* Posts by Roger B

260 publicly visible posts • joined 12 May 2010

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UK competition watchdog launches investigation into fake review epidemic across Google and Amazon

Roger B

Just after Christmas my amazon account was "stolen" from me, I admit, my own fault, I had a crappy password that may of been there since my account opened in '99. I was told Amazon would fix it within 48 hours, it took about 3 months before someone in the accounts team seemed genuinely surprised I had been waiting so long to get the account back under my control. anyway, whilst the account was not under my control, I had removed my payment details, and the new owner had added theirs, but not changed the delivery address, so I started to receive felt glitter pens, exercise bands, and other assorted tat, when I found these items in the store they all had 5 stars and within a day or so of my delivery "I" was also leaving glowing 5 star reviews. All the sellers were third party, and after hunting through seller details they were all China based. After I regained control of my account, the 5 star reviews "I" had left were removed, and the items removed from my purchase history, BUT, there must still be a record on my account somewhere as when prospective customers ask questions I receive an email asking if I can help. I gladly reply explaining the seller is likely a con and they are best buying somewhere else. also interesting to note, the item on the page seems to occasionally change, but the reviews remain the same. The whole amazon review system, even when its just their own stock is complete bollocks, DVD/Bluray/4K Bluray reviews for standard/collectors and limited editions all mixed in is a particular annoyance. The positive outcome of me loosing control of my account though was I saved some cash and found a few alternatives for items I would usually go to Amazon for.

Loser Trump's last financial disclosure docs reveal Tim Cook gave him $5,999 Mac Pro, the 'first' made in Texas

Roger B

Entry Level??

I saw the $6k price and assumed Trump had over inflated the value of the purchase for ego? write off? reasons whatever, but no, $6k is the "entry level" silly me, its Apple of course.

Halloween approaches and the veil between worlds wears thin – the Windows 10 October 2020 Release walks among us

Roger B

Was running 19042.508 on my very very old dell Studio 17, but as of 930pm BST I am now running 19042.541, no idea what the changes were, but it seems to of installed easily enough. Have to give some credit to Dell I dont think I've had any issues with driver updates on this machine and I think originally it was running Vista.

USA decides to cleanse local networks of anything Chinese under new five-point national data security plan

Roger B

And yes, of course Discord who Tencent have invested an undisclosed amount in.

also, interesting to note that most of the comment here have plenty of upvotes, but 2 downvotes, conspiracy nut in me says someone pro Trump. Doesn't look like anyone actually made a positive post concerning the USA actions against the company though.

Roger B

Tencent could be interesting, they have so many fingers in gaming companies form fully owning Riot Games owner of League of Legends to a small share of Epic Games who make Fortnite, to partly owning the Clash of Clans company, they also own 1.6% of Warner Music and 10% of Spotify.

All this because Trump has business loans with China in the 10's of millions, you'd think someone would look into this pretty closely, he would seem to be leveraging the power of the US government to reduce, delay, better negotiate his loan with the Bank of China, but as all branches of the government seem willing to bend to his will, he has free reign.

Hats off to the brave 7%ers who dived into the Windows 10 May 2020 Update within a month of release

Roger B

I had the message on my laptop, desktop and tablet machines that the update was not ready for me yet, for a so long, I got bored and added my laptop to the Insider Ring, I now have my very old Dell Studio 17 Dual Core machine running 20H2 19042.330, seems a bit nippier than previously, I think if I replaced the hard drive with an SSD the speed increase would be very noticeable.

Am I odd in that before shutting down any of my PCs, I generally go and "Check for Updates" and let it install what it needs, probably cursed this now, but I've never had any major issues, I think once, the camera stopped working on the Surface tablet, but it was back up and running again within a week.

Lockdown team building: Actualise the potentiality of your workforce... through the power of video games

Roger B

I've been playing HFF on and off as they keep adding free levels, but I am almost hate playing it, I find the character control soo annoying, possibly not helped by using a well worn Xbox controller, my character will not stand still if I put the controller down, he always wobbles off to one side.

I was in the beta for Sea of Thieves and downloaded the full game as soon as it came out, unfortunately one of the first things I did was go and drink too much grog which created a far to real feeling of being drunk before passing out and now whenever I load the game up and walk out the front door I am overwhelmed with motion sickness and can only play for 30 minutes before needing to go and lie down. The water is nice though.

US starts sniffing around UK spaceports – though none capable of vertical launches actually exist right now

Roger B

Was there not a Red Dwarf book where the full length of the UK was a landing strip for space ships? I think the rest of the planet had become a huge dumping ground for a "new earth" or something. Might be a bit too on the nose with that prediction.

