So the question is Mac or PC, and to be honist its not a hard question to answer, I am looking to replace my MacMini (mid 2007, Intel core duo 2GHz 1~Ggi Ram), With Loupie having a uni-body aluminum Macbook (not pro . October 2008 – June 2009), so that gives me an idea of how powerful the Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 with 2gig of ram is; and the answer is much more powerful than the Mid 2007 Mac Mini.

Looking at apples current line up, and knowing I was after a laptop, I set out to chart the two most important parts of this desision, Cost V Power. Cost I could get from Apple, meaning power was going to be slightly harder. thankfully OSX Daily had been there for me [1] allowing me to plot Price, against benchmark. According to the benchmark for Loupie’s mac her benchmark  is 2706 and my Mac Mini’s is 2593, both well below the lowest benchmark of the current pros of 3390.

While I still have a number of people I know at university, mostly through TermiSoc, it may be worth using the Apple Education store, as there should be no reson why I may accidently be able to order the machine at education store costs…

I am looking at going for the 15″ Macbook Pro as that offers the Largest benchmark jump, for least jump in pennys requiring removal from my pocket.

Against my 4211, and Mac Mini it stacks up as such:

So the next challange is finding some pennys.

I have had a play with this software before, and based on that trial I have had a go at installing it on my parents computer; in the hope that it reduces the time I have to spend keeping the computer clean.

Deep Freeze works by freezing all the data on a patition and removes all changes made everytime the computer is re-started, to avoid wiping out all userdata I have the Documents and Profile folders on a diffrent patition.

I hope that at the end of my trial that it will have worked as well as I hope it will.

Although for those times support is required I have installed Cross Loop, fundimently Cross Loop is VNC wrapped in an easy to use userinterface that allows you to connect to another computer without needing to open up firewall ports and such; making it easy for parents to allow me to connect to their computer remotly.

As part of the re-installing software I had to choose a PDF application, and as we all know Adobe Acrobat reader is never the sensable choice. Previously I have used Foxit’s Reader which has been light and always done what it says on the tin, being that it claims to be:

• Foxit’s NO BLOAT PDF Reader
• Small download, fast, accurate rendering

However what it doesnt tell you is that every stage of install it will try and install crap you dont need, and that you have to make sure you de-select from the install. I am not sure how this behavure sits with other people,. but I consider it very anoying.

I have included the Screenshots from the install process below so you can see what it looks like:

[View with PicLens]

Also on this note:

• SUN -  I do not want the Yahoo bar with my Java
• Microsoft – No I dont want any extra crap when I am forced to use MS software
• Apple – Why on earth would I want Safari with my iTunes?

I am sure this list of Grrr will grow.

Jethro Has previously told me that there is no point to unlocking Mobile Modems as data only sim cards always come with them, however I just want to use mine when I really need internet and not as well as a mobile phone.

To unlock the Modem (I try to avoid calling them Dongles) your first port of call is getting a copy of Mobile Partner, this can be downloaded from here.

If You like pain you can try talking to the wonderfully unhelpful droids at Three [3] – (Hutchison 3G UK Ltd) but am not a huge fan of Phoning expensive phone numbers I use the 0800 358 6796 (or 01442 456050) that they try not to list.

This is where talking to the Droids gets interesting; as Three are not willing to have call centres in the United Kingdom they have all of theirs in India. and the script that they has tells them that the modem can not be unlocked. After getting through to the UK call centre (really the sales department) They tell me that they are willing to ‘unlock’ the device for £14.00 but this requires me to book it in for repair and will take 7 days (Phone 0843 730 500 (or the numbers above) and try and get through to the Pay as you Go Retentions Team.

So with that path not really viable, onto option Two: Option two seems to be much easer, as I found this on Ebay, follow the instructions as laid out by Grumpy Grayhound, and wait for the email back with the code in it.

Less than 24 hours (in my case 2 hours) you receive an Email with all the information you need in it, including links to the software to de-brand your modem.

Once the Modem is unlocked you need to change a few settings, however they are as follows for all UK mobile networks: (Found on this site).

