* Posts by TheVogon

3511 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jan 2013

Great news, cask beer fans: UK shortage of CO2 menaces fizzy crap taking up tap space

TheVogon

Re: Irony?

"Can’t it be bottled somehow?"

Well yes, but a) to distill it from the atmosphere is very energy intensive, and b) when used for beverage products it gets released again.

TheVogon

Re: I am a specialist.

"I hear the US Budweiser "brewery" is supplied from the other end."

Usually put as "Q. How do you turn English beer into American beer? A. Drink it."

Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android

TheVogon

"free from Google: the Ubuntu phone. And everyone ignored it."

Because it couldn't run Android apps?

TheVogon

"I would much rather have random ads than ones that some algorithm thinks is relevant. They never actually manage to be anything I would want... "

"when I had my adblocker off"

So maybe you are getting random ads?

"Because all people who watch plane videos own airlines"

If you had an interest in aircraft they might also have been trying to make you want to fly in one? And if you normally use an ad blocker they might only have been able to match that interest.

TheVogon

Re: @macjules

"and the odd feature that Apple does first like 3D face scanning"

Windows phones did that better a few years before Apple did.

TheVogon

Re: Lots of comments about Google Maps,,,,

"won't the BASIC needs of many (most?) smartphone users be met?"

Well no because you have to root the phone to do that and many apps like banking and Samsung pay will then no longer work. For most users to be happy there should be a requirement that all crapware can be uninstalled not just Google's.

Unfortunately that's not the focus here and Google will likely be forced to allow OEMs to install what they like, and make Google apps optional. What this will almost certainly mean is instead of just Google's crapware, you will get a whole selection of crud from anyone that will pay for it. Rather like a Dell PC!

TheVogon

Re: Pipe dream

"To be fair to Google, it's the third party ad companies that are by far the worst."

Which Google permits by preventing easy and effective advert blocking on Android. For instance https://block-this.com/ was removed from the Play store.

TheVogon

Re: Pipe dream

"Google docs: Use another program. Microsoft has this one they've made in a bunch of different ways. They don't have to track you, because you pay for it. It's called office."

Actually if a web crapp will do then the Microsoft cutdown versions are free!

https://products.office.com/en-US/office-online/documents-spreadsheets-presentations-office-online

Amazon staffers protest giant's 'support of the surveillance state'

TheVogon

Re: Not really knowing...

"We refuse to contribute to tools that violate human rights"

So they have stopped work on their warehouse staff management systems?

Amazon tweaks its word processor for easier online Office edits

TheVogon

Re: Well I for one shall be ditching MS Office 2016

It's called "Office 2016 Click To Run" service

So that's simply a streaming installer service. A more modern version of MSIexec. It doesnt collect user telemetry. So comms will likely be related to software updates, licensing, certificates, etc.

TheVogon

Re: Well I for one shall be ditching MS Office 2016

"When I tried to disable this Stasi Service, Office applications such as Excel would then refuse to start up"

And what would be the name of this mysterious service? Office 2016 certainly doesn't require internet access to work. Smells like bs to me. Otherwise why post AC?

TheVogon

Re: Well I for one shall be ditching MS Office 2016

"Libre Office has been fine as a replacement for what, 10 years?"

Unless of course you need a version on Office that actually works. As per Munich compatibility issues are widespread.

TheVogon

Re: Well I for one shall be ditching MS Office 2016

"Office 365 has to check that it's still licenced"

You can activate Office 2016 / 2019 via KMS though. It doesnt need internet access.

Oracle's new Java SE subs: Code and support for $25/processor/month

TheVogon

Thank god we migrated to .Net already.

Oracle: Think our DB sales are great now? Wait until we actually get the new product out...

TheVogon

Re: How can revenues be up?

How do they manage it? Every peer I know has Oracle as. disinvest.

Microsoft Azure Europe embraced the other GDPR: Generally Down, Possibly Recovering

TheVogon

Re: More Microsoft CloudFog

"Engineers have identified the root cause, and actively working to mitigate the issue. Our telemetry has shown improvement, and next update will be provided in 60 minutes or as events warrant."

Ailing ZX Spectrum reboot firm kicks crisis meeting into long grass

TheVogon

"The poor contractor is going to find that winning the Small Claims Court action isn't actually going to help when the company has no assets and no intention of paying."

It might at least result in the Directors being forced to appear in court and explain where the money has gone. And also establish his rights over the source code in question.

And if he wins before they are declared insolvent, it's of high enough value to go to the high court, appoint bailiffs and seize assets. First come first served in that case!

Shiny new Capita boss to UK.gov: I know you are but what am I?

TheVogon

"Jon Lewis"

So does he price match and give a 5 year warranty?!

Now Microsoft ports Windows 10, Linux to homegrown CPU design

TheVogon

Re: Hail the future monopoly

"Soon Microsoft can do without Intel, AMD, Dell, HP, Lenovo, & co (and we still get Linux)"

Yep, Linux runs under the Windows kernel now too.

TheVogon

"the return of Windows RT which will fail for the exact same reasons it failed before."

