Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[nfmax]

Think that might be a struggle with 1 bit of RAM

Well if you can make a working CPU with just 1 instruction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-instruction_set_computer)...

 

[Cerebus]

Surely your toaster should be running NetBSD 

[bd139]

Think that might be a struggle with 1 bit of RAM

Well if you can make a working CPU with just 1 instruction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-instruction_set_computer)...

 

That’s impressively painful on the sick and twisted side of minimalism. I like it 

Surely your toaster should be running NetBSD 

Ahh Mr Talky Toaster. One of my favourite Red Dwarf characters.  This is my usual canonical reference when someone invited some voice activated talking corporate elephant butt plug into their homes. The other one is “You do realise someone in China is listening to you wank”

[Saskia]

Edit: Incidentally I discovered Mr Steele has already wrecked his own credit rating so not much to do on that front 

How did you discover that?

Shame there's less opportunity to cause him pain.

There is, you interact directly with him on YT and troll him etc.

post his credit rating in the comment section ...

[Specmaster]

Think that might be a struggle with 1 bit of RAM

Well if you can make a working CPU with just 1 instruction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-instruction_set_computer)...

 

That's a stretch of the imagination 

[Specmaster]

Surely your toaster should be running NetBSD 

It's a 555 circuit, tops.

Port NetBSD to NE555, what an idea...

Result, perfectly timed toast.

[bd139]

Depends if you bought the 555’s on aliexpress or not.

[Zucca]

Freaking Excel keeping crashing on me.. enough



Libreoffice I am coming.

[tautech]

Freaking Excel keeping crashing on me.. enough

What version ?
No issues here but using an older version with W10

[bd139]

If excel crashes run memtest86 on your PC. Excel is shockingly reliable believe it or not.

[Cerebus]

If excel crashes run memtest86 on your PC. Excel is shockingly reliable believe it or not.

Depends what you mean by reliable. I had a flashback to comp.risks in 1995.

When does 1.40737488355328 = 0.64? When you're a user of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.

For several years a (now well known) maths bug existed in the Calculator applet that came bundled with Microsoft Windows. This remained uncorrected in several releases over a considerable period of time.

A new maths related bug has now surfaced in another Microsoft product. Type or paste 1.40737488355328 into a cell in a copy of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet and you will be rewarded, not with the number you expect but with 0.64. If you perform arithmetic with this it will act as if 0.64 had been entered so it is not simply a display error. When the number is used as part of a formula the error is not apparent.

A friend who used to work in the UK investment banking business tells me that much of the planning of the privatisation of most of Britain's state owned industries was carried out using Excel. Perhaps we now have the real explanation for the state of the British Economy?

The risk? Don't use software from a man who freely claims that what he really wanted to be was a lawyer.

[bd139]

I didn't mention correctly just reliably

[Specmaster]

If excel crashes run memtest86 on your PC. Excel is shockingly reliable believe it or not.

Depends what you mean by reliable. I had a flashback to comp.risks in 1995.

When does 1.40737488355328 = 0.64? When you're a user of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.

For several years a (now well known) maths bug existed in the Calculator applet that came bundled with Microsoft Windows. This remained uncorrected in several releases over a considerable period of time.

A new maths related bug has now surfaced in another Microsoft product. Type or paste 1.40737488355328 into a cell in a copy of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet and you will be rewarded, not with the number you expect but with 0.64. If you perform arithmetic with this it will act as if 0.64 had been entered so it is not simply a display error. When the number is used as part of a formula the error is not apparent.

A friend who used to work in the UK investment banking business tells me that much of the planning of the privatisation of most of Britain's state owned industries was carried out using Excel. Perhaps we now have the real explanation for the state of the British Economy?

The risk? Don't use software from a man who freely claims that what he really wanted to be was a lawyer.

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

[Cerebus]

If excel crashes run memtest86 on your PC. Excel is shockingly reliable believe it or not.

Depends what you mean by reliable. I had a flashback to comp.risks in 1995.

When does 1.40737488355328 = 0.64? When you're a user of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.

For several years a (now well known) maths bug existed in the Calculator applet that came bundled with Microsoft Windows. This remained uncorrected in several releases over a considerable period of time.

