Posts by Stuart 22

Re: Doesn't matter

But, as the headline does say 8.1 is more loved - or at least used than XP.

I have a special interest in the demise of XP/IE8 as it is the main blocker to implementing SNI on webservers (SSL without separate IPs). My interest is only to visitors who are almost exclusively UK based.

It was running at about 10% in April (end of support) and was declining very slowly until the last couple of months of 2014. It really looked like it would never die. Then it crashed to about 2.5% of users.

But there you are. Whatever you think of 8.1 is it is here and growing, at least until Win10 hits the shelves. Pure XP (with IE8) is now history. And I always preferred Win2000 anyway. But no way am I going to expose that to the internet.

Re: Not a problem

"The terrorists are pretty smart and they know that powering up a PC is a common request. Logging on confirms the laptop is likely a functioning PC not a disguised bomb."

If you think carefully about what you have written you should, if you know anything about laptop construction, quickly work out how to have both a functioning PC and a bomb in the same case. i just hope the average terrorist is even dimmer than me.

This rule is meant to frighten passengers, not terrorists.

"Damned web browsers. Coming over to our server and taking all the data. We'll put a stop to that!"

UKIP.ORG is currently resolving to 190.93.246.205 which is somewhere they speak all foreign isn't it? Not the sort of people you would want in a rack next to you (San Jose!)

Re: Money hungry bastards

I never book a hotel that doesn't offer free wifi. I expect the performance to be in line with the price I pay for the room. The budget hotels do surprisingly well. If I am satisfied I mention it in my TripAdvisor review.

I always check TripAdvisor before I book for those 'slow' wifi remarks. Unsurprisingly I can't remember the last time I had a bad hotel wifi experience. But then I operate in a (bling blanded) Hilton/Marriott free universe. There are benefits to not being a banker or ICANN board member.

Re: Silly Question #1

"OK, silly question, but if you have a warrent, signed by a Judge, won't that get the 'communication supplies' to hand over the info?"

I think they are saying that if communication suppliers have stopped illegal wiretapping then the security services can't boost their 'detection' figures by sending them to jail any more. Oh, wait ...

Re: I would hope ...

This may be true - but possession of the appropriate manuals informs an unfriendly party of shutdown procedures and other sorts of sensitive information which if exploited could be mischievous or worse.

Re: What a stupid fucking idea....

"Round my office there are separate pedestrian and cycle lanes alongside the road, and the road itself has been designed with islands so that cars can't overtake such things as stopped buses. for safety. Fine until you get a two-wheeled dickhead cycling along in the car lane at 10MPH, ignoring the cycle lane right beside him (it's always a him), and impossible to pass due to the road layout. The pedestrians manage to stay on the marked path, why can't the cyclists?"

You might wish to read the Government's official publication on riding a bicycle. It's called Bikeability. I think the sections on using cycle lanes and taking primary position may come as a bit of a shock to you. The book is written with the safety of the cyclist in mind and safety conscious riders, like me, may well be following its recommendations. This is not helped by many motorists not understanding why they do what they do and giving the responsible cyclist the benefit of doubt rather than calling them dickheads.

Not that I blame you or the average motorist. The UK has a dismal record in educating (and sometimes re-educating) road users in the evolving use of the road once they have passed the test.

Re: That depends on your installation

" I think it needs to be root as it needs to adjust the clock."

Yep - its the setup for the attack of the Time Lords in the Christmas Day Dr Who special .. but does that set an inpenetrable time barrier of 1970?

Re: choice . . .

If only they had replaced this with a ballot to choose your operating system. Oh, and included a payment adjustment (so you either pay the licensing fee to MS if selected or get it returned if you don't). Bundling Windows "free" through OEM arrangements is a major driver in the monopoly stakes.

Transparent pricing is a rather more important issue than browser choice.

Re: But what does the scammers EULA say?

Much as I enjoy taking a swing at Microsoft - I do applaud their actions here. We are exclusively Linux but these scammers do assure us that they can fix our systems that have (apparently) notified Microsoft that they have been compromised. Except their script falls apart shortly after being told to press the START button ;-)

Re: High school adjectives for business solutions

"I'm very excited about Windows 10"

Excited? Do you mean when an OS can stay up for a year or more without breaking or degrading? Where you can choose and configure the interface that suits your way of working best and there are no surprises. It just does it job quietly and efficiently?

