Topping up on Christmas Day

This morning I received a text from my elder girl, a crie de couer, if you will, from the slopes of the Alps, where she is currently skiing with her sister and father.

This is the longest time my girls have spent away from me since they were born, and I was prepared to be absolutely miserable, missing them with a passion akin to that of Romeo and Juliet! However, I've had no chance to miss them, as they've both texted me frequently throughout the holiday. In the first two days alone, I received 17 texts from them. I say "them", but the texts were, in fact, from Lottie, who seems to have the necessary ability. Lizzy confessed on the phone last night that she doesn't really know how to text, as the predictive text confuses her. I think it's rather sweet that she doesn't yet know this arcane art.

This mornings texts were full of cheer, as my girls delved through their stockings (yes, I sent them with stockings!) and told me how much they were enjoying their presents. And then came the request. "Can u top me up please? Im running out of credit". Ah, the joys of the English language, in all it's many forms...

Returning to the point, after an abortive attempt to top up online, I decided to go to a local cashpoint machine and top up from there. Within the last year or so I've started noticing that this option is now available at many cashpoint machines. What a boon to the traveller who has insufficient credit to actually perform the top up from their place of vacation. As, indeed, I found it last year, when I sent out similar text requests to various friends and family to try to find a way of topping me up.

I pushed my card into the machine, Lottie's number at the ready, and the machine swallowed my card. After not so much as a gentle burp, the next victim was exhorted to "Please insert your card." It would appear that my luck this morning seems to be all bad. Perhaps I would be better going back to bed and waiting for Boxing Day? Perhaps not. I will thank technology for the wondrous invention of the mobile phone. I called my bank, while standing at the offending machine, and immediately spun my tale of woe. The card is cancelled, a new one winging it's way to me. Well, perhaps winging is not the right word. The voice to whom I spoke warned that they usually expect replacement cards to arrive within 7 days, but this is 7 working days... I suspect I'll see my new card next year, at that rate.

The point of this blog, though, is to question why on earth is SO DAMN DIFFICULT to top up someone else's phone. To do it through the vodafone web site, you have to register your debit/credit card against the phone. Which is all fine and dandy if it's your own phone, because they insist on sending the phone a code, which you have to type into the registration process to prove the phone is yours. Not only is the phone not mine, it's not ruddy well here. Why do they need to do that?

I can understand having your card registered, because there's the whole "you might have stolen that card" issue. This is fine, but I have no idea if I've got an account with Vodafone, and there's still the whole code-sent-to-the-phone issue mentioned above. I remember registering my debit card with the phone when we put in the new sim card, but, again, can I stress how the phone is not with me, it's in France. I can buy an e-voucher, but Lottie has to phone 2345 and type in the 12-digit number. Which means I have to text it to her (or Lizzy or her dad) and make sure I put the right number in.

What about Paypal, I hear you cry. You'd have thought Paypal, with it's registering of cards, would be willing to make topping up phones a bit easier. You'd be wrong there. I have googled until my fingers have blisters, but I can find no way to top up the damn phone from here without having a whole new account with vodafone, or going to a cashpoint machine. You can understand my reluctance to shove my remaining card into the next cashpoint machine, worrying that I'll have no way to support myself until the New Year brings my replacement card.

Friends and laughter on Christmas Eve - It doesn't get any better than that.

Last week I allowed myself to go on a Blind Date. Not, you understand, the Cilla Black variety, which would probably have turned out hideously ghastly, but the kind where a well meaning friend thinks to himself - "Hmm... She's way too geeky for me, but I've got this geeky friend..." And he can hear wedding bells already. I agreed for various reasons, not least of which was that I had nothing else planned for that evening, and I'd hate to let a potential Johnny Depp pass by without a look in!

So there I was, in the pub, chatting away with this chap. He's nice. Although I'm not sure that nice is quite sufficient for me - I think I'll have to add witty and urbane to my list of requirements. I had a moment of chuckliness when I found that he's from up North, and plays the trombone in a brass band. But I controlled myself - with effort. There was a moment of embarrassment when I realised that in their chat of restoring a Spitfire to it's former glory, my "Date" and my "friend" were, in fact, talking of the one made by Triumph, not the one made by Supermarine in the second world war. In my attempt to cover my confusion (having asked the question "Did you manage to make it fly?"), I blurted out that I had, in my youth, had sex in a Spitfire. After establishing that one had to be considerably younger and bendier than we all were now, the conversation righted itself, and continued, in a reasonably cheerful way until my "Date" let loose the information that he is the proud owner of not one, but two, Caravans! OK - I lost it. Unable to contain my mirth, every laugh line on my face crinkled, and guffaws ensued.

So what, you query, bewildered, has this to do with laughter on Christmas Eve? OK - I'm getting to it.

Last night I was attending the annual Christmas Eve bash hosted by my brother and his wonderful wife, an event peopled by the kind of friends you've kept with you over the years because, with them, you feel comfortable and happy. While my sister-in-law attempts to integrate new people into the happy core, that cheerful bunch arrive year after year and sit round chatting merrily. Last night I was compelled to mention to one of the ladies about the aforementioned Blind Date, detailing it in much the same manner as above. Her husband, a man of wit and humour (!), chuckled away with the rest of the crowd, until I told them that it was very likely that I'd meet this "Date" at the beer festival next year, he being a bit of a fan of the fest. At which point JD exploded with laughter, saying "I'm going to have to come up to you at the beer festival and remind you that I still have that Spitfire, if you want to try it out again!"

Now I'm not saying that beer fest is in anyway boring, but this would definitely be a way of making the evening more fun. I think I would have trouble keeping a straight face!

Merry Christmas to all my Readers!

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

You know, I'm always finding something to grumble about with regard to Christmas - if it isn't the shops with Christmas stock and decorations up as the children head back to school for the new academic year, it's the spotty oiks trying to get money out of me by turning up at the doorstep and launching into a half-hearted "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" so pathetic and out of tune that you'd almost be inclined to pay them just to leave!

In fact, in the past I've promised to put up a sign on my door, to compliment the one stating that we don't buy or sell on the doorstep (a sign which afforded me much amusement on the occasion I asked, rather facetiously, of a doorstep salesman, if he'd read the sign, only to have him back away apologetically when he did), clarifying that unless you're prepared to give me at least 2 verses of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", you're not going to see a penny of my money. For while the spotty oiks are annoying in a feeble way, what's really getting me started are the Rotary people - you know the ones, they turn up in your street with a carnival float pumping out Christmas carols through speakers which have heard better days, and this is supposed to encourage me to give generously?

So this very evening, sitting with my girls, chatting, watching the telly, I was horrified to hear what sounded like the idiot from the house behind us (who really does have some VERY good car speakers!) sitting in the road at the front, playing some kind of rap while waiting for his friend to come out. Only when I opened the door to deliver a lecture (at least the idiot listens to me when I ask him to turn down the music) what did I discover? Yup - you've got it - the ruddy Rotary Club, and their "updated" Christmas CD and carnival float.

While I can't remember exactly what I snorted in disgust as I slammed the door, it was clearly sufficient for the collector attempting to open the garden gate, who gave up at this point, and so I was never exhorted to give.

All I have to contend with now are the spotty oiks. Perhaps I should write that sign after all. I could probably get it laminated...

Something from the Anorak_Girl

I realise I'm known as a bit of a geek, and that my love of Sci-Fi may possibly make me seem somewhat odd. And while I've always been a fan of Star Trek, especially The Next Generation, I didn't really get into the later spin-offs. I tried with DS9, but couldn't get to grips with a stationary story line - it was almost as if they'd copied Babylon 5. Almost. And with a better budget, so it probably doesn't look quite so 80's dated right now. I wouldn't know, I couldn't get into it. I never even gave Enterprise a chance, because I had other things on my mind when it came out. Babies and stuff. But I did rather enjoy Voyager - this may have had something to do with being one of the very few people on the planet who didn't find Janeway annoying. I liked her - she was spunky!

But it would appear that I didn't get into Voyager quite as well as I'd thought, because I've just discovered, while browsing through my Radio Times (no, I never did send that letter off) that there's a character called Annorax in it!

Oh, come on! You can not be serious! You've called a character Annorax, and you expect me not to laugh!

You know what I think? I think it's an hommage to all the fans over the years, without whom Star Trek would have been nothing.

