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Advertising Windows Errors October 30, 2006

Posted by Dale in : Humour, It's A Bug, WinXP, Windows , Comments

I tolerate Microsoft Windows. I would probably like it if I wasn’t involved in supporting it.

On occasion, systems running Windows do something REALLY stupid. (see left).

Yes, that’s right. It’s a “super sized” LED advertising billboard which runs Windows, it’s gotten an error and crashed the billboard subsystem.

Neither am I a great fan of Macintosh’s, it’s more a philosophical reason than anything else. I hate people who park in handicap spaces.

Linux? It’s device driver support sucks.

Purpose: Install new data line set, and switch all 5 sites across. October 23, 2006

Posted by Dale in : Last Job , Comments

… just another Sunday night …
1945hrs - Travel into work.
2030hrs - Some bastard parked across our company car park driveway.
2045hrs - Find and pay for another car park, attend work, sign in.
2050hrs - Make up A4-sized “You have parked across a driveway” sheet, and liberally glue to offending windscreen.
2105hrs - Advise project manager that I’m ready to test the network change.
2145hrs - “We have a problem”
2146hrs - “Ummm, it’s a cabling problem.”
2230hrs - “Ummm, we’ll need to do this again in a couple of weeks.”
1000hrs - (following day) Cause: insufficient patch cables on hand to perform change.
Translation: we forgot the frickin cables.

Canna hand a man a grander spanner - Copernic October 17, 2006

Posted by Dale in : Desktop Search, Last Job , Comments

I call it Copernic

It works, and has indexed just over 40,000 documents / 1 million keywords.

Why Copernic? Well the Nazi Spawn have not disabled it, and I like it.

I like Google Desktop Search too, but our IT Nazi’s have banned it.

Eating Your Own Dog Food - Windows Vista Testing October 16, 2006

Posted by Dale in : Beta Testing, Vista, Windows , Comments

Readers might remember that I was testing Windows Vista…

Well I’ve just finished, and I’m back with the trusty Windows XP.

So why did I change back? Too many niggling problems with Vista.

Minor things like I can’t run a plugin for Microsoft Outlook, as it crashes part of Vista. And there is no PDA synchronisation support. OH SURE, they CLAIM there is support, just as I might CLAIM to have a John Holmes sized tool. It ain’t necessary so.

Another disappointing thing about Beta testing Vista, was the number of bugs I reported in the pre-Beta 2 build, which were closed as being “Fixed”, but weren’t. And they’re still not. I’ve seen the release timetable for Vista, and I doubt they’ll be fixed before the November manufacturing release.

So, eating the dogfood which is Windows XP, have I noticed any differences?
Well yes, two.

  1. The screen clarity is nowhere as good. Vista is of so much easier to read.
  2. The new “Photo Editor” and it’s crop function is the other.

My advice to customers wanting to upgrade? Wait for Vista Service Pack 1.