I get excited when I see a trapeze artist wobbling in the wind at 200 feet without a safety net. But I'm not sure I want an operating system to give me that sort of thrill.

Re: This is entirely UNreasonable

"So she would have to pay approx. 93p to Ireland and 80p to Germany"

I have been registered for VAT for twenty years. It really is the easiest system to use and has the benefit of making sure I have my accounts in order every quarter which causes a lot less distress at year end. If only every other gov.uk system was so easily accessible and useful. I am assuming the change makes it fair in that those who did not pay currently vat don't get an unjustifiable advantage when selling to non-vat registered entities (aka real people).

But for a couple of quid why not make your business UK only?

I noticed the effects yesterday when my GoDaddy reseller account (US/Luxembourg) had to be renewed. 20% vat was added automatically. Of course, as a vat registered entity I get that back (and very quickly) which may be an incentive for micro businesses to register for vat so as to reclaim on supplier purchases. No need to wait until you get near £81k.

Or do you think GoDaddy should have continued to have an unfair advantage in selling domains to individuals against British registrars, and micro registrars like us?

Re: Dunno about warming

What part of " Let's take Southern and South Eastern Europe" did you not understand?

All of it, 'cos I didn't get wet in 12 consecutive days but got a great tan cycling in southern Europe during June/July. Must have been the wrong bit. Will try harder next year!

Re: Probably expected an INT, got a BOL instead

The clue is in the timing? Coded in JOVIAL and maybe AWS just runs on spare cycles on NATS massive backup S/390s. Except when they needed it flight GBP99 was on finals ... ooops!

Re: WTF??

"4,000 degrees Fahrenheit"

Unit of choice for an imperial power?

Re: YMMV

1 x N7 (2012), 2 x N4 all updated OTA perfectly. Even the GMail Exchange change works OK for my partner. One N4 was bu**ered by KitKat and has now been restored to perfection by lollipop. I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

KitKat broke 25% of my devices (still have a Moto G waiting for 5.0) and Lollipop fixed 100% of breakages. Not a surprise that a major OS change causes problems to some people and we are sure hearing them about 5.0. Only Google know if 4.4.0 was better/worse than 5.0.0. Even 4.4.4 didn't fix my issue. 5.0 did.

Now I'm worried about 5.0.1. If there is nothing (for me) to fix. Should I go with the old proverb?

Re: Updated my Nexus 4

Hallelujah Lollipop!

The Nexus 4 was my first 'premium phone' two years ago. It was great. But KitKat broke it. It just became unreliable. I ditched it for a Moto G so I could reliably make PHONE CALLS! (Sorry to be so old fashioned).

The 5.0 OTA transformed it back, no forward, into a smooth silky machine. Not a crash to date - with the same app payload. The only gripe was Google junking the Gallery app with some cloud dependent crud. Re-installed the old Gallery from an apk and so now completely in Android heaven.

The Moto G is sadly silent at the bottom of my man drawer. Maybe when it gets 5.0 OTA I'll look at it again.

Re: freeware?

... none of the apps seem to be "freeware"

That is an opinion/exortation of an organisation that doesn't accept the de-facto/shorthand meaning of Linux. Other opinions are available. Respect them unless you are genuinely confused about the meaning of the article.

English is a free, evolving and ambiguous language created and manipulated by people, not dictionaries or even the FSF. It ain't like FORTRAN 77.

Re: Wow! - I mean WOW!

What's next? A C5 unicycle?

Re: Depressing...

Bit of a disaster really. Otherwise I could have gotten wasted for a week on half a pint of watered down beer and still have change for a packet of crisps!

Re: How Widespread?

Whoever thought "Aw Snap!" was amusing needs a knee in the nads.

Just had that whilst submitting my VAT return. Not amused*.

Not even using Chrome - but Chromium on Linux. IMHO its just the bloat that all good software gets destroyed with. Chrome/Chromium had it made, swift and minimal display taken from what you actually want to see. Why can't they just keep it simple?