Paper Books vs. Ebooks

My most recent copy of PC Pro arrived a week or so ago, with a review and discussion of eBook readers. These devices have come on a long way, and while I may be happy to carry a goodly handful of eBooks on my phone for reading when I stumble into boredom, I can understand that a tiny little 2" screen isn't going to be the screen of choice for most discerning readers.

However, the technology seems to be truly amazing, with some of the devices conserving energy by using the battery only when actually changing a page for the next one. The size of the screens is much closer to that of a real paperback than my phone or even my Palm will ever be. It's got to be said, though, that I love to have a bookcase worth of books with me all the time.

On the other hand, I completely understand those who hate these devices with a fiery passion - I too, love the feel and smell of books, even new ones. I love the paper as it moves against my fingers, and I really like to be able to see illustrations as they were intended. And comics - no eBook reader will ever be able to display comics for me with anything approaching the original experience. That's going to be a big no-no.

But we're not here to bellyache about eBook readers - I'm down with both arguments (sorry, I'm not down, I'm entirely sympathetic with). What I'm here to grumble about is the price of eBooks. After all, for me, a book is mostly about the story.

I don't know why I still find myself surprised that the price of an eBook is completely over the top in comparison to purchasing, with all the attendant costs, a physical book.

This morning I got one of my bi-weekly email from Fictionwise, promoting their latest offerings. This week, due to the excitement building for the forthcoming release of Twilight, a film of a book about vampires, they're pushing The Twilight Saga. The first book, Twilight, is on sale at Fictionwise for the princely sum of $10.99 (£6.74, according to my currency conversion gadget on Google), but you can get the same book, in paper this time, at Amazon, for £2.95 (or if you need to shop in the US, Amazon.com has it for $6.04). Sure, to qualify for free postage on your book, you'll need to work out how to spend a whole extra £2.05, but there - you might as well buy the second book in the series, New Moon, for £3.98 to bump up your total. So, for 19p more than the cost of one eBook, you get two actual books. Books you can feel.

And here's the lovely part. The part which always puts me off buying eBooks. If you don't like the stories you've just bought, you can do one of many things.

1. You can give the book to your pre-teen daughter and see if she likes it. Failing that...
2. You can sell the book on eBay. Nobody bidding? OK...
3. There are charity shops always looking for newer books. Hell, they'll take pretty much anything!

With an eBook, even if it's not a secure format restricted to a single device, giving your book away or selling it on seems to be considered tantamount to major fraud! Let's compare and contrast...

This is written inside a paperback.
"This paperback is sold suject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers consend in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser."

And at the beginning of an eBook.
"NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorised person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and imprisonment."

Wow! There you have it. Legally I am allowed to loan out my paperback, sell it on eBay, or give it away, as long as I don't mess with the cover it came with. OK, this might be a problem for those Blue Peter sticky-back-plastic-o-philes out there, but for the rest of us, we're not that distructive, so with the exception of a bit of bending, possibly a rip or two, the cover's going to be the same.

And what if I actually enjoy a book? Just this morning, during a discussion about the forthcoming Brideshead Revisited film, I confessed that I'd never read the book, so the English teacher to whom I was chatting said, "Come up to the English department - you can borrow a copy, we've loads up there." If I read a book and enjoy it, I can press it upon my brother, and he can enjoy it too. If I read an eBook, legally I'm not allowed to "loan" him a copy of the book. Technically, I probably will.

I suspect that eBooks will remain a niche option until publishers become a whole lot more sensible about pricing. And I don't even want to start on the DRM problem - I've bought a book I dislike, and now I can't even sell it on to recover some of the costs? Poo!

What Would YOU Do?

I got into work this morning, to find the usual bunch of interesting things on my desks - notes telling me that people aren't using the computer rooms at certain times (emails? Anyone?), broken headphones etc. This morning, however, there was a new item. Not an unusual one, by any means. A digital camera, with a post-it note stuck on with this message.

"Please please can you empty this camera when you get a minute - no rush. Thank you v. much."

So, on receipt of a note like that, what would be your first thought?

Mine was "It's not bloody rocket science!" as I navigated through the menus to the Format option. And then, a nano-second after I'd pressed the Yes button, "Oh, I wonder if they meant that I should save the pictures somewhere else?"

So I went off to try and find the owner of the camera, and ascertain exactly what it was they had expected of me. Please note that the post-it wasn't even signed, so I had trouble working out who was the legitimate owner of the camera. Sadly, on locating the owner, she confirmed to me that she had, very much, wanted me to transfer the pictures (probably the last pictures taken of her grandmother, enjoying her 100th birthday celebrations with the whole family, who subsequently died last week, or something) to somewhere safe, thus preserving them forever.

Colour me feeling really guilty right now. :-(

There's just too much out there.

Do you ever, in your wanderings round the internets, think to yourself that there's a small possibility that there's just too much stuff out there?

This question occurred to me last night, as I logged into a social networking site, and was presented with the blurb from the site, which is obviously intended to enthuse potential new users into signing up, and using this site, instead of one of the, oh-god-how-many other sites.

For me, however, being greeted with "We've got so much content that if you started watching when you were a baby, and watched all day, every day, you'd be dead before you could watch it all." And THIS is designed to encourage us to use the site? Instead I'm filled with an overwhelming sense of despair, from the knowledge that I will NEVER, ever reach the end of it.

There's a world, literally a whole world, of stuff on the internet, and I'm afraid I don't have time in my whole life to see it all. What if I miss something in which I might have been interested because it's not in my list of things which I know interest me. How will I know if I have an interest in bacon related lol-cats (insert topic of choice here) if I don't know it exists?

So that's my main concern. But then there are the subsidiary worries - should I be outside getting more fresh air? Will I die, hunched like a wizened homunculus* over my steaming keyboard, as I try to experience everything the web has to offer? Should I be trying to get a life, meeting real people?

I have signed up for very few, it has to be said, social networking sites. I did jump onto the FriendsReunited site when it first came up, but Facebook and Bebo (and their many copycats) have passed me by. I find it perplexing that people who haven't got the first clue about how to make their print jobs come out can work with the bewildering array of options available on Facebook and the others. And then I think I may be spending too much time worrying about social networking, because isn't that where people go if they want to find incriminating evidence against you?

I've also failed completely to be sucked into the wonder of the MMORPG, content to remain in the last few years of the dark ages (or 20th Century, as we have come to call it), playing only Tomb Raider, and actually enjoying the story. I've tried (very hard, you understand) to watch my nephew play World of Warcraft, but after enjoying the scenery for about 5 minutes, I found the game play rather repetitive. You run around and kill things. You can do quests, a piece of knowlege which filled me with hope for a few seconds, until I realised the the quests all seem to involve running round and killing things. Sure, the graphics are pretty good (better if your machine doesn't run like cold treacle, I gather), and the environment is lovely to look at. The characters seem pretty flat, though, and any point of the game (are you working towards anything specific?) escapes me completely. I think I will have to consider myself a bit of a MMORPG luddite.

What else am I missing out on, due to the sheer volume of stuff?

*Thanks, Lois McMaster Bujold, for a lovely phrase. I can't remember which book it comes from, but it's definitely from the Vorkosigan universe.

Letter to the Radio Times

I've just got to write to the Radio Times and complain. I never do - I grind my teeth in fury, and the letters remain unwritten. I whine and bellow at my family, and still those letters remain unwritten. But this time it's different.

I'm Fed-Up with the RT giving away the bloody plot all the time. This is what it's all about. You know how they have a page with their "Choices" at the start of each day, where they recommend a handful of programs for your consideration? Here they tell you a little bit about each of their chosen programs, trying to whet your appetite and encourage you to watch the program. I like to have my appetite whetted, and avidly read about my favourite program, in the hope of tantalising myself, increasing the frisson of excitement and the sense of anticipation prior to watching the show. I don't know if it makes watching the show better, but that's the way I like to do it. So far, so reasonable, you may say. It's not as if they're telling you what happens - you don't get details of the dénouement, or anything quite that crass.

Well no, except for the use of one small word.

Tragedy. Such a small word (and even smaller when used as Tragic). But a whole world of meaning. My heart sinks whenever I read of "x y z with tragic results." or "tragedy occurs during the birthday celebrations..." In fact, I was mistaken - there's not a world of meaning in the word - it means death. Plain and simple - someone's going to die.

