Today's Tech (T Cubed)

Damn that AOL…

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 08:44:00 +0000

Taking my communications connection into my hands, I plumped to remain with AOL. All it took was the assurance of a few months payment free, a new router, inclusive calls and a minimum speed of at least 14 Mbps (on a 24 Mbps line), which would have doubled my average 7 Mbps and all for less than two tenners glued together and slapped on a managers forehead.

It so appealed to my penny pinching new scrooge mould, I said yes to the new 24 Mbps service where I would ‘experience a noticeable difference' and ‘speeds wouldn't dip below 14 Mbps,’ who wouldn’t?

My line could handle it.

I was told.

Naturally I whooped at this. I would finally get to watch the iPlayer in HD, and experience broadband for what it was designed for, turning the not so healthy into utter über-sized couch-potatoes.
The brief burst of enjoyment however, soon fizzled, as can be seen by the following graph.

If only I could summon up the energy to lift the phone, give a piece of my mind and swap ISP.

Scamming phone calls

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:59:00 +0000

Yesterday (30th June 2011) I received an out of area call. Happens all the time and is generally either a marketing company, a company wanting to help me manage my debt, a company wanting thoughts about surveys, and yesterday the strangest IT company wanting to ensure I wasn’t in a fix.

It started off by the first person saying “your operating system, Windows, has been attacked and there is a problem. I am calling to help you fix that problem.”

“Okay,” I said. “But what is the problem?”

“We have had some information pass through the centralised servers of Microsoft in Manchester, indicating that your computer has being infected. I will pass you onto a senior technician.”

I started to get quite excited, you might have noticed I haven’t even queried who the company is. Sadly I didn’t have the phone modem software up and running, otherwise I would have recorded the full conversation for posterity and uploaded.

After a few moments I’m talking to a more understandable, and seemingly more knowledgeable person.

“Hi, i’m John,” he says. “I’m a senior technician.”

More like scamming merchant, I thought, but held my tongue.

“Are you in front of your computer,” he asks.

“Hold on... Yes, I’m just starting the machine up and looking at the welcome screen,” which I was.

“Do you see the button on the bottom left of your keyboard with the four squares on?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Press and hold that, then press the R key.”

“What will that do,” I queried, briefly forgetting what the Window Start button and R actually produced.

“That will bring up the run menu,” he said.

“Ok.” So I bumblingly located and pressed the Window Start and ‘R’ keys, and up popped the Run window.

“What now?” I questioned, all ears.

“Type in event vwr, and press enter.”

I was astounded at what that would produce, but didn’t feel the need to correct.

“Nothing’s happened,” I said.

“That’s not a problem. Click on the Start menu, do you know where that is,” he asked.

“Is that the bottom, yes I’ve found it,” I said.

“Click on that, and then click on the Control Panel.”

I wasn’t sure whether I detected a hint of excitement creeping into his voice. Sigh for a voice recording.
“Okay, I’ve done that,” I replied.

“Click on the Administration Icon.”

“Done.”

“Now can you see the event viewer?”

“Yes I can. Should I click on that,” I queried innocence pouring forth.

“Yes do that.”

So I did. The event window opened. I could see the Application, Security, System and Information entries. “Which one should I click?”

“Click on Information. You see the columns, and the icons on the left. How many are yellow?”

Dutifuly I counted. “I can see ten,” I said.

“Oh you have a problem, if we go through the next steps this will clear them from your system and your system will be clean.”

“That sounds really good,” I replied. “What should I do now?”

“Press the Window button and ‘R’,” he said. “And type in log me in 123 . com.”

It was at this time I thought it best to come clean. “Actually I’m running a Linux box with the Windows OS as guest.”

He paused, then the line went dead.

Moral? Be always vigilant of unannounced callers who may have ulterior motives than helping clean your non-infected machine!

If you are in doubt, find a reputable IT Technician/Repairer, it’ll generally save you a whole heap of trouble and money!

Giving away estates — the Firefox conundrum

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:01:00 +0000

No not those bits of land everyone loves to squabble and fight over which in time will be either at the bottom of a sea, or pitching and yawing broiling in the mantle, or perched atop a mountain top with some new species, all ready to conquer!

No, I’m talking about the recently released FF4. A new Firefox which certainly loads faster than FF3, not as fast as Chrome – with the same number of extensions in both, but the release puts it firmly back into pleasurable browser usage territory, instead of turning into an IE6 look-alike; simply down to usage perceptions. So kudos to the hard work put into this release, by all of those involved.

