Apparently Windows 7 Starter Edition, typically installed on new Netbooks, is very crippled. You can’t even change the background wallpaper. Illiad has a solution—and it has the advantage that you no longer see what Windows is doing to your data either.
Wallpaper
10 Sep 2010 10:05 by Rick
Another Flash Shock(wave)
26 Aug 2010 11:20 by Rick
Adobe announced yesterday that there is a security patch for Shockwave Player which users should install. However, it would be worth first checking that you have the product in the first place and, if not, then you probably don’t need it at all. Very little content on the web uses it.
Just to confuse matters, the Firefox plugin that Adobe installs for their Flash product is called “Shockwave Flash.” This is one you probably do want as it makes surfing the web a bit easier.
Picture This – Blondie
15 Aug 2010 17:13 by Rick
…ends with the lines
One and One is what I’m telling you
Get a pocket computer
Try to do what ya used to do, yeah.
That seems a bit advanced for 1978?
Earworms
23 Jul 2010 12:13 by Rick
This has nothing to do with worms and less to do with ears than you might expect. What they are is the snatches of music that keep buzzing around inside your head, sometimes for hours at a time. It is a well known phenomenon that most people suffer from at some time and it is well known that advertisers exploit it in the little musical logos that they push repeatedly. Short little snatches that you immediately associate with the product like Intel or McDonalds. But to be a true earworm they have to keep coming back to you involuntarily and, fortunately, I don’t get that problem, possibly because I hear very little advertising—TV or radio.
My earworms, and I get a lot, are longer pieces of music, even whole songs and they are most irritating when I can’t remember the words. The current one in my head is a pop song by Mika and I don’t know the title (until I had to look it up—”Love Today”) or even the words; just the tune and the feel of it. They are tunes that we would call “catchy” but that may be a circular definition—catchy because they stick in your brain and vice versa.
According to the Guardian, the No. 1 on the earworm charts is Kylie Minogue, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (were they serious?) but not one I have ever had because it is not a song I know well enough. Part of my problem is I have a very wide musical taste that spans 50 or more years of pop music and a not insignificant amount classical and jazz. What will tomorrows earworm be—I can’t predict that. It could be triggered by something I hear, not necessarily the tune itself but something that brings it to mind. It could be a tune I have heard recently or not (knowingly) for 20 years. I know some things that bring one on instantly. Determinedly walking any distance instantly brings on “Onward Christian Soldiers” because that is the pace that I march at. Is there a cure; for me putting on some more music usually clears it temporarily and, when it comes back it will usually be a different song. Not that I want to give the impression that they are a problem. The only time I am irritated by them is when I can’t remember the rest of the tune or the words. I got stuck on Paul Simon’s “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard” yesterday because I caught a snatch on Radio Bristol.
There is a research project at Goldsmiths College into finding more about them. I discovered this from Quentin Cooper’s Material World program on Radio 4—now he is a person with chronic earworms as you can tell by his feature links. Anyway, they are doing a survey; do fill it in and help them.
The Complete Church Laptop?
22 Jul 2010 12:56 by Rick
The complete church laptop containing everything you need to run your church office and services. From Kevin Mayhew Publishers: £1995 reduced to £1495 (out of stock—presumably built to order).
Sounds good—at a price. So let’s see what you get.
- An unspecified DELL Laptop with dual screen capability (for projector not supplied), sound card (for PA not supplied) and wireless (for WiFi not supplied). It is hard to tell from the picture but it looks like a small wide-screen model. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say it is the 4GB i3 Studio 15 w. 1GB ATI graphics card @ £600
- Windows 7 (version not specified—Home Premium included in above price).
- 15 months McAfee Security (included in above price).
- Microsoft Office (presumably home & student edition as there is no Outlook but that is only a non-commercial licence!—£100)
- Mozilla calendar & email (free).
- iTunes (free).
- Spotify (but no subscription).
- 12 Months 2GB cloud backup (not sure about DataSafe but can be free from some places like Mozy).
- 2200 hymns and songs in MP3 and PowerPoint format, presumably with a perpetual licence to play and show them (they are publishers after all). No mention of an update service.
- Some service-sheet templates.
- Software pre-installed and configured.
So £700 worth of stuff plus installation and some data content. It doesn’t look good value to me unless that perpetual license is very expensive. They don’t mention that if you obtain any other songs then you may need CCL, PPL and/or PRS licences to show and play them.
Instant recycling
21 Jul 2010 10:43 by Rick
…of cash!
