Just a bit obvious.

Conversation from the back of the car this morning...

"Lottie! Use words so I can hear you!" - crossly.
"I'm doing it without sound so you can lip-read, silly." - patiently.
"That's unfair, you know I can't read!" - incredulously.

And I call myself an IT Guru!

Well, it's finally been confirmed to me. Like hairdressers, IT people are more concerned with the health of their family's (and friends) PC's than their own. And you know how I know this? Just this...
Last night, as I was chatting with my brother on the internet, and popping away for a second or two to secure a fresh gem to my party frock, I became aware that my PC was thrashing quite a lot, and was rather slow. Now, for those of you NOT styling yourselves as IT Guru's, thrashing is when a PC is swapping the contents of the memory onto the disk and back into memory again, in an attempt to be able to use more memory than is in the machine. It can also occur when trying to run programs on a particularly fragmented disk, because the software has to search all over the disk to find all the pieces of the file you're trying to run.
So, machine thrashing, very slow. I thought, I'll just see if it needs a bit of defragmentation (there's software which will put all the pieces of files back together again - quite neat really!)
So I right-moused on My Computer (yes, still XP), and chose properties. Can you imagine my horror when I realised that I'm down to the last 10Gb of disk space? This is a massive 120Gb disk, and I've manage to stuff it nearly full (oh, I remember my first ever hard disk - a whopping 5Mb, that I thought I'd never fill).
I quickly checked the size of my video folder - but this is only 42Gb - yes, that's a lot, but this is video we're talking - I'm still unsure of where nearly 70Gb space has gone.
At this point I decided to see what's installed on the machine (I hear you - since it's my machine, surely I'm the one who installed it, and therefore should know what's on it - you'd think, wouldn't you?) which is where it becomes sticky.
When supporting my father (who installs the entire contents of the PC Pro disk every month, as far as I can work out), I happily wade through his installed programs, pruning as if preparing the garden for winter. Seems I don't do this to my own PC.
Until last night - I spent a very happy, rather late, half hour divesting my computer of all that stuff I'd installed, thinking how useful it would be, but never got round to using. All I need to do now is work out how to completely get rid of AOL 9.1, which seems to think that uninstalling it means you still want it!
The Blog of a very shamefaced computer support person...

Nigella Express

You know, I've spent the last few weeks defending the adorable Nigella and her new weekly cookbook-on-TV, Nigella express. I understand that it's all staged, but they'd like you to believe it's completely ad-hoc. I'm actually willing to believe she's very well organised (as I suspect she has to be, in her life), and thus manages to have all the important ingredients in the house at he right time. I'm also prepared to believe she washes up the cooking dishes herself, after the cameras stop rolling. Many of my friends have various points to make on how the utterly charming Ms Lawson either pouts her way round the kitchen, or comes up with such phrases as "Like you, I'm a busy working mum..." - one of my friends pointed out that she's really nothing like us, except that she's a mum, and she's probably busy, but since she's a multi-billionaire... At which point she went squeaky with outrage, and I didn't catch anything else. But staunchly I defended Nigella, pointing out that the recipes have been good, relatively easy to cook, and, if you've got even the basic culinary skills (if not, read Delia - annoying, but very practical, and that roast beef recipe...), then you'll be able to come up with something on the lines of what she's doing, with a twist of your own.
Unfortunately, this Monday, she (or maybe it was the production team) blew it. True, she made a fast and clearly delicious pea soup (quite suitable for London, I thought!), but did she have to be shown drinking it on the bus, on a park bench, and lastly, just to prove to us how useful in a busy lifestyle this soup will be, in a taxi, no doubt en route to a high-powered meeting with some Very Important People. I'm pretty sure we all get, by now, that the program is ‹fast›, the clue's in the title!
Interestingly, the honeycomb I made bore little resemblance to the honeycomb Nigella bashed genteely into crispy shards, with a hammer. I'm sure I should alert the CSI people: mine could be useful in those experiments where they hit/shoot a substance to check impact marks. Instead of a loud crack when I hit it, I got a satisfyingly meaty thunk! I wonder if that's because all I could find was a meat cleaver...?