A new maths related bug has now surfaced in another Microsoft product. Type or paste 1.40737488355328 into a cell in a copy of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet and you will be rewarded, not with the number you expect but with 0.64. If you perform arithmetic with this it will act as if 0.64 had been entered so it is not simply a display error. When the number is used as part of a formula the error is not apparent.

A friend who used to work in the UK investment banking business tells me that much of the planning of the privatisation of most of Britain's state owned industries was carried out using Excel. Perhaps we now have the real explanation for the state of the British Economy?

The risk? Don't use software from a man who freely claims that what he really wanted to be was a lawyer.

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Well, the reference to 1995 is a big hint.

[bd139]

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Office 2010 support ended on October 13, 2020. That includes security updates.  Might wanna sort that. It's almost instant target for the queued up zero days. Office 2007 was still in use by NHS here at EOL and one of the trusts got owned within 2 days of it going EOL.

O365 is quite frankly a fucking bargain though. £56 a year for 6 people and up to 5 devices a person. That includes 1Tb of Onedrive space per person as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRP537A . Got 4 of us using it here on 10 devices in total.

[Robert763]

Just bought a digitally controlled hot air gun. it's a Parkside from Lidl. Under £20 and it seems pretty good.

https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/p/diy/parkside-digital-heat-gun/p36647
Push button control of temperature from 50 deg. C to 650 deg. C sogood for anything from softening plastic through soldering to Widlarizing. push button control of speed too. Nozzles are a bit big for electronics but not too hard to sort that out.
Consideringmy current heat gun was condemmed by my (then) employer's safety tester for a broken inlet grille it's a definate step up. Even got a legal plug and is not a cheap chinese safety hazard.

EDIT : Just noticed the descrition on the website says 50 dg to 650 deg. C in 10 steps, this is wrong the steps are 10 deg. each.

[BU508A]

Freaking Excel keeping crashing on me.. enough

Which part is yours? Donna or Barbara?



 

[Specmaster]

If excel crashes run memtest86 on your PC. Excel is shockingly reliable believe it or not.

Depends what you mean by reliable. I had a flashback to comp.risks in 1995.

When does 1.40737488355328 = 0.64? When you're a user of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet.

For several years a (now well known) maths bug existed in the Calculator applet that came bundled with Microsoft Windows. This remained uncorrected in several releases over a considerable period of time.

A new maths related bug has now surfaced in another Microsoft product. Type or paste 1.40737488355328 into a cell in a copy of Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet and you will be rewarded, not with the number you expect but with 0.64. If you perform arithmetic with this it will act as if 0.64 had been entered so it is not simply a display error. When the number is used as part of a formula the error is not apparent.

A friend who used to work in the UK investment banking business tells me that much of the planning of the privatisation of most of Britain's state owned industries was carried out using Excel. Perhaps we now have the real explanation for the state of the British Economy?

The risk? Don't use software from a man who freely claims that what he really wanted to be was a lawyer.

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Well, the reference to 1995 is a big hint.

Well, if that is the case and anybody still using it today, deserves what they get surely, it was after all is said and done the first version, there have 10 versions since. Reminds of a recent event when a company who had been given £millions to carry out Covid-19 tests and then lost 16,000 positive test results because they were too tight-fisted to upgrade from Office 2003

[Specmaster]

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Office 2010 support ended on October 13, 2020. That includes security updates.  Might wanna sort that. It's almost instant target for the queued up zero days. Office 2007 was still in use by NHS here at EOL and one of the trusts got owned within 2 days of it going EOL.

O365 is quite frankly a fucking bargain though. £56 a year for 6 people and up to 5 devices a person. That includes 1Tb of Onedrive space per person as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRP537A . Got 4 of us using it here on 10 devices in total.

Nah, I'm fine with it really, hardly ever use it anyway these days, I don't need spreadsheets, word docs, database, publisher etc, everything I do these days is via emails, now when I was working, that is a different story. Infact I can't remember the last time I used any part of Office until I tried the example that Cerebus posted.

[BU508A]

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Office 2010 support ended on October 13, 2020. That includes security updates.  Might wanna sort that. It's almost instant target for the queued up zero days. Office 2007 was still in use by NHS here at EOL and one of the trusts got owned within 2 days of it going EOL.

