Yes Microsoft, just what we needed, a new version of "Solitaire" for Windows Vista. Perhaps you should have used all those developers to maybe, bring out a product with the features you said it would have.
All posts by alex
John Barry : Themeology
Listening to John Barry’s best of album "Themeology" this morning reminds me just how influential his music has been on cinema. Having seen The Ipcress File on TV the other night, I just love his characteristic sound style. I guess it’s also because Derren Brown uses it as his theme tune to his TV series that I like it as well.
Puss filled purulent imbeciles
When we moved into our current house, I emailed the council and had our council tax account changed form the old house to the new. Great. They emailed back to confirm the address as it didn’t quite match what they had, but no matter, it was all sorted and I was assured the direct debit would just start up again in a month or so.
Foolish me for thinking they would do what they said they would.
Cut to me now 6 months on and my landlord emails saying he’s been asked to appear in court for non payment of council tax. He explained to them that we were the tenants, and why hadn’t they sent demands to us. Their answer: "we didn’t know where to send the bill". Now there is a large bill for council tax and (I can only imagine) a fast amount of sundry fees added by the council winging its way over.
Luckily for me, all this was conducted by email and letter, all of which I have copies of – I am going to have a calm little chat with them when they open on Tuesday…
Way to go Kensington & Chelsea Council.
Cunts.
Blogging Upgrade
Just upgraded to MT 3.2 – it looks prettier without a doubt, however only time will tell if its spam blocking is just as good as Jay Allan’s spam plugin (you’d hope it would be, given he now works for Six Apart).
Derren Brown – Pure Effect
This week, I shall be mostly reading Derren Brown’s "Pure Effect". Review to follow!
Sleight of Mind – Book Review
Having devoured this book during my weekend away, here are my thoughts.
As is normally the case with these specialist titles with small print runs, there are plenty of typos; but that doesn’t actually detract from the book.
It has a good mix of background on mentalism in general plus a few "routines" to get you started. It’s well referenced so there’s plenty of scope for further reading. In fact, I’ve just bought Derren Brown’s book "Pure Effect" off the back of it.
For someone like me who is totally new to the scene of psychological illusion, this is a great book to start with. I have really no intention of performing any of this in front of an audience, but it does give you a great insight into people watching and the awesome talent and showmanship of people like Derren Brown.
Warsaw Roundup
Having just spent a weekend baking in the heat of Warsaw, here are some ideas of what to do over there in the summer:
- Lazienki Park
- Vast park near the centre of Warsaw, very popular. Has lots of cafés an ice cream shops as well as red squirrels. Few toilets though!
- Wilanów Park
- The palace of Wilanów was built in the French style with lots of fussy gardens. It’s nice and cool in the summer and has rowing boats you can hire out to go out onto the river with. The best part is the branch of Wedel’s café outside the gates.
- University Biblioteka
- Why does Imperial not have a library with a roof garden as awesome as this? Go and enjoy then have lunch in their cheap, but excellent, cafeteria. Open to all.
Windows Vista – Initial thoughts on Beta 1
Yes, ok, it’s been out for a little while now, but I thought it would be nice to add my 2p’s worth.
The good
- Virtual folders
- These are ace – they essentially display the contents of a search pattern you set, so "all pictures" for example. I haven’t yet worked out how to define my own criteria so I’m stuck with the defaults for now.
- Searching
- As it’s coupled with the above, you’d expect it to be pretty fast, and it is. When you click once on a file in Explorer, you get a sort of bar at the bottom for you to add metadata to files so that the search works better:
- As it’s coupled with the above, you’d expect it to be pretty fast, and it is. When you click once on a file in Explorer, you get a sort of bar at the bottom for you to add metadata to files so that the search works better:
- Group Policy
- There appears to be a new group policy option called "pushed printers". Probably not relevant for the home user, but this is the first time us Windows SysAdmins have been given a decent tool for deploying printer settings.
- There appears to be a new group policy option called "pushed printers". Probably not relevant for the home user, but this is the first time us Windows SysAdmins have been given a decent tool for deploying printer settings.
The bad
- Windows shortcut keys
- Although they’ve not gone (Windows+E still opens explorer, Windows+R does the run menu), they’ve changed Windows+L to log out instead of lock computer/switch user. Put it back please!
- Start menu search
- At the bottom of the start menu is a search box, however it only searches for program names, not the entire computer. It’s confusing and annoying.
- At the bottom of the start menu is a search box, however it only searches for program names, not the entire computer. It’s confusing and annoying.
The ugly
- The logon screen
- Well, it’s radically different. I’d liken it to a KDE (Linux) desktop or Mac OS X. You don’t get any drop down box to pick a domain – you have to type [domain]\[username]. If you don’t specify a domain it assumes a local account.
You also have to click a button to "switch user" – it shows you the account of the person who last logged on as per normal, however setting the policy "Do not display last user name" has no effect.
- Well, it’s radically different. I’d liken it to a KDE (Linux) desktop or Mac OS X. You don’t get any drop down box to pick a domain – you have to type [domain]\[username]. If you don’t specify a domain it assumes a local account.
- As Vista is built upon Windows Server 2003 SP1, you would have imagined that they’d finally allowed multiple logins – i.e. one on the console and up to two via remote desktop. Despite the fact that the group policy templates are in for that, and task manager shows the "users" tab in the same way as Server 2003, I’ve not been able to get that to work. It behaves in the same way as XP it seems.
New book
I have a new book, and it’s going to allow me to mess with people’s minds. Or not.
Detailed review to follow.
Death Smoothie
I’m very concerned – what I assumed to be an exceptionally healthy drink may actually cause me irreparable damage. Curses!
Also, I wasn’t aware that Bees made pollen?