The PasteBoard

Virgin Media ups the ante

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:47:00 +0000

Just had a quick look at this earlier today and it really does make me sick to my stomach. I would also be very curious to find out the percentage of people in Belfast and specifically West Belfast, will get this upgrade.

So, in a nutshell, if you are a current Virgin Media internet subscriber and have a nice 2MB broadband connection, give yourself several pats on the back because Virgin Media are going to upgrade you to a lovely mouth watering 10MB line for free.

Yup, free.

So all the aforementioned lovely streaming services from iPlayer, Channel 5 and Hulu will be like the proverbial brown stuff of a stick.

This is making me very very cross and when I get some more stuff together I will explain precisely why.

We all love free games

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:20:00 +0000

Very good article on ExtremeTech linking you to a complete and whole twenty (20) free games available to Uncle Tom Cobbly and all.

And while I am a Mac user and this is for Windows, there is no harm in sharing.

Hotspot Shield

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:31:00 +0000

Ok, I promised an interesting solution to the Hulu problem. Like I said previously, I have tested this and it works. Best is that it is a two platform solution, so it will run in Windows (2000, XP & Vista) and Mac (10.4 & 10.5).

Not sure if they will ever do a Linux version but we can live in hope.

It is dead simple. Download the software for you platform by clicking on the link provided by the title in this article or for the challenged copy and paste...

http://www.hotspotshield.com

When it is downloaded and you have run it it basically masks your own IP address and gives you a fake one to the outside world. What this specifically does is makes Hulu think you are in the good old US of A and will happily provide you with hours of fantastic programming for diddly squat.

One word of warning is that when trying this in work it confused the hell out of my email client and I could not get email and was wondering what the hell was going on. Once I disabled Hotspot Shield everything went back to normal.

Great wee solution and all the details of how it does this are on the site.

All it means is that you will be having even more information zipping down your internet connection so beware of your download limits and the actual speed of your internet connection. I hate it when you get stuttery stop and start video.

I swear, I am building up to a rant on this. Really I am.

Hullabaloo about Hulu

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:16:00 +0000

Over the last wee while I have become a bit of a fan of BBC iPlayer. Great for catching up. Well, it appears that one of America's largest broadcasters have been doing the same thing for a while and I have been keeping my eye on it.

Hulu is a service that has more content than you can shake a stick at. They have House on there as well as some top Sci-Fi like Stargate Atlantis and my current favourite, Battlestar Galactica. The new version I mean, not the 70's rubbish one. It's one of my favourite programmes and you can call me all the names you like.

Some people had adapted Hulu, namely a service called Boxee. It is almost like a plug-in and it gives you some online TV content from Revision3 and the like. Boxee was adapted to run on hardware it was not supposed to, primary of these is Apple TV. It was a hack but it allowed you to get some great content especially if you are in the States.

Well, Boxee have had to drop Hulu from not just their Apple TV hack but I believe in total which has left a few angry people.

However, technically this does not effect us because as citizens of Not the United States of America, just like the BBC does to the rest of the world, Hulu does not allow us to watch because our IP addresses are not US registered ones, so "naff off". Which is fair enough.

The problem is I did not want to hack Apple TV or any such device, I just realised that there was some fantastic content there and as I recently hit Sky on the head (which is another rant possibly for later) I realised that I might have a very serious Battlestar Galactica deficiency that might need cured. But I wanted the service primarily in the same way as I use BBC iPlayer. So what to do?

Well, in my digging around I came completely accidentally across a solution. I have tested it and it works and some time this weekend I am going to install it at home so I can view the Hulu service on my big TV at home by connecting my laptop into it and streaming the video, so a report on how that works next week. If you want to find out how it is done, the answer is in the next post.

Rant rant rant rant rant

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:25:00 +0000

Sometimes I really honest to God absolutely fucking hate Microsoft.

Building two new HP Compaq PC's for work. One BSODs and tries to restart itself on regular occasions and the other refuses to perform an update to Microsoft's own SQL Server Express 2005. One a security update and the other a service pack.

It did this on both PC's so it is not a one off isolated incident.

Really, I hate this shit. This is the sort of stuff that leaves me totally frustrated and yes I have gone to the knowledgebase article for both (KB960089 & KB955706 respectively) and they are as much good as scraping sandpaper on your arse for three years without stopping.

There is no other software installed and this all kicks in once you actually register the version of Office 2007 that is pre-installed using the Activation Key that you can purchase at the same time as buying the PC as we all do because it is cheaper.

This MS SQL piece of goddam crap then comes into play.

Really. How difficult is it for the vendor to get their stupid asses in play and get their own updates to work without any difficulty? Is this really too much to ask?

Honest to God. For all you Microsoft Fanboys out there, for the first time in my life I can honestly say - Fuck you all to Hell. I have wasted nearly a week of my working life for your Garbage Basement hell hole of an operating system.

The Online Digital TV Revolution

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:18:00 +0000

I promise, I will be making an ultimate point here in a very soon to come blog post. Take this as a little hors d'oeuvre. Hell, I even spelled that correctly first time around. Me good.

