December 04, 2006
Should the learning curve swoosh up like that?
I get called on to do the computer related things at work. Or, more accurately, I get called on for anything that plugs into a wall or runs on batteries.
Now its websites. Graphic design is not my strong point. However, judging by the varied expressions of shock, loathing, disgust and fear when quoted by a design firm, it will be another task for me.
For a very long time, I've been using Paint Shop Pro (from Jasc software, recently acquired by Corel) for all my image editing needs. Being of sound mind and limited budget, and with an impatience born of general unwillingness to spend hours mastering complex software, it has the perfect blend of features and usability for me. I can pick it up after months of neglect and be very nearly instantly productive.
Whilst I have used PhotoShop and appreciate its power, after any decent term of disuse the interface always seems largely alien to me and needs to be relearnt.
Unfortunately, Paint Shop Pro it doesn't do everything I need it to for this task (though it comes close), so the bullet has been bitten and a copy of CorelDRAW has been purchased, which I have vague memories of using a decade ago.
It looks complex. Very complex.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 03:12 PM
May 19, 2006
Timing, timing, timing.
A senior Microsoft executive told a BBC documentary that people should use commercial software if they're looking for stability.
Some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model. And again, at the end of the day, you make the choice based on what has the highest value to you," Murray continued.
Which wouldn't be particularily notable, except that the very next story starts with...
A zero-day flaw in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word software program is being used in an active exploit by sophisticated hackers in China and Taiwan, according to warnings from anti-virus researchers.
Well, we can depend on MS for at least one thing.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 04:22 PM
April 25, 2006
Internet Explorer 7
Microsoft Corp. is releasing a new test version of Internet Explorer, the market-leading Web browser that is facing competition from smaller players.
Personally, I haven't used it in two years, except to access the MS update site. I just like Firefox a hell of a lot more. It is, of course, beta, and use at your own risk.
The new beta, available Tuesday for free download to English-languages customers, includes fixes for problems that were causing Internet Explorer 7 to stop working, said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager in charge of Internet Explorer development.
Which sounds vaguely promising. New. Improved. We fixed all the bits that stopped it working. We think.
Testing it out now.
Update:
Well, that wasn't good. Aside from crashing four times in an hour, the interface is horrible. The address bar is locked at the top of the page. The home button moved way over to the left of screen with almost all other menu items huddled on the right (this is especially bad on a wide screen, along with a new, graphical replacement for the File-Edit-Tools menu). It still isn't CSS standards compliant. It doesn't handle PNG or JPEG2000 images.
Update:
Page up and down work only intermittantly to scroll the page. Five "Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close" so far today. It has also refused to load any sites until closed and restarted six times.
Back to Firefox.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 02:31 PM
March 28, 2006
Dual booting tips
Mostly, my laptop runs linux. But there is still a copy of Windows tucked away on there, lurking, waiting for its opportunity to seize the hardware.
I'm very happy with selecting an operating system at boot time. I simply like the option. However, many people recently have been complaining that in order to run the second OS, you have to reboot the machine.
Duh.
However, there is a way to boot quickly, something I discovered quite by accident.
1. Boot your OS of choice.
2. Suspend to Disk or Hibernate (not just powersave mode).
3. Reboot.
4. Boot other OS.
5. Suspend to Disk or Hibernate (not just powersave mode).
Both operating systems have now cached their current state on the hard drive. And when you restart the PC, the boot menu will appear. Pick the OS you want and it will pick up from where you left it (complete with any documents you left open). It is a hell of a lot faster than a shutdown/reboot cycle. When you're done, hibernate it again.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:20 AM
March 07, 2006
Trackback again.
Further testing of trackbacks for Webkittyn.
For some reason, they're all failing at the moment.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 01:58 PM
March 02, 2006
Unfortunate URLs
An email doing the rounds on the internet fell into my hands, and rather than add to the waves of circular mail, I thought I'd just put it up here where it will never be read.
These urls are entirely innocent, unless, like mine, your mind is mildly corrupt, and insert spaces the wrong place...
"Who Represents", a database of hollywood agencies and actors. www.whorepresents.com
Fine writing implements may be found at "Pen Island" on www.penisland.net
If your mental state isn't quite what it should be, you can search for a therapist with "Therapist Finder" - www.therapistfinder.com
A native plant nursury at Mole Station, NSW, Australia has the URL www.molestationnursery.com (while this URL still takes you to the site, thankfully it has been altered to be "Mole River".
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 10:11 AM
December 18, 2005
Windows software on the cheap.
Semi-annual round up of free software to prop up the Windows immune system, office software and assorted utilities. I'm restricting these lists to products I have used in the last month. Firewalls, AntiVirus, Anti-Spyware and office software.
Firewalls
Kerio personal firewall and Zone Alarm
Both are firewalls that will ask every time an application tries to get to the internet, but will remember what you tell it. You do need to be aware of what programs you run that need access to the internet. Sure, they're a pain for the first hour (or when you first run an application), but once configured are excellent.
Anti Virus
Grisoft Anti Virus Guardian
Avast Home edition
Either of these are an excellent choice to protect your computer. Virusbulletin has both products detecting 100% of wild viruses as of December 2005.
Anti-Spyware/Trojan
Prevention
Prevention
JavaCool SpywareBlaster
Prevent the installation of ActiveX-based spyware, adware, browser hijackers, dialers, and other potentially unwanted software. This will not remove anything already installed
JavaCool SpywareGuard
An anti-virus program scans files before you open them and prevents execution if a virus is detected - SpywareGuard does the same thing, but for spyware! This will not remove anything already installed.
