Sunday, 6 February 2011
Just what we always thought!
I've just found a picture that sums up what I think of a certain well known fast food pusher's retailer's products.
Obviously I can't be the only one who thinks that McDiabetes fries and burgers aren't good for you.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
The doctor is in.......
Happy New Year all!
It's almost two months since I wrote anything, mostly due to lack of time: if I haven't been working, I've been sleeping.
This weekend I've been holding a "laptop clinic" for the family. The result is one repaired and working keyboard, one cleaned and working DVD drive and one completely trashed BIOS - not caused by me I might add.
The keyboard - fairly simple. A liquid induced burn out fixed by an eBay purchase.
The BIOS - no solution really.The laptop is a geriatric Acer TravelMate with a seriously screwed chip. Randomly set BIOS passwords and nothing past the time and date shown on the Basic Settings screen. It was to the point where it wouldn't even recognise any of the hardware properly. This will be cured again by eBay I suspect. I was able to salvage everything of importance of the hard disk so no real loss.
Now the DVD drive. If you have a family who like to grow their hair long, and you start getting problems with their computer and home entertainment kit, don't go looking for you nearest repair man first, go looking for the large hair ball (or similar) wrapped around the central spindle of the drive. It'll save you money!
Go careful out there people - it's a rough world.
It's almost two months since I wrote anything, mostly due to lack of time: if I haven't been working, I've been sleeping.
This weekend I've been holding a "laptop clinic" for the family. The result is one repaired and working keyboard, one cleaned and working DVD drive and one completely trashed BIOS - not caused by me I might add.
The keyboard - fairly simple. A liquid induced burn out fixed by an eBay purchase.
The BIOS - no solution really.The laptop is a geriatric Acer TravelMate with a seriously screwed chip. Randomly set BIOS passwords and nothing past the time and date shown on the Basic Settings screen. It was to the point where it wouldn't even recognise any of the hardware properly. This will be cured again by eBay I suspect. I was able to salvage everything of importance of the hard disk so no real loss.
Now the DVD drive. If you have a family who like to grow their hair long, and you start getting problems with their computer and home entertainment kit, don't go looking for you nearest repair man first, go looking for the large hair ball (or similar) wrapped around the central spindle of the drive. It'll save you money!
Go careful out there people - it's a rough world.
Friday, 5 November 2010
The punter strikes back.
Working where I do at the moment - at the site of a major broadcaster - I occasionally have to visit offices occupied by some of the creative departments. One of them creates small props for TV shows.
Sometimes you really wish you were there when the person lit the first and only one of the stolen cigarettes!
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Disable your Adblock!
Has anyone seen this page appear recently?
http://www.cpalead.com/adblock.php
Surely the idea of pop-up and adblockers is to stop all of this happening.
CPA Lead is a web advertising agency and to be honest, I think they've missed the point - as have some of their customers. I suspect that this is going to make matters worse for those customers who have taken this script and it will actually decrease the amount of traffic through their sites, rather than boost their customer's - and therefore CPAlead's own income.
Just as an experiment I disabled adblock on a page that presented this message, just to check out the ads on the page. Practically every ad on the page was for a company or a product that I'd not use because I can't get them where I live on this side of the planet. The only ads I did find that were remotely relevant were from Google - those at least were from companies in my own country.
Not sure this is a good company either. Looking through their blogs and the comments that people have left I get the distinct impression that as far as they're concerned there isn't a world outside of North America(possibly even outside the USA). They are also very good a dodging the question.
I wonder what the writer of Adblock/Adblock Plus has to say about this?
Oh, by the way, you can get around it with AdBlockPlus.
http://www.cpalead.com/adblock.php
Surely the idea of pop-up and adblockers is to stop all of this happening.
CPA Lead is a web advertising agency and to be honest, I think they've missed the point - as have some of their customers. I suspect that this is going to make matters worse for those customers who have taken this script and it will actually decrease the amount of traffic through their sites, rather than boost their customer's - and therefore CPAlead's own income.
Just as an experiment I disabled adblock on a page that presented this message, just to check out the ads on the page. Practically every ad on the page was for a company or a product that I'd not use because I can't get them where I live on this side of the planet. The only ads I did find that were remotely relevant were from Google - those at least were from companies in my own country.
Not sure this is a good company either. Looking through their blogs and the comments that people have left I get the distinct impression that as far as they're concerned there isn't a world outside of North America(possibly even outside the USA). They are also very good a dodging the question.
I wonder what the writer of Adblock/Adblock Plus has to say about this?
Oh, by the way, you can get around it with AdBlockPlus.
- As the page loads, go to the adblockPlus icon and select:"Disable on this page only".
- Wait for the page to finish loading
- de-select: "Disable on this page only".
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
"Greening" IT
I've just been browsing through the latest crop of IT trade mags that drop onto my desk around this time of the month, and it never ceases to amaze me when I see headlines "Most efficient data centre to date".
Without exception every single story I have seen of late that has a picture attached, either an external shot of the building or an internal shot of one of the data halls, shows the damn thing has been built in a converted factory unit!