To test its security mid-pandemic, GitLab tried phishing its own work-from-home staff. 1 in 5 fell for it

Roger B

When only 12% of the company reported the phishing attempt it makes me wonder how many people in general report the ebay/tax office/americanexpress/paypal in general.

UK snubs Apple-Google coronavirus app API, insists on British control of data, promises to protect privacy

Roger B

I'd read the other week that NHSX were teaming up with Palantir to create the app and no one seemed to bat an eyelid, insane, but yet another day when I'm glad I don't own a mobile phone.

Not only is Zoom's strong end-to-end encryption not actually end-to-end, its encryption isn't even that strong

Roger B

Friday morning on BBC News with Naga Munchetty, Nick Hancock said Boris whilst still in isolation (Hiding from those pesky reporters) was still using Zoom daily to keep in contact with his cabinet,

Eight-core 3.8 GHz CPU. 12 TFLOPS GPU. 1TB NVME SSD. 16GB RAM. Not a half-decent workstation, it's the new Xbox

Roger B

If it runs on the Xbox One, it will run on the Xbox Series X, but it looks like "Tetris: The Grandmaster Ace" is not a back compatible title.

Unlike Crysis, so, unfortunately it wont run Tetris, but it will run Crysis.

London's Metropolitan Police flip the switch: Smile, fellow citizens... you're undergoing Live Facial Recognition

Roger B

I read somewhere about the UK loosing its protection under GDPR, google has already emailed UK registered users apparently? Would this allow police forces to use Facebook/social media photos with their LFR system giving them a bigger pool of known faces, even if those individuals have a criminal record or not?

UK: From 5G in Tiree to the Isles of Ebony, carry me on the waves… Sail Huawei, sail Huawei, sail Huawei

Roger B

The tweet from Newt Gingrich to me reads like the USA is more upset about the lost spying capabilities of their agencies operating here than anything for commercial purposes, or maybe my paranoid mind is reading too much into it.

Curse of Boeing continues: Now a telly satellite it built may explode, will be pushed up to 500km from geo orbit

Roger B

sJust 55 years away, so not unrealistic. After posting I forgot about Star Trek: The Final Frontier and the Klingons shooting space debris that had drifted into their space, in this case Pioneer 10.

Media predicting the future as it always does.

Roger B

In the same way that regular army personnel fill sandbags to keep occupied and minds off shooting their commanding officer, will Space Force personnel spend their time sweeping up these abandoned satellites?

Den Automation raised millions to 'reinvent' the light switch. Now it's lights out for startup

Roger B
FAIL

Great, so how many of these devices are going to end up in landfill?

We strained our eyes with Lenovo's monster monitor: 43.4 inches for price of five 24" screens

Roger B

Have you still got it?

Halo: reach out later this evening on PC.

Irish eyes aren't smiling after govt blows €1m on mega-printer too big for parliament's doors

Roger B

Last night I saw that advert for some banking small business thingy and the woman is exclaiming "Four grand for a printer!?" and I always wondered wtf she was buying. Now I'm wondering what €800,000 for a printer gets you.

Microsoft Chrom... Edge hits beta as new browser prepped for biz testing

Roger B

Back to Firefox for me I think, but

I've always felt one of the biggest reasons for Google Chromes popularity was you couldn't visit any website without being offered to download, install and make it your default browser, when I was doing consumer IT repair, so many customers would come in and upon seeing 2 or 3 browsers installed on their system asking for their default and they'd say Chrome, "it just changed one day so we thought we had to use that one now" no one has a clue, and because Edge Chrome wont be attached to Adobe Flash updates, visiting YouTube or installing god knows what addon, I doubt there will be much of a % jump in users.

I just hope Firefox has got a bit lighter in terms of system requirements.

The Empire Strikes Back: Trump discovers $10bn JEDI cloud deal may go to nemesis Jeff Bezos, demands probe

Roger B

But then we can use that photo of him looking at the eclipse without the safety glasses on, it'll be perfect!

I don't have to save my work, it's in The Cloud. But Microsoft really must fix this files issue

Roger B

Re: Nobody tells students nothing

The one big thing I remember from my school days of using the computer and the 3.5" floppies was, "This one is broken, this one is about to break" so, we always ended lessons saving our work on to two separate discs, and we all had some form of plastic storage box, mine is still with me, from "Office Data" it holds 4 discs which pop up when you open it. I don't think I ever lost any work in the 2 years I used it.

