Posts by Chris Collins 1 25 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jul 2009
I imagine even those with backups most of them are either on same site (or even same server) or using OVH backup addon service (which may well be hosted in same DC).
Personally I implement a local backup which is also copied to a remote location, the remote location been an entire different company, so I can be sure its a different physical location.
The modern software world.
Rapid software release policies where we in perpetual beta and constant updating mode.
I started using office365 two weeks ago, was previously using the now obsolete office 2010.
Within 30 minutes I discovered 6 bugs (enough that I started listing them to prep a bug report), 3 of them were moderately serious.
1 - Renaming custom ribbon items didnt work.
2 - Creating rules randomly crashed outlook.
3 - Accessing addin options crashed outlook.
I then noticed was an option to change update channel from current to a two monthly one, I switched to it and the bugs I listed above all fixed. The default channel seems akin to Windows 10 where the users are all beta testing.
After the france crash, there was new concerns about engine safety at takeoff, a 2 engine plane can lose half its horsepower one engine out of 2 and still take off, whilst 4 engine planes often need 3 engines aka 75% power available. The problem with concorde is tho the 2 engines either side are very close to each other and as such damage to one engine can spread to another very easily as was shown in the france crash, and its quite possible concorde would have had to rectify this moving onwards which would have cost a lot of money. I expect this was a factor.
Sounds about right.
Some of my employers, will work something like this.
Idea with 2 month deadline.
Weeks 1-6 discuss what they going to do.
Week 7 get the resources.
Week 8 give me the work to do telling me I have a week to get it all done as its urgent, yet they took their sweet time for several weeks before hand.
This is a passive example, I have literally had projects handed to me with a 48 hour dead line where they have known about the plans for 6 months.
Uber is by far better for the customer.
e.g. yesterday I left a GP surgery, logged into uber app, when I did the order, a driver accepted within 30 seconds and he was just round the corner, picked up within a minute of order.
Meanwhile a standard taxi firm will tell you "in 10 minutes mate" after 15 mins you ring and ask where the taxi is "just round the corner mate" then 30 mins later it arrives.
With uber either the driver or customer can ring each other directly.
Also I can see where they are on GPS, cross the road if needed so easier for them to pick me up, I expect its favoured by both drivers and customers, as drivers have said they love that payment is electrical so dont need to worry about unpaid fares.
Vastly superior.
2 wrongs dont make a right.
it seems to me most people on here who approve of google are people who hold a grudge against microsoft for what they may have did back in the 90s (I say may as no proof has been posted). I would hazard a guess most people who dislike microsoft are also developers. As developers seem to love google.
But what microsoft may have did in the past is now history, that doesnt excuse what google are doing, first of all IE11 is very standards compliant, its not like the IE6 days, IE11 even has netflix running on html5. Secondaly you all talk as if html5 is as good as native code so microsoft are idiots that they cant make a quality app with it, html5 is inferior its better than things like silverlight for in browser apps, but not as good as native code for outside of browser apps.
I also agree as well that youtube apps are been overhyped somewhat, but im aware not everyone thinks like that and as a result google are been anti competitive. They are aiming to crush the windows phone pure and simple.
in my family.
2 have android (me and my younger sister's bf)
2 have windows phone (recently purchased as well) my dad and elder sister.
3 have iphone, my elder sister's kids and my younger sister.
I agree windows phone isnt a big player but its growing. Microsoft are also still big enough to hurt google.
eg.
They could rollout a windows update that cleans millions of windows desktops of chrome over night, for security reasons. If google then started bitching microsoft could also say google broke windows guidelines by installing chrome outside of the program files folder.
They could rollout a windows update that has IE filtering all google adverts, bam overnight tons of lost revenue for google.
They could buy mozilla off and have firefox do the same thing.
They could start a competior service to youtube, no ads for viewers, higher paymentsto content providers. Since money buys loyalty and users hate ad's youtube would lose market share fast.
I think microsoft have been polite up until now and I wasnt to see their nasty side turn on google. As google is too dominating, it needs putting in its place. Developers etc. mostly look up to google now and its scary. eg. the rapid firefox releases and dumbind down of firefox are down to google chrome. The cloud boom is down to google.
Personally I find google far worse of the 2.
