* Posts by EyePeaSea

16 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Nov 2015

Linux-loving lecturer 'lost' email, was actually confused by Outlook

EyePeaSea
IT Angle

Re: Client support, we've heard about it

I'm at an absolute loss as to why ACs comment had so many down votes for that post.

As far as I'm concerned, the lecturer was guilty of being rude and abusive (various verbal abuse and threats). But s/he wasn't an "idiot". New UI (and no mention of training being given) so the mistake is understandable. It's also understandable that the lecturer was irate/worried/upset. However, the abuse was wrong. Period. And that's what the lecturer should be apologising for.

Kind of a bizarre IT setup in that company. Migrate across platforms and have zero ability to go back and get the data from the source (Linux).... I assume that was the case, as the other IT support staff didn't just re-migrate the data (during which process, they'd probably have found the 'hidden' folders).

Other IT support users avoiding an important problem that was causing a user real stress. IT Management allowing that culture to exist in the first place. And Newt - understandably pissed off about the abuse, but s/he lost most of the moral high ground by reacting like a petty child. Sad to see stories like this confirming so many of the negative stereotypes that 'users' have of IT.

Microsoft hits new low: Threatens to axe classic Paint from Windows 10

EyePeaSea
Happy

Re: Windows 10 FAIL Creators Update

>> Ahem: learn to spell!

Quick - check out this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

:-)

Male escort says he gave up IT to do something more meaningful

EyePeaSea
Joke

Re: What sort of clientele?

SaaS = Sex as a Service?

Much more satisfying anything Adobe have to offer.

'No decision' on Raytheon GPS landing system aboard Brit aircraft carriers

EyePeaSea
Coat

> JPALS, by contrast, is a GPS-based system.

This really bothers me a lot. The planes will end up being routed down tiny country roads that aren't fit for large vehicles, as well as giving wildly fluctuating ETAs.

It will end in tears.

Walmart tells developers to stay away from AWS

EyePeaSea
Holmes

Re: Here is an idea

> Me too. It's not as if it's hard to connect a server to the internet and have it accessible from everywhere.

To be fair, I don't think most companies (with IT staff) use Cloud Services because their own staff can't connect a server safely to the Internet.

A more common reason is that they see it as a way of controlling costs and, just as importantly, having more flexibility to up/down scale. It's a bit like outsourcing staff or populating your IT department with Contractors - it's easier to cut costs at short notice.

Those approaches have the same failings; if you want to take services back in-house from the Cloud / Outsourcer or if you let go 50% of your IT department (the contractors), then you have a huge skills and knowledge gap.

Decisions like this need to be supported by long term planning, not just having a focus on short term costs ahead of yearly financial reporting to the market.

EyePeaSea
FAIL

Re: There are alternatives

>> Time will tell if our strategy is sound. So far it is looking very, very good.

Oh please, just stop now.

Having 'insiders' comment on the Reg can sometimes provide valuable insight into what is going on - but you're using the comments as nothing more than free advertising. It would probably have been ok, if you stopped after your first comment.

In my experience, Oracle DBS is generally regarded as a good ("incredibly", "very" or "not very" - delete as applicable) database platform. However, the number of people who rate the 'company' highly is a lot smaller. As I say - my experience.

So you're on a hiding to nothing, trying to promote Oracle - your posts will irritate far, far, far more people than it enlightens or pleases.

It's also not what the comments section of the Reg is for - again, my opinion.

Guess who's suffering an email outage. Go on, it's as easy as 123-Reg

EyePeaSea

Re: Why would you use email from 123/GoDaddy/HostPapa etc. anyway?

"Because nothing looks naffer than a longnamewithnumbers@gmail.com"

Puzzled that post got 12 thumbs-up. Are there really that many IT professionals who don't know that you can use your own Domain Name with email providers such as Microsoft and Google?

<shudder>

EyePeaSea

Re: Why would you use email from 123/GoDaddy/HostPapa etc. anyway?

You're agreeing with me - the point to my post was why use one of those stack-em-high-sell-em-cheap providers, and I gave GMail as one option, not the only option.

I don't think Google are altruistic at all - I'm just happy with the service I get from them and am willing to get that at the 'cost' of them pilfering through my emails to send ads my way (and whatever else they do).

EyePeaSea

Re: Why would you use email from 123/GoDaddy/HostPapa etc. anyway?

But...

<any-name-you-want>@<your-domain-name> looks fine. Which is what you get with a paid GMail account. Or have you time travelled from the 1990's ?

EyePeaSea
Alert

Why would you use email from 123/GoDaddy/HostPapa etc. anyway?

A friend recently setup a new domain+website. She has the Domain via GoDaddy and the website hosted on Wix. She was faced with the dilema - have email via Wix or GoDaddy.

Slight puzzled look on my face when she asked me. Why not just GMail? The costs for a basic *Google business account are very similiar to the email costs for Wix / GoDaddy and the level of service you can expect is so much higher with GMail. Ok - they aren't perfect, but I can't think of many outages I've noticed over the last 10 years.

Why would *anyone* use email services from a cheap hosting provider??