Whilst I will admit that there are a growing number of these that have some form of environmental containment, surely it's about time that people began to look at the buildings themselves and what can be included in the design and construction stage to lessen the need for the more expensive solutions.
And yes, I agree. If there's no option because your data hall has to be built inside an exisiting building with no hope of re-designing the structure, then containment is your only option.
Without exception every single story I have seen of late that has a picture attached, either an external shot of the building or an internal shot of one of the data halls, shows the damn thing has been built in a converted factory unit!
Whilst I will admit that there are a growing number of these that have some form of environmental containment, surely it's about time that people began to look at the buildings themselves and what can be included in the design and construction stage to lessen the need for the more expensive solutions.
And yes, I agree. If there's no option because your data hall has to be built inside an exisiting building with no hope of re-designing the structure, then containment is your only option.
Thursday, 2 September 2010
U-turn, or just a new set of paints.
So Channel 5 are back in with Canvas, Hmmm. did someone over in Murdockville not put up a very good case for staying out? Is the Sky not the limit any more?
I used to find it strange that anything the BBC did was immediately poo-poo'd or lambasted by RM and his crowd no matter what it was. These days, I just find it sad and predictable.
I used to find it strange that anything the BBC did was immediately poo-poo'd or lambasted by RM and his crowd no matter what it was. These days, I just find it sad and predictable.
Monday, 12 July 2010
Newsbytes
Canvassing Support.
Bertelsmann who own the UK's Channel 5 have pulled them out of the Project Canvas consortium, just when broadband was looking to be a serious competitor to DTT and DSAT for streaming output to the punter.
For those of you who want to know the consortium had the idea of another set-top box, this one dedicated to picking up streamed content on the web and letting you watch it on your TV. Considering that the only serious web-based competitor to this is Windows Media Edition, I thought this would be a winner.
One caveat on that though..... there's still over 10 million people who either don't have or don't want broadband, which may put a crimp on what the consortium are doing if it were delivered tomorrow, but as they are taking their timer and developing this slowly, I think Bertelmann are leaving the party too early.
via El-Reg
Crossed eyes forever!.
UBIsoft's UK marketing mogul Murray Pannell has gone out on a bit of a limb recently and said that there'll be a 3Dtv in every home by 2013.
Yeah,.... right,......
OK, I think he might seriously look at the current sales figures for HDtv - they still aren't great for either the sets or the set-top boxes. I honestly think he needs to rethink himself. I wouldn't even know where to find what the figures for those who still don't even have DTT, not a show-stopper, but still a significant number I would have thought.
via The Independent
Out-foxed.
I'd never heard of Martha Lane Fox until all the quango-culling happened when the Con-Lab coalition came to power after the last election. She was head of what was called the "Digital Public Service Unit": one of Gordo's last few inceptions before he and the Labour party lost their remit to govern. She's put herself forward as a sort of digital champion.
She's published a document which is both a masterpiece and a travesty of publishing. Her "Manifesto for a Networked Nation" is - if you can bear to read through it before your eyes give out with the ludicrous colour scheme and almost infinite changes in font - is a laudable aim. She has done her homework reasonably well, even if she is colour-blind. And don't think her website raceonline2012.org is any better: it fries the eyes as well.
via Digital Spy - which is far easier to read than her manifesto
Bertelsmann who own the UK's Channel 5 have pulled them out of the Project Canvas consortium, just when broadband was looking to be a serious competitor to DTT and DSAT for streaming output to the punter.
For those of you who want to know the consortium had the idea of another set-top box, this one dedicated to picking up streamed content on the web and letting you watch it on your TV. Considering that the only serious web-based competitor to this is Windows Media Edition, I thought this would be a winner.
One caveat on that though..... there's still over 10 million people who either don't have or don't want broadband, which may put a crimp on what the consortium are doing if it were delivered tomorrow, but as they are taking their timer and developing this slowly, I think Bertelmann are leaving the party too early.
via El-Reg
Crossed eyes forever!.
UBIsoft's UK marketing mogul Murray Pannell has gone out on a bit of a limb recently and said that there'll be a 3Dtv in every home by 2013.
Yeah,.... right,......
OK, I think he might seriously look at the current sales figures for HDtv - they still aren't great for either the sets or the set-top boxes. I honestly think he needs to rethink himself. I wouldn't even know where to find what the figures for those who still don't even have DTT, not a show-stopper, but still a significant number I would have thought.
via The Independent
Out-foxed.
I'd never heard of Martha Lane Fox until all the quango-culling happened when the Con-Lab coalition came to power after the last election. She was head of what was called the "Digital Public Service Unit": one of Gordo's last few inceptions before he and the Labour party lost their remit to govern. She's put herself forward as a sort of digital champion.
She's published a document which is both a masterpiece and a travesty of publishing. Her "Manifesto for a Networked Nation" is - if you can bear to read through it before your eyes give out with the ludicrous colour scheme and almost infinite changes in font - is a laudable aim. She has done her homework reasonably well, even if she is colour-blind. And don't think her website raceonline2012.org is any better: it fries the eyes as well.
via Digital Spy - which is far easier to read than her manifesto
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)