The PC is on it’s last legs truth be told and needs replacing with something newer. However they don’t hold a copy of the software that runs the terminals. I contacted the suppliers (its all still under maintenance) to see if it was possible to either move the software to a new PC or to get a newer version that would run the terminals they had.

I ended up with the Account Manager for the organisation. He told me that the whole system would need upgrade, basically his words were that the company that built the terminals and provided the software had gone bust. That it was no longer possible to maintain the hardware or get software updates from them. He came and demonstrated a new system to them. And again he told us that the suppliers of the old system were no longer in business. He ended up quoting them £15,000 for a brand new system

That turned out to be a big mistake. The terminals had the name of the manufactures printed on them. It was but a matter of a quick Google search to come up with their website which showed that the company was still in operation. Then it was only a matter of 5 minutes to find their UK based reseller and contact them.

With 10 minutes work I had managed to find this information. Following this with an email I was put in touch with the relevant people who could help me. They told me that the terminals were fine and would work fine for at least another 10 years. Then to really make me happy they also told me the software had been replaced by a newer version. With the installation and training the price came down to £1500. Wayyyyy cheaper than my original price.

Let that be a lesson to you, don’t take what a sales guy tells you at face value. It’s always worth doing a little of your own research. At the end of the day while it might appear he is friendly he’s still a wolf in sheep’s clothing, looking for the oppertunity to make a quick buck on you (Yes I know not all sales guys are like this, heck I do some sales work and I know I’m not like that, but its the exception rather than the rule I’m afraid).

A lot of people would say the only thing Internet Explorer is good for is downloading something else to surf the web with. Truth be told, I’d tend to agree. My current browser of choice is Firefox and it has been for a long time now. That’s not just because I spend most of time using a Mac either. Even when I use a Windows machine I still look for the the FF icon to do my web browsing. I only use IE when I have no other option, like if I am using an ASP based app which does seem to need IE to run properly. Judging from the ever growing market share of other browsers against IE. Its a fair assumption that more and more people I coming to realise that they don’t have to be stuck with what comes installed on their machine.

[See the full chart]

Microsoft have decided to hit back at all the negative press that IE 8 receives by pushing out some interesting propaganda. A comparison chart for the IE 8 against Chrome and Firefox. They seem to have used some unusual features to compare against and claim that IE 8 is better than all the rest. In all honesty considering the track record of Microsoft I think I’d rather have a third party do the comparisons for me, some one who doesn’t have an axe to grind either way thank you. The sad part about this is that some people will actually take this as gospel, they will believe that this chart us the truth because it is by Microsoft.

In another lame attempt to curry favour, there is also the offer of $10,000 (aus) by Microsoft Australia to people who follow an Internet treasure hunt, but only if they are using IE 8. I’m cyncially but again there are people who will fall for this and get lured back into using IE.

What do you think of Mircosofts attempts to gain popularity for IE 8?

Anyone using something like Stumbleupon will be sick to the back teeth of coming across websites going back and forth over the new features so we thought we would have a little break from this and give you a diversion.

Play Games at AddictingGames

The reason I dislike Microsoft is for the way they seem to not give care about their user’s rights. In a time where people are growing more and more conscious of what is getting installed on their computer, of being security aware Microsoft have gone an done it once again.

A story posted on The Registry (Read the story here) points out that quite a few users have noticed the appearance of a new add on in FireFox since they installed a service pack for the .Net Framework. This new ‘add-on ‘ called Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant is silently installed on the user’s PC during the update. The add on is supposed to make it easier to install .Net programs, making it a ‘one-click’ install, but as many users have pointed out this leaves them open to attacks as it makes it possible for websites to silently install software on the PC i.e. with out the user knowing about it.

Many people are sure to take exception to this even though there’s no actually evidence of an attack. Interestingly the update is also exceptionally hard to remove. The uninstall button in the FireFox add on manager is disabled. Most FireFox add ons are installed on a user basis, but the Microsoft one installs it’s self for the ever user. Hence the user is unable to install as the add on manager can only manage add ons for that user. The only way to install this add on was via a registy edit, which is lets face it not something the average user is going to feel comfortable doing. The add on has now been updated to work on a user by user basis so it is now easier to remove at least, but that still doesn’t get away from the fact that it was installed with out the user really noticing it.

As the article on The Register states, things like this can only make you wonder what else a Window’s Update might have messed with silently in the past, I’m sure some one out there will probably have a look through.

This is where MacLock comes in to play. MacLock activates the Fast User Switching in Mac OS X . When you click on MacLock it will appear that you have logged out. But the difference is that all the applications and documents you had open will still be there when you enter your password. It’s just like locking your PC when using Windows. Very useful if there are people around you don’t trust when you leave your Mac by it’s self.

To get it for free all you have to do is follow MacHeist on Tweeter and post a direct reply to them (there is even a special button on their page to do this. If you’re interested, follow this link

Everyone knows the adverts, both the Mac version and the Microsoft retorts. The Mac ones are quite satirical, they poke fun at the difference between the two

I recently read an article on Daring Fireball that points out how Microsoft missed the point of these adverts when they made their reply. The Mac adverts highlighted the fact Mac mad the computer and the OS while PC is a generic term for a collection of machines made by different manufactures. The Mircosoft adverts merely re-enforced this fact. Read the article here for a better understandng

]]> http://www.pingmyhobbit.co.uk/blog/2009/02/im-a-pc-and-im-a-mac/feed/ 0 http://www.pingmyhobbit.co.uk/blog/2009/02/postbox-thunderbird-tweaked/ http://www.pingmyhobbit.co.uk/blog/2009/02/postbox-thunderbird-tweaked/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:22:04 +0000 Andy http://www.pingmyhobbit.co.uk/blog/?p=288

For the past week or so I’ve been using a new email client. I’ve been a big fan of Thunderbird for a while, I like it’s simplistic style and it’s easy of use. I also like that it’s not made by Microsoft! The biggest draw back I’ve found with Thunderbird is it’s search routines. I find it to not always be reliable for looking for things that I know are in my inbox somewhere. I stumbled across Postbox and thought I would give it a try.

