COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Tizer]

`Amazon unveils flying Ring security drone and Luna games service' LINK

[Stanley]

"The Always Home Cam is an incredibly ambitious device that will seem like something from a science fiction movie for many consumers,"
Quite, and definitely several steps too far for me! Include me out.

[PanBiker]

Awkward! the wheel on my wireless mouse for the laptop has broken. I pulled it apart, (as you do) and its the end of the shaft on the wheel that counts the turns that is bust. Not repairable so I will have to pop round to the mobile phone shop to get a replacement. This £5 worth or so has done about 2 - 3 years so can't complain.

[Tizer]

Earlier this month I related how my relative bought a PC from eBuyer the same as Mrs Tiz got from them. She had trouble with it from the word go. Then tried to install her MS Office and hit problems again. Contacted MS support and they couldn't sort it but suggested it was a problem with her PC. She then told eBuyer she wanted to send it back and they agreed. It went through the usual week or so while they made their minds up but then, give them their due, they called and said they were sending a new replacement (she's a canny lass and took a photo of the old PCs serial number details to make sure it wasn't the same one sent back!). It arrived the next day, works fine and she's happy!

[Stanley]

Advice please. I have had a message from Ubuntu that version 20.04 is available. What do I do?

[Tizer]

1. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS which you and we are using has an end of life date of April 2023, so we've got a long way to go before they stop issuing security updates! (LTS versions have 5-year life.)
2. Have a look at this article: `Excited About Ubuntu 20.04? Here’s What’s New in This LTS Release' LINK and decide if there's anything you need or want - I couldn't find anything! My Ubuntu boots quite fast enough, thank you.
3. Make a final check by asking Pluggy!

[Pluggy]

I wouldn't bother. I've looked at 20.04, it doesn't offer a compelling reason to upgrade IMO Look at it again when 22.04 becomes available.

[Stanley]

Thanks Stephen, lovely to have your opinion which I trust implicitly. I told you that you weren't free of me!

[Tizer]

Thanks for that Pluggy, we've got more to think about than just knocking a few seconds off boot up time! Take care...

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

This covers more than just phones...
`Should you be buying a second-hand smartphone?' LINK

[Stanley]

What a good link to a good article Peter. (Love the name Jeff Fieldhack!) For far too long, blatant built in redundancy has been a major marketing tool to promote sales of 'the latest version'. There was a time when longevity was the USP, look at my beloved steam engines or classic cars. That has gone and if repair and refurbishment is made difficult that helps sales as well. Will anything serious be done? Your guess is as good as mine, why do I doubt it....

[PanBiker]

Since our site upgrade I tested the link that we have on the site to the Visit Barnoldswick website run by the Town Council. It's broken and gives a security warning if you try to access it. It's the sites security certificate that is out of date so browsers will not connect. The link from our site shows over 116,000 redirects to the site although a reasonable proportion of these will be bot and crawler hits.

I went on the Town Council website and reported the error to the Town Clerk. She replied that they had been told that it was a coding error but she did not go into the detail of who gave the that advice? She did say that the original admin of the site no longer had anything to do with it. So I think they are struggling a bit. I suggested that they, (the Town Council) contact their host providers as it is a relatively simple matter to renew the security certificate.

A tracert search and bit of digging on the IP address allocated shows that it is hosted by Fast Hosts Internet.

You can lead a horse to water .....

[Stanley]

How about sending an email to David Whipp? He might be just the man to waken them up.

[PanBiker]

It's all the same mob Stanley and I shouldn't have to press the Whipp button. Apparently they are already aware of the problem but don't know what to do about it. I'll watch the TC meeting on Wednesday and see if it is mentioned. Town Clerk is the correct avenue for contacting the Town Council, any business has to be notified through her.

[Tizer]

Apparently they are already aware of the problem but don't know what to do about it.

That's probably the response most people get when they contact their council about a problem!

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

Perhaps Public Health England should stick to public health and have someone else do their computing for them?
`Excel: Why using Microsoft's tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost' LINK

[Stanley]

Any competent software engineer will tell you that we have no idea how many outdated and obsolete systems are still being used to run the world. Janet and Harry were at the top of the game and they were universally scathing about how public service and financial IT systems were run. See the problems that arise after takeovers when they try to integrate two such systems. Janet's solution for the WA Police Service was to scrap the lot and start again with clean data. Luckily they agreed with her and funded the massive and expensive operation. She always said that was the only way to get rid of rogue code and algorithms. Total replacement and physical destruction of all old assets and equipment.

[Stanley]

'In our time' on R4 this morning discussed Alan Turing. Fascinating and well worth listening to on BBC Sounds.

[Gloria]

How do I change the time? It’s not gone back an hour, will it do it automatically or do I have to do something?

[Big Kev]

Time zone settings will be GMT and there's usually a check box to 'automatically adjust for daylight savings'. If your machine is currently showing BST the presumption is the box is ticked. Is it continuously connected to the internet?

[Gloria]

It says all times are UTC + 01:00 in the bottom right hand corner of my screen.

[Gloria]

Done it.

[Big Kev]

Done it.