I find (and counting myself in here), that many Firefox users load in add-ons as though legislation is being hurriedly enacted banning them from ever using their favourite crutch again. The poor browsers are so encumbered with add-ons, they creak and groan under the combined weight of anything from the latest top 10, to looking up the defining quote for beibergit (definition of which is still awaiting entry). Those older stalwart users remember the days of memory hogging - where the program grabbed as much memory as it could handle until your pc fell over – making the entire experience slower than watching paint dry, twice!

Naturally, over the years, this has inevitably led to Chrome becoming the default due to its unmatched speed; but even here, the inclusion of many extensions has reduced this once proud road runner to a slightly speedy wile e coyote.

I have being using Firefox since its inception and wanted to return to those halcyon days of tear-jerk quality every techno-nerd finds a need to return to. This latest incarnation (including the table mats) once again makes Firefox a viable browser of choice.

So, in pictures…

Ah yes, so where does giving away estates come into things, I hear the pondering?

If you look compare and look closely at the top bars of Chrome and Firefox, you’ll notice Firefox has a 3mm extra drop – if you look closely. Don’t knock it, perception of size matters. For those who don’t give a fig, give it a whirl and definitely try the table mats Ctrl + Shft + E in the browser, it’ll open up a whole new world of browsing possibilities.

Firefox 4, browsing to the future

iPwhat?

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Oh right, revolutionary?…

Still a non-replaceable battery?…

No flash?…

How many dollars?…

Yeay, bring on the card-reader.

Spot on

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:02:00 +0000

“The real pirates have always been the labels, screwing over the artists for decades.

Google 'hollywood accounting', or the stories from well known artists like Courtney Cox, the way the labels screwed artists over when they introduced the CD, screwing artists over by unjust loyalties for digital downloads.

For more examples, the RIAA has sued over 18,000 people on average of $5,000 (some have been sued multiple times), but no artist has seen a sliver of these millions.

The recording industry collects a fee for all blank media (CDs, DVDs etc) in Canada as these MIGHT be used for piracy, at just a few cents per CD... but over millions of CDs and years of these fees have accumulated to tens of millions of dollars (or more...) but not ONE artist has seen a dime of this money.

Who's the real pirate now? the 16 year old pimply geek who downloads a song off the internet or the labels screwing their artists for decades?”

http://www.thelocal.se/21286/20090813/

Damned tech

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:06:00 +0000

A while ago I saw and fell for a cheap ‘scope from Lidl’s, after seeing it online and thinking always wanted one of those. Realised, after getting it home that many (many) years ago, I actually had one; albeit a plane old boring one that produced the same amount of eye-strain as a bunch of partying adolescents dancing in a quiet carriage, would cure a migraine sufferer seated behind them.

After months of inhabiting the dark the microscopes time had come. Removing webs and giving it a quick dusting, it once more stood proud and glittery finally released for it’s sixth outing. Then I plugged it in.

The bloody thing doesn’t work.

Well not properly. Previously when the USB viewer was connected, a little green light would appear indicating it was ready and in the receive mode. This, however, now remained steadfastly mute. Despite trying to access it through many imaging programs littering my beige, box just in case I had forgotten an important step, the electro-mechanical contrivance-bloody thing, still gave the same outcome. Nothing. Which technically, isn’t true. It’s just that I wasn’t actually after a nothing result on this occasion.

Uninstalled then reinstalled the drivers held on the original CD. Still no change. Either XP is working its way towards another fresh install (and it has been a while since the last one), or - if any of the next crop of Linux distro’s eventually decide to work with my creaking HD2600 pro, been dumped into the virtualisation zone of darkness; as the device is actually working, maybe there’s something I’ve overlooked. Which might be mentioned. In the manual…

A continual piling heap of nothing. Until I decide to run it via the Scanners & Cameras option.

Instead of having resolution choices up to 820 x 670(ish) pixels in size, the current image resolution is only 176 x 144 pixels – a squintingly sharp drop.

But even with the major drop in res., I can still peer that much closer, to see previous miniscule dots that shuffled poking and prodding across my vision, as now decent sized corpses. All the while remembering this could only be the tip of a vast infestation iceberg. As no doubt, the vast legion of their still alive fellows, are working hard at decimating as many of my indoor plants as they can spin a web to.

And here are some images of the dead crits…

Now that I’m vaguely aware of the species, all I need to do is to decide if I go down the path of natural predation (although using more mites, I would be able to rest back, happy in the knowledge of dead corpses littering the undergrowth replenishing nutrients stolen from the plants), or just use the best brand of poison which will get rid of the critters in hours.

As one of the plants from the cheap shop was covered, that is where the blame will lay for been the source of this outbreak. Even though I’ve cropped it to fifth of its previous size and sprayed, I might have no other option but to ditch it, and then make a trudging journey to a proper nursery. Oh dear.