* Re-done successfully with Firefox.

Re: Maps wiped out the GPS market?

I cycled to the Med this summer. Used real maps between towns. Used Google (saved) maps in towns. Worked perfectly with no roaming data costs.

Going to Athens next week. Saving Google Maps right now. Not bad for free. I guess if I was a [redacted word] I might use old fashioned GPS but don't let on to your local spook.

Re: Upgrades

I have two Kubuntu systems on my desk. One three years old and the other four. Upgraded each every six months with no issue. Indeed my main worry is about all the cr*p that has accumulated over that time and forgotten.

One of these days I must reformat the disks and start again. We always did that with MS-DOS & Win9x every year. Speeded things up no end. It was XP activation process that discouraged me from continuing ;-)

Between a rock and a hard place

Yes reducing consumption is an important factor - should, for example, all lighting be LED within 10 years - more/less? Does anyone have a plan or is it left to the 'market'?

But the real problem is the war between the greens and the fossil eaters (aided and abetted by the climate change deniers). The one thing they all agree on is no nuclear power. And they do know how to freak out the man in the street. But not, usually, the man or woman in a white coat.

So, in reality, who is taking a purely rational view of the options forward including how to handle significantly higher energy costs? We have had a rehearsal in the 70s oil price hike. It caused problems but the world didn't end. Planned increases would be easier.

Re: Alternatively

True but US Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, Royal Mail, Deutsche Post are unlikely to figure as my clients for their app development. And their devices are most likely locked into their own system so they won't be able to access any apps I write for others whether Windows compliant or not.

So its Android and IOS. Well just Android if I have to choose. And to correct the original piece Android Studio installed dead simply on my Kubuntu system. My first app "Doh Register!" will be coming to a Play Store near you real soon ;-)

A sensible strategy

The Nokia brand still has great value in the consumer market. Especially without the collateral that will dog blackberry to death.

I see this machine purely as a marker. To keep the consumer brand alive as Microsoft erase it from their products. It helps re-establish product marketing, sales and distribution divisions. In other words a foundation to build a business. Not the business itself.

It also puts them in the Android/Chinese manufacture model. Is anyone seriously suggesting they get back into manufacture of hardware & OS again? They have learnt that lesson. No, they will try and concentrate what they do best. Refining Android and the hardware to become the Waitrose to Tesco's Hudl.

There is space and done well could make Samsung look like an outdated out of town hypermarket when people want a next generation device to be more intimate, more trustworthy. Its something worth going for. If they can keep themselves focussed (unlike the old Nokia), some useful innovation and lots of luck.

Here's lookin' at you kid.

Re: Free Decrypt button must download the key

"Odds of this (or something like it) appearing on a family member's machine at some point is, unfortunately, scarily high and there's little or no chance of them starting to do backups to removable media."

Depending on how much you love 'em or how naggy they will be when the inevitable happens - it might be worth secreting rsync (or its local OS equivelent) on their machine to keep an updated copy of "My Documents" or wherever they dump their family photos on a system you trust. They'll never notice. Then you can grandfather it yourself.

One day you will be greeted more enthusiastically than Father Christmas!

Re: We are affected :(

If I was your client I would be blaming you - not Fasthosts. Choosing a single point of failure is the failure.

No matter how brilliant your provider may be (and Fashosts doesn't have a particularly brilliant record) any datacentre, any network can fail for internal or external reasons. So you spread things around. Then any failure is containable, its just a bit of reconfiguration and maybe some sluggish responses. Which you will, of course, rehearsed ...

Re: Spaaaace!

Space travel, manned space travel, landings, manned landings, heavy lift rockets, re-usable spacecraft, space stations are all 20C. That when real progress happened. We have just been finnessing it since and going backwards in some ways.

But bouncing washing machines on ice is a first. And flowery shirts beats flares so I'm happy today.

Re: Original Moto G?

Yes, on Tesco, according to this page: https://motorola-global-en-uk.custhelp.com/app/software-upgrade-news/g_id/1994

Page down to check out by your supplier. 2nd gen has had released notes already issued - see here:

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod_answer_detail/a_id/102639

Which means we are either bringing up the rear or have been forgotten.