A Mouse in the House

A few months ago we had a bit of a mouse problem. We set a humane trap, on the grounds that we didn’t want the girls to hear the SNAP-Squeak! of the “Little Nipper” we found languishing (unused, it turned out) in the drawer. Now, this humane trap is a little like a tiny mouse-maze – they enter, smelling the Roquefort (trust me, it’s the best for catching the little brutes.) As they work their way round towards the irresistible smell of the cheese, they walk over a tipping walkway – their little tiny bodies just heavy enough to tip it down. Having passed this walkway, they continue on to the prize, glistening in front of them!

But then there’s the return journey. Oh sad creature – that tipping walkway has now returned, on it’s pivot, to the original position, baffling their attempts to exit. And all this with a clear, Perspex top, through which you can see the wretched beast you’ve caught.

The upshot of this is that we caught a mouse, which was let out, at least a kilometre away, to stop him making his way home – you just need to check for breadcrumb trails!

But this wasn’t the end of the mice – it turns out that they really like my kitchen bin! I was stumbling out of the shower room one morning, opening the door behind which the bin resides, when I thought I heard a bigger rustling than the item I’d dropped in there should make. I re-opened the door, to see the cutest little critter staring back at me, frozen in the process of climbing back out of the bin, after a long nights grazing. I don’t know which of us was more surprised – I don’t really function very well at that time in the morning. This was my first indication of just how fast the little beasts can move!! My hand stretched out, but before I could get close, all I could see was the end of his little tail disappearing under the waste-disposal unit.

It quickly became clear that there was more than one mouse dining in my kitchen, so in order to make quick work, I bought another mouse-maze, but then found a cheaper trap – the mouse-tip. This one is really simple – you stick the Roquefort in the little cap – this goes on one end, the other having a swinging door. The whole thing is bent, like a banana, so that as the unfortunate creature heads for the prize, his body weight (oh so slight), tips the trap over, causing the door to swing shut. Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie*, trapped! And it worked, first time round.

So, the next morning, my daughter headed downstairs, as excited as if it were Christmas morning! Oh the delights in store under the sink! There she found the trap – tripped! On picking it up, she was bamboozled by the apparent lack of weight, and wishing to check that we actually had caught a mouse, opened the trap to find – a mouse, which promptly leaped nimbly from the trap, and scurried off under the waste disposal unit. Still, she felt so embarrassed that I got a freshly made cup of tea that morning, as she confessed all to me.

To my delight, repeated success followed quickly, and a couple of days later we found a closed trap. I picked it up, to see if I could establish whether we had an inmate. The trap was really heavy – we’d managed to catch the mouse equivalent of a gourmand! Because we weren’t going to be able to let the brute out straight away, we decided we’d decant him into a suitable container (with holes in the lid), for transport – which is where it gets just plain silly! The second I opened the trap he was off. Skittering over the hob, he made for the relative safety of the microwave oven. When I moved that, he scurried back over the hob, dancing towards the kettle. I leaped to cut him off, but in a bold move, he threw himself off the counter to the floor, and seconds later, we saw his tail disappearing under the waste disposal unit. For a moment there, I felt like I was in a Tom & Jerry sketch!

After that we decided we’d not open the trap – if the mouse is particularly light, tilting the trap will result in some audible scrabbling sounds – you don’t need to open it to find out!!

In all, we managed to find and re-home 2 further mice.

Thanks to Robert Burns, for his truly fabulous poem.

Did Apple do it on purpose?

Apple iPhone warning proves true

An Apple software update is disabling iPhones that have been unlocked by owners who wanted to choose which mobile network to use.

Earlier this week Apple said a planned update would leave the device "permanently inoperable".

Thousands of iPhone owners hacked their expensive gadget in order to unlock it for use with other mobile carriers and to run a host of unsupported programs.

There are also reports of the update causing issues with unaltered iPhones.

On Monday Apple issued a statement in which it said many of the unauthorised iPhone unlocking programs caused "irreparable damage" to the device's software.

The company said this would "likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed".

That warning has now proved correct as many owners are reporting their phones no longer work following installation of the update.

You can read the rest of the story here…

I happened upon this story today, on the BBC website, and started to ask myself some questions…

First - do you think Apple went out of their way to make sure that “hacked” iPhones were deliberately locked? Second, and more important – why? In fact, this why is a multi-part why. Why did they stop people from installing 3^rd party apps in the first place? Why did they lock people into just the one network? And why on earth, did they not make the thing 3g capable? Oh, and why would they deliberately lock down your device?