So that new season of my favourite series, for which I've been waiting since the end of the last season has arrived. In this case it's Spooks. Sure, they gave us the silly "Yoof Spooks" during the summer (which wasn't quite as bad as many people would have you believe), but I was waiting for the real Spooks. Actually, RT didn't use the word tragic, they used the phrase "a final scene which will make you gasp!" or something like that. In addition to which, they introduced a new fit man (in the magazine), and you just know that something ghastly is going to happen to the lovely Adam (played by the equally charming Rupert Penry-Jones). So instead of watching the show with bated breath, you're trying to work out when/how the inevitable tragedy (oh, there's that word again) will occur.

Really, Radio Times needs to think a lot more carefully about the reviews written. It's time you stopped giving away the plots.

Leaving Stuff on the Train

As every week brings new stories of civil servants leaving disks, usb keys and laptops in inappropriate places, I don't know about you, but I'm getting a whole lot pissed off about this. No, that's not what it is, I'm getting frustrated and perplexed.

The latest story to cross my path was in our local free newspaper, and talks about a chap who was actually fined £2500 for leaving some important documents on the train. It turns out that he'd inadvertently picked up these documents as he was leaving work, whilst scooping up his paper to read on the train journey home. So far, so sympathetic. Fair do's, it was a mistake. So the guy realises he's made this phenomenal blunder, and decides to take the documents back to work in the morning. Again, I'm with him at this point. Genuine mistake, guv, was just about to put the back, no harm done.

But this is where it becomes perplexing. He's realised his error, and he's working on correcting it. He's on his way back to work the next morning, with the documents, and he manages to leave them on the train. What? How has he NOT got these things handcuffed to his wrist, knowing that there will be all sorts of shenanigans on his return to the office when it's discovered that he has lost them?

I get pissy with my girls when they manage to lose things. Here I am, assuming that at 9 and 10, they should be able to look after their own stuff - I mean, if it's important to them, they mustn't assume that I'll just replace it when they lose it. Don't you think? It's not as if their stuff is important to anyone else, but since it's important to them, surely it's not much to ask them to take care of it. Actually, the 10 year old does fairly well, despite being a little daffy, and since we don't use the train that often, we've not had THAT much loss yet. But this chap in the paper is 38 years old, for crying out loud.

So, am I the only one who's beginning to wonder if there isn't something a little more sinister going on than just plain carelessness? Maybe the £2500 fine is a drop in the ocean compared with what he's getting from the opposition for delivering these "lost" documents into their grubby little mitts. It just seems to me that there is SO much publicity about these so called losses, that people MUST be aware of what they are carrying, and therefore, they're either incompetent to the point of stupidity, or they're working for the enemy.

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

Web Cam

Some time ago I discovered a wonderful tool, LogMeIn, which allows me to remote control another computer onto which I've installed it. This, as you can imagine, makes my support easier, because it's often possible to remotely control a PC, find out what the problem is, and fix it without having to trawl all the way over to Woking.

I've already used it on my home computer today, and have made valuable use of it in the past, to check how something reacts when it's not hidden behind the barbed-wire-and-concrete of my work ISA server.

So you're getting the picture that it's a very useful thing to have. It's like having a window into your own home.

As I strolled back from lunch this afternoon, I was struck with a sudden desire to have a similar thing attached to my Freezer. I planned to use some of my lunchtime to place my shopping order online, but I really wanted to find out if I have any mince in my freezer.

What I want is the ability to log into my freezer remotely, and find out what I've got in there.

Black

Wearing black one always looks mysterious and Gothic.

Until one has to move old computer equipment, after which one merely looks rather dusty and sad.

Communication

How is it, do you suppose, that we cannot communicate with those we love the best?

So there you are, madly in love with someone new. This isn't just a physical lusty thing, it's a true meeting of minds, and you can talk about anything and everything. Your nights are spent together in a dizzying whirl of lust and deep, meaningful, philosophical conversation. This isn't just chatting, it's real communication, and this person is obviously the person with whom you're going to spend the rest of your life.

All is fabulous until the day you make that little throwaway comment which makes your new and exciting partner look at you as if you've just bitten the head off a puppy. And not just any puppy - this was their favourite puppy whilst growing up - the one they played with and walked every single day until the beast died in their arms of old age. That puppy. The one they mourned with a passion abated only by your very own arrival in their lives, with your complete, utter and perfect connection to them.

And just so that you never have to see that look of total disappointment on their wonderful face again, you tuck away inside, that little part of you which made you say that oh-so-hurtful thing, and a tiny part of you dies just a little bit.

The sad thing is that this goes on, every year brings another look from the puppy face, and in time, the perfect communication you shared during those long, hot, passionate nights is a whisper of a memory, replaced by small talk of those subjects you know, from long experience, don't elicit that bittersweet expression.

And then comes the melancholy day that your flawless love, for whom you killed such a lot of your own personality, moves on, because they are no longer able to communicate with you. But they've found someone new, and this time it's perfect. Again.

Y2K Disaster?

Even now, 8 years after the millennium, I keep reading that the only Y2K disaster was the fact that so many companies bought into the issue, and piled hundreds of thousands of pounds into fixing it. I remember that for quite some years afterwards, there were many articles jeering at these so-called "morons" for buying into the hype, and sending their money gurgling down the drain of the consultants pockets.

What I don't see is anyone actually defending much of this spend. OK - yes, there were some jokers insisting that your washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher and even your toaster were going to be affected by this move from '99 to '00. Thankfully most people were above such panic (although there were sad, sad stories of people actually "upgrading" their white goods because they had been suckered into believing that they'd stop working at midnight on 1999!) and were able to see that it wouldn't matter what year your white goods thought it was, because it'll function just as well in 1900 as 2000.

What did matter were many database systems where the year information had been stored as a two digit number instead of a 4 digit number. It's very simple, but there was a hell of a lot of data out there with just that problem, and the companies who had such databases paid to make sure they were up to date by the end of 1999. There were other systems where the year mattered, and these were updated too. The reason the "millennium bug" failed to bring the world to its knees was because so many companies had paid so much money to ensure that systems would NOT cause problems.

I worry, in retrospect, about claims that aircraft would fall out of the sky because they'd suddenly stop working on the dot of midnight 1999. Even now, I just can't see how this could possibly have been an issue. HOW would this have worked? If I change the date in my PC back to January 1900 (actually, the internal clock wont let me go back further than 1980), is my computer going to suddenly think - "Oh my God! They didn't have computers back in 1900! I can't work any more."? Well, let's look at this logically - I'd be thrilled if my computer started thinking at all! But computer systems don't, as yet, have any kind of awareness save what we've programmed into them, so, no, I think it unlikely my computer would worry about the fact that computers hadn't been invented in 1900. Similarly, I'd be prepared to bet that no aircraft would have any kind of programming which would give said aircraft cause to worry that no-one was able to fly back in 1900, so it shouldn't be able to fly either. I can see no reason to have year information in the programming of an aircraft at all. That said, I bet Airforce 1 has some pretty fancy software!

Has it ever occurred to these people who now dismiss the whole Y2K bug theory as having been a load of old hokum, that the reason it didn't hit us nastily was because it was part hokum, and part preparation.

Windows 7 Wish-List

My copy of PC Pro arrived last week, and I fell on it like a vulture onto the carcass of a lamb! Inside there's an article about the forthcoming new operating system from those boys in Redmond, Windows 7. I was rather disappointed to find that there's no interesting code-name for the beast. Within the article, however, there was a section where a few people had put in their wants for this new OS. Let me detail what I'd like, with a few reasons.

1. I want to be able to set the program defaults for every user who logs into the machine - like the ability to configure IE without the end user having to think it through. Working in a school one becomes aware of how the younger children are completely lost when presented with the "Now let's set up how you search the internets" page on first starting IE. All they want to do is to find their favourite games sites, and having to talk every single year 3, 4 and 5 student through the decision on which internet search engine they want to use is seriously eating into my support time.
This also goes goes for WMP - I want all the machines to behave the same.

2. Sound. Why, for the love of Mike, is Windows configured to play a little tune on login? Can you imagine a room of 20 computers, many of which don't have functioning headphones (because children are tiny little vandals) all logging in at the same time? 10 times a day? After the first time it becomes REALLY annoying - the kids aren't allowed to use the control panel, and thus cannot configure this. And if they could - remember these are children. They're going to choose something which grates even more. So on the wish list for Windows 7 - make the default sounds settings as No Sounds.