Or maybe not:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/12/microsofts_windows_10_armtwist_comes_closer_with_first_demonstration/

TheVogon

Re: Computer says "No"

"I don't recall MIPS or ARM _EVER_ being faster than the high-end x86's"

DEC Alpha sure was.

TheVogon

Re: No doubt....

"they'll put DRM on the chips which will detect pirate copies of Windows 10."

They don't need DRM on chips for that. They already detect pirate copies and it just displays an irritating warning.

TheVogon

Re: Still at the FPGA stage after all these years?!?!?!?!???

"I half expect Windows to become confined to Microsoft hardware only, like Apple."

Windows has a fair history of cross platform CPU options although only x86 / x64 were a success. For instance Alpha, Mips, Arm, etc.

TheVogon

Interesting. They are apparently ahead of rivals in quantum CPU technology too:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-28/microsoft-edges-closer-to-quantum-computer-based-on-elusive-particle

Microsoft says Windows 10 April update is fit for business rollout

TheVogon

Re: Unless you're running any corporate McAfee software

"Such as HIPS, which, as usual, doesn't support the latest version of Windows 10 1803...."

April 30, 2018

Added that Host IPS 8.0 Patch 11 Package date — March 16, 2018 for Windows supports Windows 10 April 2018 Update.

TheVogon

Re: Hmmm...

"I've also bricked my mother-in-law's laptop trying to fix a Windows driver error."

Unlike previous Windows versions, with Windows 10 you can do an in place update from a USB key even if it wont boot the install you want to recover. See

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/videoplayer/embed/RE201WL

TheVogon

Re: Wait

"The bit that gets me in that quote is the word "monthly". Are Microsoft thinking aloud about monthly Windows subscriptions?"

It means how many unique Windows 10 devices they get some sort of visibility of (so for instance contacting Windows update) over a one month period.

TheVogon

Re: Because

"Even a total reinstall of linux of any flavour complete with office suites and 20000+ apps and utilities is just over 1GB."

A minimal install of RHEL 7.5 is 5GB and full is circa 10GB, so no.

TheVogon

Re: Lies, lies and statistics

"It's obviously no. It takes extreme effort to find a number or email address in Windows to call for support. "

On first page of search results:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/microsoft-support-chat-phone-number

TheVogon

Re: In the time it takes to update win-10-nic...

"The other factor to consider is that Windows Update locks you out of your PC with pointless full screen blerbs that tell you nothing useful. "

You do get the option for restart or restart and update these days. The are also plenty of options to defer if you are logged in and at the screen. And you can set active hours when updates wont install. However once pre-installed they will still prompt for a reboot during active hours which causes the common misconception that active hours isn't working. You can repeatedly defer the reboot.

"So you're sat there waiting for 15-30 minutes"

For build updates (~twice a year) it is installing a fresh copy of the OS, so yes it isn't as fast as a patch. However the range is more like 5 minutes (NVMe) to 30 minutes (laptop with spinning rust).

TheVogon

Re: In the time it takes to update win-10-nic...

"That is hilarious - while you are of course wrong - Windows Update isn't fast at anything, and the installation requires 32GB of disk space and uses 20GB"

Installation actually requires a recommended minimum of 16GB for 32bit or 20GB for 64bit. Windows 10 itself uses about 10GB on a clean install. The main additional space eaters are page file, hibernation file and of course future Windows updates.

If you have a <= 32GB device then commonly you run out of space for major updates and it's majorly sucky that Windows doesn't have built in intelligence to deal with that.

Hopefully it helps a few people to know that disabling the Hibernation file on such a device will usually free up enough space to update. You can do this from the command line via POWERCFG /hibernate off

TheVogon

Re: least complaint-generating Windows ever

"Lack of complaints may be caused the number of people (and companies) which upgrade as late as possible to avoid at least some problems."

If you read the linked blog, its been deployed to ~250 million devices, and the stats are based on that.

Companies do get up to 2 years from pre-release / 18 months from GA to remain supported. And builds will get fixes / security updates during that period.

TheVogon

Re: least complaint-generating Windows ever

"That's because everyone downgrades to Win7."

Apparently circa 700 million users have not.

Windows 10 has better performance especially on crappy hardware and is way more secure, so If you want Windows why not just run a relevant app to disable the spyware if not happy with the built in options, and install a Windows 7 start menu app if you hate TIFKAM would seem to make more sense to me. Or don't use Windows.

TheVogon

Re: good news

"Install Win 10 and defang its telemetry, possibly by blocking associated IPs at the router level?"

Or maybe just by using the simple built in options to disable the vast majority of it?

TheVogon

Re: good news

"So, basically it collects all the data on the PC, hardware and installed software and checks to see if there are any "gotchas" and either does or does not give you the update. Where's the AI?"

Presumably mostly in sifting "all the data on the PC" times tens of millions and working out what the "gotchas" are.

TheVogon

Re: Because

""because the download is at least four gigabytes"

It kind of makes you wonder.. 4 gigabyte update..."

