Category Archives: Computing

Links o' the day 27/11/08

This shot of wind tower in Jaipur is one of my favourite photos of recent times. And it certainly helps take one’s mind off the carnage that’s going on in Mumbai.

While on the subject of great photographs, here are ten of Hubble’s best before it gets decommissioned in 2010.

Say phooey to that digital alarm clock and get a pin one instead.

Although given its recent track record (read “Vista”), Microsoft has got a fair bit right.

Could newspapers have survived the web?

The credit crunch/economic meltdown has thrown up all sorts of new financial terms. Just to add one: apparently Nokia refers to “synergy-related headcount adjustments”, better known to you and me as redundancies.

Well feck that anyway

It seems Windows 7 is just as slow as Vista. Randall Kennedy subjected it to a battery of tests and has concluded it’s just a “minor tweak” of the software monstrosity that has frustrated me by chugging my memory, changing my DVD drive settings so region 2 no longer plays in WMP, cheerily announcing that I had no hard drive installed (I have two), and last night just plain breaking down and informing me that something had gone wrong, but it wasn’t quite sure what it was and so couldn’t fix it. It did, however, attempt a fix, before trying to connect to the internet to share the information with Microsoft. Only it couldn’t, because I had been unable to boot the computer properly and so it had not started Vista proper or connected to the wifi. But apart from that it’s a wonderful piece of software.

Links o' the day, 3/10/08

Sarah Winterburn wonders why Roy Keane is immune from criticism despite spending Β£30m on players and still being mid-table.

Rick O’Shea has links to 10 divinely designed churches.

Get your hands on a piece of dictatorial luxury: Saddam’s rocket-launching yacht is for sale.

It’s going to take over from Vista and you know Microsoft is going to give it a major push, so best take a look at Windows 7’s features (with video). And don’t forget Windows Azure.

It seems like a trivial quibble, but boot times are just too long in a world accustomed to instant gratification.

Tell Paulo what you think the world will be like in 12 months’ time.

I’m rapidly running out of energy.

Calling all notebook designer wannabes

Have your say over at WePC.com, a joint venture by Asus and Intel that allows users to specifiy what they’d like to see in a computer. You can also draw the thing if you’re feeling creative πŸ˜€

Some of the stuff is quite broad in aspiration: “quality display, perfect performance, huge HDD”. I wonder how one defines “perfect performance”, particularly if WIndows Vista is installed.

The site lets you balance between long battery life and a large screen, weight versus durability, performance against price and that sort of thing, so it’s impossible to, say, have one with a battery that lasts for nine hours that also has a 19-inch screen.

One of the most highly rated so far is the extensible gaming laptop, which says nuts to a long battery in favour of desktop power.

I have yet to come across the one advocating hair, though.

Links o' the day, 21/10/2008

The program for a supermajority. (Crooked Timber)

Ctrl-Alt-Del. (Robert Cringley)

Florida woman goes to jail over $7.45 bill. (AP)

Inconsistency irks with letter of the law. (Football365)

Reviving the fine art of cafe culture. (The Irish Times)

European economic weather map. (FT.com)

Group says US used Ethiopia for dirty work. (The National)

And special mention for behind-the-times headline of the day:

Greens, greens, they’re good for your heart: study (AFP)

Diets worldwide that are rich in fried and salty foods increase heart attack risk, while eating lots of fruit, leafy greens and other vegetables reduces that risk, a groundbreaking study showed.

(The study was groundbreaking because it included developing countries, but this information is buried in the story.)