Technically Speaking

Up, Up and away!

I've always been a fan of the giant airship and have thought that they were the absolute height (pun not intended, sorry) of airborne elegance and comfort. I'm sure that even today, the airship would be a perfect solution to high-class, high-paying luxury travel - Hindenburg disaster or no. Now, someone has come up with the same general idea but using a rather novel mode of transport - the giant helicopter. Yes - you read that correctly - a helicopter. Now, don't think of pokey little whirlybirds but rather of giant ex-Russian behemoths. The Hotelicopter seems to offer a really unique way to travel and avoids the nonsense of having to travel from the airport to your hotel and back again. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is an early April fools joke or not. I've yet to see real footage of this monster in action and there is no indication of cost - I suppose if you have to ask, you can't afford it. In my opinion, the Zeppelin had a certain coolness factor and looked sleek and elegant as it would slide across the sky - this hideous thing looks awful and barely flightworthy. I suppose, as people said of the F4 Phantom jet - 'give it enough power and even a brick will fly'. Sorry guys, I'm not tempted at all - I'd rather get a short flight on Virgin Galactic instead - porbably cheaper.

Get it away! Get it away!

I could regale you with news about Dell's new ultra-thin laptop or all the new cell-phones and other digital goodies, but I found this horrendous thing. It appears that Acer let Japanese schoolgirls loose on their netbooks and here is the result. On a side note; the translation to English is hilarious - I wish I could read Japanese. Now I know that the Japanese have different feelings and thoughts about mixing technology and art, however this is really scary. I can just imagine the looks if you bought this taffeta horror to a Ontario high school and placed it on your desk. I am all for people playing around with modifying their PC cases - some are amazing - this seems to be going in the wrong direction. It looks like those little covers you can get for toilet rolls - do people still buy them? So, rather than throwing some new gee whiz toy at you, just look at this and ponder on the strangeness of the world of design and schoolgirl inspired decoration.

What a pain

Just a little update on my previous post. Yes, it was a setting associated with the router that was the trouble - quelle surprise. It just goes to show that a little preparation can help resolve a nasty issue. Now all they need to do is to see how to transfer video from their HD camcorder to the PC and 'burn' it to disk. I did take a stab at this for them, but they didn't bring their software over - it happens. This brings me to another point of contention with hardware and software people. Why, in heavens name, can't you guys get your act together? You would think that you would be able to plug in a hard drive camcorder and just copy over the info you want - oh no, that's too easy. You need specialized software and have to jump through burning hoops to do that! It's the same with digital cameras that use RAW images - no damn standard. I almost feel a rant coming on - I'll stop now.

On another track; check out the 'street view' option in Google Maps - it's absolutely amazing and totally addictive. It's only in the US, UK and certain European cities so far, but is a wonderful way to tour unfamiliar places. For an ex-pat Britisher, going to old remembered places is a treat and retracing routes that I used to walk is just like going back in time. Amazing how many things have stayed the same after more than 22 years. The picture above is of the street view camera - neat, isn't it?

When logic fails

For all those poor people floundering around with 'odd' PC issues I have one word (no, not 'plastics'), logic. When your laptop doesn't connect to your wireless network and you are disconnected from the wibbly wobbly web, it's easy to just cry out, 'my computer's broken'! Often, that's what is said to a technical support person and does absolutely nothing to help them determine the issue and solution. The key is to be specific about the problem and be sure that you have checked all of the obvious concerns. Again the word 'logic' should apply. Here is a good example. A friend was have the issue that I mentioned above - no wireless connection through their new router (a good one, actually), but a good connection when directly connected to their main PC. They were getting errors regarding firewalls and no IP address being found. Now, I am not one of those 'techie' people that believe in thinking everyone should know what everything means on a PC. Well, the laptop worked here fine on my wireless setup - no issues at all. I cleaned up the laptop in terms of unwanted programs - got rid of Norton  - man, that clogs up a system and does a real number on the registry. Ensured that there were no nasty little pieces of spyware of other assorted evil things lurking on the system and all seemed to be running well. So, here was the next step. We now knew that the laptop was OK and had no trouble connecting wirelessly and surfing the 'net, we knew that the main PC when connected directly through the router was fine. All that we needed to do was directly hook up the laptop. Turns out that was fine and they had no issues. OK, now we know that it must be a setting of the router that was throwing everything off or the network setup of the laptop. The latter would be unlikely as all was working fine here. Now you could call the router's technical support and give them clear and concise information that should resolve this quickly. All the 'grunt' work had been done and logic showed just where the difficulty lies. I'll let you know what happened.

Mists of time

Who would have thought it? How time files. 30 years ago Phillips first demonstrated the compact disc to an unsuspecting world and billions of discs later, we are still buying them. Even the humble floppy disc didn't last as long. It's hard to believe there was a time before the CD permeated every part of our world. Mind you, certainly in the music world, the vinyl disc never vanished and is making a strong comeback. It's quite interesting how some of the pre-computer technology is still around. Again, taking the music world, the reemergence of the valve as opposed to the transistor for hi-fi sound took me by surprise. My experience with the brightly glowing valve was through my father who worked at the BBC for 40 years. Some of that time was as a radio studio manager in the 60's during the most tumultuous time in popular music. However, the time of the CD may now be slowly fading as the emergence of high capacity removable storage media starts to dominate. Mostly, it's all down to cost. The first USB memory stick I purchased as a birthday gift a few years ago cost around $100 for 256MB - now, for around $40 you can get 16GB or more. The rise of the downloadable content and the MP3 player and the ability to hook that to your home or car sound system has meant that the use of a CD is irrelevant. I recall, some years ago, clearing out all my floppy disks and filling a big garbage bag - I suppose that I may be doing that again, this time with CD's. How the world turns.

Rot in Hell!

This is more in the fashion of a open letter to the selfish git that did this to my son's car. He has only had the vehicle a month and had his windows tinted last Tuesday and this had to happen. I know that accidents can and do happen, however this swine that did this decided to just drive away leaving a mess behind. Even though insurance will pay for this disaster, it will still cost him $1000 as a deductible. This is an intolerable cost for a hard working 21-year old and will cause real difficulties - there goes the vacation he promised himself. To the bugger that did this, 'you are a low, nasty and obnoxious individual who will have to live with this selfish act'. However, I have a solution that may help matters a little. If you don't have the guts to own up, then just leave an envelope on my door with $1000 in it to cover the deductible. It's probably not a good idea to actually introduce yourself as I wouldn't be accountable for the result. What is most annoying, is that we have all parked on the road overnight with no ill effects before. The one night that the Mazda is there is the one time something happens. Typical!