stands for Personal Computer. Not a television, not a web interface, not even gaming system, but an amalgamation of all of these things and a lot more. Users of PCs want to decide what they want to use them for, not have the use dictated to them by a faceless Merkan corporate, and if that mean holding on to older system a bit longer to avoid having this happen, then they will do it.

That's before we even get to the situation where people are looking to get the best value, so will continue to use older hardware for as long as that hardware is capable of doing what the user wants it to do. However, in this age where a simple profit isn't good enough, you can see why a story like this crops up.

Microsoft has created its own FreeBSD image. Repeat. Microsoft has created its own FreeBSD image

Chika

Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...

You could try Devuan. http://devuan.org/ They made a point of never supporting systemd.

Agreed. I have a VB set up at the moment running Devuan. It seems fine compared with my last openSUSE install pre-systemd (11.4) and all the hype about systemd's abilities to open faster and perform better seems to be belied by Devuan.

Of course, as I found out on Twitter recently, there are any number of users out there that refuse to accept that just because RedHat have successfully rammed it down the throats of the more mainstream distros and its users, and they are happily dealing with its complexities and breakages, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is right.

Ah well.

Chika

Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...

Before W95. I can recall installing it on W3.11 for Workgroups. Mind you, it was a separate install.

Microsoft waltzes users through Azure by killing VM conversion tool

Chika

Re: Virtual PC 2007 - VHD....???

Your first question I would consider to be one concerning host system, in which case any of the more recent Microsoft systems or Linux systems can do what you need. I personally run all my virtual systems off openSUSE but you'll find it just as easy to do with any of the more well known Linux distros including the two you mention.

As the article says, VHDs can be picked up by Virtualbox with no trouble. If it's Win98 you want to keep around, I also keep a W98SE VB hanging around though more for curiosity these days. I originally had it for testing but I can't remember when I last needed to test anything with it.

In theory you should be able to export a W98 drive to a partition which can be read by Linux. Unlike Windows, Linux can read quite a wide range of file systems, including NTFS and the various FAT file systems, unassisted though bear in mind that there are a few pitfalls (mostly speed related) with this mostly related to the way in which Linux is forced to do this when it comes to Microsoft proprietary formats.

BOFH: What's your point, caller?

Chika
Mushroom

Oh this brings back memories!

"I should be able to email any size of file I like! It's <insert year here> not the dark ages!"

(as if the calendar year has any relevance to trying to max everything out at the expense of other users and such)

"But I'm a very important person. Surely you can expand my mailbox just this once!"

(usually from somebody with an overinflated sense of importance and a habit of never clearing their mailbox because "they might need it one day")

As for SLAs, we had a temporary hatchet person brought in by upper management with the remit to slim down the IT section, improve the efficiency of the section and get all the SLAs sorted out. Oh yeah, people got made redundant alright but did anything else get done?

Not by that person anyway, and not until long after they had left and the mess left behind was sorted out.

Feinstein-Burr's bonkers backdoor crypto law is dead in the water

Chika

Re: The Floor of Congress?

"Attention, attention. We are ready to do you now." - Beavis & Butthead Do America

Surface Book nightmare: Microsoft won't fix 'Sleep of Death' bug

Chika

The POS system must not be questioned...

POS? Piece Of Shit?

Microsoft won't back down from Windows 10 nagware 'trick'

Chika
Facepalm

Re: I feel left out....

What VM system did you use?

Did you activate W7 before attempting to upgrade?

Did you update the system once loaded?

And finally, the most important question...

WHY?!?

Microsoft's Windows Phone folly costs it another billion dollars

Chika
FAIL

C'mon guys, let's cut Microsoft a bit of slack here...

Why should we? They haven't cut us any slack over their recent systems, have they?

Chika
FAIL

Re: Whats included ?

I gave up at this point.and asked him why he had chosen to upgrade. He said he didn't he clicked the red X everytime the message appeared. Yeah MSFT have had to trick people into installing it

Looks like Microsoft have gotten themselves into very hot water over that little shinanigen.

Hate Windows 10? Microsoft's given you 'Insider' powers anyway

Chika

Perhaps if they had done this sooner then there wouldn't be such apathy from long time sufferers.

SWIFT moves on security in wake of hacking attacks

Chika
Mushroom

Will you get that creepy woman off my screen?!?

Tech support locker scam poses as failed Microsoft Update

Chika

Re: Backups Are Important

As good for you today as they've always been!

Sky! Blue!, Oceans! Wet!, Yahoo! Overvalued!

Chika
Holmes

Re: All things come to an end

Death by bean-counting. Ouch!

They wouldn't be the first. Beancounters do a lot of damage generally around the business world.

As a certain Cuddly Ken character once said; "we need to round them up, put them in a field then BOMB THE BASTARDS!!!"

Queen’s Speech: Digital Bill to tackle radicalisation, pirates

Chika
Trollface

Fluttershy, gore and "shed man". Do I smell a brony.MOV?

Only if Hasbro isn't looking. (Or Max Gillardi, of course!)