* I'm not connected with Google and am not a Google Shareholder. However, I will happily take any monetary offers they may give me for this gushingly positive forum post.

Met Police cancels £90m 999 call command-and-control gig

EyePeaSea

Re: Dispute the right to terminate contract

Hang on, I go into work and don't do my job I get sacked.

They have not been doing their job so they have been sacked.

How can they dispute that?

It's almost certainly not that simple, as others have said. These big (and yes, they can be very complex) systems frequently have the same problem. I see it in the Private sector as well as with Public sector contracts (people should stop lambasting 'civil servants' - 99% of them do 99% of the work, with about 1% of the authority to make decisions and only about 10% of the pay)

Basically - the organisation (or people tasked with writing the system specification), rarely understand their own business or actual requirements. Or, their requirements change over time (What do you mean you've painted my house red? I decided 10 seconds ago I wanted it blue...).

Therefore, what the contractor bids for is rarely what is wanted. Add to that, incompetent sales teams desperate to meet sales targets, they'll quite happily sell something (a system or service) that the poor saps tasked with delivering it, can rarely deliver within the agreed time/costs.

To use your analogy, let's say you were recruited to a job to be a Widget Inspector (you have been doing that for 20 years). You turn up for the job and they say they'd like you to perform neuro-surgery on Squids living in a nearby zoo. You give it a go (you're that kind of person), fail miserably and then get sacked after 12 months for not being up to the job. And they ask for the last 12 months salary back.

I think you'd argue then... even though you should probably have left after the 1st day, when they handed you a scalpel and drove you to the zoo...

These problems are rarely the fault of just one side. It's down to incompetence, greed, political interference etc. etc.

Even Google is abandoning Google+

EyePeaSea

Re: "privacy-mining"

And using the word 'raping' to describe mis-use of personal (but effectively partially public) information tells us that *you* clearly don't understand either the dictionary definition nor the real world meaning.

Sickening - to be honest. Ruin a perfecty good point, with a large dose of stupidity.

> actually means and is, before yammering on about Google raping yours...

>It doesn't mean what you clearly seem to think it means.

Why a detachable cabin probably won’t save your life in a plane crash

EyePeaSea

Re: I'll tell you one thing...

>> There is only one way: every passenger in his individual podule, hermetically sealed.

It's been done - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhoH21tVJnQ

But apparently it only works in space :-(

BT dismisses MPs' calls to snap off Openreach as 'wrong-headed'

EyePeaSea
Thumb Down

Re: Privatisation

>> how it took six months to even get a line installed

>Now it takes six years to get broadband installed. And you have to pay for it twice - once in handouts to BT from your taxes, and again in monthly charges.

Years ago, it could take 6 months for everyone to get a new line installed. Yes, for some people, it might take 6 years now to get broadband now, but those people are in the, what, 5% of the population that live in 'remote' (geographically distant from central communication) areas.

So - treat everyone equally and give everyone a shocking service? Is that really the way to go?

Keep up pressure (and subsidise if appropriate) to ensure that as many people have access to the Internet as possible. But let's stay sensible and proportionate. I may well retire to the Highlands in a few years - if I do, I may have to accept a measly 1Mb connection whilst my family down south will be enjoying Gb to the door. But that is my choice...

I'm not in the 'Privatise everything' camp. Nor in the 'It is private, so it must be better" camp. And FWIW, I'd bet that I've been on more picket lines sacrificing my salary to support others, than most people reading the Reg. But this rose tinted view of the history of state run enterprises (British Layland. British Rail. British Coal, GPO etc.) doesn't cut it and distracts from the real problems and challenges facing us today.

Bitcoin cloud miners a '$20m Ponzi scheme – there was no cloud at all'

EyePeaSea
FAIL

Re: Weird

>> Well... if you were one of the "early" investors, you would have your money back and then some.

No, not at all. As an early investor, you would be getting a good rate of return on your investment (paid for by the 'later' investors), but your initial 'stake' is still going to be lost when the bubble bursts.

You invest £100k, on the promise of a 20% return/annum. You're an early investor and get 5 years of return before the scheme collapses. Hey! You just made £100k!!!!

Oh, but wait, you've lost your initial investment so actually, if you're a really, really, really, lucky person, you've come out even. So best case scenario - you've taken a huge gamble and got the financial return equivalent of stuffing £50 notes into your mattress.

An alternative? £100k over 5 years on a 2 bed terrace in Bradford - You'd be up £20k in equity + the rental income (nett about £350/month, so that's another £21k).

So, the only way to make money out of a Ponzi scheme is to be the person setting it up. And no, I'm not suggesting that. Personally, I prefer hard work and not taking holidays. But I'm a boring old fart.

Ponzi schemes flourish because of 1 basic human trait; greed. Greed of the person setting it up and greed of the investor hoping to jump on something that looks too good to be true. <sigh>

AMD sued: Number of Bulldozer cores in its chips is a lie, allegedly

EyePeaSea

Both the 386 and 486 came in variants that didn't have FP units. Or to be more pedantic, all 486 chips had FP units, but some were disabled. My understanding is that during the QA process, any full 486 chips that had defects in just the FP part of the die, just had that disabled, rather than the whole chip being discarded.