I suppose with a lot of people we are getting used to watching our television programmes using services particularly from the likes of the BBC using their newly upgraded and particularly wonderful BBC iPlayer.

John Ferris can thank me for the wee bit of software that shall remain nameless here that helped him with a programme he required on BBC iPlayer at a future date.

Apparently Kangaroo has been scrapped as anti-competitive. That was the service that was going to incorporate all the main terrestrial providers BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and so on with an equivalent iPlayer service which I think would have been great.

Channel Five have now a similar service and the reason I am going on about this is that it is also multi-platform and now usable on my Mac which is really great going. It also seems to employ the Adobe AIR/Flash technology that makes this possible.

However, the downside in all this is increased traffic and a greater load on your home systems. While I applaud this, ultimately we do have a problem.

Check out their new service here...

http://demand.five.tv/Home.aspx

Blatherspeak

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:01:00 +0000

Just a quick follow up to yesterday's post regarding Microsoft and their potential retail plans. I came across this direct quote on AppleInsider. This immediately blew my mind. If this is the sort of vision they are going to bring to their retail venture, then to be honest, heaven help them...

In a press statement, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner said, "We're working hard to transform the PC and Microsoft buying experience at retail by improving the articulation and demonstration of the Microsoft innovation and value proposition so that it's clear, simple and straightforward for consumers everywhere."

Now, someone, please for the love of God tell me, what the hell does that mean?

And just for a bit of craic, I saw this on pcworld.com. Direct link straight after this and if you don't find this remotely funny then you need to take the whole issue less seriously!

10 Ways Microsoft's Retail Stores Will Differ From Apple Stores

1) Instead of Apple's sheer walls of glass, Microsoft's stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes -- reminiscent of Windows security.

2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

3) Instead of a "Genius Bar" (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it's a problem with the hardware -- not a software bug.

4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.

5) Store hours are undetermined. At any given time the store mysteriously shuts down instantaneously for no apparent reason. (No word yet on what happens to customers inside).

6) Stores will be named Microsoft Live Retail Store with PC Services for Digital Lifestyle Enthusiasts.

7) Fashioned after Microsoft's User Account Control (UAC) in Vista, sales personnel will ask you whether you're positive you want to purchase something at least twice.

8) Xbox 360 section of the store will be organized in a ring -- which will inexplicably go red occasionally.

9) DreamWorks will design a scary in-store theme park ride called "blue screen of death."

10) Store emergency exits will be unlocked at all times so people can get in anytime they want even if the front doors are locked.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/159521/10_ways_microsofts_retail_stores_will_differ_from_apple_stores.html

MicroStore?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:44:00 +0000

I've seen this from a few sources such as TUAW, AppleInsider and the Macalope so I thought I would go and do a quick bit of research for a less partisan view so I promptly checked out the blog of Paul Thurrott, a well known Microsoft follower (some call him other names but I won't stoop that low) and not a sausage. Kinda surprised at that so I did the Google thing and came up with some other alternatives. The New York Times and PC Mag seemed likely sources amongst others.

So is this true and more accurately is it a good thing for both Microsoft as a company and us as consumers? Microsoft have two main markets they want to aim at. The general domestic/consumer and the business community which is particularly Microsoft's bread and butter. We here in the BMG have Microsoft products both in server and client forms. So does this have a particular impact on our business if this were to happen?

Nope. Not one bit.

It really is largely irrelevant. So what's the point? That is why I decided to have a wee delve and see what the craic was.

There seems to be a fairly mixed reaction and to be honest some of the opinions left me back to the position I originally started with which was my own initial reaction to it all.

So, first reaction was that this was just another Apple MeMe and to be honest was a bit brassed off at the whole, here we go on the imitation path again. However, I did think about it some more and tried to be a tad more objective than the old knee jerk reaction.

The economy is going down the crapper, of that there is no doubt and while some may doubt the sanity of Microsoft going into this venture at this time I for one welcome it from a purely economic point of view. Shopping Centre Managers particularly across the USA will be breathing a sigh of relief and hoping that Microsoft will fire a store their way. As well as that they will of course be employing people which will pump lots of Redmond's millions into local economies in the form of salaries. There is nothing negative in any of that.

However, Microsoft are not a charity, that much is certain, so they will be doing this purely from the perspective advancing their business. I still foresee problems as well as opportunities.

The opportunities are a way in which Microsoft can give a more positive spin on their product line particularly for domestic consumers. Like I said before, this really is going to be largely irrelevant to the business community. Microsoft really does need to get a positive message to the ordinary man and woman in the street after the perception people now have of Windows Vista. The current message is a negative one whether you think Vista is great or not. Apple have played a part in that but Microsoft have shot themselves so often in the foot over the last number of years the only way they can correct this is by being more proactive about it.