Trump: Huawei ban will be lifted!
US Commerce Dept.: Yeah, about that…

Roger B

Yep, she's already been pushed by her dad to become head of the world bank, next he'll have her on stage with him and as he tries to focus his wandering eyes and a straying hand, he'll declare what a great president she would make and the crowd will go wild.

Roger B

But but but Ivanka's trade mark registrations....the Trump 2020 promotional tat, the promise of Trump 2024 promotional tat, the hotel branding, the golf course, does the DOC not realise they are messing with the orders from the supreme commander?

Also, this messes up with my comment from 4 months ago when I predicted Huawei would be seen as being an okay company again and I don't like that, not one bit.

Microsoft has Windows 1.0 retrogasm: Remember when Windows ran in kilobytes, not gigabytes?

Roger B

Would Windows 1.0 run on a modern machine? Would it become self aware upon finding itself installed on a system with >4GB of RAM My "weakest" Windows 10 machine is an old Core 2 Duo with 2 GB, maybe we could start on something like that to be safe?

Flight Simulator 2020: Exciting new ride or a doomed tailspin in a crowded market?

Roger B

I'd assumed this was going to be running on a PC, not necessarily on the Xbox One console, due to there not being enough buttons, although m&k support is available. Being a MS title it will be part of the Game Pass subscription service for either PC or the Xbox, and available for digital purchase for those of you scared of such modern business plans, and yes it will be Windows 10 only.

There are a few promotional pictures on the assets page of the Xbox news site for anyone wanting to have a browse.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/media/?sm=flight

Microsoft Bing is 10: That thing you accidentally use to search for Chrome? Still alive and kicking

Roger B

I use it for a few reasons, I like the image of the day, I am gathering the Bing Rewards points, up to about £100 so far and as I already have a Microsoft account, its pretty easy to go into my privacy settings every once in a while and clear out my search and browsing history, if I have to use anything google related, which would be for an occasional image search, the drag and drop from a website or my pc is pretty easy, or youtube, then I do all that in private mode.

China trade tariffs? Fuhgeddaboudit, say Cisco execs. We, er, shifted some production

Roger B

Hang on just one moment

I assumed that Cisco kit was made in the US and that's what this whole tariff raising, Huawei fear mongering was about, but Cisco make their kit in China? which made them a target for the tariffs, and so US telecoms networks as well as other commercial and private customers paid more due to Cisco putting their prices up. So honest Joe US taxpayer gets hit by an increase on his telecoms bill even if the providers only buy Cisco kit.

And on top of that the Cisco kit is more buggy and the bugs/backdoors are known globally where as the Huawei kit has yet to be proven to have any actual backdoors installed?

There is that line from Sneakers about the US government agencies just want to break the codes of the other US agencies? Here the US just wants to know it can easily spy on its own citizens?

Germany tells America to verpissen off over Huawei 5G cyber-Sicherheitsbedenken

Roger B

I'm thinking that in a few months, after many high ranking Chinese officials and Huawei directors have stayed at several Trump hotels and bought life time memberships to several of his resorts the US will release a statement that trade wars with China are over, they now have the best of deals in place and all Huawei gear is once more 100% Trump approved and safe for all to use.

Furious Apple revokes Facebook's enty app cert after Zuck's crew abused it to slurp private data

Roger B

Re: Do these "scandals" have any adverse affect though?

Just had a thought, create a fake server update, get it installed at Facebook HQ, just pay someone in IT $20/month or something....then every time there is one of these scandals, we can track how many accounts get deleted.

Roger B

Do these "scandals" have any adverse affect though?

Facebook spies, Facebook feeds you fake news, Facebook sold your details, Facebook listens through your ear piece, Facebook tracks you 24/7, Facebook leaked all your passwords, Facebook slept with your sister. The list goes on, but are people leaving? Deleting their accounts? or is the ability to share baby photos with Aunty whats her name in Melbourne, the chance to easily see who is driving to the football match on Sunday, the ability to easily check the time of your next pottery class so much more necessary than everything else that no one cares?

You can blame laziness as much as greed for Apple's New Year shock

Roger B

Re: Never mind China

Any photo taken on my Lumia 625 is also available on my Windows 10 laptop/PC/tablet and Xbox One, obviously I see the irony of talking about another eco system, but still, I believe there is a Onedrive app for Android and iOS which will chuck your photos straight into the cloud for access anywhere, once its set up, you never have to worry about it again, and I think OneDrive offers larger "Free" cloud storage than Apple.