They invade privacy for their living, their software sucks (yes it does)m, examples chrome is aweful but it has market share due to bundling with apps and heavy spamming of sites with download links, every change google make to youtube is a regression, the original youtube gui was better pre google, android os isnt that great and the likes of samsung have to make really powerful phones to hide its poor performance, and touchwiz to hide the constant ui changes google make to it, microsoft do at least make good software (well they used to before google invaded the market and caused them to panic release windows 8). But still better software than google. Google routinely block security apps on google play, apps that do things like protect privacy. This youtube thing is just blatant bullying and anti competitive behaviour. Most of my family have been buying nokia window phones, I played with one and in my view is far superior to stock android experience, the only thing that makes android good is the fact you can root it to fix its problems and large amount of apps. I cant wait for samsung to abandon android, it will lose a ton of marketshare when that happens. The main reason google has such a loyal following of supporters is cash, google makes other people money, all those app developers make a good living of android, youtube partners likewise. Adwords and more. When you have that kind of loyalty blind eyes are turned.
I been looking into LibreOffice and it appears to be missing an email client, am I right? I guess thunderbird may be an option although last time I tried thunderbird I couldnt get on with it.
For the most part I do agree with most complaints here.
Ribbon is an abnomiation (spelt wrong I know sorry), I am using office 2007 which at least keeps ribbon away from outlook, I was using office 2003 but that had some bad performance issues with outlook soI upgraded. I do have office 2010 licenses but didnt use it due to outlook ribbon and some bugs (such as the junk email filter staying on when turned off, although granted that may be fixed now as that was from the beta days).
Office 2013 with the apparent licences locked to hardware is a big fail, in fact activation is the evil in modern software which different developers seem to be attracted to by droves, but combining it with forbidden transfer is just horrible.
This seems a cheap way out for isp's, seems this country yet again always doing the cheapest option. AAISP might get a lot of new business in the upcoming yers because of this as their own plans seem better. The only real way forward is implementing dual stack 'asap' and then eventually over time ipv6 will replace ipv4. Thumbs up to germany who seem to be doing it the proper way. Also to blame router firmware is nonsense, the isp's in this country are the main customers of the router vendor's so have a big say in firmware direction.
Typical experiance in walking to one of these retails for me was.
About 1-2 cashiers depending on time of day/week. Christmas periods probably only time all cashiers manned.
Maybe 1-2 security gaurds.
5+ sales staff, or if a large place like pcworld 10+ sales staff.
A too tight credit system, my mum when I was a kid tried to get me a pc, but she was rejected credit.
I remember going into pcworld many years ago to buy a £300 monitor, whilst I was waiting for the manager (manager served me) to get monitor from back stock room, a security guard tried to escort me of the premises for acting suspicously. Luckily the guard agreed to wait for the manager to come back who told him he can back off, then a worker pushed the monitor for me on a trolley to the cashier and told me the security gaurds had managed to escort a new worker off the site once as well, what a joke.
When I used asda they were notorious for this, bread rock hard and 1-2 days left, and fragile stuff such as trifle was often damaged. Tesco are much better on the dates and rarely if ever get damaged goods, although as always its still better to go in store as you can pick the best out, more product choice and more offers available. But not everyone who uses online food shopping is done out of lazyness, some of us have mobility problems. They do however have very poor stock management, eg. I can do my order 2 weeks in advance, and still have substituded goods. I also wonder in the sense in some substitutes,sometimes goods that bear little resemblence yet on the website is listed much more suitable substitutes. On the subject tho I think the high street is dead, is a lack of conveniance and too much overheads to deal with, out of town shopping parks will have a longer life but they are probably on a ticking timebomb as well. Long term all that will survive is food and live entertainment venues. Rest will be internet only.
agreed.
One thing consumers dont like, especially those who work and not play (so not kids who get excited with tablets but people who do work on their machines) is a constant changing UI and especially having to change their hardware or operating system. In the corporate world sysadmins are calling out for SP2 because they integrate hotfixes onto reinstalls and these reinstalls get cluttered fast. eg. My laptop now MSE just scanned it, 288k files scanned because its a SP1 image with all hotfixes integrated, that leaves tons of dormant files on the disk. SP2 would be far smaller and cleaner.