So what is going to be in his store? Why Microsoft products of course! All flavours of Windows but do they do the enterprise server stuff in there as well? Is that sexy enough for a retail store? Microsoft also do other software products with the obvious Microsoft Office springing to mind. Again, is that sexy enough for a retail store? Surely that smacks more of, well I use that in work and I really don't want to be reminded of having to do a spreadsheet. They are also big into the gaming market and have a good range of product even for Macs with the wonderful Age of Empires I enjoy so much. They also produce some hardware the most simple being mice and keyboards but remember they also have Xboxes and all their related devices and games and then their is the Zune. Their own retail experience makes the sell on that more isolated and less comparisons to be had with other products, even those that are supposed to be more Windows friendly.

The other advantage here is that with future consumer orientated products they have a better opportunity to get the message out the door.

That's as far as it goes. The main issue is that is there an inherent impetus that would make you and me go into a Microsoft Store? Microsoft lacks the "cool factor", whatever that is. Are they really going to try and emulate the Apple buying experience to the point of having the Apple Genius in their own Genius Bar equivalent? If so, I seriously pity the poor saps that will have that role.

Hi Mr Guru/Wizard or Whatever, my computer is riddled with viruses and spyware, Windows takes half an hour to start up, I get this really strange pop up every time I start up the computer and something called the system registry seems to require a bit of work, what do you think mate?

Good luck with that.

What hardware are they going to use to show off the Windows ecosystem? Whatever they choose it will annoy all the other hardware manufacturers. There is a no win situation here. Some hardware vendor is going to be annoyed. People don't want to see a word processor in a retail experience, they want the sexy stuff so Microsoft needs to have the sexy stuff in showing how your digital pictures and videos can be used to their best effect. The comparisons with iLife are obvious but I have seen nothing that merges and works together as well in the Windows world.

With Xbox they stand a chance of doing something interesting and in there I think they have the best chance of showing something interesting.

The Zune can get a better leg up but it seriously lacks the same third part economy that the iPod has and that will be the weakest link.

Is Microsoft's Windows Mobile going to blow the opposition away? That is a really big stretch.

Ultimately they have so many difficulties to overcome it really is a daunting task and as it stands now I am not sure that they have the product line that will make it the same standard of success that Apple have made and that is where they are always going to be compared. Will these stores increase profits and bring in new customers.

It is when these stores have been around for at least two years and this sort of information is known will we be able to declare the Microsoft Store a success or not. At best it will keep the status quo and provide the outlets that are so badly disappearing with Circuit City and Best Buy entering hard times or receivership.

Give me a shout about this in a couple of years and let's see how this all pans out.

Go and buy this stupid piece of...

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:30:00 +0000

Look, I'm sorry, but I just can't resist this.

It just appeals to me because as a society we are getting so much more pressure to just do that. Go and buy the latest piece of crap. Be warned, a lot of bad language but as funny as hell.

Courtesy of The Onion.

Be secure. No matter what.

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:32:00 +0000

It's funny how certain web related stories seem to come together to form a trend. I was recently reading about how McColo has been taken out of the spammers equation and that a dramatic drop in spam email and botnet attacks. As far as I am concerned, if there is any hint at all of an ISP providing the means for these sorts of attack then they should be taken down immediately. The US government gets all hot and bothered about Al-Qaeda but do sod all squared on their own doorstep with cyber criminals.

Next came a post about a new botnet attack that Microsoft patched on 23rd October but is making inroads. My advice is simple. Get updated and get protected and do it now.

Which just goes to show one thing. I had seriously high hopes for Vista preventing these sorts of attack. I really want Microsoft to succeed in this so I am in no way gloating over a vulnerability being found.

However one post I read just yesterday kind of put the frighteners on me a bit. Apparently the Anti-Virus software we buy and pay to maintain are seemingly pretty crap at protecting us against botnet attacks and exploits. So for all you know your Windows PC could be compromised even as you speak and the Anti-Virus software you have installed is really not doing what you think it should be doing. This worries me for obvious reasons. Is your PC slowing down to a crawl and yet your SpyWare and Anti-Virus software is saying things are hunky-dory? Well, it could be that the just don't know that you have some sort of botnet infection and seemingly they cannot respond quickly enough to the work the botnet scummy crims are up to.

However, what made this whole thing really come together is a report today that says Apple are now recommending users get Anti-Virus software for the Mac. Don't believe me? Here is the link, you doubting Thomas you.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550?viewlocale=en_US

Now, in itself, this does not shock me one little bit. For far too long there have been way too many smug Mac users who feel they don't need to worry about virus protection. Why pay money when there are no viruses (virii???) for the Mac? Here is where I lay my cards on the table. I have anti-virus software on all our computers here at BMG irrespective of their platform. Now, admittedly, the principal reason I went down this path was to make sure that any files the Macs got cleaned them up if they ever went anywhere near a Windows box. Kind of like a sterile environment to get rid of the bad bug before it got to the potential victim.

