Skippy.org.uk

Ben thinks Vista Mail Sucks. While i understad his point, it does seriously rock on some other points.

• 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.

Fon are an obscure American startup, who let you share your broadband via Wi-fi, and in turn let you borrow other peoples,

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!

Following Bens post, I desided to see what he was talking about (i have a life, and dont watch a lot of TV), yes i have seen the posters, but i have not seen the adverts, so off i went to the mac website, and here is there list of 15 resons to choose a mac over a Personal Computer. Continue reading »

my MS Office 2007 beta2 exspired today, and no one seems to have posted a working copy on Bit torrent yet (give it a few weeks), with the cost of office sitting at between £92.79 (Dabs) for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and £499.99 (Dabs) for Microsoft Office Professional 2007 (see here for details of what they mean and here for prices in the UK), now because of how I use Office I would be after a copy of the £499.99 copy, I am also guessing that this is the cost for a licence only for a single computer, and with Microsoft Windows Vista Unlimited costing a cheap £350.99 (PC World)

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.

Over the past week i have taken up listning to [PodCasts](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting) at work on my PDA, despite not having any proper podcast cliant software.

Continue reading »

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

since i am now at home and my computing needs have changed, i am now looking at my laptop and thinking about installing a unix esk os on it, (i have tons of time to learn, and no demands to use windows on it,) so i reached for my Solaris 10 DVD, and poped it in, all went well untill it asked me the language i wanted to install it under, but it didnt like my keyboard, so now i am installing Ubuntu 6.06, wish me luck.

My Desktop is now back to running Vista, espeshaly since Microsoft have relised some code bridging patches giving me functonality back :D, 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.

In Run up to the [DRM day of action](http://defectivebydesign.org/en/actions/oct3list), been reading through the UK laws in such riverting documents as the “[Digital Rights Management: Report of an Inquiry by the All Party Internet Group](http://skippy.org.uk/wp-content/APIG_DRM_Report-final.pdf)” which is a lovely 30 page document, with such gems as

• #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).

a while ago some of you may have heard that i got on the Beta testing program for Vista, and for Office 2007,

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 :D 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.

One of my Whepons of choice has given up, its roled over and died, no i am not in risk of being raided by SO90, and i hope MI5 are not going to bug me over this, No much worse

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)