Ah yes, why is this in tech? Because as any veteran user of tech knows, at that moment when you really just want to use something, that is the time it decides not to play ball; what should have taken minutes, end up taking hours. Leaving you slightly more frustrated and harking back to a time when the only thing technologically advanced, was a limestone wall and burnt carbonised embers!

Back to the fox

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:56:00 +0000

Well i decided to do a little test on the newly downloaded 99% there Firefox not quite a rc…

Oh firefox, blub!

Chrome was opened with 7 tabs, and still flew past all the others, apart from Opera 10 which was only 0.1 second behind.

In a few months it will all be down to personal preference sans/com add-ons, as base speeds will no longer be an issue.

BloatedFox

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:21:00 +0000

Firefox – pile of crap!

Was my final assessment after all the extensions I had installed meant my one and only Firefox profile, ate up 1GB of memory. Took over 2 minutes to load. And rattled along like a paddle steamer in the middle of a drought. But it had all my passwords, bookmarks, automatic this, auto that, and – once it loaded, settled down, browsing however slovenly was somewhat a joy.

But it was time for radical treatment, to prune this overwhelming bush back to something more manageable. As used to occur with XP once to many applications were in/uninstalled, caused it to run like a brick pulling a tractor, the only cure was a format and clean operating system re-install.

So down I dug and created two additional profiles, two bare bone profiles.

But even with the extension list pared to the bone, there are simply some things I can’t live without: i.e., noscript, finjan and mouse gestures. Simply typed those into the add-on search section of mozillas’ website downloaded and installed.

A quick restart later, everything in the browser was looking a bit sparse (I had forgotten how boringly dull the default theme looked), so decided to install adblock.

Final browser restart, visited my usual sites and considering the time and connections, I was once more impressed with how speedy it (Firefox 3.0.10) actually is when it’s not a bloated loaded down monster. Admittedly it’s still slower to start up than Chrome 3 or Opera 10, but it’s faster than IE 8 and Safari – on my system.

With Firefox’s faster engine and other associated tweaked bits in 3.5 soon to bolt from the stable, my three suitably primed profiles armed, it looks as if my love-in with FF is back on, in the love fest that calls itself the interweb!

Oh the Wolverine mysteries

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:01:00 +0000

So someone along the line has leaked online a not-finished pre-production copy of Origins:Wolverine:X-men here we go.

If people don't realise it's not the finished version and say its pants, then I'd hope the producers wouldn't want them as fans, paying or otherwise. If on the other hand after seeing the film (without the special effects), people rush out to see it, tell all their friends to see it and buy the (rip-off priced) optical media, then what will the studios say about the effect of piracy?

If it is nothing but pants and only wings it by the yet to be added special effects, then only the cgi fanboys/gals will be the beneficiaries anyway.

"Of course, true movie fans would never sacrifice the true joy of a collective, shared experience at a theater for a degraded, half-baked copy viewed on tiny computer screens..."

http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-41923-98.html

A theatre experience? I'd rather have my eyes gouged out and body trampled by rampaging bulls. Shudder.

Regulatory dinos?

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:01:00 +0000

It's been a while since this section of the blog's been given a dusting. But hearing news about the energy regulatory, just had to quickly pop something up in relation to its communications sister.

"Ofgem going to do what? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.

A regulator potentially (will believe it when they slap the first energy company) doing something that will be beneficial to the consumer? Oh my!

Now, will whimpering Ofcom please come out of the corner. Pop back to elementary school - to learn the meaning of the term 'unlimited'. Bare those plastic teeth, and stand up, to the telecom run-arounds."

Opera 10

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:49:00 +0000

Browsers and their updates seem to be falling out of development cycles at a heady rate over the latter end of the year.

And the latest is an alpha version of Opera 10, available from http://www.opera.com/browser/next/, all the while remembering that alpha releases might be unstable and should only be used as an indication of the final release.

But Opera was one of the first to incorporate mouse gestures, one of the fastest (after the new pack rendering leader - Chrome), a delight to use, small footprint, and the browser of choice for when I decide to blow off the dust and gain access to my cobwebbed account.

So the blurb...

"This release gives people a taste of Opera’s new rendering engine, Opera Presto 2.2 — the foundation of all future Opera 10 products. Opera Presto 2.2 offers approximately a 30-percent-faster browsing experience as compared to Opera Presto 2.1, introduced in Opera 9.5 in June 2008.

Opera has fine-tuned its standards support and, as a result, Opera 10 alpha achieves an Acid3 100/100 Test score. This version also provides Web developers with a whole range of new technologies for building better Web sites.

Other new features in Opera 10 alpha include spell-checking as you type, as well as auto-updating to the latest versions as they become available. Opera Mail also has added support for HTML formatting of e-mails."

Good to see that companies like opera can still exist and come up with innovative and free software.