Postbox is based on the same code as Thunderbird and to be honest, from my experience it still feels a lot like using Thunderbird but with a lot of added features. It looks cleaner than Thunderbird, it still has a message list and a message preview but it breaks down separate mail boxes showing only the folders specific to the highlighted mail box.

Here are some of the added features you get with Postbox:

• Advanced Search – You don’t just get the search box at the top right to fill in, you can bring up a pop up menu where you can search specific fields in a message like sender email address or contact name.

• Conversation View – Messages with the same topic are grouped together, much like they are in gmail’s web interface, meaning you can see a whole conversation (both received and sent) in one view making it much easier to keep track of whats being said.

• Introspective Pane – When a message is clicked all images, links and addresses are shown on a pane (much like attachments are) to the side allowing you to easily see anything you might need.

• Email Tagging – Emails can be tagged to particular topics, even to multiple ones allowing you to quickly find all related emails. Kind of like filtering on the fly.

• Tabbed Browsing – Open up different folders in different windows then swtich between tabs just like you would in Firefox.

• To Do List – Hold you to do list in your inbox, mark emails as to do as well.

• List Attachments/Links/Images – With postbox you can list search through your folders and produce a list of all attachments, web links or images included in them. Can be quite useful if you know you received a certain file but cant remember the sender.

The main downside for me is that it doesn’t currently have a calendar and as it doesn’t support adds (like Thunderbird does) you can’t install the Lightening add on to get around this. It’s still in beta so there is the possiblity that this may be added yet.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I love my iPhone. Out of the gadgets I own it is probably my favourite one. There are two features I feel it really misses though. One of them is the ability to record videos (something you cant really do with out jailbreaking, not gonna do that just yet). The other is the ability to record audio files.

I think I’ve found a nice little app that gets round this however. I did some searching (and some testing earlier today) and found iTalk from Griffin Technologies. It comes in a free and a pro version where the only difference is no adds, all the functionality it still there. Actually usage of the program is one big red button to start recording and one big green button to stop. There’s the option to tag a file with your own name and iTalk automatically adds date and timestamps.

The real plus point of this is app though is found by downloading the iTalk sync app from their website. This app runs on your computer (mac or windows) and searches your wifi network for any connected iPhones. Once it finds them it gives you a list, you can select your iPhone and then it lists all audio files recorded in iTalk. A drag and drop interface then allows you to copy the file to your computer or add it directly to iTunes. It sure takes a lot of hassle out of the job

Ok it’s not that I am totally unimpressed with it. I like the functionality of it, being able to show all my open screens at once by pressing two buttons. I like the four way scrolling, I like look of it. The thing I don’t like about the MM is that there is no way to clean the rollers around the scroll ball. Anybody who has used a MM will tell you that after a while dirt can get lodged beneath the ball and make it not operate to peak efficiency. It starts to stick when rolling in one direction. It gets to be rather annoying. Now anyone who has used a computer for a few years will remember this used to be a problem before the days of optical mice when the rolls around the mouse ball used to get clogged and the cursor would no longer move round the screen like it used to.

With that kind of mouse it was a little bit of a pain but could easliy be rectified by flipping the mouse over, unlocking the cover which would allow you to remove the ball and access the rollers to clean them. Unfortunately that’s not possible with the MM as it is a sealed unit. Yes that’s right the Mighty Mouse is sealed and there is now way to get to the rollers to clean them. There are lots of suggestions around on the Internet for ways to clean inside without forcing the mouse apart. Many people suggest cutting a small piece of sellotape and slowly feeding this past the ball with the sticky side facing away from the ball………………… Now I don’t know about you but that seems a reall crappy solution. Have you tried feeding something past the ball, there isn’t much of a gap and if the dirt behind the ball is a large blob then the tape cant get under it to stick to it.

I’ve also read suggestions that turning the mouse upside down and pressing the scroll wheel in while rolling it can dislodge the dirty……………. well I gave that a try and it didn’t work for me! I have to ask myself why Apple would make it so hard to access a part that is obviously going to have issues with dirty beneath it. Is it simply a design over site or is it an attempt to make people decide it would be much simplier to throw away their Might Mouse and buy a new one when it stops responding to the scroll ball? Considering the price of a new Might Mouse I have to say my gut feeling is it is an attempt to make a big more money from their users by forcing them to have to buy an accessory quite often. (Mine has had this problem 3 times in less than a year!)

Unfortunately the only solution that really works is to dismantle the Might Mouse, force it apart and gain access to the rollers. If you are technical like me and not scared to have a go it’s reasonably easy to do Apple Matters has a good picture gallery here that shows you each step of the procedure for stripping the mouse down (you don’t need to go quite as far as they do, they dismantle the whole mouse right down to the optical lens). Be warned while this operation is not too hard to do, there are plenty of opportunities for it to go wrong. One thing to be sure to keep track of are the four axles that control the scroll movement, another is to be careful removing the locking collar that holds the body together as this is glued on and could easily snap as you remove it. I’ve done this 3 times now and it does work, once I put it back together the Mighty Mouse is as good as new apart from the tape holding the locking collar on