* Posts by Adrian Jones

302 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2007

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OK, team, we've got the big demo tomorrow and we're feeling confident. Let's reboot the servers

Adrian Jones

In my first job, in the mid 90s we were told there was going to be a photoshoot to for a brochure demonstrating all that the company had to offer.

This included someone using our software. Not the tried and tested DOS version but the whizzy new Windows version. Except there was barely an object model built, let alone a user interface.

So we drew one. In Paint. And displayed it full screen.

We must have done a reasonable job, because the boss was quite surprised when he tried clicking on it. And it made it into the brochure.

Cops called after pair enter Canadian home and give it a good clean

Adrian Jones

But what about the most important question in this article...

Did the dog get its walk?

My PC makes ‘negative energy waves’, said user, then demanded fix

Adrian Jones

I worked with someone who insisted on a printer being moved away from her, "because of the ozone" and left notes for the cleaners, not to clean her desk "because of the chemicals".

Then the colleague opposite her got a new PC with a flat screen monitor, and so she needed her old CRT to be replaced, "because of the radiation". They eventually came to a compromise of swapping monitors. My offer to explain that more "radiation" came out of the back of a CRT (which was now pointed at her) was met with threats of violence. :)

I currently have a colleague who's very bright, but occasionally *appears* to be quite gullible too. She's started bringing in crystals and talking about their properties and powers, which I'm almost convinced is a wind-up... mostly because she can hardly keep a straight face while talking about them. Or is it a double-bluff?

*Thunk* No worries, the UPS should spin up. Oh cool, it's in bypass mode

Adrian Jones

Re: Floodplains

Don't forget Votes for 18 year-olds.

Reg reader turns Geek's Guides to Britain into Geek's Map of Britain

Adrian Jones

Whatever happened to...

... the Ben Goldacre inspired nerdydaytrips.com? There were hundreds, if not thousands of destinations on there, the last time I looked. Now there's nothing.

I need an ISP that offers IPv6. Virgin Media: Whatevs, nerd

Adrian Jones

SOP for Virgin

Many years ago I had a Virgin phone line for dial-up. When it was installed I asked about broadband. Coming in 3 months, they said. I occasionally asked them again, for the three years I was at that house. Always the same answer.

After moving house, I had them install a line in the new house. Again asked about broadband, again the same answer. After another three years of this, I found an ISP who could supply broadband for less than I was paying Virgin for dial-up. So I called to cancel my line.

"But we're rolling out broadband in your area soon!" "When?" "In about three months!" I explained that I'd been told that for the last six years, and still didn't believe him. The line was cancelled.

Three months later, I got a flyer through the door to say that Virgin broadband was available. It's a shame that the only honest answer got the cancellation. :)

Spotted: Bizarre SpaceX rocket-snatching machine that looks like it belongs on Robot Wars

Adrian Jones

Barge?

I think you mean autonomous drone ship.

barge /bɑːdʒ/ noun: a long flat-bottomed boat for carrying freight on canals and rivers, either under its own power or towed by another.

Headphone batteries flame out mid-flight, ignite new Li-Ion fears

Adrian Jones

Re: Possibly listening to

Clare Teal - Everybody's messing with fire?

User lubed PC with butter, because pressing a button didn't work

Adrian Jones

I drew an application in Microsoft Paint once...

BONG! Lasers crack Big Ben frequency riddle BONG! No idea what to do with this info BONG!

Adrian Jones

I visited Whitechapel Bell Foundry a few years ago, where they explained how part of the bell making process is to tune each bell to play a chord.

The unique sound of Big Ben is because the officials at the Palace of Westminster ignored the experts' instructions (some things never change) and used a hammer that was too heavy and with too long a drop. Which cracked the bell.

(This is after doing the same with the original bell and breaking it. What is it called when you do the same thing again and expect different results?)

The bell was then turned through 45 degrees so that the part the crack is on will vibrate the least. So it chimes, but the tone is not what the bell foundry intended it to be. The sound though is instantly recognisable as Big Ben.

Up close with the 'New Psion' Gemini: Specs, pics, and genesis of this QWERTY pocketbook

Adrian Jones

Re: 18:9?

If you double the width and keep the same proportions, then the screen area is 4 times the size.

FAKE BREWS: America rocked by 'craft beer' scandal allegations

Adrian Jones

Fake beer?

Anybody else remember Grünhalle? "Bavarian" beer made by Greenall Whitley?

Adrian Jones

Re: May contain nuts

"Come to think of it, what part of India does India Pale Ale come from, exactly?"