If you don't, just yet, wish to risk your set up then stick with Opera 9.6. If however your sense of adventures is piqued. Take the plunge, download the Opera 10 (alpha) and run.

McAfee - sorry our systems are down

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:28:00 +0000

So it's too expensive for McAfee to twiddle around with their database and either insert an extra field or amend a field and put a conditional statement for its use.

If that's to difficult for them, makes you wonder how they're managing to work out new definition tables and keep systems 'secure'. Oh that's right, they're only pretending.

Last time I used McAfee was... that long ago. Its either ZoneAlarm and AVG, or Avast and ZoneAlarm, or Comodo. Dependent on which becomes inoperable during an update.

Well if people out there are still buying stuff from McAfee, hope this gives them very great pause for concern.

There are plenty of good free security programs out there, which don't need a degree in astrophysics to operate. Be bold, be brave and give them a whirl.

Notables:

AVG - www.grisoft.com (free antivirus/spam)

Zonealarm - www.zonealarm.com (free firewall)

Comodo - www.comodo.com (free internet security suite)

Avast - www.avast.org (free home edition with daily updates)

UPDATE
As of a couple of hours after this went up, mcgaff did an about turn, saying they would pass on the percentage cut.

This should be enough for those who (why?) buy it, to go out and celebrate. Their - approx. - £1.12475p saving can be used towards a pint (or half) of beer, in any happy smoke free, bodily malodorous pubs; that are still out there serving the things.

Firefox 3.0.4 update tweak

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:01:00 +0000

Not quite sure whether it's me or the code on the pages i usually visit have been cleaned up, or the guys & gals beavering away behind the scenes on ff3 have at last sorted out the memory issues.

But, for the first time in ages ff no longer claws its way through all the available memory, until it either falls over or slows everything else down..

Up until today, it had reached the stage where the the browser would after a short period of time need restart. Once response times became sluggish and ff easily chomping its way to nearly 1GB nothing else would work except a restart.

It's been open for nearly half an hour with my usual windows tabs open and it's hovering contentedly around the 70MB mark.

So far, a hearty thumbs up!

Vorbis Theora

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:50:00 +0000

I remember the ogg vorbis player from way back when which also happened to be the best player at the time. So coming across the video codec release Theora 1.0, i unhesitatingly and unashamedly, had to copy and past this plug.

"Are you tired of constantly being prompted to download proprietary software and plugins to play the videos and listen to the music you want?

Are you fed up with seeing new gadgets that only use incompatible and restrictive audio and video formats?

Did you know that it's not a lack of technological know-how that causes this, but software patents and other legal restrictions?

Increasingly proprietary software companies like Microsoft, Apple and Adobe are pushing video and audio formats that restrict access and restrict software developers, but there is an alternative that can be played on all computers without restriction—Ogg.

Ogg provides professional grade multimedia formats. Ogg is used extensively by free software projects, artists and a growing number of music and video distributors.

Soon over a million children and their families will be receiving the One Laptop per Child XO computer designed to play and create Ogg files. By advocating now for Ogg we can help ensure that those children will gain access to, and not be unnecessarily restricted from thousands of educational resources and materials on the web.

Join us in advocating for Ogg right now by taking 4 Easy Steps:

Install VLC multimedia player,

sign-up for the PlayOgg advocate mailing list,

find and share Ogg friendly sites, and

put PlayOgg Buttons on your web site or blog.

After all that, if you are still looking for more to do, consider encouraging others to do the same."

Card readers

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:49:00 +0000

A 53-in-1 card reader? It must be to good to be true.

After spending a brief period of time counting (three times), the various connectors the card reader actually supported came to 31. So, I wondered, as many of us would. What happened to the other 22? Or did they count the various versions of the same type of card. Like pcmia one thru four?

Wondering what winging an email off their way would produce. I promptly sent one off.

Four days later a reply popped into my box from their support centre.

"Our reply regarding your question:
It's marketing. It just reads all cards. :)
Beware however that it does not support SDHC unless it is specifically stated."

So in the end, it's just a clever little marketing ploys to get us to part with our cash!

But even though a severe ticking off should be brought in by trading standards, do have to admire the company's honesty at answering a direct question.

Sun weblog writer

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Well after hearing some negative comments regarding the sun weblog writer, I thought i'd give it a quick spin; just to see how useful, helpful and time saving it might be – especially in comparison to microsofts live writer.

Well it took a few minutes to eventually get the download, either sun's servers were under a bit of pressure or to many people siphoning off my connection. But it eventually downloaded and installed without a hitch.

I looked for a new program, but nothing. Opened oow (openoffice writer), to notice two new icons. The first a little feather with an upward pointing green arrow next to it and the second another little feather with a downward pointing orange arrow.