What microsoft are doing is essentially copying google and apple (n my opinion poor) business practices, both those companiues have a trend of rapid releases especially google, kiddies love this as they get over excited on new versions but for me its a nightmare, I want a stable platform that I can use for several years, I wait a year after a OS release (at minimal) before I use it usually and then I expect to use it for at least 4 years. If I then upgrade I then expect the upgraded version to keep the same fundamental UI design with only enhancements not a rehaul.
Now here is what I think is going on at microsoft now.
They are clearly panicing because they not a major player in the mobile market, they have also discovered how profiteable a online app store is for companies like google and apple. So I can understand why this is been released for touch devices.
However their mistake is in forcing this down user's throats on the desktop and radically forcing a touchscreen UI on the desktop, usually when they release a new version of windows they dont do it with such brunt force, but they acting so desperate they going all out to make windows 7 less and less attractive to keep like xbox music windows 8 only and no more service packs. But the message they sending out to me is this.
1 - any future software I buy of them will have a short life before its treated as obselete, it may get security updates but will lose 3rd party support quicker due to fast progression of replacement products and lose quality focus because of rapid replacement products.
2 - any future UI changes I have to learn again and even when learned are less efficient may only last 2-3 years before microsoft panic again making more radical changes, microsoft gained my lotalty because the UI was stable all the way from 95 up to windows vista (taskbar changed too much in win7 to be called stable), but now I know microsoft dont care about that they will sell their soul to get mobile market share, mark my words if windows 8 fails in the mobile market, metro will be considered obselete and trashed by microsoft and a win9 will be pushed out quickly to try again.
Before I wasnt even considering a new OS, now I am evaluating various distros and freebsd as future desktop OS's for my use. Until then I will use windows 7, windows 8 is just for me to toy with in a VM as thats what it is a toy.
The problem is actually very likely congested upstream channels on VM's UBRs. Even tho they now have 3 methods of traffic management in play they still suffer from upstream congestion on a significant number of UBR ports. This causes jitter which will cause game lag. Especially on FPS games. VM are looking like idiots trying to pretend they have no issues causing lag. The official ofcom report shows VMs average jitter is 4x the average adsl isp.
poor article from this site showing some bias, VM are not perfect and I am in a congested area however I am also on the end of a long BT line.
The reason up to is more viable for VM is that (a) every single VM cable customer sync's at that speed on the modem, no ifs or buts 100% get it. Whilst on BT based services whether its BE, BT broadband or sky only a small % of people get over 16mbit on up to 24mbit services. Not even the majority will get 12mbit half of 24mbit. In fact the mean average is as low as 4-5mbit.
(b) on samknows data VM have average speeds very close to what they advertise, whilst the adsl providers are miles behind, given that the ASA blocked VM advertising the difference I can understand why VM are upset.
However I am confused what they supposed to be proposing, if they want speeds to be removed from adverts altogether than I think thats a very bad thing as we can then only look at usage specs.
if they move customers to skybb then many will leave. Ukonline is closer to easynet's own dsl service then to skybb, reasons why below.
ukonline has no DLM (line management) vs sky's aweful DLM, DLM is a killer on long flaky lines, like my own.
ukonline has SRA vs sky's no SRA, again SRA is great for long flaky lines. (allows resync of speed without downtime).
Ukonline has a support SLA, vs skybb consumer level tech support.
Ukonline is currently managed by easynet, my payments go to easynet, easynet staff deal with my queries, i think there would be a legal issue by simply trying to shift customers over. Especially now easynet will be a seperate company again.
I can get a upload sync on my long line of 1216kbit, not possible on sky's own config.
No BE on my exchange so most likely outcome if they try to move me to skybb is I would cancel the service along with phone line and just use my VM cable service.
what do the smart cookies do when either no BE at their exchange or they have a sucky old long copper line or dare I say it ali line.
BT's service brings a new meaning to lottery, we have ali and we have more than 4 possible different copper densities as well as line length, then you got the variable is the line a dropwire or is it underground.
If I were to go to VM's 10meg service, their current STM throttle speeds on that service exceed my current adsl synch speed, VM are so far ahead of adsl tech they can actually throttle above my synch speed. The average adsl synch speed in the uk is only 4.5mbit, so if you synching higher consider yourself lucky and that is not the norm.
All this considered VM need to upgrade my area, it is one of the analogue no broadband areas. :(
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