So We now have a Mobile Skippy just in time for running away to the frozen north,

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

1. Open Office V Microsoft Office 2007
   Microsoft Office 2007′s Visual interface is new, [please do not read good/better], yes some people have usability problems with OO, however at least it looks the same as office 2003. Open Office has a few quirks, but it is usable by my parents, (without them knowing i changed them over), i use it on my laptop, and my desktop as my office suit of choice, i have no need at the moment for any of the fetchers OO seems to be short on (cant think of any) oh and i dont wory about the lack of shiney ness in OO. My BIGEST complaint at the moment with MSO2k7[2] is does any one know how to wind back the interface? and why make it so hard to sort out file format prefrances? can we not have a per user choice? or per computer (Office is per application, per user.)
2. Outlook, whilst uncaring about other mail clients, is a DAMN good calendar system
   And I agree, its also Great with my phone (have a look at this if you use a smart phone). Thunderbird is good, Sunbird Sucks, Vista Mail, well its an email client… Evolution, well just have a go.
   Outlooks spam filtering still sucks majorly (even when switched off it eats ham, and lets through blatant spam), as for the standards compliance of Outlook? well lets not go there.
3. OneNote, is it worth it?
   OneNote used to be a killer app for me! truly it rocked my world, it was great, well then the Honeymoon ended when it got slower and harder to run [read 2003 turned into 2007] my application of choice now? well have a look at TiddlyWiki. It does most of the usefull things of OneNote, but its free, and fast. Ben doesn’t like it because its a JavaScript Wiki. but its easy to sync, and update, oh and if some one wants a copy of one, it emails. (requires an internet browser with Java Script)
4. biggest stumbling block for Rich – no Mac option.
   Now call me paranoid, but i suspect that is a marketing ploy.. MS are trying to drag Mac users into buying a copy of windows, or a PC to keep the Mac users from leaving PC’s all together,
5. Publisher
   Well ok, so it sucks, A LOT, but if the challenge is to make a professional brochure, then yes. if its a Christmas card your making for your Gran…. its easy(ish) to use, and gives quick turnarounds, so what if it sucks. what else is there out there for Grannies card, (don’t point me to Crater Card 2.1 for £9.99 in WHS)

All in all OpenOffice is good for what you pay for it, and MSO2k7 is expensive, but in summary i suspect that the entire idea is to stop mass MAC migration, and Piracy, after all how much software can you get given to you from a mate?, and along with the MSDNA Windows offers, it can help keep Uni Students on the MS path for life.

• [1] I still use Outlook 2007
• [2] MSO2k7 would mean Microsoft office 2700 (2k7 = 2.7k) unless that is them telling you it will be the latest version till 2700

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.

Bolt(folio) is no replacement, if your an old Bolter and want to keep in touch please check here.

one where every one can fordge links to eachother and common inttrests or groups, I have both a MySpace, and a Facebook. Myspace sucks, mainly because its UI is attortius, Facebook is better, but i am guessing they would have learnt a lot from MySpace, this all goes towards making it a usefull way of keeping track of people.
The two complainte, One no pingbacks, or useable blog addresses, (this blog post will be sindicated in facebook, but you cant ping back to the origanal or anything), Two. no RSS feeds, call me sad, but RSS made me a lazy surfer.

I have though about using a Wiki to store random data, some of it which lives only for a short time, (links, quotes) or some things that dont fit anywhere, and are only required for online activitys, such as links to sites at work. (Tagging works )
i know i could have used some bookmarks syncronisation tool, or a text file that i can keep with me, but then i found TiddilyWiki its a single file Wiki, using only javascript, you just keep it on your hard drive (my case i store it on my PDA) and carry it round with you.

Its Public AP i beleve runs in a VPN through your network to there servers, as such it totaly bypasses any of your network, making it imposible for a person conecting to it to get access to your network.

One anoying thing about them though, (reason that the Fon AP is not high on my prefered conection list) is that between the LAN port and its privert SSID is a Router, compleate with NAT and firewall, this stops me accessesing my own network in the open way i ushaly do.

Seth said yesterday that the One Year offer page had gone, and as such i dontated my invite to him. I think ben will be getting his soon, and then we should have a more technical autopsy of the free Router (including how to flash it and stop sharing your wi-fi).

• Mail messages are now stored in individual files instead of in a single database file. A transactional index database enables real-time searching and improves the stability and the reliability of the stored data.
• Account setup information is no longer stored in the registry. It is instead stored alongside the mail itself.
• A Bayesian junk-mail filter.
• Contacts are stored as VCards instead of in a single database file.

A really cool thing it does (well i like it) Vista Mail downloads ALL your mail (from IMAP) and caches it localy, i know this sounds silly, but if your like me and using a laptop with a slow network connection, (or on a train) its usefull.
Now if only Outlook would start using this methord of sensable structuring, and something that would make it much cooler…. The ability to Tell Mail where to store its files

• z:\skippy\emails\termisoc
• z:\skippy\emails\university
• z:\skippy\documents\contacts\

then life would be so much easer, and make sense for me.