3. For pity's sake stop hiding things. I've spent ages learning how to be damn good with XP, and I know where to find most things (although I do have some problems with registry entries). But in Vista I'm completely lost. I want to check my network connections - I head to Control Panel, Network Connections. Where do I head in Vista? Sadly this is not a rhetorical question, because I've not yet worked that one out :(

4. Stop swamping me with messages. Apparently a recent study of popups found that most people will do anything except actually read the message in front of them in order to get rid of those annoying messages that Windows (and loads of other programs) pop up onto your screen to tell you something. It's not even that people are idiots - it's just that there are TOO DAMN MANY of these dumb messages. I don't need to know that I have unused icons on my desktop. I suspect more people would read them if there weren't so many which are completely information free. Or if the information had anything to do with the real world. You'd almost think that all programmers were, in fact, elitist sons of bitches.

5. I'd like to be able to set a default printer for a machine, which will override any network settings. So if a PC has a printer attached, I can say that this is the default printer for every user who logs on. While I want to be able to restrict my users from doing things I don't want them to do, I'd like to be able to make their lives easier, by providing the most useful set of defaults. There are some settings which can't be set by group policies.

Actually, this is much more of a DO NOT WANT list than a wish list of new functionality. I do want more control over new accounts than I have at the moment, and I really do want to be able to set more defaults, more easily.

So, Microsoft, are you really listening to your customers?

Finding a Higgs Boson Particle.

I know. They're going to turn on the LHC tomorrow, and we're all going to be sucked into a black hole. Very scary.

However, assuming we DON'T get sucked into any kind of black hole - in fact, assuming that no black hole is actually created, I worry about this search for the Higgs Boson particle. What if, contrary to Stephen Hawking's expectation, they do, indeed, find it, but it turns out NOT to provide unlimited understanding of our universe?

What, are they going to say it's not actually a Higgs boson at all, but some other particle (and they need only look as far as Star Trek for some damn fine particle names if they get stuck)?

I just feel that all those nice scientists are going to be so very disappointed!

Olympic Shooting - just mind the flowers.

There I was, chatting with my mum yesterday, who was letting off steam and having a good old rant about the Olympics (actually, a source of comment all day), when we moved onto the subject of the forthcoming London Olympics in 2012.

"I think it's ridiculous, they're building all new sites for the Olympics, you know."
"What?" I replied, "Aren't they using Wembly Stadium?"
"No, they're building a new stadium for the thing. And the shooting too, building a whole new site for that, which they're going to take down at the end of the Olympics, because they're worried about guns. Why don't they just use sites, they've already got? We've got Wisley for shooting!"

Just as long as they watch out for the flowers!

Going to the Movies

So what happened? Last year, just as soon as I mentioned that I was single again, there was a flurry of interest. Invitations came, minor flirting happened.

But it was all too soon. I wanted time to regain my equilibrium. Find my chi. Stretch out alone in the king size bed, and feel nothing there. I wasn't ready to start looking for the next man - yet!

I'm still not ready for anything serious, but I want to go to the Movies. There are films I want to see which aren't suitable for my girls, and while I did enjoy Wall-e very much, the thought of having to sit through High School Musical 3 fills me, as you can possibly imagine, with horror. I want to go and see Hellboy II. I wanted to go and see Wanted (Angelina Jolie and guns - nuff said) ,but missed it. I want to go and see The Mummy 3 - it's got Terracotta Warriors, I'm hard pressed how it can get any better. I missed the latest Indiana Jones movie because the girls didn't want to go. The summer is filled with blockbusters, and I can't find a film buddy.

It's not just the silly blockbusters, although, as you can see, there's a certain excitement generated at the thought of going to see some of them. I want to go and see slightly odd films. Not as odd, you understand, as The Fountain, a film so obscure and strange that I still have no idea what it was all about. I love foreign films - especially those from the east. The Chinese have produced some gloriously beautiful films. Hero - all those beautiful colours, and an ending requiring a boxful of tissues. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - equally beautiful, and with wonderful story.

And what of Anime, I hear you cry? I'm getting to that. I LOVE Anime! Is it just me, or do the Japanese really have the most way out imagination in the world? I can imagine the conversation in Hollywood...

"So, I've got this idea for a movie."
"OK - let's hear it!"
"Right, it's set in the future, not too far..."
"Oooh, Sci-fi - I like it!"
"And there are these kids..."
"Good, appeals to all age groups - I'm getting ya!"
"And they all have a little implant which allows them to connect to the web."
"OK - I'm still on-board."
"And these glasses which allow them to see what they're accessing with their virtual keyboards, which they can't see unless they've got their glasses on..."
"Yes..."
"And the whole space around them is created in cyber space, but sometimes the space gets corrupted, so someone's created these big ol' virus programs which go round trying to re-format the corrupted space..."
"Say wha'?"
"No, stay with me! But there's a problem because the virus programs can actually affect the kids, if they're caught by them while wearing their glasses..."
"NEXT!"
"And they've got these little cyber-pets, which they can't touch, and can't see without their glasses..."
"Bye now, missing you already!"

This is actually the premise behind Denou Coil (which I found on the net not that long ago), and it's really that weird! But it's got a great story. Obviously someone would grumble about the lack of tactile feedback on a virtual keyboard... Although most of the Anime I've seen is a) suitable for children and b) far too big to be contained in anything as short as a film, there have been some wonderful films - the most notable being those created by Miyazaki.

So, this is my crie de coeur - I want to go to the MOVIES!

Whining about Windows

My soon-to-be-ex husband bought my in-laws a computer a few weeks ago. This is a big deal, you know (apart from the seemingly generous gesture), because it's taken them years, literally years of prevarication to get to this point. The number of times I've sat with Margaret at my computer as we looked up something she wanted to find, and had been saving for weeks to ask me, escapes me. They'd come for Sunday lunch, and we'd end up spending the afternoon on the interweb, looking for things. I'll never forget Eric's first foray onto eBay, where he bought, with some glee, some golf clubs from the US for the usual bargain price. Margaret and I had located an old friend of hers, not through Friends Reunited in the end, but by Googling her name!

I'd tried to set up a computer for them so they could dial up the internets and browse eBay, send emails, read my blog etc. Unfortunately it was a very old machine, and I was trying to use Linux to set up a Modem I'd been assured would work. Since my knowledge of Linux is still very limited, you can imagine how pathetic it was a couple of years ago while I was trying this project.

So, you can see - it's a big deal.

But where, I hear you cry, does the whining come in?

Last week, just after we'd returned from France, and were still shaking the sand out of EVERYTHING, I got a call from my mum-in-law. I thought this was a call for a chat, and settled down to do justice to a good chit-chat, but was surprised to find that the real reason for the call was to ask for help on the computer. So I put on my computer solving hat, and asked for the symptoms. It turned out to be a pretty big problem - Vista wouldn't let them log on. I don't know about you, but being able to log on to my computer is a pretty fundamental part of it all.

The message "The user profile service service failed the logon"(sic) produced a page full of results on the aforementioned Google, showing me quickly that this is a known problem. A Known Problem? Yet, not a Fixed problem, apparently. And, according to the dates of the entries, a well-know-for-at-least-the-last-8-months problem.

What the hell are Microsoft playing at? This is not a user fixable problem, although when the aforementioned soon-to-be-ex husband went down there to help, with his good computer knowledge (c'mon, can you really see me having married a guy with no computer skills? Really?) it was a relatively simple task to get Windows to start up in Safe Mode, and restore the system to a previous point. But why wasn't this easier for Margaret and Eric to find? I tried to talk them through starting up in Safe Mode, but somehow this didn't work and since I couldn't see what was going on, and don't know Vista very well, it all worked to confound me. Fixing problems aside - why on earth is this problem still rearing it's hideously ugly head, a year (oh yes, a whole bloody year) after it was first talked about on the web? This is, as previously mentioned, a pretty fundamental issue.

You can cope, as an end user, with a lot of things going wrong with your computer, if you can login. If an application goes tits-up, well, you can attempt to uninstall and re-install it. As long as you can login. If your internet connection dies, if you can login to the computer, you can attempt to talk to your router, try pinging something external - IF YOU CAN LOGIN!

India Calling

Once again, this evening, I found myself on the phone to India.

You all know the experience - you call up your support people, press a few numbers on the phone, and you find yourself talking to a person situated in Mumbai, or Bangalore (those are the two places to which I've found myself connected). At this point, a lot of people start to panic. I'm hard pressed to understand why.