So I clicked on the open weblog entry icon the feather and downward pointing orange arrow icon, to get the following pop up.

Clicking on either of them produced, well, a basic ui. But unlike the many complaints I saw on the site, it connected and retrieved without a hitch, as can be seen in the image below.

But rather than use that to retrieve an existing post and have it do something untoward, i created a new post - this one - to upload and see what happened.

So clicking on the to weblog icon to upload a quick draft blog – this one – brought up the window (see image below), which was a tad basic but had the send as draft clicked. Uploaded and then went to the blog to see how the first bit of the test came out...

Unlike windows live writer (which I must admit is a piece of software I find indispensable, I would even go so far as saying it's one of the best offline blog-producing bits of software i've used so far; it doesn't have the all in one place functionality i've become used toplaying with in wlv. Just little things. Like been able to easily change the displayed and click-able picture sizes by a couple of mouse movements, is an excellent implementation of resizing.

... and now over to the blog. The sun weblog writer dismally failed. First off, it published/posted to public despite the save as draft option been checked. Secondly, the first image above failed to appear and paragraph spacing was doubled spaced. Little things which wouldn't have made a great bit of difference four years ago, but things have moved on at breakneck spead!

So on this occasion the clear winner (splutter, cough, cough), is undoubtedly microsofts live writer. Which, unless a decent open source alternative comes out, I heartily recommend.

Fattening fox

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:33:00 +0000

I have, albeit briefly, fallen out of love with my favourite browser - firefox. We had a wonderful affair going back many years when all was perfect. From when it initially poked its head through the holes left by the thundering internet exploriphant, which had terminally wounded the previous king of the jungle - netscape.

Through thick and thin, when ff refused to load bookmarks or refused to put them in the correct locations, to losing all the passwords in a minor tiff! Through all of that we patched up and roared on.

But with the growing popularity of the add-ons things took a slight turn for the worst. Was it a badly written meal ff had digested, causing it to go a strange colour of blue? No just a badly prepared theme i'd stupidly installed. But its initial speed was slowing, on some occasions even taking longer to load a page than it took ie to load and be ready. Blasphemy!

The last time - when the camels back finally broke - ff was still loading up long after i'd loaded up chrome, checked my banking balance the weather and what was on at the local cinema before it sputtered onto screen.

What was going on?

A quick look through the trusty task manager brought up a few home truths. Chrome with five tabs open was taking up only 56MB of ram. Firefox on the other hand (whilst still in its loading phase), was chugging through over 1.3GB of memory; before settling down to a relatively wieldy 215MB.

The only thing that had changed was the inclusion of more add-ons (figure 1). New add-ons that are recommended by someone you know which they just can't live without, you just have to try. That other slightly strange but winking at you add-on from the pages of the latest magazine to hit the door, or viewed on a site, all offer time saving, enjoyment having wasting more time than sense hours of fun. The time had arrived to ruthlessly remove all those juicy helpful helpers. To return the browser to a state of speed and efficiency - you might even find it crashes less frequently too.

Figure 1. Add-ons

Sigh, what to remove and what to keep...

The all-in-one sidebar I regularly use for its unabashed over helpful organisational abilities.
The latest add-on was Tab Mix Plus, which looks good adds to the functionality but I can do without for the time being.
Scrapbook is good but somewhat duplicating Google notebook so that will have to go.
Fire gestures - mouse gestures certainly require that onboard.
Firebug haven't really used it so that can go.
As can answers since I now use ubiquity for so many things.

...and on you go, through each add-on and saying yes or no. Once you've reached the end of your list, you can restart firefox.

Firefox now consumes just 165 MB of memory to open before settling down to a modest 152MB. By just removing 5 add-ons the start up time has dramatically improved, and as seen below its memory footprint is now more manageable.

The image following shows how the new look slimmed down version looks:

So if firefox is causing you problems it may more than likely be an arrant add-on. The best thing is to start the browser in safe mode:

Start menu -> all programs -> mozilla -> mozilla firefox (safemode)

which will bring up the following window:

Simply check the disable all add-ons option and click the continue in safe mode. If that works and it starts okay (best to wait before the wonder of watching it zoom along is lost), then it is with great probability your add-ons.

Go on a helpful worthwhile mission: the add-on decluttering mission, and watch ff fly.

AOL recommendations

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:44:00 +0000

Logged into aol to check my emails. A chore that usually takes no more than five minutes, once a month.

The good thing about having aol as my main account? Nothing. If I hadn't signed a new contract a few months ago - I would certainly not be using them now.

The last time I had a choice, it was between aol and be. It would have been be for their speedier pipes, but aol gave me a reasonable offer. So i stuck with them, and have regretted it ever since. A point i might have mentioned once or twice, in previous tappings.

