Laptops for sale

Head Rambles Posted on by 10

There is an interesting twist to our health service saga.

I presume that everyone knows that the Health Service Executive system was hacked and encoded by hackers demanding a ransom?

The story had a few weird twists, where for example the hackers published the decryption key. The HSE denied paying any ransom which was strange.

Anyhows, the HSE has spent the last few weeks trying to clean up the entire health network. Slowly, bits of it are coming back on-line. But yesterday there was another new twist –

HSE may have to replace 30,000 laptops as a result of cyber attack.

What the fuck?

Why?

All they have to do is wipe the hard disk and reload the software. Granted that’s a bit of a nuisance but replacing them is a bit drastic, not to mention really fucking expensive.

But then it transpires that a load of their PCs were running Windoze XP. It’s no fucking wonder they were hacked! Support for that heap of junk ended seven years ago. But apparently they had to stick with it because of “compatibility” problems with other machinery such as scanners and X-ray machines.

Has anyone got a spare copy of WIndoze XP for them to load onto 30,000 laptops?

 

Living in a fantasy world

Head Rambles Posted on by 3

I went down to the film set yesterday.

I can’t call it the village any more as they have taken over the place entirely.

I left the house and got stuck at the end of the lane – roadworks, I had to wait for a flagman to let me out.

A couple of hundred yards later I got stuck at temporary traffic lights. Those fuckers are back, just when I thought we were done with them.

By the time I had navigated that lot I wasn’t in the best of form, but far far worse was yet to come.

I drove on down to where the village used to be. Fucking flag men everywhere with stop-go signs denying, or giving me permission to drive through what was my village. There are traffic cones everywhere blocking off my usual perfectly good parking spots. I had to drive straight through to the road to Skobieville as they have blocked off all the other roads.

I eventually got parking. Sheer luck. Penny and I went for the long walk back.

I discovered the reason for all the stop-go signs – they are resurfacing all the roads. I kid you not. Granted the old road was getting very ugly with all those white lines and yellow lines everywhere. They aren’t actually resurfacing, more a case of surfacing. Every square inch of road surface is suddenly cobbled. They put down a template frame and then spray what must be liquid stone on the frame. The latter is removed and there is another neat rectangle of very realistic cobbles. I suppose it’s too much to hope that the council won’t destroy them with paint afterwards?

The place is packed. I thought it would be a little quieter after the bank holiday, but no – crowds just hanging around blocking all the footpaths,, staring and waving their mobile phones everywhere taking photographs. And everywhere you look there’s heavy machinery and gangs of blokes in yellow waistcoats acting like they own the fucking place.

They have even taken over the bus terminus. Buses now have to drive through to a special place in the local sports field where they have laid down a full and proper road system with turning circles and a bus shelter. What the fuck did that cost? This is insane.

Worst of all, my coffee shop is still closed. I half hoped it would be there but the film mob have taken it over.

And I have to go back down again today to pick up more stuff as the place will be closed next week.

I am NOT a happy camper.

 

Let sleeping dogs …

Head Rambles Posted on by 3

A while back, a friend gave our Penny a present.

A dog bed.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Penny has rigid routines and is loath to adopt any changes. She has her own couch for daytime sleeps or dozes, or maybe a snack or just somewhere to lie and stare out into the garden. She is quite possessive about the couch and if a visitor should be tactless enough to sit on it she will quietly sneak in behind them and attempt to gently push them off. If the visitor should stand, Penny will immediately stretch herself to her full length as a clear fuck off hint to the visitor.

Strangely enough she took to the bed straight away. She hasn’t forsaken the couch and has just assumed the new bed is an extension to her territory.

There is a slight problem with the bed though – it takes up floor space in an area where floor space is at a premium. And Penny has a habit of throwing all her blankets out of the bed and then lying half in the bed and half on the blankets. I think she saw something on the news about Israelis occupying territories and thought she’d give it a try. So if I’m not tripping over her bed, I’m tripping over her blankets.

The place where it normally resides is against the radiator beside her food bowl. As far as she’s concerned this is an excellent idea as she can then have breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks without getting out of bed. Unfortunately it’s right in the way of any movement in or out of Herself’s room so it has to get frequently shifted a few feet one way or another. You can see by her attitude that she barely tolerates this adjustment to her routine but she accepts it at a pinch.

We finally got rid of the Electric Chair. Herself decided she didn’t like it [it gave her backache] so for the last few weeks it has been shoved against a wall, taking up a lot of space [it’s a huge bruiser of a chair]. So I contacted the health mob who had supplied it and told ’em to take it back. They collected it this morning.

Suddenly there is an extra acre of space on the floor. The room looks considerably more, well, roomy.

I moved Penny’s bed into the space where the chair had been. It fits perfectly and Herself can now wheel herself wherever she wants to go without hindrance. I can walk around without tripping.

Penny went and stood where her bed had been. She looked around and then gave me a reproachful stare. She looked pointedly at every space on the floor except where the bed now is. She glared at me again.

Why do I get so much grief from the females in my life?

 

A question

Head Rambles Posted on by 8

I did a lot of scribbling yesterday.

And I mean a lot.

As a result, that part of the brain that deals with my creative streak is somewhat knackered today. And I mean really knackered, bunched, fucked. This isn’t helped by a somewhat shortened night due to an early awakening.

Now I realised after a grand afternoon nap that there was still a tiny part of my brain working – that little corner that used to deal with techy stuff. It’s full of spiders and cobwebs but it still sort of works.

I decided to check Windoze to see if it needed any updates in the virus area or whatever.

Now I do use Windoze for my magnum opus scribbling [in spite of some excellent alternative suggestions], the main reason being that I can be distraction free. Linux is perfect for normal use but there are just so many programmes there that I can easily wander off into an art programme or delve into photographs or even play a game of cards [Linux beats the crap out of Windoze when it come to card games!].

So Windoze announced that it did indeed need updates. I told it up go ahead.

In Linux, there is a little indicator which is very discreet. If it flags an update I tell it to fire away and I carry on doing whatever I’m doing. Next time I check the indicator it tells me everything is grand and dandy.

Not so in Windoze. It tells me there are updates so I tell it to fire away. It does and then tells me a restart is required. I click on Restart. Those little fucking dots start chasing themselves in circles. Windoze is updating DO NOT TURN OFF. It restarts. Back to those fucking balls twiddling around. Windoze is 0% complete DO NOT TURN OFF. Several minutes later, Windoze is 100% complete DO NOT TURN OFF.

Time enough to make Herself a mug of coffee.

Herself is now supping on her excellently made mug of coffee and Windoze looks like it’s ready.

Except that there is a little warning that Windoze needs to restart to apply updates. Fuck me with a greasy barge-pole!

It goes through the same rigmarole only this time there is an extra bit thrown in for luck –Windoze is tidying up DO NOT TURN OFF 0% complete. After several minutes this naturally becomes Windoze is tidying up DO NOT TURN OFF 100% complete which takes several more minutes.

So here is my question – What the fuck?

Why does it have to restart at all? Why can’t it do all that shit in the background like Linux does? This is a genuine question. I can see no reason other than to piss everyone off.

And an ancillary question – don’t those gobshites in Microsoft know that the counter is supposed to count, and not just jump from 0 to 100?