I love speaking to India, because all the people to whom I've spoken are

1. Extremely polite.
2. Very knowledgeable.
3. Incapable of admitting defeat.
4. Delighted when they get someone on the phone who has a bit more than a little technical knowledge - although this is personal!
   

Yes, I admit, there are sometimes problems with making out some of the words. However, I've never yet met the person who will not repeat for me, sometimes more than once.

In addition to which, you can usually get them to give you a weather report while you're on the phone!

Let's hear it for the Indian tech support guys!

Junk Spam eMail, and well meaning friends

What is it about girlfriends? I love my girlfriends, you know. They're a seriously well meaning bunch of friends. For someone whose first experience of having girlfriends in any kind of quantity began less than 10 years ago, I'm revelling in the knowledge that I have a bunch of mates I can count on for support and friendship. Loads of them. It helps that I've met them all in the sorts of situations in which mums usually find themselves - I'm hardly likely to find a Carrie, Samantha, Miranda or a Charlotte amongst them (although we can all dream...)

But I've got to say - Oh my goodness - they are the most gullible bunch of mail-forwarders it's possible to find in the whole of the known universe!

I read an article recently that most email hoaxes are aimed at women. I'm not talking about the Nigerian Scam, or the other Phishing attempts. I'm talking about the ones which don't seem to achieve anything for the originator except that his ruddy stupid email gets forwarded round the world 15 million times.

I got two this morning, both from wonderful lady friends.

1. The Bill Gates is giving all his money away hoax, and every time you forward this email you'll get a cheque for $244, and ever time anyone to whom you forward the email forwards it, you'll get $243 etc.
2. The Red Arrows have been banned from performing in the 2012 London Olympics because they're deemed "Too British!"

I'm not going to put their names down, because I love them both so much, but man! Can neither of these ladies operate Google? It's pretty simple - it took me less than 5 minutes to establish that both of these are hoaxes. Indeed, the Bill Gates story has been circulating for 10 years. Yes, I did say 10 YEARS!!!

I was actually rather pleased to find, from an RAF blog, that the Red Arrows story is not true.

Is it that I'm just particularly cynical? Is it that, as a person who's on the computer a lot of the time I'm in more peoples address books. Or is it simply that ladies care more?

The article suggested that email hoaxes are targeted at women because they can rest sure in the knowledge that women will faithfully pass them on. Remember the one with the subject of Slow Dance, allegedly written by a 9-year old dying from cancer? Actually it was written by one David L. Weatherford, who may look like the original model for The Joy of Sex, but is, in fact, a Child psychologist. I do feel that, despite the fact that his site is horribly designed and makes you nauseous to view it, he deserves the credit of having written this poem.

The article goes on to say that women pass these on because they're more easily scared, and it's easy to prey on our weaknesses - crying babies, children dying, warnings about attacks on other women. OK - I get this, I really do. But am I the ONLY woman on the planet who requires verification? Proof? At least two other sources showing the information, preferably sources like the BBC or something - that's what I want before I believe it.

The fact is that it took me just seconds, after typing in "Bill Gates giving away fortune" to find any number of sites which informed me that not only is this a hoax, there's nothing in the underlying code of the email which would enable the message to be tracked back to you at all.

There are a number of wonderful sites out there whose sole purpose is to keep one informed of the increasing slew of stupid hoax emails, but most of the women in my circle of friends seem oblivious to the help available on the internet. They blindly accept the information presented to them, which has been forwarded numerous times, and just as blindly forward it to their entire address books. These ladies are clearly at risk every time an email says "Please forward this to everyone in your address book - I'd rather get this warning multiple times than not at all.", or "A cardiologist says If everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life."

Women appear to be more vulnerable to the nauseating, cutesy emails which tell you why you'll be their friend forever (pass me the bucket, please!), annotated by pictures of cute cats, dogs, hamsters and the like. There's a site for you, ladies! These I appreciate more, although there are all too many of them which exhort me to "Return this to me, if you don't I'll know why!", a nasty form of blackmail, which says "If you don't send this horrible, cutesy garbage straight back to me, I wont be your friend any more." What?! Good god - the least you could do is to change the subject... Oh no - you got me started. Why, for the love of Mike, can people not take out all the previous forwarding information? It seriously can't be because they want to credit previous posters. I suppose it's possible that they don't want the buck to stop at them if people like me take exception and shoot back a caustic response!

So - what can we do about these horrible emails. My efforts at education have been received badly - "So it's a fake - whoop te do! I don't care" from one chap who ended up in the cc: field when I tried to inform my friend about the Slow Dance hoax. It turns out you need to be careful if using googlemail, because it will cc: all the people to whom your friend originally forwarded the mail, if you try to reply. Thankfully the response from my friend was rather more measured.

The message is clear - Please check the veracity of the information you are forwarding.

Doctor Who!

Didja see Doctor Who last night? Well, didja?

Oh. My. Dog!

Actually, this isn't about the series finale, but a resounding cheer for Donna Noble, as played by Catherine Tate.

Who thought, last year when we were told that the new Companion would be played by Catherine Tate, something along the lines of "Oh no, she'll wreck a fabulous series!" I confess, I did. I've seen her own show, although not much of it, because it grated when watching it, and so I didn't try to get into it. Unlike some shows with which I've made an effort, The Catherine Tate Show had no devotees in my ken to enthuse about it and encourage my own enthusiasm. I'd made more effort for The Office, a program I found spectacularly uncomfortable, and which, ultimately I didn't enjoy. I have since found Ricky Gervais to be a very limited actor, always playing the same role. While I did enjoy him in Extras, perhaps because I felt a certain sympathy for the character, his performance in A Night at the Museum jarred, the same performance he'd given in The Office, and completely out of place in what was, otherwise, quite a fun film. I realise it's difficult for actors to move from Comedy into mainstream drama, as testified by the numbers of actors who have successfully achieved this. But those who do are the gems.

While I loved Doctor Who while Rose was the companion - just exactly as a companion should be: beautiful and spunky (can I use that word without being ridiculed?) Martha, who never seemed to come into her own until she starred in Torchwood, was a pretty and brave companion. But Donna Noble - wow! What a heroic companion! What a range of people, from Donna the shallow temp, to Donna who really doesn't like killing people, through to Donna-Doctor at the end, and then, sadly back to Donna the shallow temp. I cried real tears when the Doctor wiped her memory and she had to go back to her life. A real feeling of despair came over me, so real was her own.

So, Catherine Tate, kudos to ya girl! I'm looking forward to finding out what you're going to do next.

And, of course, I'm wondering who the doctor will have as his next companion...

Deciding on a Home

This afternoon, I was summoned to my brother's house for a family conference, to decide how best to help dad and mum. My parents are both 70 years old, and my father has Parkinsons Disease. He's actually managed to hold it at bay for quite some time, having been diagnosed about 20 years ago. He's a hugely positive man, and insisted on remaining active and occupied. I remember how my dad was when my brother got married. Mark married a girl from Yugoslavia (I believe it still was at the time), and due to various complications, they actually decided to get married in Yugoslavia, and have a celebration here in England for friends who couldn't make it for the actual wedding. The Yugoslavian side of things went well, and all was set for the English part. Of course there were a number of Vesna's family who wanted to be at the celebrations here, as well, so a number of them were put up at my parents house in Fleet. What I remember very clearly was that dad was fabulous - he was always the consummate entertainer, the urbane host, charming and helpful to all the guests. And this time, almost as if spurred on by the recently diagnosed "illness", he made even more effort. He was first up in the morning and last to bed at night. He made, and drank, endless cups of Turkish coffee, the favoured drink. He was always available should anyone have a problem, to deal with it as quickly and cheerfully as possible.

And in the slowly creeping dementia he's now suffering, these are the memories to which we should cling. It's even more important now, than at any previous time, that we remember that he has been a very intelligent man. While the periods of being compos mentis are becoming shorter, the sharp wit and intelligence are still there in those times. It's all too easy to mis-understand him, because the Parkinsons has caused his speech to become slurred - the once sharp and funny, yet throwaway comments have become laboured, and un-funny because he has to translate when we don't hear them immediately.

So the chat today was to establish what I suspected all along - we are, as a family, still reading from the same hymn book. We all, my mum included, want my dad to have as much dignity as possible. While his nursing needs may be forcing him into a home, there's no need for this to be a hurried decision. We all remember, with shudders of horror, the home into which my grandmother was put when her senile dementia became too much for one person to deal with it alone. A rushed decision which was regretted with every increasingly infrequent visit. A home which, upon waking the inmates, would dress them and deposit them into the "day room", where a television provided the only stimulation. I think we all know that this kind of "stimulation" is worse than useless.