India Pale Ale went *to* India, it didn't come from there.

Let's go ARM wrestling with an SEO link spammer

Adrian Jones

You didn't even ask for a picture of Wil Wheaton collating paper?

Christmas Eve ERP migration derailed by silly spreadsheet sort

Adrian Jones

Re: If you want to screw something up, use excel

I remember a temp being told to sort a spreadsheet of names and addresses on the surnames, in Excel 2000. She selected the Surname column, pressed the sort button, saw they were alphabetical and ran the mail-merge.

Alas, Excel 2000 didn't warn that only that column was being sorted. So pensioners all over the borough were sent letters inviting them to come for a flu jab, but addressed to the wrong person.

USB-C is now wired for sound, just like Sir Cliff Richard

Adrian Jones

My old Motorola V3x had no 3.5mm port. It used the micro-usb port. Which was (iirc) a surface mount component and the repeated plugging and unplugging broke it. And again after it was repaired.

OpenBSD 6.0 lands

Adrian Jones

I've had no success installing it on my VAX, but it still does a lovely job of cleaning the carpets.

Still got a floppy drive? Here's a solution for when 1.44MB isn't enough

Adrian Jones

Not the best thought out name

No, boss, I was searching for removable storage, I've no idea where all these limp willies came from!

A USB stick as a file server? We've done it!

Adrian Jones

Tim Peake to return to Earth after six months floating around in space

Adrian Jones

09:00 GMT

So, 10 o'clock then.

SpaceX winning streak meets explosive end

Adrian Jones

Re: One wonders

Apparently not too long...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/743099301174247424

Adrian Jones

RUD

I thought it was Rapid Unscheduled *Disassembly*.

The video looked like the Falcon was vertical, but on fire before it cut out. It'll be interesting to see what actually happened.

BOFH: What's your point, caller?

Adrian Jones

Re: How do I order a new keyboard online if this one is broken?

The first company I worked for sold my keyboard.

Hack probing poodle sacrifice cuffed for public crap

Adrian Jones

But what was on the shirt?

Unicorn adopts rainbow as logo

Adrian Jones

Re: Well to be honest, it was dealing with photographs

And don't forget that Apple also pinched their GUI from Xerox.

Cops deploy StingRay anti-terror tech against $50 chicken-wing thief

Adrian Jones

So... A system designed to track down terrorists, is incapable of tracking down a fried chicken thief?

That was money well spent.

Mystery Kindle update will block readers from books after Wednesday

Adrian Jones

Re: How can I tell if the update is applied?

Mine updated, but I'm not entirely sure when. When I received the email I checked to see what version it had, it was up to date.

I plugged my partner's Kindle Keyboard 3 in and switched on the wifi a few nights ago, thinking I'd leave it overnight to pick up the update. About 10 seconds later it was done. No re-starts.

How Microsoft copied malware techniques to make Get Windows 10 the world's PC pest

Adrian Jones

Interesting

I had removed and hidden KB3035583 on both my Win7 desktop and Win8.1 laptop and have had no problems since then. My partner's Win7 laptop however keeps getting the nag box to upgrade, despite doing the same to it.

It appears that KB2952664 *was* installed on my desktop, so I've nuked that too. I'll have to spend some time going through the laptops to clean them out too.

Linus Torvalds wavers, pauses … then gives the world Linux 4.5

Adrian Jones

Re: OK. I have to ask

For me it manifested as the scroll wheel stopping working, every time I switched to my Ubuntu box on my KVM. (Requiring the mouse to be unplugged and replugged.)

Other distros had a few seconds of confusion, where the mouse skittered about the screen sending random button presses, before settling down.

Hopefully this will fix both of these.

Adrian Jones

Re: All my systems are still using PS/2 mice, at least indirectly

Yup, same here. PS/2 mouse and keyboard, with VGA graphics, because USB/HDMI KVMs are stupid prices.

Hopefully this will fix the issue I have, of having to unplug and re-plug the mouse to get the wheel working again, when I switch to the Linux box.

SpaceX aborts Falcon 9 launch again

Adrian Jones

Re: Possible reason...

Well, I was watching it just before midnight, UTC.

UK carrier Three in network-wide ad-block shock

Adrian Jones

Not new for me

All ads on Three are very effectively blocked for me, together with the rest of the websites, calls and texts. Thanks to the complete lack of service here.

Even their "Three inTouch" app to redirect calls over my wifi doesn't help; it regularly crashes and then has to be re-registered over the mobile network, which doesn't work and not the wifi which does.