The 64 bit update 1803 ESD / ISO download is about 2.9GB and 32 bit is 2.2GB containing all versions of Win10 except enterprise. For instance 64 bit US English:

http://fg.ds.b1.download.windowsupdate.com/c/Upgr/2018/03/17133.1.180323-1312.rs4_release_clientconsumer_ret_x64fre_en-us_8483d330ba2e42d8e0a2bdd377074358afb0c864.esd

And its a similar size for the update because major Windows 10 releases effectively install a fresh copy of the OS and then transfer your configuration and the fastest way to do that is from a complete OS image.

TheVogon

Re: What this story really means

"Because WSUS is a crock of shit that downloads the whole universe, "

It only downloads what you tell it to - which is pretty granular by product and OS.

"depriving you of your internet connection for a week"

It only downloads it once. Better than multiple clients all downloading the same thing.

"and then stubbornly refuses to make any of the updates available to your clients"

Works just fine in everywhere I ever used it. You do have to use group policy to point your clients at it and set an update policy.

TheVogon

Re: In the time it takes to update win-10-nic...

"in the time it would take me to update win-10-nic (from start of downloads to final reboot), I could"

Seeing as that's a 7GB download for 11.1 I call bs. Windows 10 is faster at installing too.

TheVogon

Re: good news

Surprising that the article doesn't actually mention the main content of the Microsoft blog post that it links to. That Microsoft is using AI to deploy Windows 10 updates:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to be a key area of investment for Microsoft, and we’re pleased to announce that for the first time we’ve leveraged AI at scale to greatly improve the quality and reliability of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update rollout. Our AI approach intelligently selects devices that our feedback data indicate would have a great update experience and offers the April 2018 Update to these devices first. As our rollout progresses, we continuously collect update experience data and retrain our models to learn which devices will have a positive update experience, and where we may need to wait until we have higher confidence in a great experience. Our overall rollout objective is for a safe and reliable update, which means we only go as fast as is safe.

Visa fingers 'very rare' data centre switch glitch for payment meltdown

TheVogon

Re: VISA Crimes

"Anyone notice Visa credit card charges going up in the past 2-3 years? Foreign exchange spreads etc..."

If you mean interest rates as well as FX rates then those are controlled by the issuing institution, not VISA. And yes with historically low interest rates, those have presumably risen to compensate.

Adobe’s e-signature service to go bi-cloud: Adds Azure to AWS

TheVogon

Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.

AWS seeks ‘startup launch’ experience for end-user services

TheVogon

Re: Just curious

I guess they are panicking as to getting anywhere in that space now that Citrix went with Azure.

'No, we are not rewriting Office in JavaScript' and other Microsoft tales

TheVogon

"So Tech guy is talking about Office 365"

He is talking about the web apps that hardly anyone uses. The vast majority of Office 365 users have a local Office 365 full package install.

TheVogon

Re: AI requires an Internet connection

"offline Office is what we need."

Like Office Pro Plus 2019?

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mark the life of Slack for Windows Phone

TheVogon

We already moved to Teams anyway.

CIOs planning to snub Oracle for other cloudy vendors – analyst

TheVogon

Re: Audits and Cloud Tax

"I don't know why anyone would move to MS SQL."

Well compared to Oracle, better security, lower cost of ownership, ease of development and far better integration would be significant reasons to move.

"Azure is a complete rip off too."

Compared to what? It's usually marginally cheaper than AWS for generally better performance.

TheVogon

Re: Audits and Cloud Tax

"That PostgreSQL is used at all by yourselves just goes to show it's making inroads all over the place."

It isn't used by us. We ditched Oracle and have moved to AAG on SQL Server. However I have worked places where it is used, and it's generally niches where developers could do their own thing. Hardly anyone uses it in prod instead of Oracle or SQL Server. Market share is tiny, and few vendor systems support it.

TheVogon

Re: How odd

"According to the latest gartner magic quadrant, azure has 4 billion run rate and AWS has 20 Billion. Ms dominating email in the cloud, but not much else."

Those figures are a bit out of date:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/04/27/microsoft-tops-amazon-in-q1-cloud-revenue-6-0-billion-to-5-44-billion-ibm-third-at-4-2-billion/

Azure is also consistently growing twice as fast as AWS. Microsoft have a lot more in cloud than just Azure - O365 for a start. They beat AWS in total cloud revenue over a year ago now.

Wires, chips, and LEDs: US trade bigwigs detail Chinese kit that's going to cost a lot more

TheVogon

Re: Treasury notes

"Chinese could imaginably ruin American economy by flooding the interest rates market with Treasury notes, which would push the yields up. It would cost them an arm and leg"

And America could simply say devalue the US Dollar by a factor of ten making that that debt worth much less.

UN's freedom of expression top dog slams European copyright plans

TheVogon

Re: Or to put it another way

"Big advertising (my sponsors) think that it will be too much hassle to try and stop theft, so we should make it legal. Big advertising (my sponsors) think that it will be too much hassle to try and stop theft, so we should make it legal."

Well, firstly copyright infringement is not theft. See here for the difference:

https://youtu.be/IeTybKL1pM4

And secondly its already illegal. This is purely about who has liability for enforcement. And as soon as you make it the companies that are basically jusr pipes to content, then loads of unrelated stuff is going to get censored by special interest groups, governments, etc or simply as collateral damage.