Posts by Roland6

Re: The Wheel of History

>And Lotus Improv was out of this world at that time too....

Still is, Excel 2019/365 still can't do 3D spreadsheets as simply as Improv did.

Re: "together even when they are physically apart"

>If I want to be with someone, then I am with someone. ...

In the current lockdown, you can only do this (and some of the other things you list) with someone who is a member of your immediate household...

I did a variation of what the BBC is offering (same time different place) with a movie for my teenage daughter's birthday recently, she and her friends watched the same film, whilst in a 'meeting' (*), so whilst not as good as being in the same place at the same time, did permit some real-time interaction and viewing control (pause, rewind).

(*) Need to be careful about sound feedback. I would hope that someone will implement some form of noise-canceling (on the movie) which would enhance the meeting experience ie. would permit audio/spoken word conversation.

>Still, the Beeb idea is bizarre.

Given the omission in your comment, I suspect you also don't see the point of multi-player gaming and in game chat - something my teenage son does a lot with his friends.

Re: Publish Elsewhere?

>Perhaps it's time for developers to ensure ...there's a way for users to obtain the latest versions

Its more than just the latest versions.

Do a factory reset and you may find that many apps can't be installed because the latest version doesn't run on your particular version of Android.

However, with a little digging around you can often find a site - of unknown repute - that has a few old versions, which you can try and find one you can install and then update.

Re: Consequences

>It seems you may have finally come to realise the outsized role Google has in your everyday life, yes?

I suspect it hit them like a brick...

It has taken the Huawei P40 to make the reviewer realise that what they thought was "Android" isn't Android at all, but Google services.

A few years back people talked about walled gardens - mostly with respect to Apple and Microsoft, it seems Google has quietly over the years turned "Android" into a walled garden without people noticing too much.

Re: "Design it to be secure from the start."

>That's an old-world view that's at the source of many of our current challenges.

err no...

Design of an system application such as the NHS app, starts before anyone has even thought of designing software. When I pass a system design to the Software Engineers (to contribute their component of the solution), I've already solved the real-world problem and identified many of the key security hurdles the design of the software elements need to get over...

So you are correct in that Software Engineers on being given a brief can start to think of security from the start of their involvement.

Re: Algol 68 is not ALGOL 60

>I never got to use Algol 68 because it was difficult to write a compiler for

Yes, the really powerful and useful languages are a bugger to write a compiler for.

Aho and Ullman's "Principles of Compiler Design" was the must have text book on the subject (still got my first edition) and explains why , although it was very helpful in writing a Pascal compiler, in writing compilers for languages requiring bottom-up LR parsing, such as C and Ada, there was much left to the reader...

Re: His opinion, or his employer's?

>Not sure GDPR specifies lengths of time, but you aren't allowed to keep the data for years after it is useful.

Well given the extent to which modern medical research uses historic (personally identifiable) medical records, it would be relatively easy to justify the "useful" retention life of CoVid19 data to be at least 100 years.

>Not sure if GDPR allows personal data to be transferred elsewhere without express consent

You get express consent to permit you to "share data with selected third parties".

Re: re: factory reset

I think there are also article(s) on el reg that describes how malware can survive a factory image flashing (PC and phone) - due to much hardware having its functions defined by software which has its own memory that isn't touched by an OS reimage...

In undating a bunch of PC's recently, I found one device family required a Bios downgrade (to a specific version) followed by an upgrade to the new patched version to ensure UEFI disk and memory areas were overwritten and thus erased.

So what Open RAN seems to be is a US 5G patent pool, which in order for it to work either needs to steal patents from Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei (and other non-US contributors) or bully them to agree to license their Patents to Open RAN on terms favourable to the US.

Naturally, the companies that will have goods stopped by US trade officials will be consumer devices from companies such as Samsung - all above board and in accordance with the US's take on WTO's rules.

Re: Uh? Is this a common problem?

>I was concerned that dabbling in JavaScript inevitably led to darker things like heroin ...

Personally, I suspect the unscrambling of someone else's sed script can lead to things like heroin ...

Re: Perfect example...

>but they make it clear that this is the FIRST wave of the disease and there is worse to come

However, this seeming clarity is being eroded by the testing of biopsy samples taken last year, in which evidence of SARS-CoV-2 is being found, suggesting there was an initial wave in UK/Europe last autumn...

What people are ignoring is just what government policy (around the world) actually means, basically, they are accepting CoViD19 is here to stay, it won't be eradicated and achieving herd immunity is a pipedream, the best seems to be to keep it's R-value below 1, in the hope that a vaccine can be developed within the next year then mass produced and then a programme of injections started - which to me indicates CoViD19 and thus lockdowns and social distancing are going to be part of 'normal' for at least the next 3 years.

There is one thing we can be certain of: CoViD19 is action research on a grand scale and is providing many opportunities for people to see scientific problem solving - warts and all - in real-time.

>Our DR plans most certainly considered several scenarios where nobody would be allowed into the offices and everyone would have to work remotely for extended periods.

Bet they didn't take into account social distancing, unavailability of parts, spares etc.