A few reasons why cops didn't immediately shoot down London Gatwick airport drone menace

Roger B

Other options...

Rubber bullets?

Bean bag gun?

T shirt bazooka?

Whats the range on a good super soaker?

Paint ball gun?

Time for a cracker joke: What's got one ball and buttons in the wrong place?

Roger B

Re: You can also get...

The Dell Studio 17 that I am using to type this has an eSATA that takes USB or is it USB that takes eSATA either way, never used it.

Windows 10 1809: Now arriving on a desktop near you (if you want it)

Roger B

Broke syncing for me

It took about 4 hours on my very very old Pentium dual core desktop to finish sorting it self out, but only about 30 minutes on my not so old i3 machine with ssd. My surface tablet though is still on 1803 and not seeing any sort of update which I think is why my Edge browser has lost all but 2 of my Favourites, I guess its only showing the 2 sites because they were added when I was using the tablet and now the syncing is broken.

Not really seen any changes yet, dark mode is nice though and its good to seem some more options in the right click menu in the Edge browser, oh and HomeGroup is no more.

Who was it that hacked Apple? Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie, boy boy boy!

Roger B

https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/16/melbourne-apple-hack/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45219895

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/17/melbourne-teen-pleads-guilty-to-hacking-into-apple-network

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb44nn/autralian-teen-hacked-apple-network?utm_source=mbtwitter

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-teen-hacked-into-apple-s-secure-computer-network-court-told-20180816-p4zxwu.html

Microsoft's cheapo Surface: Like a netbook you can't upgrade

Roger B

You only have to see who the author is to see the point of the article, any chance to bash Windows and Andrew will be there. As for the product, I've not ready many reviews for it yet, strangely lots of gaming websites/youtubers asking the question is it any good for portable gaming, I guess in this age of the Nintendo Switch people are now looking for a similar Steam device, general consensus is no, not good for gaming, it only just runs Fortnite at sub 30fps, although I think it manages Skyrim okay, as always with tablets, don't buy the cheapest model.

Trump kept ZTE alive as ‘personal favour’ to Chinese president Xi

Roger B

Re: I am sure it had nothing to do with Trump receiving Chinese bribes

I was just going to say this, the $500m bribe from the Chinese government for his Indonesian leisure complex seems the likely source of the dotard changing his mind.

You've got pr0n: Yes, smut by email is latest workaround for UK's looming cock block

Roger B

Re: Probably mentioned already but

If I go into my local newsagent on Saturday to purchase my porn pass and it is staffed by the local school kids, are they allowed to serve me? am I breaking child porn law by asking them to supply me with a pass? Will I have to only go in on specific days? Will verified sellers perhaps wear a badge so I can ask them to supply me with a pass? Maybe we'll be offered a choice, a porn pass, or go over the road to the local chemist for a chemical fix? maybe directed next door to the DIY shop to buy tools for an amputation? The UK is already laughed at by everyone else, now this? What a joke we have become.

Roger B

Re: Probably mentioned already but

I know I know, it just pisses me off that modern parents can't be arsed to actually be parents and because of that everyone else has to pay the price.

Roger B

Probably mentioned already but

when I moved into my new pace and signed up with BT I am sure there was a question about who would be using the broadband connection and did I want filters, I said no thanks, but why are we not just having parents take some responsibility for their kids and having the functions blocked by ISPs. If your kid is accessing porn on a device you are paying for then its your responsibility as a parent to enforce that. Also, having MindGeek sell the passes and also control 90% of the internet porn industry seems to be a conflict of interest? Or at the least a chance for them to double sell their product.

Press F to pay respects to the Windows 10 April Update casualties

Roger B

Re: Most of the 'casualties' are Ballmer era stuff

Groove was pretty awesome, I was able to stream all my music from OneDrive to my Xbox or to my Windows Phone or any Windows 10 PC with my account on and also go to music.xbox.com and stream all my OneDrive music on any oneline PC. When using a Windows 10 PC or an Xbox it would also play any available music videos when using the Groove subscription, and if no video was available it would usually have a scrolling selection of photographs from the band/artist I don't think any music service does this? Although I've not really looked, since my sub ended I just stream from OneDrive, I don't honestly miss a subscription.

Reg writer Richard went to the cupboard, seeking a Windows Phone...

Roger B

Re: I use windows phones (because no one else will)

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't buy a piece of tech and think of the resale value, I use it till it needs a repair or upgrade, then until it falls apart. My Dual Core Dell laptop runs Windows 10 fine after a RAM upgrade, my aging HP Compaq tower although noisy runs fine and I'll use my 625 until I can get a cheap replacement or the battery dies. I'd say the people being the idiot are the ones who get tied into the rolling phone contract every year because they must have the new iOS or Android device because wow Facebook feels soo laggy now and I'm only getting 12 hours out of that battery, this new one promises me 16.