So, the meeting this afternoon was a fair success. I hope that both my mum and my dad realised that the rest of the family support them both. We know that mum is under a great deal of stress, because dad is not aware of the times when his mentis is not being very compos, but I like to think that we were able to reassure dad that we aren't planning on "shoving him in a home" to rot away in front of a television.

Next week we will all be attempting to visit Sunrise home in Fleet. We have a list of questions we plan to ask, and we'll have a jolly good poke around.

This entry brought to you from my mobile phone!

Ladies in IT

I received my copy of PC Pro a couple of weeks ago, and as usual, I dived straight for the back, and the letters page. There, to my astonishment, was a letter from a lady working in IT who was being, for want of a better phrase, sexually harassed by her male clients. I can't find a link to the letter online (although I'll keep searching), and I don't want to type in the whole letter in case of copyright issues, so I'll put in a few of the choicer complaints...

"Most end users are bored men in offices who are already annoyed that they can't fix their computers, and many resent being told anything technical by a young woman. They flinch when you touch their machine, snort, argue, put up porn screensavers and often mistake technical attention for sexual interest."

Apparently one client, who had called her to his home for a totally bogus computer problem, referred to her as “too sexy to be safe”!

I did write a letter in reply, to PC Pro, but I don't think it was as coherent (or well spelled) as it could have been, and anyway, this is, apparently, a rather thorny subject. So I'm not going to copy it in here. A letter, by it's very brevity, can't really address the issues. I did cite my 25 years in computer support, and while it's possible that my response is coloured by sour grapes, NO male user has EVER referred to me as “too sexy to be safe.” Mind you, it's likely that a) I'm just not sexy enough to be harassed, and/or b) I've just plain not-noticed their come ons. After all, I tend to lump users under one umbrella – they are the cause of all computer problems. Having “user error” growled at them as I fix their problem does tend to keep them quiet.

As far as I can see, a lot of women actually seem to bring light to this issue in a way which is guaranteed to invite ridicule – check out this story from PC Pro. To address just one issue here, this is an exerpt...

"There's a real need for women in the technology industry to stand up and be counted, shout about what we believe in and to set standards for ethically informed and socially committed inclusive technology projects and programmes that can help real women and people with real needs of all kinds to reach their fullest potential," says Professor Goodman.

Is it just me, or does the phrase “ethically informed and socially committed inclusive technology projects and programmes that can help real women” make you want to stop listening/reading at this point? While I cannot argue that men and women are different creatures, surely any kind of attempt to artificially create a project/programme for “real” or any other kind of women is automatically going counter to the idea of being “inclusive”.

Let me, for a moment, digress. I went to university! Yes I did! I got into a smashing Computer Science course at University College in London, and I was as proud as punch when I got a place, especially as I'd done adequately in my A-levels, but hadn't managed to secure a place directly out of 6th-form college. I'd had to take a course at the tech college – Maths, Stats and Computing, in which I obtained a better than average grade, which secured me an offer of a place, and, as I previously mentioned, I was proud! Until I discovered that I'd got a place only because “they” (and I'm not sure exactly who “they” were), had decided that they wanted to have 50% of the intake as females. Imagine my despair! OK – I didn't despair that much, but I was mildly miffed. It was as if “they” had taken away my achievements, and said, in a rather patronising way, “There there deary, you can come and play with the big boys.” As it happened, I had no kind of discrimination from any of the chaps on the course, or within the faculty – they were all charming (there was one chap who was a bit iffy, but he was from a culture who view women as second class citizens anyway). My fellow ladies on the course were bright, intelligent and, for the most part, lovely girls. I was delightfully happy for a whole year until I flunked my end of year exams, and had to find a job.

The point of this little digression is this. This was the earliest form of “positive discrimination” to which I'd been exposed. But positive discrimination is an oxymoron (I love that word!) It's still discrimination. It's an artificially created project/programme FOR women. While, in this case, it helped me, what happened to all those boys who didn't get a place because I and my fellow girls were bumped into their places? It didn't even occur to me to be upset for them until a few years afterwards.

But then...

You know, I've been guilty of positive discrimination in my time. I've advertised in local newspapers for “female to share” when I've wanted to share my living space, and yet I find this completely acceptable.

I wont discriminate against any of my users – they're all still the reason computers are infested with nasty gremlins!

Prince Caspian

I went to see Prince Caspian at the cinema on Sunday morning, and although there are a few niggles (and you know me and my niggles!), there was much to be enjoyed, too.

OK - yes, I've read the book, and there's usually a great sense of disappointment when a well loved book is turned into a film, because it's unusual for the director to have experienced the same sense of awe that I did when reading the book. If, indeed, he (or she) read the book at all.

I remember the feeling of pleasure I got when watching the very first Harry Potter film, because the whole of Diagon Alley had been described in such great detail in the book, and in a short pan down the alley, one could see much of what had been described. This was a truly exciting moment for me, because the words had been moved to the screen, and while it'd taken me minutes to read the description, there it all was, without being laboured - perhaps 5 glorious seconds of perfect description. I haven't phrased that well, so I may come back to it.

In contrast, the third film had none of the colourful page to screen translation I'd enjoyed in the previous two films, and while the critics proudly trumpeted the "darker" feel of the film, I was outraged by the addition (addition? what are they thinking, there's plenty of very funny material in the book they'd had to cut) of a ridiculous shrunken head in the Knight Bus. In addition to which, the only darkness I could find was that there was virtually no colour to be seen, and someone seemed to have forgotten to turn on any of the lights.

So, it's possible that you can see that the look of the film is quite important to me. I want to feel that I've been transported to that place in my imagination I created when reading the book. This is sometimes a bit of an unrealistic expectation, because New Zealand doesn't look a lot like Narnia, in my imagination, anyway! Actually, to be perfectly honest, Narnia always reminded me of an English woodland, with widely spaced beech trees, a scattering of silver birch, and some crusty old oaks. The pictures in the books could have been drawn from any one of the places I played in as a child, from the woods at the back of my friends house in Blackwater, to the streams chuckling through the New Forest.

However, there are other images which have been captured well. As you probably know, had you read any of the books as a child, there are a number of charming little illustrations dotted throughout each book. Perhaps it was really these which gave me the images I've so carefully cherished all these years. It was, therefore, a pleasure to see some of these images included in the film. I remember being charmed by the bulgy bears, especially the one who would always suck his paws - and there, for just a second, was the picture - a bulgy bear, sucking his paw. The picture of Reepicheep, surrounded by his mousy followers, all getting ready to cut off their own tails after his is lost during the battle. The little underground home in which Caspian recovered after falling off his horse.

I fully expected some plot changes, especially after the mad chase in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". I'm sure I didn't expect a full on assault of Miraz' castle in the middle of the film, but perhaps this was better than the drawn out mini-scuffles depicted in the book. The jury's still out on this one.

I didn't even mind that there was a little romance between Susan and Caspian - I realise that this was not what C.S. Lewis had in mind, over 50 years ago, but the age of the actors suggest that there would at least be some interested glances exchanged. This may have been a children's book, but the film is aiming for a wider audience.

I think what did bug me most was the silly plot device (again with Susan) where she tried to put off the boy from another school at the beginning, and then looked at him with more interest AFTER she'd met Prince C. Come on, you're straining my credibility with this one. She's just realised that she's met this gorgeous young man, a real warrior, but sadly they can't see how it would pan out, so she's making nice-eyes at the geek-boy? Not going to happen!

Still, all in all, it was a better film than the first adventure into Narnia. I'm looking forward to the next one!

N78 Enchanted

I've got to carry on with my praises of the N78. I expect you've worked out now that I'm a little bit of a geek, and gadgets are my catnip. Yes, I admit, I drool over photos of the iPhone (I'm a girl - what can I say?), and the HTC range have me reading reviews like a woman possessed.

However, now I've found my gadget, I've decided that I'm going to find the best software I can. And I have to tell you, it's no easy task. Unlike palm software, which is written for just the one OS, there seem to be many flavours of Symbian. Just point yourself at MySymbian and you find that they have 6 places to shop for what appears to be 6 different types of symbian! OK - I'm a novice (although this isn't as unique as you'd think, what with me trying out new Linux builds on my Asus eee) and maybe a lot of these are very similar - what do I know?

