Skippy.org.uk

The reason Vista sucks is that it doesn’t need to be any good, because people will get it anyway. - Ben A’Lee

And i agree, Vista is so sucky that it did not last 10 days on my desktop, yes it was shiney, but it told me i didnt know how to use my computer, and locked me from doing things i wanted to do (all those files on a NTFS drive belong to Skippy, (XP install Skippy) not you Skippy, you need to log in as an Administrator, Mr Skippy of the Administrator group to change ownership to Skippy, from Skippy. that is not the only time that the rediculus security muck things up thing bugged me.

When using the computer, and you want to change your networking settings, do you want to wait for the screen to go gray, and then have to click a box which should have been marked "get out of my face, i know what i am doing!"

As for "easer and simpler file sharing" well the danm thing didn’t remember that the wire that connects it to the network is a trusted network (its a Desktop….) and my network has only trusted devices on it. so turing of the share //hlin/skippy$ every boot annoys the hell out of me.

Ben has had problems with that Internet Phone Company, As you remember, unsubscribing is a challange.

Yesterday I got the same e-mail that Ben did. however the day before that i got the following email:-

EXTO Ready To Hit US Market Ahead OF Schedule.

EXIT ONLY INC
EXTO.PK
Price: $0.43

The time table has been moved up. EXTO’s overwhelming success in Canada with its used car marketing site has stepped up its pace to expand its coverage. This new venue now moving to th…..

Whats suspicious is that it came through on the email address “vontage AT skip..” well there is only one company that used that email address to write to me, and only one company who knows about me being unable to spell there name wrong when I signed up.

As Ben sujests I am going to contact them, and i would ask them about both incidents.

I installed Vista (Business Edition) about 48 hours ago, spent 2 hours configuring it to use my document stores, and install Outlook 2003 (Legal Copy). the full list of installed software is as follows:

• Vista Business
• WinAmp (because it would be silly to use EMP WMP)
• Outlook 2003 (as 2007 is found through other sources)
• Mozila Firefox.

So not a heavy workload by any stretch of the imagination? so why is it that my 2.0GHz PC with 1GB of ram runs slower (boots faster) than my XP laptop (still the hi-grade pile of poop 1.4GHz 512MB ram),  that runs more stuff? (running as we speak)

• Windows Live Writer (to write this)
• Pidgin
• Mozila Firefox
• Mozila Thunderbird
• RSS Bandit - RSS reader.

True my desktop loads images faster than my laptop, but i think that is down to my ‘My Documents’ being located on a SATA hard drive away from the OS, as well as dedicated GPU.

A strange set of observations:

• It connects to Outlook for searching, yet it has its own calendar, and contacts folders? surly it would be more helpful if it data-bound to the Outlook PST and displayed them? at the log on screen on XP it tells you how meany unread emails you have in Thunderbird.
• It has its own Contact Folder, (all contacts are flat file .contact files) but you cant Tag these things, or group them. I can tag all my photos (using the Windows Imaging Component Meta Data space, doesn’t seem to be EXIF. See Comment one) so why not tag Contacts? or Documents?
• The Vista Search does not seem as fast as the Add in for XP, despite the XP one being an Add in. True the XP one does spend half its time writing an index for itself. but doesn’t the Vista one?

I am going to go back to XP on my desktop and by adding the following tools, most of the usefull parts of Vista can be replicated.

tools from MS:

• Windows Live Photo Gallery Beta - not a bad lite photo manager, with tagging capabilitys
• Windows Live Writer - Anyone know if there a Linux Equiv that will work with Ubuntu?
• Windows Desktop Search - It works, it reads Image Tags, it connects to my Outlook stores.
• Alt-Tab Replacement - A windows XP power toy that makes Alt Tab nicer

And tools not from MS

• iTag - works with the Tags to give you a Tag Cloud. (Vista doesn’t do Tag Clouds)
• TeraCopy - Makes the Copy/move progress bar more friendly, as well as speeding up the process.

