[Technology] "I don’t want to connect my coffee machine to the wifi network"

[Bodian]

I heard this was coming. I'll happily change to free software but I think the huge amount of storage on OneDrive shared across the family might still be worth it?

I've been using Office 2007 since I bought it (you can guess when), it is licensed for three machines, and can be installed happily on Windows 11.

Indeed - precisely what I still use. Does fine for me.

 

[South Stand Bonfire]

talking Big greedy tech, i had an email today from Microsoft saying my charge for Office is going up by 40%! over £10 a month now.

i use a spreadsheet that does no more than add up and subtract on very rudimentary personal accounts and I may type one letter every six months. That’s it. £120 a year for that. Makes note ‘I must try and find a safe and simple free alternative’.

you can buy a lifetime Home version of Office for £120 from Currys.

 

[wellquickwoody]

The dishwasher app is full of useful statistics about our energy and water use when we use different cycles. It is hugely useful to have this actual data when deciding which cycle to use next.

Hugely useful? Righty o.

 

[Bakero]

And don’t get me started on captchas.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

I've got power monitoring plugs on my dishwasher, washing machine, tumble drier and dehumidifier. They all report back to a computer running Home Assistant which can do stuff like send me notifications when the programme has finished or the dehumidifier is full to remind us to empty it.

I don't need this new fangled tech.

My dishwasher makes a loud beeping noise when it starts, finishes and even when it's a bit temperamental. My cooker, washing machine and tumble dryer do likewise.

My kitchen basically sounds like a long vehicle is reversing for the best part of the day. I think I preferred it when I burnt food to a crisp and set clothes on fire in the dryer.

 

[maffew]

talking Big greedy tech, i had an email today from Microsoft saying my charge for Office is going up by 40%! over £10 a month now.

i use a spreadsheet that does no more than add up and subtract on very rudimentary personal accounts and I may type one letter every six months. That’s it. £120 a year for that. Makes note ‘I must try and find a safe and simple free alternative’.

Just get open office or use Google sheets

 

[highflyer]

The problem, in my view, is that most of this stuff is designed/created by IT nerds, who are frightfully pleased with themselves for coming up with things that are 'new'. And who just cannot fathom that the the rest of us, the normal ones, find all this stuff pointless, and learning how to use it utterly dull and a waste of our limited lifespans. I will hang on for as long as possible before changing my phone. I HATE the whole faff. Having to talk about phones (possibly the dullest subject in recorded history). Having to move across all the shite (apps?) I dont want but am forced to have on my phone to live my life. Having to remember passwords. Having to learn how to use 'updated' systems. It's tedious and dull and I cannot understand how anyone could possibly CHOOSE to go through it unless they absolutely have to. A tip for any tech designers out there. Design stuff that is exactly the same as the existing stuff and which will not need to be updated or changed for at least 20 years. Many of us will lap it up.

 

[Randy McNob]

I embrace all the new device technology, my only bug bear is having different gadgets and appliances on different apps. Unless you buy everything from one brand supplier, would make life easier if you could control everything on 1 simple app

 

[happypig]

There’s a lot of technology I like but the touchscreen in my car really does make a meal of things. I shouldn’t need a ‘User Profile’ to use the radio in my own car. Frequently have to reboot the bloody thing because it’s got its knickers in a twist. Weirdly, the one I had in a 2016 vehicle did pretty much all the same stuff as this 2023 screen but far more reliably.

I bloody love technology but in car entertainment peaked with these :

 

[Jim in the West]

I have to change my work password every 30 days. It needs to be minimum 14 characters, include upper & lower case, numbers & special characters, and not 1 single character can be in the same place as any of last 6 passwords!

Inevitably you will have to write it down on a post-it note next to your PC…

 

[alanfp]

Or this at home...

 

[Cotton Socks]

it does annoy the hell out of me that almost everything needs an account these days, and so much security-even my bloody hearing aids needs a super safe password to log in to the app so I can adjust the bloody things. Is someone really likely to hack my hearing aids and turn them up or down? why the f*** do i need a password with one uppercase, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character?

The password things makes no sense. It’s broken.
Originally we all had one. DognameDOB or similar.
Then we realised we needed to be a bit smarter so we changed our passwords.
Then companies data was breached so we needed to change our passwords.
Fine. I can deal with that.

But this shit now just doesn’t work. Think of a password with only 4 vowels, two characters, no odd numbers, one capital letter but not at the beginning, no numbers in any kind of order that could suggest a date or year, no words you’ve previously used.
For EVERY SINGLE app and website.
It’s ludicrous.

And don’t get me started on captchas.

I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more

^^ That reminded me of a track I like, so I've just looked it up on YouTube. The uploader is..... IWantYourPasswd

 

[Wozza]

A tip for any tech designers out there. Design stuff that is exactly the same as the existing stuff and which will not need to be updated or changed for at least 20 years. Many of us will lap it up.

I don’t think Sales or Marketing - or, indeed, Finance - are gonna run with that to be honest.

 

[Randy McNob]

I bloody love technology but in car entertainment peaked with these :

View attachment 196589

Pah ! No graphic equalizer?

 

[SkirlieWirlie]

I have to change my work password every 30 days. It needs to be minimum 14 characters, include upper & lower case, numbers & special characters, and not 1 single character can be in the same place as any of last 6 passwords!

No longer the latest best practise guidance to change passwords, or certainly not as often, as introduces other risks e.g. users writing them down. MFA and other secondary mechanisms far more important.

You might want to politely point your IT team towards Google to gen up on the current prescribed approach

 

[Knocky's Nose]

We got a fancy arse Miele washing machine a few years ago which my Brother set up for me. He connected it to his phone and farted around with it for a bit, then declared it all ready to use.

For the next year he got alerts whenever our washing was finished

 

[happypig]

I have to change my work password every 30 days. It needs to be minimum 14 characters, include upper & lower case, numbers & special characters, and not 1 single character can be in the same place as any of last 6 passwords!

When I was working I had around 60 passwords for all the systems I used. There were numerous different policies around password formats; some systems even gave you your next password.
Company policy was that they weren't to be written down and we weren't allowed (until about 2015) to install a password manager.

 

[Blinkers]

I have to change my work password every 30 days. It needs to be minimum 14 characters, include upper & lower case, numbers & special characters, and not 1 single character can be in the same place as any of last 6 passwords!

NCSC guidance recommends only changing passwords when they are known/suspected of being compromised and do not recommend complexity rules.

Password policy: updating your approach

Advice for system owners responsible for determining password policies and identity management within their organisations.

www.ncsc.gov.uk

 

[Klaas]

talking Big greedy tech, i had an email today from Microsoft saying my charge for Office is going up by 40%! over £10 a month now.

i use a spreadsheet that does no more than add up and subtract on very rudimentary personal accounts and I may type one letter every six months. That’s it. £120 a year for that. Makes note ‘I must try and find a safe and simple free alternative’.

I heard this was coming. I'll happily change to free software but I think the huge amount of storage on OneDrive shared across the family might still be worth it?

Not sure from your posts but I *think* you are both using onedrive. I got the price increase message too, BUT:

Continue

(link is safe, it's a how to post on reverting your onedrive back to a 'classic' plan.

You're welcome.

 

[Albion my Albion]

it does annoy the hell out of me that almost everything needs an account these days, and so much security-even my bloody hearing aids needs a super safe password to log in to the app so I can adjust the bloody things. Is someone really likely to hack my hearing aids and turn them up or down? why the f*** do i need a password with one uppercase, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character?

Simply, it has happened and companies must guard against being liable for it happening again.