Posts by Arrrggghh-otron

Re: Free fruit?

owe me a new keyboard...

Come on el reg... comment editing please... I'll get you some free fruit...

Re: Waiting to pre-order...

I don't think the stability issues are power related. I've seen the same thing with a 1A usb psu, though I wouldn't call it a hardware instability, more of a software issue due to memory constraints. Running a browser on the Rpi, particularly the default Midori browser (on the Debian dist) eats what little ram there is. Chromium seems much more usable but even then, running more than one tab causes it to crawl. Give it enough time and it catches up.

I've seen the same thing when trying to compile libs, system looks dead, left it for a few hours and came back to an error message and a prompt...

Re: lol @ todays "hackers"

He obviously never watched the film Hackers!

Hacking from your own home...

"Stupid, man. It's universally stupid."

Because ultimately the scams become increasingly institutionalised and appear more and more legitimate as time goes on... think insurance, pensions etc.

But in these instances, it does seem to be a case of buyer beware.

Re: Pressure sensors

How about a small balloon (or part thereof) partially inflated at sea level that presses on a micro switch when the balloon inflates?

Sounds too simple, I must be missing something...

Re: Question

That's the problem, we don't really know what it entails yet, and it likely won't contain any technical detail as that will be left to the ISPs to implement (and pass the cost on to us customers).

The real problem is that it is likely to be blanket monitoring in retrospect (that is your past years worth of internet activity will be available, could be more), whether or not the requirement is a warrant, everyone is being watched and recorded.

The assurances that it won't contain message data, just comms data, is a lie. At some point in the system everything will be looked at. A packet may contain part of another protocol and the whole thing needs to be read and stored until enough data is available to reconstruct that 'communications data' but that may also include lots more bedsides. The rest may not get stored for long, but it is read at some point...

Re: Bored of this product bickering...

I agree that BT are protecting their precious infrastructure and milking it for all they can. But it isn't just BTs fault. All public facing data providing operators seem to be as bad as each other. Mobile operators seem to be falling over themselves to go backwards with their fantastic new contracts offering less and less each year for a longer and longer lock-in period (250MB per month on a 2 year contract - really? I think what they are saying is "We can sell you a mobile data connection to the internet, just don't you dare use it!"). BTs Infinity product is going to look outdated when it finally hits my local cabinet at the end of the year*. My experiences with NTLs offering wasn't exactly inspiring and their billing was wrong every month...

I also blame the powers that be for the weird taxes they put on running cable. Making a national network more costly than it needs to be.

As for data caps, I don't really get that either. I can buy massive amounts of data transfer in a data centre for pennies a month.

*I will still be upgrading though as the increase in upstream bandwidth will be worth it.

"Gwyneth, I are in the 'oooover"

Re: VPS

I would put forward VMPort as a cheap VPS/KVM. Plenty of bandwidth and more than enough oomph to run a light to moderate load web server and webmail.

I use the smallest VPS as an MX backup for my own personal DSL hosted mail server and am impressed with the offering for £4 a month... choice of data centres in the UK, DE and hardly worth mentioning... the USA. Be warned that the UK data centre hosting the servers was blocking port 25 a while back but it was easy enough to get the VPS moved to DE.

http://www.vmport.com/

Re: Turning off servers at 6:30?

What about all the extra bandwidth and computing power consumed elsewhere dealing with the bounce messages and deferred email?

Re: I still don't get this

Perhaps he is there as some kind of early warning system, a barometer of what not to do. They listen to his ideas and then do the opposite, that way the won't go into the steady decline of DSG?

I'm clutching at straws...

You sir, are sick...

Re: midnight commander and root

They won't need to go as high level as getting root. If you've ever run a packet capture then you get the idea.

The thing that confuses me is the whole argument about not reading the 'body' of packets. But at which network layer are we talking? One layers body is the next layers header...

Re: Still too expensive...

Yeah, pirating it seems to be the only option (other than not using the software and getting left behind in terms of your skills) if you don't have £1500 kicking around. But I want to pay Adobe... and I can't... I have even looked at becoming a student officially to get the educational licence, but, frankly that was a ridiculous idea given the cost of courses and even then CS suite is still £300 odd...

And no, Elements is not CS Suite by any stretch of the imagination.

Re: Why so irrelevant Microsoft?

Ericsson had a mock up of a concept phone (before they were tainted by Sony) that did the same thing.

Patents are bad, mmm'kay

Re: Half cut?

On another note, I tried reading data sheets on the Kobo. It is painful. I need an A4 e-ink reader.

Re: Job descriptions?