Obviously the answer to all the why questions is Money. They stand to make a whole hell of a lot more by tying people into just one network operator – after all, the network operator in question will have offered a massive incentive for Apple to place all their business there. This is one desirable device (despite the locking, the no 3^rd party apps, and the 3g issue) – in fact, I’d go so far as to say that for many people, it’s a must-have device.

I’m pretty convinced I can’t answer the second why. After all, Palm (until recent times), grew huge on the promise of programming extra, un-thought of applications for their pda’s. So why have Apple gone all exclusive on us? According to the specs, this thing is running a cut down version of MacOS X, which is not a completely incompetent OS, running more than one piece of 3^rd party software – Microsoft Office, anyone? I mean, that’s 3^rd party for a Mac (we wont go into the stupid new icons they use for it, though). I can’t actually find out what sort of processor the iPhone boasts, but let’s face it, it’s not going to be any kind of a slouch – the thing is designated an “entertainment” phone!! It’s specifically designed to run video and audio, and stream either over the airwaves (obviously this would be faster if they’d provide 3g). Soooo, getting back to the point (you know I digress, that’s why you read my blog!) the second why has to be all about money – and the applications they’ll be able to sell. Only – I can’t actually find any…

That hoary old third why – why did they not provide you with better than GPRS connectivity? Well, I just can’t answer this one. Laziness? Arrogance? Contempt for their customers? Take your pick. Rumour has it that the next version of the iPhone will, indeed, have rather faster connection speeds, but you’ve gotta wonder why, in this day and age, when devices all around us are boasting everything that the iPhone provides (and more!) they didn’t bother to put it in first time around. So, I was wrong - not money then...

Now, which shall we deal with first? Question 1, did they do it deliberately? Or question 2, the final why – why would they do it? Let’s not change the habits of a life-time, we’ll answer the final why. This one must definitely come down to bloody-mindedness. You can just hear the conversation between Steve Jobs and one of his underlings.

SJ: What? People have already managed to hack the iPhone? I thought we made it un-hackable! After all, we’re brilliant! The iPhone is 5 years ahead of its time!

U: Well, we thought it was, but you know, there are some evil people out there, determined to take us down.

SJ: OK – here’s what we’ll do. We’ll release an “update”. It’ll check for signs of hacking, and it’ll make the device explode, killing everyone within a 10 foot radius!

U: Um… Sir… You can’t do that. I think it might be classed as murder.

SJ: Explode - blowing off a hand?

U: Er… I think we’d be looking at deliberate maiming.

SJ: OK – I’ve got it. We’ll lock up the phone! They wont be able to use it any more, and they’ll have to buy a new one. Loadsa-money!!

U: Oh, genius, sir! That’ll bring the rest into line.

So you can see that the third why can be answered by money too!

This leaves us with only one question to answer – did they do it deliberately? I’m not going answer that one, because I don’t know (and anyway, I’m pretty sure it’d come under the heading of libel if I were to answer in the affirmative). I will, however, point out that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are not quite as different as they’d love you to believe.

Advertizing, Lawnmowers and Debt

This is advertland, so you know that all the people are going to be grossly over acted caricatures of real people.

Weak-chinned father is trying to mow the rather small lawn with a rather small, but quite adequate, mower – except that he’s not bothered to mow the lawn for the last 6 months, and so every few feet the mower jams, making the task seem impossible. The lawn grows to appear as if he must hack through a couple of acres of over-grown jungle. The rest of weak-chinned father’s family huddle miserably in the doorway, waiting for the day father returns from his expedition, so they may, once again, enjoy the garden. Thankfully, croons the voiceover, there is another way. Take out a massive loan, consolidate all your debts (and the implication is that there must be many, or weak-chinned dad would not have neglected the garden for so long), have only 1 monthly payment, lower than all the other amounts you were paying put together. Cut to a tableau of weak-chinned dad now sitting upon a totally inappropriate lawn mower, more suited to the aforementioned 2 acres, happily finishing off his handkerchief sized lawn. Weak-chinned dad’s children are happily playing on same lawn (risking death by lawn mower, because the lawn is so small.) A shiny, new car sits smugly in the drive. And to add serious insult to injury, simpering mum is weeding, while casting suggestive looks towards weak-chinned dad – “Oooh! He’s such a hunk now he’s got that massive lawn mower.” Clearly size matters.