Well they are one year old and are offering routers for free, so if you go here, you can sign up and get yours for free (Ben can tell us what free it is).

I signed up yesterday, and hope to be pumping-out gratis 802.11b/g soon!

1. It just works.

Windows XP SP2 just works, if it came pre installed chances are it works even better, just because Macs have a limited number of hardware configurations that they are delivered in, doesnt mean they just work, just means they know what drivers are required to wake up.

2. You can make amazing stuff.

Define amazing? Well iLife says “Make high-quality websites, photo books, DVDs, songs, slideshows, music CDs, calendars, cards, prints, podcasts, music videos, documentaries, and more.” ok, so Windows doesnt come with Office, and Publisher pre installed, (can you make a Make “high-quality website” with iLife? really?) but i can do some cool things, and some more with Vista.

3. Everything-ready.

“Mac is the only computer in the world that can run all the major operating systems, including Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Vista. With Software like Parallels or VMware you can even run them side by side” and you say i cant on a PC? if i wanted to get a Mac on my PC i can use PearPC. (Walktrough), Linux and VM-ware also come as options…

4. 114,000 Viruses? Not on a Mac.

Ok hands up the last time any sensable PC user got a virus, Rich? Dan? Seth? Ben? Ruth?, oh and while you are waiting for an answer free virus checker,

5. Still the most advanced OS.

ok, so i begrugingly say yes to this, but i am sure ben can tell me of something that will beat Mac OS (I still like the Cube program)

6. The latest Intel chips.

So can a PC, and the latest AMD chips.

7. No hunting for drivers.

See “it just works” My Windows XP SP2 and Vista Unlimited RC2 pc dont ask me for drivers, they have all the drivers to get them to work, some times, i use Driver CD’s but thats only because they are better drivers on the CD. Digital Camera, PDA, USB mass storage, all included, SATA drivers for a SATA card, well they were in the box.

8. Design that turns heads.

its in my room, under my desk, My Keyboard VDU, and Mouse are on the desk, my server is on the shelf in my desk, and if i had a Mac i would give it the same amount of deskspace….. Its out of my way, hiding….

9. Instant video chats.

I dont have Video Chats… and Skippy Cam is awating fixing, so not high on my buying points for a computer

10. More fun with photos.

…wtf?… ok, so i want to do cool presintation things with photos, i guess photoshop elements, or google picassa?

11. Hollywood-style movies.

Windows XP SP1 and SP2 come with Windows Movie maker 1 and 2 respectfuly, and vista RC2 as well.

12. One-click websites.

with only one mouse button, right clicking may be a two handed job, but i dont see how this is a good point? with all the free serveses out there, and all the 12 year olds making websites, do we need this as well?

13. Amazing podcasts.

I can podcast from a PC as well, i have chosen not to yet.

14. Rock star tunemaking.

I can make music from a PC as well, i have chosen not to yet.

15. Awesome out of the box.

Define Awesome?

And there we have it, My Personal Computer is a Personal Computer. and a Mac is also a Personal Computer.

And a Quick Question for Rich (or any other Mac users out there):- Do Macs come with a Word Processor already installed? (simmaler or better than MSWorks.)

that brings the cost of upgrading one of my computers up to a very affordable (?) £850.98.

I wonder if it would cost me £850.98 to learn Linux properly? i get 89 hours to learn it (at £6.50 a hour) which is just over two weeks.

I started with [Cory Doctorow's short storys](http://craphound.com/index.php?cat=6), showing he is not only a great Technologist, but he is a good provider of Sci Fi, he has 15 of his short storys available for free download from his site, I would recomend you going and having a look, he also makes life easy and provides a direct link to each of the mp3 files from his articals. After finishing all of his short storys relised so far (waiting for part three of Power Punctuation).

Next up is a Trilagy of books by a guy whos pen name is JC Hutchins, he is upto secton 9 of his second book [7th Son](tp://www.jchutchins.net/7Son/Home/Home.html) but i advice starting at book one!

“Three weeks ago, President Hank “Gator” Griffin was assassinated at a political rally by a four year old boy. The child, Jesse Fowler, said only one sentence during his week-long confinement in a psychiatric facility. It was an obscenity-filled phrase no four-year-old should know.” – 7th Son

Now i have two books to choose from to listen to next, [the tenth cow](http://tenthcow.libsyn.com/), a Compleated Book that is revied quit hightly, or another highly rated PodioBook [Nina Kimberly The Merciless](http://www.ninakimberly.com/), an on going book, that sounds like a fantisy book…..