New use for copy paper. Nakabayashi Corp. of Tokyo, announced a new floor-standing machine that converts discarded copy paper into toilet paper rolls. It is able to produce two rolls per hour from around 1800 sheets. The machine weighs 600 kilograms, and will sell for $95,000 apiece.
print4pay Hotel’s “MFP Solutions Blog”
That must be the worst return on investment ever. I even checked that it wasn’t an April 1st post.
iTunes account
9 Jul 2010 12:16 by Rick
You may (or may not) have heard that some iTunes accounts have been hacked recently. One incident was a developer who managed to elevate all his products into the top 50 which made them look really popular. Other more isolated incidents have been to use the hacked accounts to purchase downloads, though no one is quite sure how the perpetrator managed to gain anything worthwhile.
Anyway, the recommendation is that you change you iTunes password, as always, but also to remove any automatic credit card from the account. This is a good recommendation in any case because these card details held by vendors just in case you should happen to pass by again are at risk if anything subverts their systems.
The snag is, if you don’t happen to have your iTunes registered system with you, either iP* device or computer, then how do you change your account. There is no obvious web site you can login to except by starting up the iTunes software which you don’t have. What is not widely known is that the “Apple-id” that you use to purchase from the Apple web store is actually the same account so you can reset it there. Go to www.apple.com, change to your correct country (at the bottom of the screen), move to the Store and then, at the top right is an “Account” button. Login there and change you details as required.
The Magic of a Chip Butty
30 Jun 2010 14:24 by Rick
Why do they taste so good? This lunchtime, as I was reduced to using the works canteen restaurant, so I thought I would experiment. To make a chip butty you need good chips and a slice or two of bread. White is better as the flavour of wholemeal would interfere with the experiment. You can also do it the Derby way with big floury baps or, as I did, with plain pitta bread. You can spread the bread thinly with butter but it is not necessary if you want the healthy option (Ha! healthy chip butties!) then lay good plump chips tightly in a row before covering with more bread. With the pittas I split them and lined the chips up inside. Despite the wiki article, any sauce is sacrilege. The remaining chips in the bowl (you always get more than enough) form the control.
Now take a good bite and taste. After clearing the palate try an equivalent number of chips straight from the bowl and detect the difference. No bread—but there is more to it than that. What seems to happen is that with plain chips the initial experience is about the outer surface with the oil and salt; with the butty, that is moderated by the bread and the initial experience is with the soft interior of the chip. You still get the crunch on the teeth but you get a fuller flavour. So that is the reason I think.
Available for restaurant criticism on request.
Flash Bang Wallop
16 Jun 2010 15:41 by Rick
Little known fact—Adobe Flash has to be installed on BOTH Internet Explorer and any alternative browser you have even if you don’t use them.
Well known fact—Installing Adobe Flash is a pain in the backside.
The official method is to go to http://www.adobe.com/ click on “Get Adobe Flash Player” and follow the instructions remembering to un-tick the undesirable “free offers” on the way. It goes on to perform up to two restarts of the browser using a download manager.
This process is incredibly complex, unnecessary and very prone to failure. On one of my systems the Download Manager aborts, on another it is blocked by a firewall I don’t control; on a third it wants missing plugins—just the ones I am trying to install! Even if it works you can end up with more stuff than you want.
They haven’t made it easy to avoid, whatever route you take you always get to the same “Agree and Install Now” button, but there is a way. Near the top of the Flash player install page is a link titled “Different operating system or browser”. Clicking that takes you to a menu page—select the OS you are using and Continue. Now you get two choices “Internet Explorer” and “Other Browsers”. You CANNOT select the browser you are using—that will take you straight back to where you started; but if you select the other one then the “Agree and Install Now” button does a straightforward download of an executable (without any free extras). The trick is to use each browser to download the code for the other one and then just run them. If you need them on other systems then put them on a memory stick, it saves a lot of time.
Digital TV Blues
5 Jun 2010 14:09 by Rick
and Greens and Reds.
One thing they kept very quiet about in the all hoo-har and glitz of the Great Digital Revolution is that if you run your TV from a set top aerial as you may well do if you are in a bed-sit, caravan or, as in our case, a portable for the guest room, then you will get NO TV SERVICE whatsoever. Previously you might have got a picture that was a bit fuzzy but it was watchable and you could hear the sound. Now, unless you are living in good line of sight from the transmitter out your bedroom window you will not even be able to tune the programs properly. Those that do register will be pixelated, break up and have no sound.
Actually two things they didn’t tell us. The second is if you have to use one of the fill in relay transmitters you will receive nothing like the 40 or more advertised channels whatever aerial you use. Previously you were deprived with no channel 5 on analogue. On digital you will get few of the independent commercial channels.
So it is off to the aerial shop this afternoon to get a cheap external aerial and 15m of cable. I hope I can get it onto the existing mast ok.
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