Removal
All removal tools work better when run in Safe Mode (reboot the computer, tap F8 before the Windows boot up screen and select Safe Mode from the list). Safe mode is low-res.
SpyBot Search & Destroy Consistantly excellent removal tool.
LavaSoft AdAware The other excellent removal tool.
Merjin CWS Shredder
Cool Web Search is one of the most tenacious and hard to remove annoyances I've ever come across. This removal tool is constantly updatad, and will take it out. New versions of CWS (the thing you want to be rid of) will actually shut down removal tools as they are being loaded. If this occurs, you can run Merjin's SmartKiller to zap it, then run the CWS Shredder.
Office Software
Microsoft has cornered the market here. Everyone who uses a spreadsheet or word processor and shares data will, at some point, need to save it as excel or word formats. These office suites are more than happy to open and save in Mircorsoft formats.AbiWord
If you just need a word processor and don't have MS Word, this is an excellent solution.
OpenOffice
Writer, Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentation) and Base (database). This is the complete MS Office replacement, with MS Office file compatibility.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:00 PM
November 23, 2005
But I liked the Mac...
Recently, my office has decided to move away from a mixed Macintosh/PC environment to a solely PC based environment. Whilst I welcome this from an administrative perspective, it means that my trusty Apple PowerBook is about to retire.
I like my Macintosh. Its not because I'm a "trend whore". Its not because Spotlight searches are infinitely better than the useless Windows find utility (I use Copernic Desktop search on Windows). Its not that I dislike Windows (despite what the flame warriors say, it is possible to like both systems concomitantly). Its because lurking under the desktop is a tweaked BSD Unix environment that lets me get into the shell and do the things I can only do there. It is also the system I use to develop for the mud. The Xcode IDE suits my purposes and has quite a few handy additions for performance testing and debugging.
As part of an appeasement package, I've been given a hand-me-down laptop (which is actually a very neat machine, a Toshiba R100, weighing in under 2lbs). Its not fast and it was until recently a strictly Windows machine.
I thought it was time to give Linux/Unix another run on the desktop, so for the past two weeks, I've sunk many, many hours into downloading, installing, tweaking and otherwise hair tearing with various distributions.
There are some catches. The unit doesn't have an internal CD drive, so the distribution must be bootable from a USB CD or some other medium. It has a weird graphics chip that linux loves to hate. It also crashes with some linux kernel configurations. Many distributions will start to boot from the CD, but have aggressive boot times and demand the install CD be ready before the USB autodetections complete - which simply means they don't work, or workarounds must be developed.
I am not a Linux guru. I have administered a unix system or two in the past (good old System V), so I can find my way about the shell readily enough. I haven't looked too far into compiling a kernel. It seems an interesting project, but I don't feel a burning need to do it. I just want this thing to work with a KDE and Kdevelop.
SUSE, the Novell branded system (eventually) won. I downloaded the Open Source (free) version. The installation (5cds) was fast, graphical and simply worked. Post installation was painless, it correctly detected and configured my network cards (wired and wireless), the video chip, sound and suspend options. Definitely my best experience with a linux install on this machine. Its also quite sprightly, seeming much more responsive than Kubuntu.
(various notes on linuxes follow follow)
Please note that even where it says "Doesn't boot", this is not a condemnation of the distribution. These are simply my notes about this particular laptop with them. I was curious to try them all, and many 'unique' factors of the laptop I was installing on conspired to defeat them. This doesn't mean they're bad or that I wouldn't try installing them on a different computer. Or simply: Your milage may vary.
Puppy Linux: One of my all time favourites. It is a great emergency system that can be installed, and one I have used on a Sony Vaio with great success after a hard drive failure (booting from CD, saving to USB memory stick). It includes most of what you need on an amazingly small (50mb) bootable CD. Its also incredibly quick once booted as it runs from RAM. Unfortunately, its one of those that just doesn't run on this particular laptop. Still, if you want to check out Linux without installing it, this is the one I'd recomend (even if the webpage is ugly).
Knoppix: Another emergency system, based on Debian. Runs, but it hates the video card without tweaking and even then isn't 100% happy. Power management doesn't work without a lot of work.
Debian: As Knoppix. I also didn't like the install program. A lot of trouble recognising the USB CD drive at boot.
Kubuntu/Ubuntu: Another Debian based system. After some config tweaking I solved the video and suspend issues. In fact, after two days of tweaking, I thought I'd found a winner. Then I installed a compiler with the package management system. Here, I had issues with the package system. Its meant to be like the Debain one. The compiler, which was missing libraries, didn't work (time.h missing after installing GCC 3.3.1 and 4? How does that happen?). So I thought I'd uninstall and reinstall them. This was aparently a bad move, as without warning, it then proceeded to uninstall the entire desktop system and many of the command line tools (like apt-get). Go figure.
Fedora Core 4: The text installer was very nice (the graphical installer does not work with the graphics chip in the laptop). After the install, much tweaking required for suspend and graphics. Not entirely satisfied.
Mepis: Looked very interesting on another PC. Unfortunately, as with Puppy, it crashed before completing the boot process.
Gentoo: Very appealing system, however, after a full day of configuring options, its profoundly annoying to realise I missed something somewhere and it doesn't boot.
Damn Small Linux: Didn't boot.
ArkLinux: Didn't boot.
Zenwalk: A very interesting looking slackware based distribution. Again, locked up during the boot process.
Scrawled illegibly by Meathe at 12:10 PM