So, today’s diatribe – are we going to talk about the size of lawn mowers, the fact that Britain used to be at the forefront of world advertising, producing some of the most astoundingly inventive and original adverts, or are we going to talk about Debt?

Yep – advertising. Obviously I’d like to go into lawn mowers, but since I, too, have a handkerchief-sized lawn, I’ve little experience, save to say that a larger mower is actually more difficult to use when cutting something small. I did have a go on a sit-down mower while in France this summer (maybe I’ll tell you about that later), which I found quite difficult to handle, even on the huge patch of lawn I’d promised to mow. I was going to go into debt, but it made me sound pompous, and I wouldn't want that, now, would I?

You have to remember some of your favourite adverts over the years (actually, the one I remember at the moment was shown in Cinemas – the Kia Ora advert – “I’ll be your dog!”). And there are still some hugely inventive ads being created now, which makes all the more perplexing the hideous, mis-conceived and downright lazy ads around right now. And those foreign ads, over-dubbed into English (with completely laughable voices for the people!) – that’s laziness taken to a whole new level. I’ve got to hand it to the makers of the Cilit Bang ads – you win the Prize for the Laziest Advert in 2007.

But for those of you who feel as I do, that Britain was once great in the world of Advertising, here's a reminder...

Now, I'd better get out there and mow my lawn, before it becomes a wasteland of overgrown jungle.

Samsung RS21NCSV Fridge

I know this is a bit different from my other posts, but on searching round the internet, I found that an apparently known problem exists with this fridge, which usually seems to manifest itself directly after the warranty runs out. And I'm talking weeks here, not months!

Kudos to you Samsung - You win the "Best Fault Directly after the Warranty Expires" prize today.

The fault is like this. At some point, either close to the end of the warranty, or just after, you'll notice a wierd buzzing coming from the back of the fridge, which stops when you open the door. But as soon as you shut the door, the buzzing starts up again. After a while you'll decide that this is to do with the fan. You'll assume that the fan is off kilter, and banging against something, but unless you're still in warranty, you'll ignore it. Then a few weeks after that, the problem will disappear - you'll be delighted. "The fridge fixed itself, darling!" you'll cry, when your husband comes home.

Then a few weeks after that, you'll wonder if the fridge is cooling correctly, because butter stored in the door is a bit softer than you think it should be. A few weeks after that you'll be convinced, and at this point, don't give in to the impulse. DO NOT call out that hugely expensive service guy (although, man, was he cute), because what's going to happen is this - he's going to spend 45 minutes thoroughly defrosting the fridge, having cleared it out, and pulled off all the inside back bits. He's going to borrow your hairdryer to help with this, and he's going to get you to run the part he's taken off under the hot tap until the fan (frozen in a great block of ice at this stage - that's why it stopped buzzing), runs freely again. All this is then going to cost you the very best part of £80 - I should be on that hourly rate! Actually, as it happened just over a year ago, it'll have gone up by now.

Then, just before he goes, he'll say - "I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen again." at which point he'll start banging a really big hole in the back of your fridge. This will NOT solve the problem. In fact, it'll make it worse, because now you'll end up with even more condensation in the fridge, which, because the cooling element is a scant 1" above the condensation-outlet hole, will freeze before it actually dribbles out of the hole onto the hot condensing unit to evaporate. In addition to which, the fridge will start to behave like an incontinent cat, and widdle on the floor (comes out under the left front corner of the device) every few weeks.

Here's what you do - and for a supposedly frost free fridge, this is a real pain. You will need to completely defrost the fridge. And if you've got one of these and haven't yet had the problem show - start defrosting now. Last time (about 2 weeks ago), it took over 24 hours to completely defrost. In fact, it was so badly frozen up (previously defrosted back in the spring) that I couldn't get the bottom salad drawer out - not a place you want to put your lettuce! This picture shows the fridge with the inside cover removed - 24 hours after I started. You can see what I mean about space between the bottom of the cooler element, and the hole (that strip of metal above the two screw holes.