As usual - and this could end up being a huge whine - the inventory of built in apps is a bit sad. No, it's a lot sad. The calendar is, as I mentioned before, barely adequate. It's not completely useless, but since this machine is really going to replace, not compliment, my palm, it's got to be really good.

I started by searching the interweb for "symbian calendar" and after following a few links, found myself a couple of likely looking contenders, Handy Calendar by EpocWare, and AquaCalendar which appears to be by Pocket Torch. I decided to install them both, and within a few days I'd decided that they were both pretty good pieces of software.

Handy Calendar starts with a month view at the top, showing the appointments for today at the bottom of the screen. Each appointment for a specific day is shown as a dot on the month view, so you can see quickly how full each day will be without having to navigate to the day. There's a decent amount of space under this month view to show the current/selected day's events. I liked this, because it means that I can see most of the appointments I'm likely to make in any one day. For each day highlighted there is a little "busy bar" shown, which gives me a visual representation of how much of the working day my appointments take up.

If I want to make a new appointment (as opposed to Reminder, All day event, Anniversary or Task), I can just start typing it in with either my bluetooth keyboard, or the T9 keyboard on the phone. There are 4 tabs at the top of the page, and as soon as I've finished editing a field, I can move to the next tab along by pressing the right key on my 5-way navigator. The little pictures are clear on the tabs, allowing me to see, easily, where I am.

If I want to make a recurring appointment which will wake me up every morning at 06:30 EXCEPT on Saturdays and Sundays (I have the girls for that task), I can do that. I know, as my brother pointed out, I can make a recurring appointment every Monday to wake me, and another one for every Tuesday, and every Wednesday etc. But what a fag! Is it really unreasonable of me to want to be able to do this in one go? The whole point of getting a PDA is that you want it to help you organise yourself (unlike a real PA, who I'd pay to organise me!) and make it easy to do so.

I haven't explored the package in very much depth, but it's definitely replaced the on-board calendar program with ease.

AquaCalendar starts with a similar view, although the space available to show the appointments for the selected day is quite substantially smaller - somehow, despite all my efforts to show this in a different way, the best I can now view is 3 lines (very small) of appointments for the selected day. I thought I could view more when I downloaded the app, but something I did has managed to leave me with a view of daisies all over the screen, and unless I tell the software that I want it to show me words on the days of the month, that's what I get. I've tried telling it not to show me icons, but that has no effect. I can also get appointments to repeat on specific days of the week, rather than all of them.

I liked the way that AquaCalendar allowed me to edit the background colour of the display, and that an icon can be assigned to each appointment (aha! This is how I got a screen full of daisies!). Unfortunately for the writers of AquaCalendar, this is all window dressing, and since I can't get the main display to show me what I want, all the colours in the world aren't going to make up for it. Although I’ve got the functionality I wanted, it’s clunky to add your appointments (you have to press the options button, choose new, then decide which type of appointment you want, at which point you can start typing in the details. Although there is a similar “tabbed” style interface, you have to press back to finish editing the tab you’re on, and then you can move to the next tab. The pictures at on the “tabs” are not very clear, so you need to be there to work out what it is you’re editing. That’s not a real drawback, just a comment.
So after my 14 day trial, I’ve made my choice.
While I liked AquaCalendar, I preferred Handy Calendar, because, pretty colours and icons aside, it’s important to be able to view my daily grind as easily as possible. So today I purchased Handy Calendar. Oh, and there’s a price difference – Handy Calendar costs $39.95, where AquaCalendar costs $24.95. And they’ll add VAT in for you too!
Now what I want is a shopping list program which allows me to enter a number of items into it, and check them off a check-list to be displayed while I shop. I used Handy Shopper (no relation!) for Palm, which was a great bit of software. So far I’ve found just 3 pieces of software claiming to work on Symbian s60v3, but one of them doesn’t have a trial version, one of them I couldn’t get to install, and the third I couldn’t get to download. Although only $9.99, I’m not going to buy a program without having a good trial first.

Saying Goodbye to Palm

It is with a sigh of sadness that I say goodbye to Palm. I've given up the struggle, and have gone, neither the iPhone nor the WinMob route; I chose a Nokia N78 running Symbian.

I took delivery of my little gem just over 2 weeks ago, and apart from sending a couple of things (notably mobipocket documents) from my Sony Clie TH55, I've barely touched that worthy old device since.

And I have been faithful! I've struggled for months, now, trying to get my aging device to run more modern software, accepting that I may notice a small reduction in speed.

I tried to upgrade to a better browser, following all the advice and instructions on the web. Sadly, despite every effort (I tried to install Java for Palm in order to continue on and install Opera Mini) I have been forced to continue my web browsing habits using NetFront. It's not even that this is particularly dreadful, unless you try using a site like YouTube, or even Google Calendar, neither of which will work on my old device. Pop over to either of them on the new phone, and you're in!

What I like best is that so far, with a couple of initial hiccoughs, the phone has worked as required. The obvious is there - I can make and receive calls (when Vodafone finally saw fit to release my number). I feel this is a pretty fundamental requirement for a phone of any type. Then there's the web access - a little shaky setting up the connection through my wireless LAN, but that's now set, and I can browse the web. In fact, I've not found anything I can't do on the internet - that said, I've not gone far yet.Google Maps, downloaded and installed, and works.

It will even work with my wireless home network, something I have trouble doing with the version on the Sony - sometimes it might just work, more often I'll be told that I need a data contract to run the program. Goosync works, similarly, either with the wireless network, or with the 3/3.5G connection, and I have my calendar synced. I like the downloaded version of Google Mail better than I like the installed mail application.

It's this whole "It just works" feeling I'm enjoying most. I unfold my bluetooth keyboard, press any button on it, and it's automatically connected. OK, it took me a little while to set up the web access, but I don't feel that a couple of hours investment in learning how to get the most out of my new device is time wasted. After all, I've been a palm fan for the last 10 years, The point is that while I could get my palm and the keyboard connected, it took a bit of a song and dance to do so. And then, when I’d finished using the keyboard, I’d have to remember to go back into the wireless keyboard program and stop the keyboard, before I was able to turn off Bluetooth.

There were all sorts of things which didn't work well – I was never able to get the Frogpad keyboard working consistently well. In fact, more often than not, it wouldn’t connect at all. Despite the claim on the Expansys web site that the Frog would work with Palm, the drivers were not included in the package, and on download they were flaky. There was an option to pay an extra £25 for a driver which would work, but I don’t know about you, I need to know that this will work before I’m prepared to fork out that kind of money on something which should have been included in the original package. Moving on to the N78 – once paired with the Frogpad using the wireless keyboard program, all I have to do is turn it on, and it’s connected. I feel an overwhelming urge to use the American “Booyah!” at this point!

On the, very slight, downside, the built in calendar program is a bit lame. I actually do want a calendar program which will allow me to create just one appointment, and repeat it weekly on certain days - I'd rather not be woken on Saturday morning by my normal weekday alarm! I'm sure that, upon searching, I'll find an excellent replacement. After all, given just how much money I’ve spent on Palm software over the years, it should be clear that I’m not averse to spending a little to get what I need.

There is another downside – the case is astonishingly easy to scratch, and the front, after being pressed up against my not-that-grubby-thankyou ear has a constant smear of grease over it.

In defence of Palm's legion software writers, there have been some astonishing pieces of software written for the Palm platform. For example, TCPMP is a superb piece of software, and genuinely plays videos with a level of control of which I can only dream on the Nokia. DateBk has exactly the right level of control for a calendar application, Filez is a truly excellent file manager, and FXPilot is wonderful for taking on holiday with the latest exchange rates.

So to the tireless, endlessly imaginative, think-outside-the-box, Palm software writers I give my thanks, for producing some of the most useful, inexpensive and brilliant software I've ever used. Can you see why I sigh?

Joys of the Open Road

You'll have noticed, recently, that the weather has been glorious. Indeed, I'm sitting here in a t-shirt, linen trousers and a pair of sandals. Therefore it won't surprise you to hear that I've been seeing a lot more motorcyclists of late. I'm too old, now, to object to the "fair-weather bikers" out there. I remember objecting most strongly when my mother called me a fair-weather biker on the day I'd biked through a huge storm on my way back from the other side of Oxford, had only just finished getting dry, and asked if I could borrow her car!! Nope, if they'd rather not struggle through storms, far be it for me to insist that they're not "real" bikers.

