* Posts by Captain Obvious

153 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Jan 2011

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THX Onyx: A do-it-all DAC for the travelling audiophile

Captain Obvious

I thought the same thing

Until I discovered Symphonic Metal cross the pond. Too bad the US and UK is hyping crap with no soul whereas you get both with Symphonic Metal and even Progressive Metal, etc. The songs are peppy and not pathetic - I mean The Voice the music is so slow I can watch paint dry faster.

Listen to Within Temptation, Epica, Tarja, Beast in Black, Visions of Atlantis and many more bands!

Even their official videos are going back to stories instead of twerking.

Ch-ch-ch-Chia! HDD sales soar to record levels as latest crypto craze sweeps Europe

Captain Obvious

Re: What are Chia's performance demands?

Yes it is - look at HDD specs. They now also include maximum amounts written in order for you to get a valid warranty return if the drive fails. They started this several years ago - long before Chia.

Captain Obvious

Re: All of them work on proof of idiocy...

It is already occurring - I used to by WD external 14Tb hard drives for $249 on sale and $300 normal price. Now the normal price is $419 and if there is a sale maybe $319.

It is like this across all drives including enterprise drives.

I really hate stupidity....

We can't believe people use browsers to manage their passwords, says maker of password management tools

Captain Obvious

Re: password managers

You beat me to the punch - MOST of these if you Google have been hacked at some time. Many probably don't even know they have been hacked. Then ALL your passwords are pwned.

BOFH: They say you either love it or you hate it. We can confirm you're going to hate it

Captain Obvious

I think many are missing the obvious

It is a plot between Jim and the Head Accountant to milk the company for all the money they can with selling equipment and paying for their "services". It was a deliberate sabotage as an end-user would not even know what a BIOS is, how to clear the BIOS, how to disassemble a computers, etc.

Maybe we find out that this was pre-arranged with BOFH and PFY?

To be continued.....

Windows 11: Meet the new OS, same as the old OS (or close enough)

Captain Obvious

They will force many to buy new hardware

With the stupid TPM requirement. I do hope this kills Microsoft.

Tata Consultancy Services added just 7* customers in FY21 ... and 40,000 staff as revenue, profit flattened

Captain Obvious
Thumb Up

What I did to reduce turnover

Was forced to use them, so for first 90 day contract, wrote in there to give each developer offshore $1K bonus and onsite a $3K bonus. Not only did I have zero turnover while my co-workers had 300-400%, I also had people fighting to get on my project which was multi-year. Each phase had a bonus and it was paid DIRECTLY to the employee and NOT to TCS.

Windows comes to Apple M1 silicon as Parallels delivers native desktop hypervisor

Captain Obvious

So let me get this straight

They only allow for Windows ARM versions to run on Parallels and not x86 so not much ARM WIndows software to run then...

Backblaze on the back foot after 'inadvertently' beaming customer data to Facebook

Captain Obvious

Re: what's the scrappy option now?

Enterprise Seagates are WAY cheaper than IronWolf and Barracuda!

I ONLY use these EXOS drives AND they have a five-year warranty!

This is why they switched due to cost not due to enterprise vs consumer.

Ever wondered why the big beasts in software all suddenly slapped an 'I heart open-source' badge on?

Captain Obvious
Thumb Up

I just wanted to say

On this post, these are some of the BEST answers I have read in a long time and are very valid. Be interesting to see how long this fad lasts. I agree about why financial institutions still use mainframes, and that there is a lot of crap code out there. Great job everyone for keeping this to the point and on topic!

Hacking is not a crime – and the media should stop using 'hacker' as a pejorative

Captain Obvious

Funny - the original hacker meaning

Was people who tinkered with things to try to understand how things work. For EXAMPLE, I found ways to increase AND use additional memory on the Amiga 1000, which is clearly what hackers did back then. This applies to ANYTHING - software, hardware, your car, your phone, etc.

Microsoft previews Windows Server 2022: Someone took a spanner to core plumbing features

Captain Obvious
FAIL

My thoughts exactly - a NEW attack vector that can directly access your files. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Splunk junks 'hanging' processes, suggests you don't 'hit' a key: More peaceful words now preferred in docs

Captain Obvious
Joke

Re: Primary...

How about using a number one and a number two?

Funny on so many levels

Must 'completely free' mean 'hard to install'? Newbie gripe sparks some soul-searching among Debian community

Captain Obvious

You owe me

a new keyboard. I haven't laughed out loud in years!! GREAT stuff!

