A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own

[Mr Larrington]

It's probably a reasonable assumption that the extension lead doesn’t do any fancy crossing over of conductors thobut, otherwise the vendor would have mentioned it.  Wouldn’t they…

*passes the multimeter*

Sadly I do not own such a thing and Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) utterly failed to steal one when he left the employ of Missis Kwin chiz.

[Kim]

! Shirley every lady, most gentlemen and assorted nonbinary persons of the Irish Tockracy should own one.  Preferably 5 or so, including at least one that goes BEEEEP!

[Mr Larrington]

Only those who footle with anbarism on a regular basis.  I don't own a cauldron or a pointy hat either, because I do not indulge in witchcraft.

[andrewc]

Grumble:  My geriatric iMac (2008) is running an similarly old version of Safari (11.1.2) which I think dates it to 2018.    In the last week I've had multiple failed connections giving a "WebKitError Domain" reading.  Luckily Opera still works on them OK. 


Trying to hang on until Apple launch a new 27" screened iMac, hopefully in the new year.

[ian]

...

Trying to hang on until Apple launch a new 27" screened iMac, hopefully in the new year.

I'm first in that queue. Though if they make it 30" even better.

Then I'd finally get rid of that bloody teensy fly wedged in the corner of my current screen.  I should probably pony up some cash to get it removed by a grown-up (or go to an Apple store and make sad face). I'd swap it for my wife's but she'd very much in the don't you bloody dare camp.

[Zipperhead]

! Shirley every lady, most gentlemen and assorted nonbinary persons of the Irish Tockracy should own one.  Preferably 5 or so, including at least one that goes BEEEEP!

I got a free upgrade for mine. I was looking in the cupboard under the stairs and found another one, much better than mine.

I reckon the electrician who worked on the extension put his down and forgot to pick up again, but as it was more than five years ago I'm sure he will have replaced it by now. Or expired through the sudden application of electrons.

I didn't even need to change the batteries - double win.

[Kim]

! Shirley every lady, most gentlemen and assorted nonbinary persons of the Irish Tockracy should own one.  Preferably 5 or so, including at least one that goes BEEEEP!

I got a free upgrade for mine. I was looking in the cupboard under the stairs and found another one, much better than mine.

I reckon the electrician who worked on the extension put his down and forgot to pick up again, but as it was more than five years ago I'm sure he will have replaced it by now. Or expired through the sudden application of electrons.

I didn't even need to change the batteries - double win.

Multimeters are notable for being relatively high-tech gadgets that still tend to have hardware 'off' switches.  And (other than fancy ones with very high precision, wireless communications and similar features) tend not to use much in the way of power anyway.

[Ham]

My mind is - at least slightly - blown. A TV and a PVR, connected via hdmi. Separate remotes. PVR is Netflix compatible, TV isn't. TV controls work for Netflix on the PVR - select, arrows, pause etc. Wtaf?

[Kim]

My mind is - at least slightly - blown. A TV and a PVR, connected via hdmi. Separate remotes. PVR is Netflix compatible, TV isn't. TV controls work for Netflix on the PVR - select, arrows, pause etc. Wtaf?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Electronics_Control maybe? 

[Ham]

Well, yeah, hence the "slightly", there had to be something squeeking down that lil'ol' HDMI line, but the initial discovery was a WFT? moment. After all, one is Sony the other Panasonic, and we've had them for years (TV more years) without realising.

[Kim]

Yeay, I think they've been trying to do that sort of thing since the SCART days, but the manufacturers were pathologically incapable of making their kit talk to anyone else's (or, on a bad day, their own).

[grams]

I saw a tweet this week in which it was discovered that CEC has a hard limit of three “playback” devices, which all games consoles and streaming devices count as. Ought to be enough for everybody.

[Mr Larrington]

Popular password manager LastPass to be spun out from LogMeIn • El Reg

[ian]

Big news on the fly that wriggled into my iMac screen. Its mummified corpse has slipped downwards and now hovers a scant 7mm from the bottom edge. So near to being de-bugged. Come on gravity.

[Jurek]

Big news on the fly that wriggled into my iMac screen. Its mummified corpse has slipped downwards and now hovers a scant 7mm from the bottom edge. So near to being de-bugged. Come on gravity.

Have you considered the application of a vacuum cleaner nozzle to the vents at the base?

[ian]

Feels under the screen. Blimey, there are vents. I've never looked under there. Maybe that's how it got in.

Great idea, I will give that a try. It's a teeny, tiny fungus fly, but it annoys me.

[andyoxon]

Laptop (i5, 16Gb, SSD) becomes erratic, sluggish, then unresponsive.  oh look, Windows 10 is auto updating...   

[Pingu]

Feels under the screen. Blimey, there are vents. I've never looked under there. Maybe that's how it got in.

Great idea, I will give that a try. It's a teeny, tiny fungus fly, but it annoys me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnIXXe83fe4

[Kim]

Oh marvellous: Mrs barakta's-mum clicked on "A thing that said it would make the adverts go away" and now she "can't get into her Nationwide account"

[Jurek]

Feels under the screen. Blimey, there are vents. I've never looked under there. Maybe that's how it got in.

Great idea, I will give that a try. It's a teeny, tiny fungus fly, but it annoys me.

Put some tape across the vents you are not using for increased suckage through the one that you are using.

[ian]

In a moment of supreme divvery when it first happened, I took a screenshot to illustrate the fly problem to someone.

[Jurek]

In a moment of supreme divvery when it first happened, I took a screenshot to illustrate the fly problem to someone.

It took me a moment.
It shouldn't have done.
But thanks for the larf.

[Kim]

Oh marvellous: Mrs barakta's-mum clicked on "A thing that said it would make the adverts go away" and now she "can't get into her Nationwide account"

Panic over.  It seems she'd installed some sort of free trial ad-blocker extension in Chrome, which had decided it wasn't letting her see websites until it was registered.

After a lot of potatovision and dyslexia we managed to get TeamViewer installed on her Mac, nuke Chrome from orbit and reinstall.  All is well.  Also sorted out assorted things that needed sorting out, and got Zoom working.  Video calls are so much less stressful when the camera stays still and the other person doesn't keep accidentally muting themselves.

[Mr Larrington]

OK, Estate Office Babbage-engine, every Saturday you do a full backup.  And it fails with an “Unexpected network error*” at what appears to be the same point every week.  And then I resubmit it, and it works.  So what's that all about, eh?

* I'd have thought that by now it would be an Expected network error, but clearly it's not set up to learn from its mistakes.

[Gattopardo]

Is F Droid save to use?

Have used F Droid to download andOBD to read the OBD on a car.