As for Media Playser, because WMP sucks and doesnt deal with OGG files (most of my music is in OGG Vorbis format) i have bought a copy of [Pocket Music](http://www.pocketmind.com/pocketmusic.htm), a small media player application that has two views, a simple to use D-pad style player, with seperate playlist, or Winamp 2.X skin mode, personly i use the simple D-Pad more, but its up to you for taiste.

Protect your freedom!

Help spread the word, and take part in maintaing your freedom to use digital media as you wish to!

If you are down in Plymouth See what TermiSoc have Planned and join in if you can! or Check out Defective by Design’s site

Oh and another part of the action is, this googlebomb:- DRM

My Desktop is now back to running Vista, espeshaly since Microsoft have relised some code bridging patches giving me functonality back , and i am also liking my [Samsung SyncMaster 913n TFT](http://computing.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/prl_12623813/114401.html), they are a good model, so if your looking for a good VDU, take a look at them.

• #105 We recommend that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) bring forward appropriate labelling regulations so that it will become crystal clear to consumers what they will and will not be able to do with digital content that they purchase.
• #113 We recommend that the OFT labelling regulations we proposed, in #105 above, should ensure that the risks are clearly spelled out, at the point of purchase, whenever consumers could lose access to digital content if systems are discontinued, or devices fail, or players are replaced by systems from a different manufacturer.
• #118 We recommend that OFCOM publish guidance to make it clear that companies distributing TPM systems in the UK would, if they have features such as those in Sony-BMG’s MediaMax and XCP systems, run a significant risk of being prosecuted for criminal actions

My Stickers came yesterday, so i think i will have to find some thing to do with them, like help inform the public of the dangers of DRM (as defined above).

at the moment i ma not using Vista, it has no support for most of the games i play, and was a bit slow, however in a week i should get my RC1 DVD(s) and try them over the top,

I am unistalling OneNote2007 from my laptop, and rolling that back to 2003, because despite being a lot better than 2003 (sp1) it is not backwards compatible, so when i don’t buy a copy of office 2007 comes out, i will loose all of my 2007 files, however the rest of office 2007 is staying, Outlook 2007 despite having a few silly problems is nicely polished, and once it goes into relise i would love to use it again once SP1 has been relised for it, and the rest of office, I know at first i didnt like the UI, but in some ways the 2007 ui is more inteative than the previous versions, (but let me have it in Silver).

Now despite the incompatibly Vista is looking hot, and i mean that in a good way and i love the way it lets you play with folders full of images, (may screen shot if i write a longer review). Oh its also the only Microsoft 64 OS i have ever got to work, despite no one (including my Bios) knowing what my processor is.

My Little HP IPAQ hx4700 has died, so i am going to wait till the beguining of next month and send it off to customer services with a check for £170 ish pounds to bring it back to life, and then the next few challanges will be getting a Bluetooth GPS recever. and save my long sufferign [map illitrate girlfriend](http://loupie.co.uk) from navigating for me. (hopefully address book intergration is available)

For Plain text editing we have [Notepad2](http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html) A great text editer, with line numbers and Sintax highlighting. it also starts up very quickly and does not require insterlation, also has a very nice find and replace function.

For more indepth Note Taking applications i have two choices, at work i use a application called [TreePad](http://www.treepad.com/), I use the [Lite](http://www.treepad.com/download/#tplitewin) version (Linux versions available as well), which can be run just from the main executable, so again no need to install, The lite version only alows text to be stored, which is a bit of a drawback, but for more indepth note taking, I use the [Microsoft One Note 2003](http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010858031033.aspx) which unforchantly has to be installed, I am currently a Office 2007 beta tester, and to be honist i wont bother upgrading, there realy is no point.

And now for one i can thank [Dan](http://www.danbjorn.termisoc.org) over, [Novell's NetDrive](http://www.bcuc.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=2117). An ancient tool, great for mounting FTP conections as drive letters.

For keeping my Laptop, Desktop, downstares computer, and my Termisoc account all how i want them, i use a Microsoft Power toy [Sync Toy](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E0FC1154-C975-4814-9649-CCE41AF06EB7&displaylang=en) is a small application that syncronise (and more) the content of two folders, and with [NetDrive](http://www.bcuc.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=2117), and knowing the network path of folders (if you want to hide a windows share from casual browsing givve it a name ending with a $) i can keep all of my computers swinging along in sycronus time.