Attack of the cryptidiots: One wants Bitcoin-flush hard drive he threw out in 2013 back, the other lost USB stick password

Captain Obvious

I am curious

If there are so many bitcoins to ever be produced, if people constantly lose them, does that reduce the entire pool by that amount? In theory, couldn't bitcoin fizzle out due to so many people losing them or getting locked out?

Taiwan’s silicon titan TSMC says three-nanometre tech is on track for 2021 debut and a 2022 flood of kit

Captain Obvious
Mushroom

So if they have a plant in China...

shouldn't they worry about their tech being stolen? Kind of a dumb move, especially with tensions high between China and Taiwan.

Storage on AWS: What's new, is it too complicated? Can it help defend against ransomware?

Captain Obvious

WORM - Write Once Read Maybe?

So curious to the WORM implementation. Are we walking optical storage? Storage on hard drives with the read only flag set? Supposed permissions on the Linux server preventing anything but read only? What if the file truly changes?

ANYTHING online can get attacked by ransomware with probably the exception of Optical Storage which has its own issues as well. Does not mean they cannot steal the files and hold THOSE for ransom (I mean who really needs to encrypt files if you have all of their sensitive files?)

Maybe it is too late to think properly, But I see this as possible misleading marketing.

Microsoft warns against SMS, voice calls for multi-factor authentication: Try something that can't be SIM swapped

Captain Obvious
Joke

Macron

Is that you? :)

AMD claims high-end Big Navi Radeon GPUs leave Nvidia's ray-tracing cards in the dust

Captain Obvious

I did read on this in way more detail than this article

Notice how they state their card will beat NVidia in several titles and at 4K resolution? If you do a Google search, you will find that the games they listed are pretty much the ones they beat NVidia in for FPS. Other games perform much better on the Nvidia cards. also, not sure how many people game at 4K, but the 1080p comparisons are in the favor of Nvidia as well as 4K titles not listed by AMD (I think about 5-6 titles performed better on AMD).

President Trump's H-1B visa crackdown wiped $100bn off market value of America's largest corps, top study finds

Captain Obvious

Iwas going to say the same thing

But you beat me to it. Stock valuations have NO bearing on domestic vs offshore employment. This is a useless article.

Thought the FBI were the only ones able to unlock encrypted phones? Pretty much every US cop can get the job done

Captain Obvious

Re: Suicide rates and gun ownership

Heck - the average hit rate of a police officer is also very small and appalling. What SHOULD be required to own a gun is that you are forced to take glasses on gun safety AND learn how to shoot the gun. If an intruder that is armed breaks in, and you cannot hit the intruder but they shoot you right between the eyes, what good did the gun do for you?

Finding remote working a bit of a grind? Microsoft staffers feel your pain

Captain Obvious

And the MS people go

WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Who in their right mind would ever want to go to work? If you REALLY want to talk to people, there is a device with 10 numbers, an ear piece, and a speaker that works great! You can even have water cooler talk that way if you desire!

The advantages to society and work are huge! I have been promoting WFH for over 20 years. Why?

For the employee

1) Save on work clothes

2) Save on Cost of Food

3) Save on transportation costs

4) Flexibility to run Errands

5) Save on auto insurance

6) Reduction in pollution

7) Less traffic

8) Will not spread germs

9) More productive

10) Less demand for oil

For the employer

1) Lower Overhead costs - heating/cooling/insurance/gas/electric/telephone/etc

2) Can sell or lease excess space OR turn it into housing

3) Higher Employee Productivity

4) Can brag they are a good GREEN company

5) Usually get extra time from employees as they no longer have very long commutes

6) Most people WFH have almost no sick days

7) Potential for lower salaries for new hires if they are not living in some AWFUL expensive city

Honestly, if I were in charge, I would make it MANDATORY that all BACK OFFICE employees would work from home. I really do not understand the "mental illness" people get from not working in the office. Get wireless - you can work from ANYWHERE so if you feel alone, you could take your laptop to anywhere like a bar/golf course/beach/lake/coffee shop/whatever is your fancy.

Let the downvotes commence!

Shots fired! WordPress's Matt claims Jamstack's marketing is 'not intellectually honest' in debate with Netlify's Matt

Captain Obvious

Be nice to see on jamstack website

A complete sample website built from jamstack including the code and the underlying architecture.

Something to consider in case Dell freezes over: HP unfolds 2-in-1 laptop with Intel Tiger Lake brains, bigger screen

Captain Obvious

Re: Is this the same HP... @A.Coward

Really? Guess who owns Thinkpads - not IBM - think Asia - think Red....

Corsair's K70 MK.2 does nothing a cheaper keyboard can't, but the steep price gets you top-notch components

Captain Obvious

Re: KVM performance?