Have those days gone with this announcement from Apple? I don't think that matters as a question. My own take was I wanted to be protected by a good company who knew their stuff and could provide a world class service to protect this company from cyber harm. That still holds true. Interestingly Apple recommend Intego, Symantec and McAfee. We use none of those. Instead we put our faith in Sophos. They make great Windows based products and ours is server based as well and the fact that they make a pretty reasonable (not spectacular) Mac OS X client led me to them.

However, all of these guys are going to have to make very serious improvements to their botnet attack detection and eradication. From what I have read over the past couple of weeks they could have their work cut out for them.

If you were going to ask me what to do about all this I would say a couple of things.

Don't bury your head in the sand and pretend you won't get anything. I have seen some outlandish posts and even spoken to friends who say they are careful and have firewalls and don't go to strange sites and all that. I find this utter rubbish. Get a good piece of Anti-Virus software and possibly a good piece of spyware software. There are many around and some of them are even free. A good piece of spyware software I go to for Windows is free from pack.google.com. SpyWare Doctor has been a good servant to us. Ironically I avoid almost anything these days with Symantec or Norton in the name. Why Apple would recommend them strikes me as a bit odd.

Try and restrict the amount of sites you go to limiting yourself to the sensible ones that you know are reputable. There is always the temptation to see something new. That is where you might run in to trouble if the website has been compromised without them knowing. Even Adobe had a recent incident so you just never know. Limiting what you do on the internet defeats the purpose of it in many ways, just don't go to the stupid sites and by that I mean porn. Let's be honest about it. Those are the places that will get you into trouble in more ways than one and when I use the term "impregnate" it has unfortunate overtones. But that is what is going to happen to you with sites like that. They will stuff your machine as full of unwanted crap as possible. Stay away. It's coming up to Christmas, get yourself amused with more healthy avenues of recreation for the love of God. Go visit friends, go shopping, get rubbered on a nice bottle of wine, just stay away from biggirliesonline.com (must check to see if that exists...)

Be careful out there.

Black Friday Deal for iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:48:00 +0000

Black Friday madness is no longer just an American thing. The wife is doing her nut today with all the bargains to be had in America's traditional Black Friday sales. If you don't know what that is Google it. Google is your friend.

So for all you iPhone or iPod Touch users out there I have come across a website dedicated to Apple App Store on iTunes and the great thing is they are pointing out directly all the good deals for Black Friday. Lots and lots of price reductions and some Apps that you normally pay for are free for today which is a damn good Black Friday deal if you ask me. 24 hours worth of really good apps including games and some very interesting apps you may not think about. Midnight tonight ends lots of deals, but we can add 5 hours to that because of the time difference.

Get'em while they're hot.

Protect those precious DVDs

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:08:00 +0000

And now for the last video related post and yet another link to another download. However, this is really good.

I have kids. Four to be precise and they are all little darlings. They do what kids do. Open DVD box, take out DVD, play it in DVD player, leave it lying at their arses. Use it for a coaster. Make an uneven table even by sticking it under one of the legs. Use it as a frisbee to beat one of their siblings with a la Shaun of the Dead.

What happens? The bloody thing ends up a scratched mess and unplayable. Sound familiar?

A piece of software I have used for quite some time and recommended to others goes a fair way towards solving the problem and then solves some other problems just for good measure. Again, the link on the title takes you to the software in question.

Handbrake is a DVD ripper. It takes an original DVD and makes a file of the movie on your computer. Generally it makes it an mpeg file which can be played in a player such as QuickTime. Now, let me be clear. I am not condoning in any way the pirating of films. When I have done this in the past it has been with content I have bought. In America, that is termed as 'Fair Use'. Ireland and the UK are a bit stricter on these things so tread carefully.

While it is a wonderful way in which you can backup, protect and yet still play your bought content, it has another use which is the one I mainly use it for. That is, ripping it to play on the iPod. That plays out much better these days with the likes of the iPod Touch and the new iPod nano's which are widescreen so ripping these to play on them really looks the part and quality wise it is pretty brilliant.

However, the Handbrake people have really gone to town on enhancing the latest version. Handbrake has moved to 0.9.3 and is Open Source so that makes it free. That magic word again. For a 0.0.1 revision it is packed full of new stuff. Look up the Handbrake website to find out all that is new but two things stick out.

First, it allows you to use any video source and rip it out any way you like.

Second, it links to the previous blog post regarding VLC. It actually uses the codecs found within the new version of VLC and uses them to rip and encode so the best way to get the very best out of Handbrake is also to install VLC. Again, it is all free so no need to panic. There is more but even these two things make this new version of Handbrake a must get. As you can see from the link, it is again a multi-platform piece of software although it was originally a Mac only app. These days Windows and Linux users get in on the action which makes this piece of software another tool in the video arsenal.

So go, download it now.

Swiss Army Knife of video players

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:30:00 +0000

One of the main questions people like me in the profession will get is, how do you play that particular piece of video. The problem is that there are lots and lots of ways to encode video using what are called "codecs", the way in which the original video will be compressed to make the file smaller and formatted in a way that will be playable on most players.