O365 is quite frankly a fucking bargain though. £56 a year for 6 people and up to 5 devices a person. That includes 1Tb of Onedrive space per person as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRP537A . Got 4 of us using it here on 10 devices in total.

I will write this down in a calm and reflected manner:

"FUCK MICROSOFT AND ALL OTHER COMPANIES FOR THEIR ABO MODEL!"

For the same reason I have abandoned Eagle. Since Adobe took over, one has to buy every fucking year a licence from them, otherwise you cannot work anymore with your own intelectual property.

The daughter of a friend of mine had a harddisk crash on her laptop. Gladly, I was able to save the data. I installed a new SSD, installed Win10 again put her Microsoft account back on it and when I tried to install the office again I was told, that this version has been used by another account. I phoned several hours! with the Microsoft hotline, tried to proof them, that this is the one and only device running the Office on it. But they weren't able (or didn't want) to change the Licence to this device, even though I've showed them a picture of the licence bought. In the end she was forced to buy another licence of this shit.

Really! I hate them from the deepest bottom of my heart!      
Same goes for all this cloud stuff. As long as you are the owner of the particular cloud: fine.
But, when it comes to the mind of Microsoft (or Apple, Amazon etc you name it) and they abandon your access to it, then you are screwed. "Nice data you are having here, would be a pity if an ... accident happens, wouldn't it?"

No thanks!

           

[Cerebus]

Well, if that is the case and anybody still using it today, deserves what they get surely, ...

You do have a knack for grasping the wrong end of the stick don't you? Nobody said "still using it today", I just said "I had a flashback to comp.risks in 1995.".

... it was after all is said and done the first version, there have 10 versions since. Reminds of a recent event when a company who had been given £millions to carry out Covid-19 tests and then lost 16,000 positive test results because they were too tight-fisted to upgrade from Office 2003

That wasn't the first version of Excel, it was Excel 95 aka v7. Excel had been around on the PC since 1987 (v2, two years before Word for Windows), and available on the Mac before that (V1, 1985, also with Word for Mac). There have been 9 versions since, and 4 versions before then (on Windows).

[Specmaster]

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Office 2010 support ended on October 13, 2020. That includes security updates.  Might wanna sort that. It's almost instant target for the queued up zero days. Office 2007 was still in use by NHS here at EOL and one of the trusts got owned within 2 days of it going EOL.

O365 is quite frankly a fucking bargain though. £56 a year for 6 people and up to 5 devices a person. That includes 1Tb of Onedrive space per person as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRP537A . Got 4 of us using it here on 10 devices in total.

I will write this down in a calm and reflected manner:

"FUCK MICROSOFT AND ALL OTHER COMPANIES FOR THEIR ABO MODEL!"

For the same reason I have abandoned Eagle. Since Adobe took over, one has to buy every fucking year a licence from them, otherwise you cannot work anymore with your own intelectual property.

The daughter of a friend of mine had a harddisk crash on her laptop. Gladly, I was able to save the data. I installed a new SSD, installed Win10 again put her Microsoft account back on it and when I tried to install the office again I was told, that this version has been used by another account. I phoned several hours! with the Microsoft hotline, tried to proof them, that this is the one and only device running the Office on it. But they weren't able (or didn't want) to change the Licence to this device, even though I've showed them a picture of the licence bought. In the end she was forced to buy another licence of this shit.

Really! I hate them from the deepest bottom of my heart!      
Same goes for all this cloud stuff. As long as you are the owner of the particular cloud: fine.
But, when it comes to the mind of Microsoft (or Apple, Amazon etc you name it) and they abandon your access to it, then you are screwed. "Nice data you are having here, would be a pity if an ... accident happens, wouldn't it?"

No thanks!

           

Couldn't put any clearer myself, I still have Microsoft Office 2010 installed but I also have Softmaker Freeoffice 2018 which I downloaded for free and get the regular updates for and it is fully compatible with MS Office to boot, so whats not to like about free products for consumers, business have to pay for it though.

[Specmaster]

Well, if that is the case and anybody still using it today, deserves what they get surely, ...

You do have a knack for grasping the wrong end of the stick don't you? Nobody said "still using it today", I just said "I had a flashback to comp.risks in 1995.".