But hey, each to their own.

Roger B

Re: I use windows phones (because no one else will)

I'm using a 625 as a mini tablet/email/camera, no sim card, just on the Wifi whenever I can pick up a connection, no interest in owning an actual phone. Like you concerned about going to iOS or Android, I am starting to see a few of the apps I use stop working, notably IMDB, but Twitter, the browser and Cortana still work fine, I would like a 950 for the better camera and something that doesn't crash back to the desktop when I go to a media heavy website, but I got the device for nothing, only bought a case, screen protector and a copy of Monument Valley, its done me very well.

Microsoft ends notifications for Win-Phone 7.5 and 8.0

Roger B

Hi Hans!

Sorry, did I touch a nerve there, you seem a little angry, maybe I am wrong, but I am sure there was an issue with gifs on iPhones 2 or 3 years ago, at least on my bosses phone, but then again, he's a boss, so, you know..

One of the things I liked and I am sure has been mentioned on The Reg before is that the Windows Phone always managed to do more with less, loading up 3 or 4 gifs on a forum page with "only" 512mb of RAM always seemed okay to me. Not sure if I ever viewed SVG files, I dont feel like my mobile browsing was any worse off if I some how missed them.

Is a non animated gif, not just a pic?

Either way, have a great day, maybe don't go driving through any heavy traffic today though eh?

Roger B
Unhappy

I have a Lumia 625 that I was given a few years ago, never put a sim card in, just used it as a mini tablet and camera, I'd noticed the IMDB app stopped working before Christmas and the Register app stopped working in the summer I think? I bookmarked the page, but it was never quite the same. I still receive personnel emails and I added my work account as well both were easy to set up and worked great. Live Tiles work really well for news, weather and photos. Its going to be missed, I've never owned an android or Apple phone, but when ever I have tried them, I've never quite clicked with the UI. It always amused me that the phone loads most gifs on forums quite easily and yet I seem to remember it was announced as some big thing in an iOS a few years ago, 512mb of RAM is starting to show though, a gif heavy forum will shut the browser and kick me back to the Start Menu.

I guess I need to go and hunt out a 950 or something for another few years now.

Donald Trump's tweets: Are they presidential statements or not?

Roger B

Nice mis-type there John

Yes the "heavy twitting" Maybe if someone stuck all the furniture on the ceiling on the Oval Office, he'd walk around doing a handstand like a proper twit.

Obama's account was put on hold while he was in office, Tweets made from the POTUS account by Obama were signed 'BO' (His initials, obviously, although if you were to make fun of his initials, I guess Donny signing off DT might explain some of his slurped speech)

To get back to the original question though, Donald Trump is the President of the United States, words, tweets, emails sent while he is in Office are coming from the President of the United States and are official statements, its not like he has the "opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employers the American people (or President Putin - yes, I just put that in to wind up a few).

Anything else is just a poor attempt at smoke and mirrors to distance himself from something controversial down the line. I guess though if he is still using his unsecured Samsung phone, the Twitter app is long out of date and adding the @potus account instead might not work.

'We've nothing to hide': Kaspersky Lab offers to open up source code

Roger B

I thought this offer had been made available months ago but no one took them up on it?

Actually, back in July it is mentioned as a headline on a random site called mobilescout.com

The time line for this, as I remember it seems to of been;

Kaspersky accused by Trump White House (See he can't be with the Russians he disagrees with them!) of allowing Russia to hack into western/USA computers,

Kaspersky deny this and offer up the source code, which no one took them up on

Quiet for a month or so

Suddenly Israel find Russian spies ARE using Kaspersky to hack into western/USA computers

Coincidence?

Example of even a broken clock telling the right time twice a day?

Confirmation bias?

Trump tramples US Constitution by blocking Twitter critics – lawsuit

Roger B

Well if you ever want the rollercoaster ride of hilarity, disbelief and outrage, that's the place to be, he usually starts about 130pm UK BST, you do need to get used to the pauses if he is on a roll though, his small fingers don't always work the touchscreen to well and he can keep you hanging on for 10 minutes or so if he is doing one of his multi tweet messages, or regurgitating something from the Fox new network.

Roger B

Re: buy a shitload of followers...

One or two of those 400 pound hackers he was so proud of? after all America has the best cyber.

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