Brains, brains, brains!

Chika

Rhubarb

Sorry, but this still stinks of kickback to a copyright system that is still fundamentally broken. Until that is all sorted, penalties still have the capacity to be unfair.

(And what did Fluttershy ever do to you?!?)

The PC is dead. Gartner wishes you luck, vendors

Chika

Re: "target audience tend to build their own "

When it comes to PCs, while I do have laptops that were off the shelf, I've never bought a desktop PC. I've always bought components and built it myself going back to my first self-build, an AMD K6 II/Gigabyte board based system. That kept going for quite a while until I cooked the CPU by forgetting to hook up the fan during a case swap.

The only off-the-shelf PCs I ever bought were Risc PCs, and they are pretty solid beasts!

Even a blind pig stumbles across an Acorn now and again!

Chika
Happy

Granted, the comparison between Acorn and Windows is beyond the point now, but I do know quite a few schools donated old machines and equipment to similar charities during the first few years of the new century. I wonder who uses them now, if at all.

Well... now that you mention it...

(Keep quiet, you two! Maybe they won't notice!)

GCHQ's Twitter move: Wants to be 'accessible', people to 'understand'

Chika

Re: Hello World

yes, and peason hav a face lik a squished tomato...

Chika
Big Brother

Hello World

Hello clouds, hello sky!

Hello scary creeping mist...

Microsoft boots fake fix-it search ads

Chika
Trollface

Odd. That A/c sounded like Tara Strong...

Unicorn adopts rainbow as logo

Chika
Trollface

Heh... the Great and Powerful Trixie! Who else?

Chika
Trollface

Hangonamo... Rainbow is a pegasus, not a unicorn!

Kill Flash now? Chrome may be about to do just that

Chika
Devil

I wonder if anyone at Adobe is ever kept awake at night wondering how the hell they managed to inherit one of the Internet's most hated products.

Macromedia's revenge!!!

Chika
Mushroom

Re: Why has Flash been so bad?

Adobe's other products (Photoshop, etc) seem to have good reputations.

They had good reputations. Then they went all cloudy...

Chika

Re: "exempt the top 10 domains"??

And in fact, I won't be surprised that Youtube ditch flash completely, even as a fall-back.

With more recent versions of Firefox you will find that YouTube will force the browser to try to run with HTML5 first by default. It has been this way for a few months now though it will fall back to Flash if HTML5 isn't working or if you have an add-in that forces Flash to be used (yes, they exist).

Chika
Coat

Re: Google catches up to Apple, while Microsoft trails the pack

Odd. If you go into Firefox on the Add-ons manager page and look under Plugins, you should find something there (on my Linux installation it shows up as "Shockwave Flash", it also shows up that way on Windows 7). On Windows you will probably find it in Programs and Features - removing any instance from that point will also remove it from Firefox. Bear in mind though that there are different versions of Flash - the ActiveX version and the NPAPI version. If the latter is missing then Firefox isn't using it. Both versions will appear in Programs and Features if installed.

I'd suggest that if you think that you don't use Flash anymore, then uninstall it anyway and see what happens. Installing it again should you really need it isn't difficult but chances are that you won't.

Hitachi sniffs around the Internet of Things market with HIG

Chika

Re: Acronyms

Maybe.

Mind you, if Hitachi have OT and IT expertise, they should be careful not to go OTT.

Chika
Happy

Hitachi has set up a Hitachi Insight Group (HIG) to focus its variegated and so far separate Internet of Tat (IoT) efforts.

FTFY

Windows 10 build 14342: No more friendly Wi-Fi sharing

Chika

Hmm. Given the push to put Linux tools on Windows (and not use something like Cygwin) makes me wonder if WIndows 10 will, as some have already put it, turn into another distro.

As for the Edge update and the WiFi change, it vindicates the idea of holding off to an extent. With July fast approaching, it'll be interesting to see what tools will bed in and what gets slung off the platform in the next couple of months.

Investigatory Powers Bill: As supported by world's most controlling men

Chika
Big Brother

All hail our dear leader!

Or should that read "Viva el Presidente"?

Microsoft half-bricks Asus Windows 7 PCs with UEFI boot glitch

Chika
Happy

Re: Better check

That's nice, dear.

Chika
Linux

Re: and after disabling UEFI...

There is always an alternative to Windows that is not Ubuntu.

Agreed. How many times have I said it in the past...

Linux is NOT Ubuntu. Nor is it Mint, RedHat, SUSE, Debian, Arch, Gentoo, Puppy, Slackware or any other distro you care to mention. If anything, distro evangelists do more damage than good when it comes to situations like this.

Windows 10 free upgrade offer ends on July 29th

Chika
Trollface

Do MS not understand "NO!!!!!" ?

No.

Chika
Mushroom

Re: If I upgrade to windows 10 and I don't like it

After that the only way to return to older version is with backups or a clean installation.

And I would strongly advise that you make a full backup before you "upgrade" because reverting back has been known to do odd things to your system.