So, apart from noticing these bikers, more disturbingly I've noticed that many of them are displaying a lot of ankle!

No, I'm not a prude dressed in something akin to a burka, believing that a glimpse of ankle will get the opposite sex all hot and bothered. It's the safety aspect which bothers me. I know you have no intention of falling off your bike - this is why it's called an "accident". I just find it distressing how few bikers plan for the eventuality that they may hit the deck at some point during their trip. Let's face it, we know that more bikers are fatally injured than car drivers - it seems to help, having a metal box around you - and even if your accident isn't terminal, you're very much more likely to sustain some serious injuries coming off a bike, than poofed into your airbag in a car.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you're belting down the road at, say, 30, when an idiot pedestrian with a dog decides he hasn't seen you, so Rex and he are crossing the road - within your stopping distance. Even deciding that he and Rex deserve their fate, you're coming off. If you swerve, you've got a really big chance of coming off. If your brakes are particularly good and you haul them on - skidding, falling off - likely to happen. At which point, those unprotected ankles (and indeed most of your unprotected flesh) is at serious risk.

A few years ago, when visiting my friend in hospital, there was a young lad in one of the other beds in his ward. This young lad had come off his bike - and it wasn't even a really bad accident, he'd just slid off. Unfortunately for him his legs weren't protected (beyond that awesome protection that is denim), and at some point during his skid, all the flesh had been scraped off one leg below the knee. Not so bad, was my first thought, at least he didn't crush any bones. But no - you have to think about it, but when there's no flesh, or muscle, what holds the bones together? Well, nothing. So the poor boy ended up losing his leg below the knee, just because the weather is glorious.

So please, it means a lot to me - wear your Boots!

Fictionwise and the Little Niggles

Over the weekend I bought 3 books from Fictionwise, which is a very good e-book site.
The pricing of books which have been in print for a while is fairly competitive, but I cannot bring myself to pay premium prices for a newly "printed" e-book. I don't know about you, but if I'm paying top prices for a book, I'm going to expect it to come with a luxuriously bound hard cover and a jewel bright dust jacket.
But I'm not here to harp on about how you'll want paper and ink for your money. I'm here to chuckle over some of the "historical fiction". When I was young, my best friend used to read out excerpts from books by Georgette Heyer, an author noted for her historical accuracy. I'm not saying, by any means, that I'm particularly knowledgeable about High Society during the 18th and 19th centuries. I like that these authors can take a setting, using names of people who were, in fact, definitely known to exist in these settings at the time of their story, and have them appear, perhaps peripherally, in the story. Let's face it, while there may be a wealth of information available to help with research, adding some romance and intrigue harms none of this.
What I really can't stand is that not one of these authors seems to have visited the UK. Actually, it's not a "can't stand" - it's not their fault, and since there is this wealth of information, freely available on the Internets, they hardly need to be here to check it out. It's more of a niggle.
In the last one, the heroine wears a beaver hat. Here's the deal - beavers have been absent from England for about 500 years. Sure, it's possible that the hat could have come from the US, but it's not really the sort of hat a heroine
(especially not a lady) would wear. You know, you could just leave it at Fur.
In The DaVinci Code (oh god! yes, I did read it!) a huge plot point revolves around the London police surrounding the house in which a suspect has hidden, and shooting him before they could realise that he's not actually the guy they want. Happens every day in New York, I expect, but it doesn't happen in England. Oh, goodness I'm not suggesting that the British police don't make mistakes - I've no doubt they're just as misinformed as their American counterparts. The reason that this couldn't happen in London is that the police don't carry guns. IF (and it's a big if) the police have reason to believe that guns are needed, they tend to get specially trained members of the police force involved, and even then, the chap would have to be shooting before he'd have been shot himself. So, Dan Brown, that's a pretty big issue. It's also a bad assumption. And once again, the Internets could have helped. I just googled "do British police carry guns", and was rewarded with many informative articles.
In the other two "historical romances" I bought there were other, smaller, niggles - mostly the use of names e.g. Lord Petersborough - no, trust me he'd have been Peterborough, and Diccon - read A Secret Garden, the name is Dickon.
However, all that aside, I'm well into the third book I bought (all three for about $4.50 each - not bad value!) and I'm enjoying them immensely. I'm not about to let some Little Niggles stop me enjoying a jolly good romp!

Reddit and Parents

I joined Reddit a few months ago, quickly becoming aware of what a spectacular timewaster it can be. Especially if you register, filter what you see and start to comment on the stories. And I'm slightly ashamed to say that I really enjoy it. I've enjoyed reading some very intelligent comments from some of the users (although I have to say that there seem to be an equally large contingent of idiots, whose sole aim seems to be to downmod the noobz, and belittle anyone asking questions). In fact, most of my time is not spent on the actual "news" stories (after all, lolcats is hardly newsworthy, now, is it?) but on reading the, sometimes caustic, comments the items generate.

But today there was an article I enjoyed just for the story itself. It concerned a parent who sold her son's XBox after he'd deliberately broken her vacuum cleaner in order to avoid having to do any chores. So I quickly clicked the link for the comments attached to this story, only to find that while there were a number of replies of the "That'll larn him!" type, there were an equal amount of replies stating that this was a complete over reaction on the part of the mother, and she hadn't "won" the battle at all, in addition to which, this was just going to make her surly offspring even more surly. There were even some vague almost-threats, suggesting that the kid would come back with something more dreadful, and if she woke up to find that he'd knifed her in the night, it would be her fault.

OK - this is the question. And I'm not going to pose it on Reddit, where I'd get rude comments for being "dum" (sic).

Why is it considered unacceptable to punish a teenager for willful destructiveness? This kid broke an expensive piece of kit, just so that he wouldn't have to use it to help around the house. The comment about someone whose friend's mum had made her vacuum the house 3 times a day is probably not relevent here - possible, but not really likely. After all, if she were that anal, she probably wouldn't have let him have an XBox in the first place.

I don't believe that smacking a child of this age would work. Few mums can smack hard enough to make a difference, and anyway, there's a whole world of possible complications involving the law, and whether you're allowed to smack children anyway. And don't get me started on how much it hurts to be smacked with a Dr Scholl sandall - remember those wooden ones? Therefore, some punishment which shows the child the cost (I wont say value) of items would seem to be appropriate. I'd say that an XBox for a Vacuum cleaner is a pretty equitable exchange. OK, it would have to have been a fairly pricey vacuum cleaner...

I think that one of the difficulties faced by parents, specifically of this current generation of young louts (and I do speak as a parent, you know), is teaching them not to waste money. When I was growing up I felt the lack of "things" - one year for my birthday I'd requested a Sony casette player so that I could listen to my stuff. I got a cheap alternative, and I can't even remember what make it was. Another year I'd requested a Braun curling tong , and received the very much cheaper model from Boots. You get the drift. I suspect that I'm not alone amongst my peers in feeling this lack. Pennies were tight, and my parents were tighter. In those days, just paying the mortgate and feeding children were sufficient to take pretty much all the earned cash. So, here I am, with consumables cheap enough to deny my children little, the memory of those "cheaper" alternatives still strong in my mind, and I don't WANT to deny them the things that they say they want. But how am I to teach them to value the things I have bought for them?

A few weeks ago my youngest broke something of mine (not so much deliberately, as without thought), and when questioned, suggested that it was "OK - you can just buy a new one!"

And here's the big problem - I don't want to lose my rag, especially if the item in question is a not-very-valuable trinket. But sometimes even a not-very-valuable-trinket can have some senitmental value. Or a rarity, because you don't know where to get another one, and you REALLY liked the one you had.

While I suspect that I, and my parent peers, are in the large part responsible for this kind of behaviour, I'm pretty convinced that we also hold the key to its solution. Where smacking no longer works, maybe hawking our childrens' goodies on online auctions could be the way to go.

Lord of the Rings

I was hugely amused to read in the Daily Mail an article acusing us Britons of being rather dumb, illustrating the point with a number of humerous anecdotes taken from radio phone ins or television quizzes.

One of the snippets was a question from Ulrika Johnson, to a hapless contestant:
UJ: Who wrote Lord of the Rings
Contestant: Enid Blyton.

At which point, I'm afraid to say, I cackled. And not, because of the poor contestant, who, thankfully remains nameless, but because of just how cool LOTR would have been had it actually been written by Enid Blyton!

For starters, there'd have been a hell of a lot more ginger beer!