A Vista SP2 warning

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Just a quick warning for anybody thinking of updating to Vista SP2. Our very own Paul Ockenden subjected himself to this supposedly painless process only recently and discovered that when it’s done installing, SP2 automatically reboots the machine without any warning.

Now, as Paul notes “at the start of the install it does warn you that this will happen, and suggests that you don’t use the machine while the update is taking place. But it’s on one of those screens that no-one ever reads!”

Needless to say, we highly recommend that you don’t begin patching in the background if you’re halfway through writing your War and Peace rivalling masterwork.

Given the fuss Microsoft’s been making in its Windows 7 promotion about listening to the customer and making life easier for them, there’s something particularly fitting about the gnashing of teeth likely to be caused by Vista SP2. On the bright side, it looks like Vista’s going to go out in much the same way it came in, against a chorus of complaints.

Can Spotify survive my padlocked wallet?

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

I love Spotify, but quite recently I seem to have become the Lex Luthor to its Superman – the two of us locked in an unceasing battle of wills.

At first this was a simple matter. I refused to pay for a premium account. I’m tight, the music’s free, I don’t see the point. That brought us to a standstill, and then Spotify wheeled out its secret weapon. Jonathan.

Any regular Spotify users will know his 10-song interjections well. If you don’t they go a little something like this: “Hi, I’m Jonathan from Spotify. We all love Spotify, and now you’ve heard me say the same thing five hundred times I’m sure you’d like to cover me in sausages and take me on safari, preferably tied to the bonnet of the jeep.”

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The £250 challenge: I’d like to thank… oh, nobody

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

The results of the £250 challenge are in. I came last. A lot.

This must be what it’s like when the camera pans to you at the Oscars, a second after the presenter has announced that the idiot with the stupid hair has won the award you craved. Unfortunately, I’m not a Hollywood starlet and, more importantly, I’m not the type to sit and smile and pretend it was the taking part that counts.

I wanted to win, dammit. And not because I’m a bad loser. Which I am. And not because the Goodwill PC deserved to win. Which it did. But because I wanted technology to be about more than baubles and flashing lights and faster bits of metal. I wanted to introduce a little soul to proceedings – not mine, of course, which is currently a seething mass of wronged rage – but somebody’s, hopefully somebody nice than me.

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Apple earns Reznor’s wrath

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

Glorious. Potty-mouthed rocker Trent Reznor – creative force behind the eternally agitated Nine Inch Nails – has taken a pop at Apple for rejecting his latest NIN iPhone app update. Apparently, the app contained some objectionable language which violated Apple’s Ts & Cs. Needless to say, this does not sit well with the Reznor.

Bask in the seething hostility of his response posted on the NiN official forums: “I’ll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and “clean” versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart’s standards of decency – because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records.

“NIN refused, and you’ll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any “indecent” material for sale – but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film “Scarface” completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?”

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Top ten Flash games

Friday, May 1st, 2009

Swine flu may be pushing the human race towards oblivion, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all be ushered into extinction with a big, old smile on our collective faces. To that end, I present the ten Flash games I’ll be fiddling with when the devil comes knocking. And if these don’t satisfy, check out last year’s roundup for further delirium.

Scary Girl

Quite impossibly beautiful, Scary Girl is a tricky, wonderful platformer full of weirdness and imagination and joy. Which is a bit strange given you play a Tim Burton-inspired scary girl with an eye patch, a hook for a hand and a giant, talking cat for a best mate. Every single second of this is life-affirming, so I’m going to shut up and let you fall into its wonder.

Qwerty Warrior

Is it a touch-typing teacher, or a highly addictive, backs against the wall, Alamo-esque war romp? Brilliantly, it’s both. Learn to type, while saving the human race. Type words to destroy enemies. More enemies for a better score. A higher score for better looks, a happier life, and that street cred you’ve always wanted. Play this game, be a better person.