Not saying the plans didn't help, just that having had to restore Internet connectivity for a client (trunk fibre lines out of the town were servered - took BT/OR 3 weeks to fix), I did find the plans only went so far before it was "get your thinking hats on" - what do we have that we can use to restore some form of connectivity so people can resume working tomorrow morning and continue to work until such time that BT are able to restore normal service...

Re: Tip of the iceberg

>It's the way you create the market that makes the difference.

That is a lesson a UK, on route to exiting the Single (European) Market, is going to have to learn fast...

Re: Trust Office

But not all PDF readers are equal.

Over the years I've found differences between Adobe, Nuance, FoxIT, ExpertPDF, Chrome...

I think the best was finding that displaying an A4 document at full width on a 15" laptop screen in one caused some horrid (bad on the eyes) font display, reduce zoom by 5% and it displayed perfectly legible fonts.

Re: Why?

Yes, the decentralized approach is tempting, however, a big issue is what can we learn from it, to better prepare us for the next time, and there will almost certainly be a next time. Given the number of SARS/Corinavirus outbreaks in the last 20 years, I suspect we'll see another SARS/Coronavirus pandemic within the next 10 years.

Not saying the UK NHS app is better or actually does the job, just that it might be wise to think of the bigger picture. From what I can see the UK NHS app provides more data to researchers.

>Can I ask if and how I prosecute/stop him from using the customer data?

Phone your solicitor.

Re: Firefox has sought to arrest its slide in the rankings

>How about they stop trying to chase Chrome

It is worse than that.

With the integration of password management, they are also chasing: the dedicated password manager vendors and all the security suite vendors that now include a password manager.

Personally, I use LastPass for a reason - its cross-platform, not locked to a specific browser or security suite. I suspect others use other reputable password managers for similar reasons. So this just becomes yet another feature that will be turned off, just as I uninstalled the free version of Kaspersky's password manager that gets included with their security suite.

Given browsers are becoming an entire containered OS, I suggest it is about time they started having published API's and better support for third-party enhancements. Perhaps this is something the Open Group could resolve and deliver a POSIX standard.

Re: If this passes..

>I guess I would expect booking.com.au to be the Australian outpost of booking.com serving antipodean tourists, so they might have a claim.

But you would be totally wrong.

In general ownership of one label and TLD combination, does not give you any rights over anyother combinations of your chosen label with other TLDs and subdomains. Although given the US seems to think it owns the Internet and that US law applies globally...

If in doubt I suggest you search back and reread the 'Brexit' articles about the use of .EU domain names currently held by UK companies/individuals that will become available (to EU residents) in the near future when the UK finally completes its withdrawal.

From the discussion in the article, I suspect a case could be made for trademarking: iCloud.com (and similar) because iCloud is a made-up word.

What is interesting is that Booking.com BV don't seem to wanting to trademark their business name (or is it already trademarked in the Netherlands and EU?), just their domain name.

Re: HP printers

Mopria is also included as standard in Android 8.0 Oreo, where it is called: Default Print Service.

In my experience so far (HP, Canon, Brother), if the printer supports Airprint and/or the manufacturers own WiFi print application then Mopria will be able to access it.

Re: Dude, where's my (car)dware?

>n other news almost everyone else is going cloud to escape managing hardware, OS, applications, infrastructure...

Yes and as the original commenter said - all works well until it all goes titsup and you need to either restore your IT ahead of the scheduled priority your cloud provider has assigned to restoring the systems hosting your load or you wish move away from that provider.

Everyone tends to assume that once you move something into the cloud, DR/business continuity, data backup and archive etc. are solved problems.

Re: so what *is* the solution?

Well given the ease with which people will be able to "play around" with stuff on their phones, it does seem the solution is to rely mostly on network data and use the app to provide unreliable but more granular data.

Now try and sell that to the people; given peoples well-founded wariness of letting state agencies accumulate large amounts of data on them...

Re: Only rogue users

>Yep. Here, our web filtering list is relatively short.

It works well until you explore a little.

A client had barred "gambling sites", it worked well until they decided to bid for funding from the National Lottery.

On investigation, yes the filter did block the big name sites, but none of the smaller sites - neither did it have an exclusion list. Not naming names but the web filter was from a popular business provider (£) of web filtering services.

Re: Boxes

Looks like its only taken them 12+ years to deliver what Tintri delivered - using open source. suspect it will be not as functional and admin friendly.

It could be something to do with people having to remain at home = shortage of empty homes to peruse...

Re: as for ICANN - just get rid of ...

> they make us go back to using the OSI network stack?

It worked, the MAP/TOP/GOSIP profile isn't too dissimilar to TCP/IP and CLNS out-of-the-box supports whatever address space you wish to define.

Re: Counterfeit parts

>BTW, these diodes were used in the -48v dc power circuits and would/could fail spectacularly! Hence icon.

Just like high clock speed PC CPU's separated from their heat sink before thermal cutout circuitry became standard?

Re: used webex at the weekend

>for a family catch up. I was trying to wean the folks off of zoom for <waves hands vaguely> security reasons.

Next week are you trying Jitsi ?