Mine also works on KVM - in fact all the corsair RGB keyboards I have with different models works with a KVM.

Captain Obvious

Why are they reviewing...

A model that came out in early 2019? Have had mine for over one year and love the keyboard. I do have the Cherry Red switches and not the blue, but blue/brown/silver/red/etc. have been available for a long time. Maybe a little late to the party?

Windows to become emulation layer atop Linux kernel, predicts Eric Raymond

Captain Obvious

So I have a question

If Azure is based on Windows Server, they would have to write Server with a Linux base to pull this all off and make more money with less development costs. I do not see that happening within the next 5-10 years.

That question was how will Azure change as it is based off Windows Server/Ad not a true LDAP and not Linux.

Microsoft claims to love open source – this alleged leak of Windows XP code is probably not what it had in mind, tho

Captain Obvious

How to destroy your competitors

Give them Windows XP source code and tell them to use it in their products as the code is solid...

Did this airliner land in the North Sea? No. So what happened? El Reg probes flight tracker site oddity

Captain Obvious
WTF?

Re: I blame the following, in this order...

Crikey! I skimmed and read your comment as Dildo Hardening

At the very last Moment.js: Time-and-date JavaScript library fetched 12 million times a week ends development

Captain Obvious
Joke

Re: advised developers to consider alternatives.

like, copy/pasta into your OWN version?

Would that be the flying spaghetti monster version?

Party like it's 2004: Almost a quarter of Windows 10 PCs living with the latest update

Captain Obvious

Re: But it bricks dell computers!

Not good if/when it takes out your networking.

What's 2 + 2? Personal info, sniffs Twitter: Anti-doxxing AI goes off the rails, bans tweets with numbers in them

Captain Obvious

Re: Would anything of value be lost if Twitter was gone?

I have mixed feelings on this. I personally think Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/whatever are all stupid and a waste of time. Like others, I have tried to use it for promotion, but had too many issues.

The mixed feelings are: does it really help in an emergency and people are trapped in a collapsed building/cave/whatever or is it better to simply text or call if possible? If cell towers are out - none of these options are even available.

On the other hand, you can get rid of Trump's tweets - although maybe people look forward to their daily laughs... Again, I do not know.

We've reached the endgame: Bezos 'in talks' to turn shuttered department stores into Amazon warehouses

Captain Obvious
Unhappy

Now would be the time

To open a fast food restaurant in the mall 24 hour service to support all of those employees. Wish I could afford to do this :(

I got 99 problems, and all of them are your fault

Captain Obvious

Re: Wibbly

That was my first thought as to why the person did not do that as proof...

Captain Obvious

Happens to us all

Most recently, I was moving the payroll system from one pc to another - mind you this is software only.

All of a sudden, the time clock was no longer working and they blamed me. When I remoted in, I diagnosed it at the network physical level as everything else was fine. They continued to blame me as I was the last one to touch it and move the software. I told them to get in the network cable team and IF that was not the issue, they could bill me. Turns out, someone plugged the time clock Ethernet cable into a different port - just like I predicted - a network physical fault.

That is at least one of 1000's of times I have been blamed for something that was not my doing....

Cloud biz Blackbaud caved to ransomware gang's demands – then neglected to inform customers for two months

Captain Obvious
FAIL

I can GUARANTEE

They kept a copy of the data to

1) Later use for blackmail again

2) Troll for information to find new victims

3) Troll through the data and use the data for other nefarious purposes

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

Captain Obvious

Re: LTSC?

I am waiting as support runs out at the end of this year, and our IT has no real upgrade plans yet!

Captain Obvious
Happy

Better than 1903 and 1909 so far

On the things that matter, if I use Remote desktop, I had a ton of issues from Windows 10 to Windows Server 2019 (never had an issue with 2016 but a hardware failure led to me upgrading to 2019 for faster Windows Updates application times). These issues have disappeared with 2004. I got rid of the crummy Dell TB3 docks so I also avoided that issue.

So at least for my use cases, it is an improvement on an abysmal product :)

You can get a mechanical keyboard for £45. But should you? We pulled an Aukey KM-G6 out of the bargain bin

Captain Obvious

I loved those IBM keyboards

Although they had a PS/2 connector on the back. I got rid of mine at the time where there were no USB to PS/2 cable adapters. I do miss them!

Real-time tragedy: Dumb deletion leaves librarian red-faced and fails to nix teenage kicks on the school network

Captain Obvious
Happy

Re: Let's be honest...