Now to find my instructions for setting up Notepad2 as a Notepad replacement.

I have installed Windows Live Writer since coming to the US, I have to say that as a application it is not bad, one of my two complaints with it is, that it is slow… and the other complaint is that it installed MSN Messenger (or what ever they called it today).

Well today I am sat on a train between NYC and Rochester, as such now is a good time to try out off line blogging, and see how well it works.

Windows Live Writer claims to work with a number of blogging packages, not just Wordpress, and Windows Spaces, (I cant check the list at the second, due to being off line).

Things it claims it can do:

1. Manage more than one weblog, across a number of services.
2. Basic Formatting, numbered lists, tables, the etc.. if the company who write word could not do this.
3. As well as the the ability to post normal URI’s in posts, it seems to have the ability to remember the recent posts, as well as having a list of blogs you post about often [set up your self].
4. Inline picture (and pictures from a web site), will test this latter. but it seems to suggest it can upload the image at the same time as posting the post (or upload it via ftp)
5. Inserting maps and videos inline, not sure how video will be dealt with, but I will test out maps on my post warm and tall land.
6. tagging, but since I have not used them before I am not sure how much use that will be.
7. Previewing the post in a number of views, including using your sites style scripts, and a snap shot of the code, useful if you have strange rules relating to the layout I guess.
8. oh and offline writing mode. (what I am using at the moment).
9. More plugins are available via Download from the web… (can’t test at the second)

I would suggest that if you have a blog, you should have a look at it, and see if you like it.

I was in the Apple Store in NYC standing next to an iPhone today, ( i touched one)

It would have been cooler to have posted this post from it.

Microsoft are giving office away to students, well selling at a low price (Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition for £12.95 (1 year) or £38.95 (perpetual license - i.e.: forever) - usually the software costs £599.99), and who can blaim them.

Rich and Ben (who’s permilinks never seem to work) have been descusing this on Planet TermiSoc. Some of you may remember i was a Office 2007 Beta Tester, and I still use parts of Office 2007 today[1]. so i though i would join in on this one and comment on some of the points. Continue reading »

First of two posts for today….

Mobile Phone, My Orange SPV M600 (HTC Prophet) is still being a silly bugger and turning its self of far too often! so will be going back to HTC some time soon, (however i have left my emergency cover handset and a virgin sim card with Ruth) but it looks like it could be a battery problem, and as such is only covered by a 6mth warrenty? where as the handset is covered untill the 3rd october.

This weekend the sim card for my Contract number went tits up, and killed itself, being unable to find the SIM card for my old number (ending - 957) i had to make do with an obscure one that i don’t know the number for.

Phoned orange and two new SIM’s are winging there way to me :D.

I have been playing with this bit of software on my Desktop PC,

It works by monitoring my web cam, looking for my face, and when it finds it, i can use my PC, when it cant it waits 10 seconds, locks the PC, and waits till it can see my face again.

Have to find out what its limitations are, and if it thinks me and my brother are the same person. but it looks good so far, as better than the security on my desktop was.
I think using blue tooth on a MAC would be cool though (here) via [LifeHacker]

Some of you may remember me playing with my password strenth a while back. so i think it may also be wise to check my password strenth has not decreased.

Why did it take 20 minutes to cancel a vonage account? aparently the young lady did not get the “because the sky is blue” WAS my reson, and i was not going to tell her what it was other than that. oh and this is the second time i have canceled my vonage acount….. (yes the same one…)
hopefully it is dead now, and i can get on with my life, without having to close the acount again.

A British physics teacher whose creates wonderful comic flowcharts is fed up with the quality of physics education in the UK. He’s written a scathing open letter to the Board of Education detailing his view of the crisis in British physics.

Wellington Grey — Articles — A physics teacher begs for his subject back: An open letter to the AQA board and the UK Department for Education

If you love Science and Technology, can you read the letter and pass its details onto others.