So i was quite surprised to receive a mass email offering £30 (or $52.5c and falling), if I would recommend a friend to use their services. Nearly fell off my stool - really must get that leg fixed.

Finally i came to my senses. Realised I would rather recommend a friend buy a clapped out moss-grown citroen 2cv (yes even moss would get a speeding ticket faster than an old iconic 2cv) than go with aol. If they were the last company on the planet offering broadband, i would recommend a friend go back to using dial-up. Recommend aol? Put me in front of a rampaging herd of bulls; let them put me out of my misery - quickly.

Picture purloined for point proving, but from this wonderful site.

So what would i recommend aol for?

If you wish to enjoy a slow browsing experience, use aol's. If you require (generally) unhelpful service, use aol. If you want to engage technical support in linguistical riposte, to be told it's all your fault, then please do use aohell.

I was always surprised time warner did the bed-hopping episode. But greed is a powerful stimuli.

With all these things, it's always your own personal experience. A bit like the mint adverts (2004 was a better year). In this case someone out there, is having all my service...

Now, where did i put that friend?

Ofcom emergency

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:36:00 +0000

As of monday 8th September 2008, if you have an emergency (slightly burnt toast doesn't count as one), and sitting in front of a pc; you should be able to use your voip provider - for most of us that'll be skype, to make that emergency call. But it applies to other software voip's out there as well.

And about time to.

As Ofcom says...

'From 8 September revisions to General Condition 4 came into force. These revisions mean that VoIP providers who enable their users to make calls to the PSTN (i.e. make calls to telephone numbers) must provide the ability to make “999” and “112” emergency calls.'

Would still keep a mobile handy, next to the bed. Just in case that raging fire takes down your phone line.

First play of chrome

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:42:00 +0000

The hours tick by as many people await the browser everyone is talking about. Google with another launch, wonder if it will have browser-beta somewhere? This is beginning to look like apple fanmania.

Reminds me of the hoop-la when gtalk arrived. Haven't seen any major im's falling by the wayside just yet. The fact their non-related sibling (mozilla) wasn't told... well let's just see what happens, in just under three years time.

Currently using ff3 quite happily. Followed by safari/opera then ie8 - just to test website compatibility - and viewable by the majority of browsers in use. Out there in the internet viewing world.

Its here!

And first looks are, not sure I like the colour. But that'll change. Tabs? Can go with those, on a 24" lcd it's quite spacious - looks less crammed.

And not a beta tag to be seen! Now this is different, time to tinker...

Easy installation, hasn't crashed yet... more play

For those who haven't tried it yet, it can be downloaded from here.

Ringtone cashcows

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:24:00 +0000

Where are you now, oh mighty crazy frog? And hands up how many spent £2, buying that particular ringtone when it first came out?

In today's permanently-on-all-you-can-consume menageric society, you can download a quality realtone (as opposed to the nasty plasticy monotones we had to endure up until a couple of years ago) for the pricely sum of £4.50p - a single download. Or if you take out a subscription, for £4.50p ($8.46c), you can download 3 ringtones of your choice - from one particular website - per week.

That's just over eight full music track downloads, from the itunes store or two cheese flavoured quarter pounders, for 30 seconds of sound. Or to to indulge in bit of mediocre statistical shuffling, it would equate to an approximate hourly rate of £540, per hour. Been paid that would easily put you in a reasonable gross weekly income position of about £21,600 - and you wouldn't even have to worry about been a footballer just getting your boots on the first rung of the ladder. But don't get me started on the current crop of the national team.

So, at a bare minimum we can say that the most popular operator of this form of media outgassing, gets a minimum of £21,600+ per week by consumers downloading 30 seconds worth of a song or songs. Not bad, for ringtone dealing.

Are we mad? Many companies out there obviously think we are. To the ringtone industry, we are nothing more than gullible "ringtone cashcows!"

And for those out there still not aware of how to go about creating a ringtone, I was going to do a quick brief little piece. But luckily, swivelled across the splendid article below, on wired.com. Which needs as much additional explaining as teaching Mr Bean how to be a court jester.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/commentary/listeningpost/2006/02/70150

But here's something i cobbled together [cackle]. At the very least it would see if your ears are cleared!

Firefox 3 surpassed by IE8 beta 2

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:52:00 +0000

According to a reviewer on the Cnet website: IE 8 beta gives other browsers a run for their money.

...