Oh, and one caveat - DO NOT, and I have to repeate, DO NOT, have at the ice with a large cleaver. Still, I'm out of warranty, and I can't see how that bit of plastic is of any use...

Should we be more careful about what we type?

Today’s post is by way of being a question.

Do you think it’s more important in this day and age (than, say, 70 years ago, in my Grandmother’s heyday) to make sure that what you commit to “paper” is coherent, and well thought out? And by “paper”, you know I’m talking about any and all writing – emails, blogs, and even real paper.

After all, it’s not as if it’s hard to edit what you’re typing. I ask the question in the wake of a slew of emails from a friend(?) with whom I recently became re-acquainted. Let me illustrate, with a small snippet from his latest email…

I have tried to write something down and it hurts like emma freuds
when you have had a chilli. some things you don`t know about. the
road to hell is paved with. them.........
this will end up an epic so i`ve just left it. it is nearly 9. war
and peace sometime soon?

my tail wagged, always does, tickle me tummy mummy,huff huff
huff thanks that`s nice, please do it again and I seem to have
cocked my leg and peed on the floor. oops. i`ll try shall we start again?

not enough time tonight to do any decency to a reply, and no brain
for calculation as apparently assumed.

If, like me, you find this completely incomprehensible, you’ll be asking yourself, right about now, why on earth he’s having so much trouble finding the back-space key.

I know there are times when your thoughts are tumbling out of your head, faster than you can easily commit them to words on the page, but surely to goodness, you can read through it before you hit the “send” button?

I know that the aforementioned Grandmother would have been horrified if she’d received the above on a piece of paper, purporting to be a letter. She’d have been appalled that there appears to be little, and inaccurate, punctuation. She’d have been aghast at the contents of the middle paragraph – after all, this is someone with whom I’ve spoken not more than half a dozen times in the last 10 years. In addition to which, I doubt she’d have understood the references to chilli in the first paragraph, either – the second sentence is clearly correct in content, if not form!

The thing is, in this day and age, with most people owning (or having access to) a computer, with even basic word processing ability, I believe it’s totally unacceptable to hit the “send” button on something so appallingly badly written.

And my Grandmother would have taken to email communications like a duck to water! I counted, and as I was typing that last sentence, I had to hit the backspace key no less than 7 times – but at least what I’ve written can be understood by most of you…

Available for Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs

A few years ago (before I actually hit the dreaded 40), I had a bit of a mid-life crisis - basically I decided that I was far too ugly, old and fat for anyone to fancy me, especially my husband. So I went down to the local beauty salon, and was waxed to within an inch of my life.

"What on Earth," I hear you asking, in exasperation, "Has that got to do with being old, fat or ugly? After all, being waxed is hardly going to help with any one of those problems. Don't you need liposuction and a facelift...?"

Obviously not, and no, it's not going to help directly with any of those perceived problems. However, it’s a massive confidence booster. But, once again, I digress, so, racing swiftly to the point, it was my husbands reaction which surprised me most. He actually asked me if I was having an affair! I mean, you can see where he's coming from, but it was such a surprise, especially in light of the old/fat/ugly feelings already mentioned.

So, that was the married me. Now, here I am, freshly single, and I let it out to a few people that I'm back on the shelf, and suddenly I'm as in-demand as I was 20 years ago. I remember a particularly busy year, when it seemed that everyone invited me to be their date for their company Christmas parties (and yes, I did feel like the scrapings at the bottom of the barrel), and in the here and now I've already received an offer of being a date for someone’s corporate bash.

Therefore, I'd like to make it clear that I'm available for Christmas parties, Weddings, and corporate events. This is why I make a really good date.

§ I'm much more convincing than a proper escort, because I'm not drop-dead gorgeous, and thin as a twig.

§ Feed me a couple of glasses of Champagne/Pimms, and I'll get a bit giggly, and start telling off-colour jokes - can you really see a proper escort dong that?

§ Finally, my age is so much more convincing. Unless you’re Richard Gere, no-one’s going to believe you’re going out with a girl who looks like Julia Roberts.

Perhaps, in the light of those off-colour jokes, I should avoid Bar Mitzvahs, though.