Note the most. Not all. Surprisingly, people do not always encode in such a way that will make it playable on the most popular players. The big three are Windows Media, Real and Quicktime. If I have left anyone out, then I apologise.

Windows does have a really useful tool called GOM Player and so far I have been able to play the vast majority of material on the Windows side using that. However, there is one player that sets itself apart as a great piece of software. God bless those Open Source heroes who provide these wonderful applications for free.

VLC player not only has just been updated but plays a fantastic range of video and for me has worked 99.9% of the time. The 0.1% that failed was probably not worth looking at anyway. One of the great things about this is that it has a really superb inbuilt array of codecs that seem to play everything and when I post the next story you will also understand why getting VLC player along with those codecs is so important. Not only is it superb for these reasons but it is also multi-platform, Windows, Mac OS X, the inevitable Linux but even BE OS. Startling. Click on the post heading to take you straight to download all that VLC goodness, and remember, there is even more good stuff to come on the next blog post.

YouTube comes of age. A bit...

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:37:00 +0000

I've had the fortune to be involved in a bit of video stuff recently. I was asked to produce a series of films for the Catholic Archdiocese of Armagh and then in work we have been doing a fair bit of stuff with video and enhancing your YouTube channel. All interesting stuff and I really enjoyed making the films as well as doing my own stuff with the family and creating those special moments. Great for sharing with friends and relatives.

So the next few posts are going to be exclusively video related. I promised John, our principal photographer that I would post this stuff as this is exactly some of the things we are looking to enhance within the Belfast Media Group.

YouTube. Great piece of innovation and brilliant for videos that entertain us during the long working day. No, sorry, we don't do that in our place of work. *Ahem*

Of course, a couple of the principal problems with YouTube is its lack of native widescreen support and the quality of the video itself. YouTube have just within the last week corrected one of those problems. Perhaps you have noticed that they used to produce videos in the 20th Century format of 4:3, the old traditional TV size. My problem recently is that in producing the films for Armagh the did the "letterbox" effect and had black bars at the top and the bottom as the video camera I was using was widescreen. Not true widescreen mind you, but wide enough to make it look modern. Now if you go to YouTube you should have noticed that it is all change and they have moved into the 21st Century and everything is now widescreen. Great for us at BMG as we are now producing all our videos on 16:9 so this is perfect for us.

Now, the next problem involves a bit of trickery and if you click on the title of this article it takes you to the link where I found the trick. It is really very good. As we all know, YouTube can look very pixelated. Features and text can be downright illegible but if you upload video to YouTube that is reasonably better than what you get back, then this trick will enable you to embed this in the URL link and display quite significantly better quality. Here is how you do it.

Just simply add &fmt=18 at the end of the URL. That's it. Nothing more. However, a YouTube engineer got in touch with the author of the article and said that if you add &fmt=22 it gives the highest quality available and is the equivalent of 720p. Now that is not to be sneezed at. Given that we recently shot video at our fantastic Aisling Awards in the Europa Hotel using a very nice camera with exceptional quality, we shall be field testing this on YouTube to see how the quality really shows up. The link gives and example of low quality and high quality and you really do notice the difference.

Give this a go with your own videos on YouTube and see the difference in your own work.

Happy Birthday Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:11:00 +0000

My word, doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself.

No sooner are we allegedly getting Windows 7 than we realise that today is the day that 25 years ago Windows was released to an unsuspecting world.

All that remains to be asked is has it made as radical a difference to the world that many would have us believe. I gotta admit, I think the answer is yes.

Lord how I miss that clunky old interface.

Does Tech & the Election Process go together?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:12:00 +0000

Sometimes when I get exasperated with a Tech problem (see the previous post!) I use my well worn sentence...

"Perhaps we should go back to the stone and chisel."

It meant I could be a chisel sharpener in order to earn a living. Much less complex than the world we have built for ourselves.

So is it a good idea to introduce any form of advanced technology into any electoral system? More specifically, of course, I refer to the USA electoral system. Diebold machines and touch screen displays and all that stuff. There has been talk in the past over how error free they were. Were they tampered with? Did the last two elections get stolen because of hacked machines? All that sort of stuff.

Now rumours are coming to the fore regarding potential anomalies with touch screen display voting systems in the State of Texas. Clink on the link to find out more.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/e_voting_issues_in_texas

The more I think about these systems the more I think we should stick with the stone and chisel method of electing our political representatives. Good old fashioned paper cannot be hacked. Any changes to the ballot paper makes it invalid. Of course, we don't need to be told how to work an electoral system to our advantage but the days of "vote early, vote often" have largely been taken out of our system and while no system is perfect this is one area in my life where I am very happy for technology to take a back seat.

What price, democracy?

Is .docx the equivalent of a virus???

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:49:00 +0000

I'm getting seriously pissed off with this.

So, Microsoft have had released for some time Office 2007 and Office 2008 (Mac version, of course) and in that time people have been either upgrading or buying as new with their computers.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no problem with people deciding what software they want to buy. Zero difficulties.