... it was after all is said and done the first version, there have 10 versions since. Reminds of a recent event when a company who had been given £millions to carry out Covid-19 tests and then lost 16,000 positive test results because they were too tight-fisted to upgrade from Office 2003

That wasn't the first version of Excel, it was Excel 95 aka v7. Excel had been around on the PC since 1987 (v2, two years before Word for Windows), and available on the Mac before that (V1, 1985, also with Word for Mac). There have been 9 versions since, and 4 versions before then (on Windows).

Yeah, right, sorry I thought we were talking Office as a package, not separate programs.

[bd139]

What version of Office was that? I'm running 2010 on Win 10 and it performs perfectly.

Office 2010 support ended on October 13, 2020. That includes security updates.  Might wanna sort that. It's almost instant target for the queued up zero days. Office 2007 was still in use by NHS here at EOL and one of the trusts got owned within 2 days of it going EOL.

O365 is quite frankly a fucking bargain though. £56 a year for 6 people and up to 5 devices a person. That includes 1Tb of Onedrive space per person as well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DRP537A . Got 4 of us using it here on 10 devices in total.

I will write this down in a calm and reflected manner:

"FUCK MICROSOFT AND ALL OTHER COMPANIES FOR THEIR ABO MODEL!"

For the same reason I have abandoned Eagle. Since Adobe took over, one has to buy every fucking year a licence from them, otherwise you cannot work anymore with your own intelectual property.

Not all things are equal. You have established that Adobe and Autodesk are bastards, which is true but you can't tar and feather everyone. Feel free to tar and feather those two bastards though

I'm completely not a fanboy of anything. In fact I hate everything that exists on this planet. But I have to maintain objectivity. Without objectivity we are slave to emotion which is rarely rational. The point about intellectual property is wrong for most vendors. If we take Microsoft for instance they actually publish all their protocols, APIs and file formats right here for consumption:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/openspecs/main/ms-openspeclp/3589baea-5b22-48f2-9d43-f5bea4960ddb

From an interoperability perspective, where do you think LibreOffice managed to get fairly decent OpenXML and binary .DOC importers from? ... Microsoft wrote manuals.

As always, make sure you have an exit plan. Leverage the advantages. Mitigate the risks.

The daughter of a friend of mine had a harddisk crash on her laptop. Gladly, I was able to save the data. I installed a new SSD, installed Win10 again put her Microsoft account back on it and when I tried to install the office again I was told, that this version has been used by another account. I phoned several hours! with the Microsoft hotline, tried to proof them, that this is the one and only device running the Office on it. But they weren't able (or didn't want) to change the Licence to this device, even though I've showed them a picture of the licence bought. In the end she was forced to buy another licence of this shit.

That's fairly easy to sort out. The license is tied to a user, not a machine. You'd have to go into the office portal and sign the old machine out. Then install office from the portal. I've done this a hundred times on several machines. In fact we have mixed mode Mac and Windows with 400 machines and no problems. This is what mine looks like:



Just pop sign out, then log into the office portal with the new account and install it. Job done.

Really! I hate them from the deepest bottom of my heart!      
Same goes for all this cloud stuff. As long as you are the owner of the particular cloud: fine.
But, when it comes to the mind of Microsoft (or Apple, Amazon etc you name it) and they abandon your access to it, then you are screwed. "Nice data you are having here, would be a pity if an ... accident happens, wouldn't it?"

I'm going to be honest, I trust Amazon and Microsoft enough to risk a $6bn revenue fintech on.

Operations teams off the street with cobbled together HPE kit, less so. It has been a fucking shit show for the last 20 years. Recently switch problems. Which would you rather have?

1. Two ops monkeys who don't know their tits from their elbows running a duff switch that's 2 years out of support because a PO couldn't be found for the replacement in a tri-party argument between HPE, themselves and the DC owner.
2. Packet loss. One technical point of contact. Resolution in 30 minutes with no operational expenditure and the thing routed around the issue itself.

Average end user, meh whatever.

[med6753]

Wow, we are on our semi-monthly bitch fest on MS. 

Concerning MS Office. Nope, not here. I use OpenOffice. It works for me.