Domestic 'bleeping' Appliances.

OK, I'm sitting here at some time before 0600 to ask the question "Why, for the love of Mike, do domestic appliances have to bleep?" And it's at this god-forsaken hour because, for about the fifth time this week, I've been woken by my telephone. Now, we all follow the same rules, don't we. You don't phone anyone in the night, after, say, about 2200 and before 0900 unless it's something really important. Like, for example, announcements of death, or birth - after all, difficult to get the little brutes to arrive when you want them. But I digress. Who, you're wondering, can have woken me at this hour, before the birds are even truly chirping, and before I'd ever consider getting up under normal circumstances. Well, that's the point of this diatribe. Not a who at all, just the ruddy phone itself. Because, you see, this phone, a fancy-pants new digital phone, with crystal clear reception, and long distance roaming capabilities (I could make calls at the end of a 200 foot garden, if I had one) feels that it must let me know if one of the handsets looses its signal to the mother-phone. But does it show a discreet message on the large, easy to read display? No, it gives me a very loud double bleep. And then, a few moments later, when it's found the signal again, obviously in order to reassure me that all is well in it's little electronic world, it gives me an equally loud "beedle-beedle", just in case I was worried! And, of course, for convenience sake, the handset in question is by my bed. This is not a new thing. We all want to be able to make calls from our bed. After all, since call costs are no longer wince-makingly high, chatting to people no longer has to be done in a draughty hall in order to keep the conversations short.

But I have to ask myself - "Do I give a rat's arse if my phone looses its signal to the mother-phone?" And I have to be honest with you (and anyway, I'm not good at lying at this time in the morning) and say NO!

Dammit, why do ANY domestic appliances have to bleep at all? OK, the microwave and the oven, I can understand this one - especially the oven, which is letting you know that your fabulous souffle is now burning to an indedible crisp, that I can cope with. My father tells me that his microwave gets a little strident if you don't go and deal with the food in there, and bleeps again a little later, although we thought, after some discussion, that it might be about a minute later, because many ready meals need a minute wait after they've completed. But that's OK - you want to know when your tea, cold because you forgot about it, has re-heated. After all, you wouldn't want to forget about it. Again.

But by all that's sacred, why would I want to know when my dishwasher has finished.? Are you like me? Do you just load the thing up before you go to bed, shove in a tablet, and press the button? There's got to be a good percentage nodding sagely right now. This means that when I do finally surface in the morning (but not now!) I've got a fresh cup for my morning tea. The dishwasher washes up for me, at a time that's convenient to me. And I don't actually need to know when it's finished. I don't care - if I should set it going during the day, then I'll deal with it when I'm good and ready.. However, this dishwasher has other ideas - it bleeps to let me know it's finished. And then it continues to bleep noisily (although the frequency seems to die down - I have tried to ignore it, you know!) for quite some time. I've not yet timed it. But get this, it's louder and longer than the oven. How logical is this? The appliance which is burning my food to a black sacrifice has the most apologetic bleep on the face of the planet. You've set the timer, so that you don't have to explain to your long suffering children that "the chips aren't burnt dear, just browner than perhaps you might want!" and you're off doing something else (after all, this is what domestic appliances allow you to do - multitask, or watch tv - whatever), but because someone has managed to shut the kitchen door after them, you just can't hear the pathetic little bleep. And then it stops after just 1 minute. 1 minute of telling me that I have a chance of setting my beautiful Victorian home alight if I don't go and check this out RIGHT NOW. My dishwasher, honest guv, bleeps longer and louder.

However, it seems I'm lucky in not having a washing machine that bleeps. And since I chose wisely (or German, which amounts to the same thing), I should be spared that annoyance for some years to come.. But they all make their toys bleep now. The new dishwasher, made by the same people as the washing machine, bleeps, but my old one didn't. And there's no way of turning these things off. The phone that started all this, is customisable to a point. I've managed to turn off the annoying bleep which announces I've pressed a button (what, is this congratulating me?) but I cannot persuade the ruddy thing that I really don't care if it's lost its signal, and I'm equally indifferent to the fact that it's found it again - "Oh No! I've lost my signal!" . . . "Oooh, ooh, no, it's OK, I've got it again, no worries, all OK now - go back to sleep if you can!"