However.

I remember encountering two problems in the past with this. First of all, I find it the height of bad manners when someone sends a file that they make sure the file they are sending can be opened by the person at the other end.

It is pretty bloody pointless sending someone a WordPerfect file these days, is it not? Who has WordPerfect??? Not a lot of people. So would you not be a tad on the annoyed side if someone sent you one and then asked what your problem was when you could not open it up?

Part of the problem here is that everyone expects you to have Microsoft Word (or Excel, or PowerPoint, or whatever) but did anyone actually bother to ask? Now, we know that most people have something that can open up the file in some shape or form but we would not send a Quark XPress file and expect everyone be able to open it up would we?

So, people are getting the latest version of Office and the constituent parts. The default file format in Office 2007 and 2008 is .docx, .xlsx and so on. Microsoft's new "open standard".

Open standard my arse. Quite a few times in work people are getting these things through in their emails and are perplexed that their version of Word does not open it up. How frickin' open standard is that? Most people do not know that Text Edit on the Mac cannot open it up. They want the formatting anyway and don't want to be bothered with another application. They just want the thing to open.

Second problem, is that it just reminds me back in the day when people downloaded an extension for Quark XPress called PasteBoardXT. It extended the size of the pasteboard around the XPress page which people wanted and liked from Aldus PageMaker. Problem was that it then required the PasteBoardXT extension to be installed on another machine if you copied the file or sent it to someone else. Before you knew it loads of people had to download the extension in order to open up the file. It was viral. You were forced to get the extension. And then to get around it people started download PasteBoard XTerminator so that they could open the file when they did not want PasteBoardXT. It was a completely crazy situation.

Now the answer is simple. You simply go in to Word preferences and set the default file format to Office 1997 - 2003 .doc and then the problem is solved. If you don't know how to do this, Google is your friend. Look it up. It's easy.

As far as I am concerned Microsoft is in a real sense forcing people to upgrade to the new version. Yes you can get around it but for the less technical savvy amongst us it screams "Upgrade me!!!!". I don't like it and it is uncalled for. For those who have the new version, do the right thing. Check if the person you are sending Word file to has the new version. If they don't then save it down a version.

Just because someone doesn't have the same version as you does not mean you have to force them to be the same as you.

Is Apple going to do the unthinkable?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:49:00 +0000

There are lots and lots of rumours flying around about the impending Apple announcement today. There is only one that really interests me.

Apple looks like they are going to have the cheapest laptop they have ever produced. The price point looks like $899.

If that is so then it could represent the next shift in switching patterns.

One of the main criticisms I get from people who want a laptop is that, while they would love a Mac, the can't justify the price point of around £800. They see the advertisements in PC World on TV for "laptops at the amazing value price of £299" or something similar.

The thing is, in the back of their heads they know that what they are buying is generally a big sack of crap, but anything dearer and they get nervous. If Apple do the $899, that will probably translate into £499. Now, that is getting to the tipping point of affordable. I always thought that if Apple could have a "4" at the start of their laptop prices they would generate more sales everywhere.

If that happens, it could be one of the principal factors that would keep Apple one of the more solvent Tech Companies during the forthcoming recession.

Adobe announces CS4, not the same as releasing

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:02:00 +0000

I got all excited and I shouldn't have bothered. Saw a headline today that seemed to suggest that Adobe had actually released their upgrade to CS4. It is not being released until October. Apparently Adobe are doing a webinar? May have missed that but I will check it out and if there is anything of interest I will post.

Looking forward to the mega download from the Adobe Licensing site that will be Adobe CS4 Premier edition.

You know I actually must find out if there is going to be anything really interesting in this release.

A Switchers tale (and some video too)

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:21:00 +0000

I've been a bad blogger. I'm still trying to get used to this having to post nonsense. When are Google going to create the new iBlogger software that does all this for you automatically without any effort?

I did promise some video of the Apple Store Belfast opening event so here it is. I flatly refused to High Five but my son got caught in the moment and obliged the frothy mouthed store people. All in all it was a really interesting experience. Bumped into some old friends, reminisced about times past and how it was great to see the store actually opening. My spies who were there on Sunday reported that the store was totally frantic then too so the crowds did not die down.

It will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum.

And while I did expect to chat to people I had never met before it was interesting to check out the wide and varied people who were there. A work colleague pointed something very interesting out on his trip on Sunday. He noticed that there were an awful lot of young people around. Teenagers and Twenty-somethings. I found that very interesting as a future pointer. Time will tell.

On my visit I bumped in to a very nice gentleman from Dundalk. Niall is a relatively recent switcher (2 years ago) and I couldn't resist trying to get a particular reason for this phenomenon. Well, it pans out like I said with my own friends who are switching. You get an iPod first and then it's like a virus. The same thing seems to have happened to Niall and his family.

It isn't like he went into it blind. His local Church and minister have Macs. He got the bug from there. I do find this very interesting because in my time I have seen quite a few guys in the clergy who are vehement Mac users. Some of them go way back to the 80's but that might be another story.