In another feature, known as InPrivate, Microsoft allows the user to suspend caching functions while you surf. The scenarios for using InPrivate include when you're using someone else's computer, like for instance, when you need to buy a gift for a loved one without ruining the surprise, or when you're at an Internet kiosk and don't want the next person to know which Web site you visited. While you can currently clear the browser cache with a mouse click, it's an all-or-nothing action. InPrivate temporarily suspends the automatic caching functions, allowing you to keep the rest of your browsing history intact. Apple Safari has offered this feature for a while, but Mozilla Firefox does not.

http://news.cnet.com/8300-1009_3-83.html?tag=hdr;snav

Now if the reviewer on the cnet site had done, let's say, 2 seconds worth of digging amongst the extensions available for firefox, he'd have found an extension which incorporates that particular function (and has done so since the first half of 2007), which IE8 beta2 only now includes.

And it's called stealther 1.0.6, by Filip Bozic and was last updated on June 16 2008.

Technically the reviewer is correct. The stripped down bare bone basics of mozilla firefox doesn't offer that function, in its native form. But people tend to go with firefox, not only for the extra bit of security, but the freedom to mix and match the perfect add-ons that suit their own set of particular circumstances.

Hotwipes slackmails

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:29:00 +0000

A few posts have mentioned that an invisible swagbag has slunk off with some hotmailers mail bags, leaving disgruntled users simmering in its wake!

Rumours circulated on the 26th August, that hotmail users (exact numbers unknown), had suddenly lost 100's of emails from their accounts. In some cases emails they'd kept, that were over 3 years old.

Sadly anyone who takes msofts claims of security and data loss seriously - for that matter anyone who takes any company's claims for rock-solid security and data safety, has either never used a computer for a lengthy period of time, or been deep sea living and missed all the news about the pieces of data that seems to be shipping out (no pun) on a monthly basis - from public and private concerns alike!

The moral of this is ensure you have at least one back up of all your important messages. Even if you use an offline email client, à la thunderbird. Just download and backup those emails in zip form. Burn to a disc that is verified and encrypted - with at least 1024 bit strength encryption.

Opensource and freeware picks - august 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:10:00 +0000

Well it's the year of the iphone with people in countries who don't have 3g networks still buying the iphone, because of the kudos. Sweet!

For this month my top ten open source picks, that have kept me happily tickled are:

audacity - audio
inkscape - vector drawing software
gimp - photo/paint software
camstudio - excellent bit of opensource software allowing you to record/capture any part of your screen vidcast
openoffice 3.0 - fully fledged office suite of programs
winmd5sum - cute little freeware utility that checks downloaded program checksums simply by right clicking and sending
Blender 2.47 - animation 3d and game designing software which gives many of the bigger boys an excellent run for their vastly overpriced sums. Don't believe me? Check out the award it's just won
firefox - a browser with so many helpful plug-ins and extensions, a browsing experience on any other computer, just isn't the same
vlc media player - plays most video's, dvd formats without a hiccup
cutepdf - create a pdf from any program without any hassle

That is just a quick snap shot of my current pick of favourites. The list could go on and on. But as each month goes by the open source and freeware developer communities, continue to spring remarkable surprises.

I might consider an iphone, once they have one that incorporates radio. Oh yes and a replaceable battery. But who knows, it might turn out that i'll be far happier with an android.

Ubiquity

noreply@blogger.com (Planado) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Every now and then, something comes along that after first viewing and using sends a tingle along the full length of your spine. Something that has the potential to change the way we've done and used things, and makes you think where have you been all my life!

Welcome ubiquity!

After a quick download, install into FF3 and restart, the first few commands worked instantly. No falling over. No errors. It dramatically cut down on the number of clicks, tab openings and browser swapping that one needs to do.

You can see how powerful this small extension will be, once it's combined with a voice application such as dragon naturally speaking or, once computers can accurately monitor them, hand gestures.

For an alpha release, it is - at first use - very impressive. Ubiquity is one to watch. If you're not a fan of alpha releases, grab it once it's in beta.

Once downloaded it's a simple case of firing up the ubiquity interface, by pressing Ctrl + Space Bar. You can then use one of the commands that follows below; with the promise, over time, of many more commands becoming available. So subscribe to a feed or an email list, and be kept up to date with availability.

Ubiquity's like yahoo pipes, but with an added UI layer and way less complex to get decent use out of. So use as is, or if you enjoy tinkering and trying out, delve as deeply into it as you wish.