I still play Red Alert - my all time favorite game. I love the 2D vs the 3D crap as it was easier to control the units with the slick overhead view. Usually play Russia as the Tesla Coils are awesome.

Never liked Red Alert 2 and regular command and conquer was good - but Red Alert hits the sweet spot.

You can download it to play online still from cncnet.org.

What's a Google Play? Huawei talks up fledgling AppGallery store, shows off another voice assistant with a female name

Captain Obvious
Joke

Now that MS supports their play store

lately every single one of MS forays seems to end in failure thus will that be the end result for Huawei?

Control is only an illusion, no matter what you shove on the Netware share

Captain Obvious
FAIL

Re: "Or heard the sphincter-loosening words: 'What's a backup?' "

Until ransomware hits the main and backup drive......

Meltdown The Sequel strikes Intel chips – and full mitigation against data-meddling LVI flaw will slash performance

Captain Obvious

Re: One day, not to far in the future,

Thanks for the info on Proton - was not aware of this. However, looks like it is s till a really small selection of games from Steam site and missing things like Call of Duty, etc. Just curious as what the list of Steam games looks like on your end and if I can finally get rid of more Windows systems.

Fancy that: Hacking airliner systems doesn't make them magically fall out of the sky

Captain Obvious

Funny

That was my same EXACT thought while reading through this!

One could argue the same applies to self-driving anything like trucks, cars, etc.

Things I learned from Y2K (pt 87): How to swap a mainframe for Microsoft Access

Captain Obvious
Happy

Count me as one

Who was tasked at the same time period to help with shutting down permanently an AS/400 and move the data to Access 97 for archival purposes. Things went very smoothly surprisingly...

Microsoft: 14 January patch was the last for Windows 7. Also Microsoft: Actually...

Captain Obvious

Re: it's all curable, and worth it

As other people stated:

Windows 10 - depending on version, changes the way you join a domain. Plus they keep trying to force One Drive and Windows E-Mail.

Latest os Server 2019 AND Windows 10, depending on how you log in is what you can access such as from search: enter diskmgmt.msc. Depending on the user (ie administrator does not work but normal user it does. For me to get it to work as admin, it is Windows key + R and then enter diskmgmt.msc. Yet ANOTHER STUPID extra step to get into disk management.

EVERY version they change where and how configuration is made. This is utter crap.

I have lately had more BSOD's with Windows and USB items than with any other version.

I really could write several pages of issues with Windows 10 that Windows 7 never had but I do not want to bore everyone to death.

Space Force is go, go, go! Because we have a child as President of the United States

Captain Obvious

What I don't get is

why you are opposed to a Space Force? Ideally, it is a WASTE as the Air Force should control space. HOWEVER, the country that controls space controls the planet. The country that controls the moon controls the Planet. It makes sense for the West to start colonizing the moon long before the Chinese and Russians get there - and yes they are trying because they see the strategic advantage.

Lately, I think the comments are getting worse and worse to Daily Mail standards....

ERP disaster zone: The mostly costly failures of the past decade

Captain Obvious

I cannot believe Overstock was not mentioned

As they came THIS close to going under (they needed to Get Smart)

For large companies, ERP systems are ALWAYS going to be a failure. Common cloud apps from vendors will ALWAYS be a failure.

ALL systems should be developed in-house. WHY? The BIGGEST reason not mentioned is this:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> IT is to be used for a STRATEGIC advantage <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

If EVERYONE used the same crappy ERP or cloud Application, even with customization, it does NOT give you the flexibility to run your business to succeed where others have failed. Without innovation, all other things being equal, you will be forced to compete on price, which drives margins super thin, and ANY shock to the system can put a company under quite easily.

With the exception of PAYROLL, and to extent basic accounting packages (which will still need to be fed with advanced systems), IT should give a competitive and strategic advantage and not follow others.

Let us take a few industries for example:

1) Reinsurance - insurance for insurance companies. Yes, you could go with packages built for Reinsurance, but they are VERY inflexible, and you can no longer write innovative policies without a custom system.

2) Finance - there are so many areas that custom finance will give a superior advantage in many forms of financial products.

3) Online Giants - Amazon - E-Bay - Google - all use proprietary systems and look at their success rate.

I could go on and on with the titans of industry that developed their own strategic applications in-house but it would be pages long. Maybe if you used Oracle Financials, SAP, etc for BASIC accounting GL functions it would work - but at what cost? It still is cheaper to build in-house (and not out source).

Seagate, WD mull 10-platter HDDs as pitstop before HAMR, MAMR time

Captain Obvious

Same issue

Took me forever to sell off all of mine before they failed. SMR is slow and unreliable.

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