I took it for granted that he was originally a Windows user and that indeed is the case. What annoys me about people who criticise switchers or Mac users in general is we get labelled as 'zealots' as opposed to people who made a choice. But I was curious to find out what the core reason for switching was. Well, it turned out to be the reliability and ease of use argument. It could be debated between experts as to what machines are more reliable than others and indeed, experts the world over have been arguing as to which is the superior GUI, but you know what? All of that is totally irrelevant. If you go to a new device for reasons of reliability and ease of use, it will only be deemed a success if that is exactly what happens. In Niall's case, that seems to hold true. He is a happy user and like me is an avid iPhoto fan. iPhoto made real differences in our own family situation with the ease of getting pictures into a library and allowing us to show Granny and Granda. It was easy, but also it was professional looking. It was impressive and I suspect Niall feels the same way.

It is like I said before. Office? Aye, for work. All that stuff reminds us of work. It bores us. It does not engage us. iPhoto and the nice iApps seem to be engaging Niall and his family. So some vids in this post. The first will have chants of 'Belfast, Belfast, Belfast' by the Apple Store staff. I knew at that stage it was gonna be a bit over the top. Enjoy the videos and post your own stories of the day in the comments.

By the way, I have no clue at all what the guy on the left was doing wearing a crumpled velbet purple coloured coat. My daughter thinks he is a fashion victim. Sure, what the hell would I know? If you are that person and watching this, get a proper coat, son.

Out of the mouths of babes...

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:33:00 +0000

Apologies, I just had to add one more thing for today. Tomorrow I will post my videos from the event and a bit about an interesting conversation I had with a guy who travelled up from Dundalk for the opening. Quite interesting.

The pics show my son about to launch into a frenzied game of Star Wars II but the first pic shows what a kid had done in Kid Pix before dandering off to the bosom of his family, whoever they may be.

Now, I don't know if the child has been brainwashed by his parents or that he genuinely believes this, however, it does really go to the heart of my previous post about Microsoft.

People are believing in the Apple brand, so what is the score with Microsoft?

Oh, by the way, I got my T-Shirt. I'm a happy geek.

AppleStore Belfast Grand Opening

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:33:00 +0000

I've been to Apple Stores before. One in Glasgow, the Regent Street store in London and two in Florida, The Mall at Millennia and the Florida Mall. The American ones were always very handy for getting the iPods at a good price with the exchange rate. However, I was always envious of the lack of local software, particularly games. Actually, I don't really play games. Things like Halo and Medal of Honour make me sick. Literally and physically. I stretch to Age of Empires and that is generally my limit, but getting games has always been a local issue.

So, we dropped the ladies off to the School of Music and my son and I drifted off down to the opening for around 9.20am. I expected a wee bit of a queue, I promised that if anyone "High-Fived" me I would slap them and I was hoping for a bit of excitement and of course, the free T-Shirt. No plans to buy, just to look and be happy that employment was being brought to Northern Ireland and choice. The pics are above.

I got more than I bargained for. Met some old friends and a couple of new ones, but more interestingly the place was overwhelmed with people. I was not expecting it to be this busy. Queued up on the ground floor and eventually headed up to the main entrance. I will post some more on this later, I am all blogged out and if I don't do some stuff around the house I will be beat severely. One thing is for sure, by no means was this a damp squib. This is really exciting.

Anyone else there?

I'm not alone anymore.

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:33:00 +0000

In my last post I talked a bit about being around in the 90's as a Mac user. It was a very isolated position. My friends regularly pointed and laughed at me.

It was tough.

OS 9 may have been reasonable and the software I used did the job for me, but I had the feeling that my days with the platform were numbered and I would eventually have to bite the bullet and get on the Windows train.

I wouldn't have minded too much, though. Lots of software to choose from and cheaper hardware.

However, things changed and the rest is history and we all know where we are now.

However, one thing that is sort of freaking me out is that in a quiet but startling way, people that I know are switching. Not in droves at first but now people are coming out of the woodwork as Mac users.

I get the feeling they want to tell me that they thought I had a point all along. I never shoved my computing preference down anyone's throats. I let them choose and gave as balanced an opinion as I could. Most continued down the Windows path.

Until recently.

I think over the last two years I have seen a sea change. Yes, it all started when friends who had never ever been Apple users suddenly started to be. Even me old mate Stevie Robinson. Firmly in the Microsoft camp as a user both for work and at home. No problems. We had our preferences. But suddenly he was an Apple user. An iPod user.

Others followed down this path. Friends, we Apple users like me even though it was just the iPod.

But things changed again. Trudy got an eMac. The Goodyears got an iMac last year and got a deal from Apple that included an iPod. Sweeeeeeeet.

My best mate, Fergus, got a MacBook Pro. Out of the woodwork this past week Brian comes and tells me he got one too and Bobby did as well. I am positive others will follow.

