Someone Else

Any talk of Google's Android "killing" the iPhone seems premature.

2008-08-21T20:56:53Z

I'm going to pick on just one or two articles and snark them to death here, because I'm mean like that in a rush, but there are quite a few similar pieces out there which I could just as easily hang this article from. For those of you who have been busy doing other things besides worry about what goes inside your cellphone, you may be bored to hear that Google are releasing a product known as "Android", which has been positioned by more than a few people as an "iPhone killer"...(read more)

Some people are easily pleased

2008-07-21T21:27:22Z

Just found Ed Bott's report of the "crapware" free laptop that Sony have given him to review (thanks to John Gruber/ Daring Fireball ). I'm glad for Ed that he's so happy, and this is certainly a big improvement over the last time he got down deep with a Sony laptop, but I've got to ask: Doesn't Ed seem absurdly grateful when you consider that what he's basically doing is thanking Sony for deigning to stop being quite so obvious about violating customers? Don't...(read more)

New Buildings and Apologies

2008-07-21T21:02:27Z

In the grand tradition of this blog, I need to apologise for not posting again. I don't have much of a defence, except that I've been very busy at work for reasons that I can now talk about: My employer has finally received all the confirmations, funding and planning permission we need in order to start building an entirely new campus which should be finished in 2010. I am delighted to finally be able to talk about this in detail - while it's hardly been a secret that we've been planning...(read more)

Samsung Instinct appears to be full of fail

2008-05-07T20:17:22Z

Coming from a snark on John Gruber's site about Samsung's instinct going head to head with the iPhone in a hundred million dollar advertising campaign, I find the Gizmodo article with videos of the two phones side by side. And I have to say what the hell are they smoking in Sprint and Samsung too for that matter ? Maybe I've misunderstood this, but the selling points of the Samsung Instinct are that it has 3G and GPS built in. Like the next version of the iPhone which is supposed to be...(read more)

Round-up

2008-05-05T17:24:00Z

I just wanted to quickly gather up some links to articles I've found interesting of late. First of all, Claus Valca has some great posts over on Grand Stream Dreams. I want to draw your attention to a link roundup and comments post Claus made a week or so ago because of some interesting stuff he's found around Firefox and the implications of how it pre-fetches content ( This Week in Firefox Tips (Tinfoil Hats optional but stylish , towards the bottom of the article). If you use Firefox this...(read more)

Building a Media Centre

2008-05-05T12:46:41Z

As anyone who takes even a cursory glance at this site will know, I've been critical of Windows Vista for a very long time ( way before it became fashionable to bash it! Who says I'm not a trendsetter?). With Service Pack One being released I thought it was time for another decent trial. Building "Brandine" So rooting around in my box of spare computer bits, I realised I had enough spare parts to build a new computer, with the exception of a case and motherboard. All the computers...(read more)

Windows XP SP3 - What I've found so far

2008-04-28T23:13:07Z

Just some quick notes on what I've noticed, or been told by people I trust, about XP SP3 so far. My own experiences are based on a clean install at home and a few test upgrades at work (ah the benefits of being paid to do R&D). What XP Service Pack 3 is - and is not. Windows XP SP3 is a collection of hotfixes and patches that are rolled up into one giant patch for Windows XP. Unlike SP2, SP3 does not make substantial changes to the way Windows XP works and does not add a lot of new features...(read more)

Windows XP SP3: Pretty damn good actually. Windows Live Installer: Sucks like a vacuum.

2008-04-26T17:21:00Z

I was originally going to base the title on The Scorpions' " Rock You Like a Hurricane " but then I realised that "suck you" was open to all kinds of misinterpretation and wouldn't end well. Still on with what I really wanted to say. I've just done a clean rebuild of my XP desktop machine, partly because it hadn't been done for about 2 years and was due, and partly because I wanted to install XP Service Pack 3 now it's been released. So XP SP3 installs very...(read more)

In the Meh-sh

2008-04-26T11:43:00Z

So it seems the fruits of Ray Ozzie's labour at Microsoft are starting to appear in public at last. And I for one say "Your point being...?" I'd love to link to their blog at this point to let them explain it, but it seems that their .live.com server is knackered at the moment. Bodes well for the mesh service doesn't it? Apparently it's a platform that is designed to put me at the centre of my digital world. Oh good. I thought I was already at their centre, what with them...(read more)

You know what would be even faster?

2008-04-05T22:02:00Z

I found this post on Lifehacker via Kurt Wismer , someone whose comments I've kept an eye on for since I started reading the alt.comp.virus newsgroup, which is quite a time ago now. Kurt seems to have the habit of annoying people by simply speaking the truth as he sees it and not spending too much time and effort on sugar-coating. I'd personally consider that an asset in people who are there to talk about security but many people still seem to blame the messenger when someone points out the...(read more)

Exchange 2007 SP1 migration: Troubleshooting OWA issues

2008-03-31T13:28:00Z

I'm going to make a note of issues I've encountered with the Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 migration at work, and which didn't have immediately obvious solutions. It's been far too long since I posted anything that wasn't a thinly (or not so thinly) disguised rant about some aspect of IT that I'm vexed at. After migrating a mailbox to Exchange 2007 SP1 from Exchange 2003, the user attempts to access their mailbox via Outlook Web Access and gets redirected to the correct URL...(read more)

Just because you're used to an abusive relationship, it doesn't make it OK.

2008-03-23T00:23:00Z

I have to admit that some areas of the computer industry make me asahmed to be part of the IT profession at times. Take gaming - 1up.com's article on 5 botched game launches talks about Steam ... Yes, yes, we all love Steam now. By which we mean "It hasn't gone away yet, and people won't visit our site if we don't talk about Valve". It's the model of digital distribution and community management in PC gaming right now By which we mean "We're high." utterly...(read more)

FDisk is back, now with a GUI interface.

2008-03-21T15:06:00Z

Microsoft have released a new tool to render your Vista installation (even more) unusable and hence prod you into moving back to XP or buying a Mac. More info here . I'd love to give a serious review but the laptop we use at work to test Vista / simulate a "home user" accessing our services remotely crashed while downloading Vista SP1. There's a certain amount of irony in Vista being so unreliable at times that you can't even get it to hold still long enough to fix it. As ever...(read more)

iPhone to support Exchange ActiveSync

2008-03-06T19:28:00Z

Apple have today announced that along with their SDK to allow developers to produce 3rd party apps for the iPhone they have also been working on support for Exchange server. How about that, I guess I was right . Doesn't the list of things Phil Schiller produces for an Enterprise iPhone sound a lot like the laundry list of device management policy options in Exchange 2007? Never mind, I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Let's be honest here, the iPhone has been a roaring success just...(read more)

Netscape Navigator to die (again?) on Feb 1st 2008.

2007-12-29T13:37:00Z

Ah the death of Netscape. I remember it well and I guess I'll miss it, a large part of computer history and my own too I guess, so goodbye and thankyou Netscape Navigator. Just finished reading this blog post on wired that reports that Netscape Navigator is to fold it's tent and slip into the night early next year and I have to admit I'm not quite sure how I feel. Some of the people who worked on it are glad it's going away and who am I to argue with that though I guess. One big issue...(read more)