Bring synergistic new paradigms to a holistic culture going forward?

Things are bad enough already...

It's bad enough when you find pubes in the keyboard, dubious sticky stains or 'amateur pr0n' on the computer that you have been asked to fix. This would take IT support to a whole new level...

Re: About time?

The MS deal is likely to have come with steel cables attached, rather than strings... but when things look this bad jumping ship seems like a good option. You can either jump ship, survive and deal with the consequences or go down with the MS powered ship.

Re: " ... provided new learnings ..."

Management speak invades our daily lives more and more, and it is right that is should, and will do so going forward...

Re: Small / Medium businesses

And it is.

I am rolling out Win7 machines to several small businesses (we buy pcs ready to go with an OEM OS license) now before Win8 is the standard build on machines.

Re: Greed

>Pcworld still seliing USB cables at £24.99

That about sums it up.

Price gouging, greedy and inflexible.

Worse still, when I have gone with a family member to help them choose a telly, the big electronics retailers rarely have the item in stock anyway.

I look forward to a resurgence of the local independent electronics retail store. (Like the one mentioned about in Southampton - is that on St Marys St by any chance?).

Re: @Will Godfrey

Would I be right in thinking that the finger painters have made it into positions of power? (Think Governments, Banks and Business boardrooms).

Re: Momentus

It took me a while to be comfortable with the idea of 2.5" hard drives in servers.

I think that was down to seeing lots and lots of failed 2.5" drives over the years, as they were mainly used in laptops that were kicked about a bit before being presented for repair.

Having had servers running happily on 2.5" drives for a couple of years now (I'm not going to talk about how reliable they are as that is just tempting fate) I would be happy to run a 2.5" HD in anything.

That said, my aging desktop still boots of a raid 0 pair of 36GB first generation Raptors and is still pretty quick. I would ditch the raptors for SSD if they would die, but they won't. They are solidly built and seriously reliable.

Re: Easy...

Hmm... sounds a bit too close to pederast and loses emphasis on 'terrorist'...

Re: 15mph?

I've been commuting 16 miles a day for the past few years on an ebike compliant with the usual ebike regulations* (i.e. assist limited to 25kph or about 15.5mph). 15mph doesn't sound a lot but it makes a hell of a difference to my average speed when compared to a non ebike. It feels safer as it is easier to keep up with traffic. Gets me up the long steep hills with only a little more effort than riding on the flat. Gets me to work without arriving soaked in sweat. Keeps my speed reasonable when cycling into a headwind and saves me about £2k a year in fuel costs (ebike costs about 10p a day to fuel, and has very few other associated costs).

Ebikes can be purchased in the UK from about £400 for a basic bike with low range. Midrange bikes start at around £700.

*The UK ebike regulations are a bit of a mess as the UK gov messed up implementing the EU directives and forgot to cancel the UK legislation so ebikes with throttles are legal in the UK at the moment, though technically the motors should be limited to 15mph and 200W continuous power rather than the EU 25kph and 250W - but then the power restrictions are largely notional as most 250W motors are capable of upwards 1KW for short periods anyway). The Super Ebike (The s-class ebikes not allowed in the UK as the UK gov declined to implement that part of the regulation) class requires registration, insurance and if I recall correctly a motorbike helmet, and are restricted to 45kph and 500W.

Re: Hmmmmm

My favourite was the 'fantastic opportunity' that when pushed for detail turned out to be a non existent position, but that the employer would 'almost create a position for the right candidate' * and that 'I was the right candidate' but when pressed for further details about the employer/salary/location etc was strangely vague about that too, asking me to fill in an agency application form before they would talk to prospective employer. I politely informed the recruiter that I was reluctant to spent a couple of hours filling in his form due to the number of agencies who waste my time with jobs that don't exist but he was welcome to put me forward for the job and let me know how I got on... strangely haven't heard back from him.

I guess I missed out on that dream job!

*The recruiters words, not mine. My emphasis on 'almost'.

Re: An awareness of what glass is...

I don't know why you got down voted - it made me chuckle!

Re: Economics rears its ugly dismal head

Well my first foray into the el reg forums is thoroughly depressing...

Re: No surprises, but it is a bit depressing...

Given the number of minor tweaks (read: things that users do wrong or break and I fix for them) I do in a given day, if I celebrated every one of them I would be partying so much I would be broke and/or dead in months...

Re: Not free, just not expensive.

I produce IP, it is fleeting, usually bespoke and for a small audience. It takes the form of solutions to problems. Once the IP has been produced, it is acted out and the resulting actions are considered the final product. I believe most of us call it work...