While we are in the [Powertoys section](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx), we cant fail to mention the one that kicked them all off, [Tweak UI](http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe), this little toy alows you to play about with your User Interface settings, Including, Making your Preview Icons bigger for Thumbnail View, and changing the quality of them, another tool you can use if you play with Digital Photography is [RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D48E808E-B10D-4CE4-A141-5866FD4A3286) (more Photography info and tools can be found [here](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/default.mspx).) If you are using an LCD screen you may want to install [ClearType Tuner](http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/7/0/b7019730-0fa3-47a9-a159-98b80c185aad/setup.exe), This Powertoy makes it easier to read text on your screen, I still use it with my 19″ Dell CRT VDU, and its better on that too.

This list is not in any way an exsorstive list of stuff i use, and i know some of them are old, and most are not oppen source, but if some one can recomend something to me that does the same please tell me, I would like to test drive it. also if you can think of anything that i may want to have a go at using, please [drop us a comment](http://skippy.org.uk/those-toys/#respond).

Now what can i say, that is really nice of them, and i am proud that they would think so highly of me, even now i am running Vista 64 on my desktop, and not XP 64.

And MSN search want to be taken seriously, against Google? well they will have to try harder, a lot harder.

1. Get into the university,
2. Get a Copy of Windows XP 64 bit edition,
3. Get a Legal (shock! Horror!) Key for it,
4. Try to beat the 5 hours or less of this guy,
5. Install all the required software (Office 2003..)
6. Then Try to make an image of my fully installed Windows.
7. Install KnoppMyth on the computer, and run away screaming like a Banchee.

So there is the Plan, lets see if we can do it.

Windows Vista build 5365

We’ve received several inquiries on the status of Windows Vista build 5365 and when it might be added to MSDN Subscriptions. As indicated by several press accounts, build 5365 is only being released to the TAP, Beta Program and Partners. Build 5365 is not a CTP or IDW build and will not be released to MSDN.

We expect to receive Windows Vista Beta 2 later this spring and will make it available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads as soon as possible.

But i want to Play!

I Think a go with Vista would be good fun, and i want to see what new and shiney stuff is now in the new windows, Ben’s commented on ClickOnce, and i think there will be more new and shiney!

I know there is not much to be seen on it, but thats because the side bar is commented out, but once the tags are taken out, more will apear,

A nother site that may be of slight interst is [My Hub Site](http://skippy.termisoc.org) a Site that for a longtime went really no where has been given a quick lick of paint, and turned around.

some how i feel my password is strong

“Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it.” — Linus Torvalds

A while ago i posted about the [Great 10,000 image loss](/hard-drives/) Well i think that i am doing quite well at recovering them at the moment , so if all goes to plan i will have them back shortly,

I am using a peice of software called [File Scavenger®](http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm) it is a Disk Data Recovery Program, and for the £50 i had to part with for it it seems to be doing a danm good job at the moment

so soon the photos will be back in my grubby little paws then we can all rejoice

After that they are getting burnt to DVD and strored in the fridge

- CPU: AMD SEMPRON 64BIT 3300 + 1600MHz HTT/128K
- Memory: 2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)
- Motherboard: FOXCONN 760GX WITH SIS760GX CHIPSET, 8X AGP, SATA, 3 PCI
- Graphics Card: 256MB GEFORCE 6600 8X AGP + DVI + TV-OUT
- Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)
- Network Facilities: ONBOARD LAN & WIRELESS 802.11G NETWORK CARD
- Power Supply: Silent 550W PSU + 120mm Fan + 19.2 dBA CPU Cooler! Super Quiet!
- Firewire & Video Editing 3 PORT FIREWIRE CARD.

Ok, so looking at this, it seems a lot cheaper to upgrade my desktop a little, than buy a [Mac Mini](/mac-mini-i-will-get-one-one-day/)

[Arkku](http://www.flickr.com/photos/arkku/50012122/in/pool-make/) made this glowing Keyboard using a just one Blue LED!

I didn’t take any pictures while I was installing the LED, but it wasn’t difficult. Basically, I opened up the keyboard (three screws in the bottom), located the +5v and ground leads (red and black wire in my keyboard) and soldered a 3.3v/30mA 5mm bright blue LED to them, with a 68ohm resistor.

To make the light reach the clear base of the keyboard, I also made a small hole in the white plastic that touches the clear acrylic at the bottom of the keyboard and taped the LED in that hole with electrical tape. (Note that the hole only goes deep enough to reach the clear base, not through it.)

All in all, I’m very happy with the results. The mod took about 30 minutes to install and cost practically nothing (had the LED and resistor lying around

I think i will have to mod my Mac Keyboard when i get some spaire time, it certanly beats my plans for making mine glow,

I had thought about using EL wire, and wrapping that inside the base, but an LED is certianly a lot les power hungry, and wont require an external power source