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Top ten Pirate Bay putdowns

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

A $3.4 million fine and one-year prison sentence mean this is unlikely to be considered the Pirate Bay’s best month ever. On the bright side, the site’s founders have kept us entertained with a barrage of quips, jokes and commentary throughout, meaning that even if they do disappear into a Swedish slammer, we’ll always have something to remember them by.

Before the trial

The response to Apple’s threat of legal action: Instead of simply recommending that you sodomize yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model – the ASP 21. The previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action.

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Wikipedia: the defence

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Reading Oliver Kamm’s critique of Wikipedia on the First Post was an eye-opening experience. It was the first time I’ve enjoyed reading something that so completely failed to grasp the subject under discussion. Take the following paragraph, for example.

“Whereas science and learning pursue truth, Wikipedia prizes consensus. Wikipedia has no means of arbitrating between different claims, other than how many people side with one position rather than another. That ethos is fatal to the advancement of learning. Ideas are refined by being tested; scientific method presupposes scrutiny, experiment and conflict.”

The problem is that this argument, while beautifully stated, has all the substance of a passing cloud. Of course “ideas are refined by being tested,” but when has this ever been the job of an encyclopaedia?

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The best tech April fools stories

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

It’s that time of year again when the incredulous cower behind their couches as the normally sombre tech industry unleashes its inner sarcasm and goes hunting for the naive. We’ll be keeping an eye out for the best April fool’s japes doing the rounds and collecting them here, but if you’ve noticed any drop us a line and we’ll add them to the list.

Opera facial control

First up is this humdinger from Opera, eulogising the latest development in Opera 10 – facial control. From the press release: “Opera Face Gestures enable anyone with a Webcam to control their browser moving only their face. Based on the same architecture as Opera’s Mouse Gestures, Face Gestures makes surfing the Web as easy as smiling, batting an eye lash or flaring a nostril.”

Click here for the utterly brilliant demonstration

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The key to Linux’s mainstream success

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Our esteemed editor, Tim Danton, recently ran a thought piece wondering whether Linux would ever hit the mainstream, his ten cents worth clattering down on the side that says “probably not.”

His conclusion was an interesting one, principally because I haven’t heard it before. To paraphrase Tim, Linux will remain niche because open-source vendors don’t have the inclination to push it that extra mile, to front up for “the hassle-free” experience that users expect in their operating system. Not when they have a devoted, tech-savy user base already to hand.

It’s an intruiging point of view, but one predicated on a fallacy. If anything, Linux works the hardest for the hassle-free experience of any of the operating systems. Each alpha, beta and RC is passed through thousands of hands before it ever gets anywhere near an end user. Each line of code is mulled, every aspect of the operating system considered – by that I mean that unlike the revolutionary three years jumps of Windows or Apple’s OSes, Linux is in a constant state of evolution.

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The £250 Challenge: Vote for the free PC

Monday, March 16th, 2009

I’ll hold my hands up – the free PC I acquired as part of the £250 challenge is ugly. It’s so ugly children can’t actually see it and every adult who’s dared peer in its direction has been driven mad. I wouldn’t be surprised if the devil lived inside. It’s big enough. There’d even be room for Cerberus to have a run around.

I could have delivered it to the office in Noah’s Ark while sharing a beer with Elvis Presley and it wouldn’t have caused more of a stir. People were drawn to it.  They crept from behind their desks and gathered around it with bewildered expressions. I’d like to believe it was because I’d discovered a relic, that my technological archaeology had unearthed an ancient fascination. It was built in 1999 after all. The truth is much simpler. It’s monstrous.

We tend to look at our past with rose coloured spectacles, I’ve done it myself. The Compaq Deskpro was the heel which ground those spectacles into the dirt. As a PC it has no redeeming features. Aside from its cheery ugliness, it’s also big enough to beat a whale to death and has the processing power of a twelve-year-old who’s spent the last hour trying to stick a banana in his ear.

Thankfully, my part of the challenge has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the PC I found. While my colleagues were running around trying to get the best machine they could for £250, my task was to prove you could get one for free. You can. End of story… or at lest, that’s what I thought.

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