List of ubiquity commands:

add-to-calendar	Adds an event to your calendar. Currently, only works with Google Calendar, so you'll need a Google account to use it. Try issuing "add lunch with dan tomorrow".
amazon-search	Searches Amazon for books matching your words.
answers-search	Searches Answers.com for the given words.
ask-search	Searches Ask.com for the given words.
bold	If you're in a rich-text-edit area, makes the selected text bold.
bugzilla	Searches Bugzilla for Mozilla bugs matching the given words.
calculate	Calculates the value of a mathematical expression. Try it out: issue "calc 22/7 - 1".
check-calendar	Checks what events are on your calendar for a given date. Currently, only works with Google Calendar, so you'll need a Google account to use it. Try issuing "check thursday".
close-related-tabs	Closes all open tabs that have the given word in common.
close-tab	Closes the tab that matches the given name.
command-editor	Takes you to the Ubiquity command editor page.
command-list	Takes you to the page you're on right now.
convert	Converts a selection to a PDF, to rich text, or to html.
define	Gives the meaning of a word. Try issuing "define aglet"
delete	Deletes the selected chunk of HTML from the page.
digg	If not yet submitted, submits the page to Digg. Otherwise, it takes you to the story's Digg page. by Sandro Della Giustina - licensed as MPL,GPL View more information at http://www.gialloporpora.netsons.org.
ebay-search	Searches EBay for auctions matching the given words.
edit-page	Puts the web page into a mode where you can edit the contents. In edit mode, you can edit the page like any document: Select text, delete it, add to it, copy and paste it. Issue 'bold', 'italic', or 'underline' commands to add formatting. Issue the 'save' command to save your changes so they persist even when you reload the page. Issue 'stop-editing-page' when you're done to go back to the normal page viewing mode.
email	Begins composing an email to a person from your contact list. Currently only works with Google Mail, so you'll need a GMail account to use it. Try selecting part of a web page (including links, images, etc) and then issuing "email this". You can also specify the recipient of the email using the word "to" and the name of someone from your contact list. For example, try issuing "email hello to jono" (assuming you have a friend named "jono").
escape-html-entities	Replaces html entities (<, >, and &) with their escape sequences.
flickr	Searches Flickr for pictures matching your words.
get-email-address	Looks up the email address of a person from your contacts list given their name.
google	Searches Google for your words.
help	Takes you to the Ubiquity main help page.
highlight	Highlights your current selection, like this.
imdb	Searches the Internet Movie Database for your words.
italic	If you're in a rich-text-edit area, makes the selected text italic.
last-email	Displays your most recent incoming email. Requires a Google Mail account.
link-to-wikipedia	Turns a selected phrase into a link to the matching Wikipedia article. Can only be used in a rich text-editing field.
map	Turns an address or location name into a Google Map. Try issuing "map kalamazoo". You can click on the map in the preview pane to get a larger, interactive map that you can zoom and pan around. You can then click the "insert map in page" (if you're in an editable text area) to insert the map. So you can, for example, type an address in an email, select it, issue "map", click on the preview, and then insert the map.
map-these	Maps multiple selected addresses or links onto a single Google Map. (Experimental!)
msn-search	Searches MSN for the given words.
redo	Redoes your latest style/formatting or page-editing changes.
remove-annotations	Resets any annotation changes you've made to this page.
save	Saves edits you've made to this page in an annotation.
stop-editing-page	If you used the 'edit page' command to put the page into editable mode, use this command to end that mode and go back to normal page viewing.
syntax-highlight	Treats your selection as program source code, guesses its language, and colors it based on syntax.
tab	Switches to the tab that matches the given name.
tag	Adds a tag to describe the current page by Dietrich Ayala - licensed as MPL/GPL/LGPL View more information at http://autonome.wordpress.com/.
tinyurl	Replaces the selected URL with a TinyUrl
translate	Translates from one language to another. You can specify the language to translate to, and the language to translate from. For example, try issuing "translate mother from english to chinese". If you leave out the the languages, Ubiquity will try to guess what you want. It works on selected text in any web page, but there's a limit to how much it can translate at once (a couple of paragraphs.)
twitter	Sets your Twitter status to a message of at most 160 characters. You'll need a Twitter account, obviously. If you're not already logged in you'll be asked to log in.
undelete	Restores the HTML deleted by the delete command.
underline	If you're in a rich-text-edit area, underlines the selected text.
undo	Undoes your latest style/formatting or page-editing changes.
view-source	Shows you the source-code of the web page you're looking at.
weather	Checks the weather for a given location. Try issuing "weather chicago". It works with zip-codes, too.
wikipedia	Searches Wikipedia for your words. by Blair McBride - licensed as MPL. View more information at http://theunfocused.net/moz/ubiquity/verbs/.
word-count	Displays the number of words in a selection.
yahoo-search	Searches Yahoo for pages matching your words.
yelp	Searches Yelp for restaurants matching your words. You can search for restaurants near a certain location using the near modifier. For example, try "yelp pizza near boston".
youtube	Searches YouTube for videos matching your words.
zoom	Zooms the Firefox window in or out.

One thing, it is javascript based. As it pulls many elements together, it brings added layers of usability and freedom, but (until it's fully tied down) you will need to keep an eye on potential security issues, if using commands from non-trusted sites.