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

[onerousdeporte]

You can download Catalina for free from Apple.
Win 10 I don't know about.

Yeah, but the macbook pro running catalina, doesn't want to.  When accessing the app store the mac say needs to be 12 something or above.  Hence wanting to download the os.  Wipe the hard drive of everything and start again

For free, from MS:
https://www.microsoft.com/eb-gb/software-download/windows10
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO

The only windows pc i have is on 7 starter and is painfully slow.

EDIT At 0.07 it is still at 48% ffs

[onerousdeporte]

Forgot how bad win10 was when new and updating... Even with an SSD and cable from the router.

[grams]

Yeah, but the macbook pro running catalina, doesn't want to.  When accessing the app store the mac say needs to be 12 something or above.  Hence wanting to download the os.  Wipe the hard drive of everything and start again

You need to boot from the recovery partition (or from Internet Recovery) and do a clean install of whatever OS it offers and then upgrade via the App Store.

If the Mac is too old to run Catalina officially you'll need to create a patched version, which is an entirely separate topic and not to be done casually.

[onerousdeporte]

Yeah, but the macbook pro running catalina, doesn't want to.  When accessing the app store the mac say needs to be 12 something or above.  Hence wanting to download the os.  Wipe the hard drive of everything and start again

You need to boot from the recovery partition (or from Internet Recovery) and do a clean install of whatever OS it offers and then upgrade via the App Store.

If the Mac is too old to run Catalina officially you'll need to create a patched version, which is an entirely separate topic and not to be done casually.

Have done the internet recovery and got catalina.  Am tempted to try a straight new drive in the machine and see what happens

[Mr Larrington]

Laptop, kindly stop changing the date and time to what it is in London's Famous London.  You are not in LFL and I have already told you to synch your clock with time.windows.com  Now behave

[Kim]

Computers are really bad at being clocks.  Windows computers doubly so.  I recently had reason to learn far more than I ever wanted to know about Microsoft's implementation of NTP (which is - I can only assume deliberately - incompatible with the real thing, to the effect that you can sync windows to normal time servers but not vice-versa).

Amongst the lessons learned was not to trust that GUI setting with a barge pole, and to configurationise the Windows time service using the w32tm command^[1].  Another lesson was that time.windows.com (which, to be fair, does appear to be a proper time server) has previous for sending out the wrong time.  Indeed, this is why when obtaining time from Other People's Computers, unisex spaceadmins tend to configure their hosts to poll more than one time server, so that it can form a consensus and ignore any that are obviously drunk and should go home.  You can do that in Windows, but it means fucking about at the command line, rather than editing a text file like dog intended.


_{[1] A stunning example of how Windows still isn't ready for the desktop.}

[Mr Larrington]

I await with interest the observation of:

• What it's done overnight, and
• What it does on reaching Microsith's home time zone later today

[lissotriton]

Why does my Google speaker play Spotify, but then cut out after 10 seconds? Not sure if a problem with the wifi, but it works fine streaming other radio etc.

[Pingu]

I am awaiting the reset of the Squeezebox Boom's time to this time zone. The other Squeezebox box periphera seemed to manage immediately 

[Mr Larrington]

On connecting to t'Interwebs on arriving here (Clarkston WA) laptop immediately discerned that it was in the Pacific time zone and changed gear according

[rogerzilla]

Having finished Quake II, I started on Quake.  It was "remastered" a few years ago so the Steam download, which is very cheap, Just Works on the latest Windows versions -it was originally an MS-DOS game.  Any new office-grade PC can run it in high resolution without breaking sweat, and it looks far better than it ever used to back in the day.  There are colours!

[Mrs Pingu]

Plusnet appear to be borked.

[nicknack]

Also borked in Kent.

[Pingu]

Set router's Primary DNS to 8.8.8.8, rebooted and 3-2-1 we're back in the room.

[nicknack]

Back here too.

[Kim]

Plusnet appear to be borked.

Yep:  https://downdetector.co.uk/status/plusnet/

They don't appear to have a status page.  What sort of ISP doesn't have a status page?  I'm sure they never used to be that rubbish.

[TheLurker]

Plusnet appear to be borked.

Yep:  https://downdetector.co.uk/status/plusnet/

They don't appear to have a status page.  What sort of ISP doesn't have a status page?  I'm sure they never used to be that rubbish.

They didn't, they also used to offer telephone support beyond 20:00.  And on that, what kind of *pillock* sets up a call handling system that takes you through a menu that lets you choose the "My Broadband is borken" option and *then* says, "Office is closed, use the website."  Too stupid to be adequately described in polite language.

Like Mme Pingu had to give the magic box's DNS setting a damn good kicking.

[Mrs Pingu]

They were bought by BT. Perhaps BT are making Plusnet shit to make people swap to BT?

[Kim]

They were bought by BT. Perhaps BT are making Plusnet shit to make people swap to BT?

Or gaining market share by buying a competitor, and then financially squeezing them until they're no longer competitive.

(Although IIRC the great email deletion fiasco pre-dated their acquisition by our-favourite-telco.)

[ian]

There doesn't have to be a conspiracy; support and service cost money and eat into margins. The broadband market is mostly won on being the cheapest, with reliability some ways behind (no one cares about reliability until they have to care about reliability). It's only a small niche of users who will pay upfront for service, support, and reliability. It's a market based on switching between deals to get to the cheapest.

[lissotriton]

They were bought by BT. Perhaps BT are making Plusnet shit to make people swap to BT?

Or gaining market share by buying a competitor, and then financially squeezing them until they're no longer competitive.

(Although IIRC the great email deletion fiasco pre-dated their acquisition by our-favourite-telco.)

Supposedly BT are going to scrap the Plusnet brand, and make it all EE instead. They have already got rid of Plusnet Mobile.
Though it think it makes sense to have a sub-brand for a cheaper, basic service. Most of the other big telcos are doing that.

[Kim]

There doesn't have to be a conspiracy; support and service cost money and eat into margins. The broadband market is mostly won on being the cheapest, with reliability some ways behind (no one cares about reliability until they have to care about reliability). It's only a small niche of users who will pay upfront for service, support, and reliability. It's a market based on switching between deals to get to the cheapest.

Exactly.

Most people don't understand how the internet works, which combined with the demise of ISP-based add-ons like email and web hosting, means it's basically impossible to market better internet services to them.  ISPs are perceived as doing the same job as energy providers, so - in the absence of spectacularly incompetent account management - it becomes a race to the bottom on price.

PlusNet used to be a smaller ISP oriented at relatively technical users (the sort of people who at least had a family member who knows what IMAP is and cares about traffic shaping), but have become a victim of their own success.  It's a shame, they were my go-to recommendation for a non-shit ISP for people who weren't prepared to pay AAISP prices.  (These days it's Zen.)

[andrewc]

Looks like the re-sale values of iPhone 12's are going to take a hit.   https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2023/09/14/apple_iphone_12_woes_spread/


Wraps his 12 Mini in several layers of tinfoil....

[Kim]

I may have reached peak xkcd://1279:  One of my doppelgangers has attached a photo of a document, revealing her social security number and a useful high-resolution image of her signature.

[chrisbainbridge]

My wife has multiple documents from a lady in Canada including medical letters.