Even a mate of mine down South is getting an iMac for his Parish office. Andy has been there all along and is getting more stuff. Friends from work won't even think about getting a PC. They use it in work, they like it and they get it for the house. Alison switched from a Windows box in work and got a Mac and if I were to take it from her I would get one of her infamous female glares and I would beat a hasty retreat.

What is happening?

One reason I have had over the last year that is making people sit up and take notice. It is what I call...

Death By PowerPoint.

DBPP has been in business for at least five or six years. You now the score.

Oh, Holy Crap, another presentation with that damned PowerPoint template and 47 points per slide. I saw this YouTube video this week and it sums it up...

So what made some of these people switch? For quite a few of them DBPP was the reason. They wanted something better. More dynamic and yet simple all at the same time.

The answer?

Apple Keynote.

The guys in question are loving it.

Go to the newly opened Apple Store in Victoria Square and give it a burn. Come back and tell me if you think I am talking out of my you-know-where.

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:33:00 +0000

I've been following what has been going on with the new Microsoft Advertising campaign with moderate interest.

I am not going to turn this into a Microsoft bashing exercise. Enough people are doing that. Is Vista a dud? Well I have been using it mostly in a virtualisation environment on my Mac Pro. It does what I need. My expectation was for it to be a step ahead from XP. A modern operating system that would run fast, be nice and slick with a bit of eye candy and most important of all that it would be secure. Not too much to ask for the 21st Century?

Some of the criticism aimed at Microsoft has been some times a bit over the top. Certainly the service pack has made a reasonable difference. However the release of Vista is by no means what it should have been and I think everyone is more or less agreed on that.

In my opinion Microsoft's problems go deeper than just a dud release of an OS. With the stinging criticism of late I am fairly sure that they will be doing their utmost to push the boat out and get a much better release in Windows 7, or whatever they will call it.

No, Microsoft are suffering mainly because people are bored with them. People are not excited by the brand. People use the software for "work" and Apple have cleverly played on that in their (infamous?) Mac Vs PC ads. Let's face it, for most people work is a chore. A place you go to to pay the bills. There is little in the way of excitement. Excel, Word, death by Powerpoint are all making us feel listless and that boredom is spreading to Microsoft as a brand.

Apple, on the other hand, are producing "Office for the rest of us" in the form of the iLife applications. You know, the fun stuff. Taking pictures of the family. Using that video you shot and turning it in to a really cool movie that you can all watch with a bit of excitement. No digging out the photo album and the projector and boring people to death. iTunes, the iPod and now the iPhone. All cool things that people want. Things that are energising people and engaging them which is why the once stagnant Mac brand is now suddenly growing at unprecedented industry rates. Now, there is more to that story than meets the eye and OS X is certainly at the core of it but that is the truth of the matter.

Microsoft are making themselves irrelevant.

To try and make themselves less so they are running an advertising campaign, at first using Seinfeld and now an "I'm a PC" advertisement. Take a look...

Seems ok on the face of it? Maybe so, but I will tell you what. I may be an Apple user, but I am also a Windows user and a very infrequent Ubuntu user, but one thing I am not, I am NOT a Mac. I don't define my life as such. I use a tool. A tool I enjoy using. If someone uses Windows and it makes their day, then go right ahead. This Mac user will not be objecting, nor will he look down on you for your choice of computing platform, but please, for God's sake, don't label me as either a Mac or a PC. I have no intention of dressing like Justin Long, hell, I am 45, I would look like a tube.

But what is more strange in this ad, is that it actually makes a reference to the Apple Ads. Is the first rule of advertising not to acknowledge the opposition? This is why I find it a bit strange. Does this not tell everyone how successful the Apple Ads are and will subliminally infer that Apple are the cool kids, the guys with the good stuff and Microsoft are just playing catch up?

Microsoft do have problems. And while everyone on the planet have product problems it now strikes me that Microsoft simply have credibility problems. The same kind of ones that Apple had in the 90's and I was there and it was painful. "Beleaguered" the word used to describe Apple in the 90's now the word most fitting to Microsoft. Is Balmer going to pull a Jobs and turn the company around?

My bet, is that with him as CEO, the answer is no.

Apple Store, Belfast opening tomorrow.

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry McCoy) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:33:00 +0000

Let me be up front.

I am a bit of an Apple head. Goes all the way back to my time at CEM Computers when I joined them in 1988. Yes, I am that old.

So to have the Apple Store come to Belfast is just a tad exciting for me. So, I will be heading down tomorrow morning just after 9.00am. I will be bringing my son with me whom I have successfully corrupted into another Mac fan. We will be going mainly to get our freebie T-Shirts and mix with the beautiful people. We won't be buying anything. Perhaps we might get my rapidly decaying Mac Book Pro power supply changed over under their extended warranty programme (should that be program???) but other than that my main purpose is just to gauge the reaction to the new store in Belfast.

Will there be great excitement or not? Will the crowds be thronging as they do in the U.S. of A or will it be a bit of a damp squib? Interested to hear what the locals make of all this so sound off and let me know.