Time to drop them and go elsewhere.

BBC risks wrath of android rights activists with Robot Wars reboot

Adrian Jones

Re: Wow

Ah, Diotoir. :)

I remember that a lot of the robots carried a piece of its fur, as Team Diotoir helped so many of the other teams with spares and repairs.

Engineer's bosses gave him printout of his Yahoo IMs. Euro court says it's OK

Adrian Jones

Storm in a teacup: Wileyfox does Android cheapie, British style

Adrian Jones

Re: Sounds good. But.

According to the specification sheet:

MEMORY Card slot Yes, expandable up to 128GB*

But it needs a replaceable battery.

Feeble Phobos flaking as it falls to Mars

Adrian Jones

Won't somebody think of the Leather Goddesses?

Doctor Who's The Girl Who Died ships in nasty Vikings floating atop a time-bending tidal wave

Adrian Jones

Jennifer?

Was Jennifer watching the rugby this week?

Hutchison will float O2 … as soon as the Three merger is done

Adrian Jones

I presumed that the merger would create a single brand; O3.

IT jargon is absolutely REAMED with sexual double-entendres

Adrian Jones

Re: Microsoft VBA Error

In Access 2007 VBA I encountered two errors (2626 and 3000) which gave "Reserved error; there is no message for this error."

BOFH: My diary is MINE and mine alone, you petty HR gimps

Adrian Jones

Re: reminds me of the time...

When LCDs started being included with new computers in the office, one colleague (who was a bit of a hypochondriac) started making noises about the radiation from her CRT making her feel ill.

So the lady who sat opposite her very kindly swapped a nice new LCD for the old CRT.

I offered to explain that the back of the monitor emitted more radiation than the screen, and it was now pointed towards her...

Commodore PET lurches out of its 1970s grave – as a phablet

Adrian Jones

Re: PET 2001

First PET I used had the cassette deck and calculator keyboard and a 40 character wide green screen.

Later, our school had machines with real keyboards, external cassettes and one even had an 80 character wide screen. There was a floppy disk drive for the borough which we got to play with for a little while. Very slightly faster to load programs than the cassette. :)

AFAIR, they were all called PETs.

It's the Internet of Feet: Lenovo shows smart shoes, projector keyboard phone

Adrian Jones

Intriguing...

How do they project the black screen on to a white desk?

Wheely, wheely mad: Petrolheads fume over buggy Formula One app

Adrian Jones

Re: Hmmm?

Or sitting in front of a really big telly, watching the race, with the timing / track position on a tablet / laptop on the arm of the sofa supplying vital data.

BOFH: The Great HellDesk geek leave seek

Adrian Jones

Sounds familiar

A company I worked for had a leave booking system built in Lotus Notes (iirc). If you booked Friday to Monday off, it would take four days off your available leave.

Reporting the bug didn't make any difference, of course.

We soon discovered that putting Monday as the start date and the previous Friday as the end date gave us four extra days of available leave.

Shortly after that the system was scrapped and we upgraded to drawing on a wall-planner.

Boffins find Jackie Chan's SUPERCOP is good for something

Adrian Jones

Surely there were more appropriate films to use?

Solaris?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

The last PC replacement cycle is about to start turning

Adrian Jones
Facepalm

Hmm, that might've been me

I've carried tower computers home on the train and tube before now, hooking a strap through the case.

Always got funny looks. My usual response was to comment "I asked for a portable computer..." with a sigh and a rolling of eyes.

Be Your Own Big Brother: Peeking at pussy

Adrian Jones

Preventing little presents

Many years ago, there was a homebrew catflap system someone created, which used a diffused disc of light and a webcam to view the silhouette of the cat's face. Then image recognition software decided whether the flap should be unlocked.

It was (iirc) initially designed to keep out the neighbours' cats, but had the positive side effect of preventing the creator's own moggies from bringing in takeaway meals.

Premier League wants to PURGE ALL FOOTIE GIFs from social media

Adrian Jones

Hang on!

If a monkey takes a picture, then it has the copyright.

If a football fan takes a picture, then The Sun has the copyright.

Is that what they're saying? What happens if a monkey takes a picture of a goal?

Beam me up Scotty: Boffins to turn pure light into matter

Adrian Jones

German Boffin?

According to Google Translate, they would be an Eierkopf or a Tüftler.

El Reg BuzzFelch: 10 Electrical Connectors You CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT!

Adrian Jones

Have any of these had songs sung about them?

I don't remember any.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDlj0jBtYmQ

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