Entries for the-laughing-man

T-Mobile G1 [T-Mobile G1]

the-laughing-man — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:14:50 GMT

Has anyone got their hands on one yet? Anything to say?

I got mine about 8hrs ago and after an unsteady start I can safely say I'm loving it. I've just come off an N95 so I was pleased to see that the G1 doesn't seem under powered, it was a worry.

There are some amazing apps for this thing already, TuneWiki is just an exceptional idea, really gimmicky by I absolutely love it, it'll definitely be shown off at the pub. Twitroid is a great client for anyone who uses Twitter and the Lolcat Builder is an absolutely essential app.

The games are grade A smack, they are insanely addictive, I suggest checking out Coloroid and Bonsai Blast, that and the classic lights out cannot be resisted.

However... Europe hasn't got the Amazon MP3 store, which we knew wasn't happening but they also seem to have stripped other client support from the IM Client too, all I can get is Google Talk and I wont lie, one of the reasons I bought it was so I could use WLM on the go. I'm also struggling with the way the inbox is arranged, it's too much like an e-mail having just come from Symbian. It shows your entire to and sent from one person in one 'thread' rather than breaking it down into inbox and sent but I can get over that in time.

All I need now is a few apps for the wish list:

Lightsabre app - c'mon we all want it.

A messenger app for Windows Live

A last.fm client

A hotmail plugin for the external mail would be nice

and as amazing as the browser is an optimised Facebook app wouldn't go amiss to save us all some time, eh?

in reply to T-Mobile G1

Net Neutrality [Rumor?] [Net Neutrality [Rumor?]]

the-laughing-man — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 21:53:57 GMT

I just got something in my RSS on Net Neutrality and it's a big issue for me, I love the way anyone can become something online and that sites like Facebook come out of no-where and become the norm (and die just as quickly)

This group claim they have insider info from a few ISPs which says by 2012 that the Internet will turn into something very much like subscription TV and that you will be only be able to visit certain sites which you would pay for access to.

If that is what they mean and that is what is to happen that could kill all innovation on the internet and scares me a LOT.

http://ipower.ning.com/netneutrality

What do you guys make of it?

W3bbo particularly as you have been sending letters to MPs about this before is there anything you can suggest to me?

in reply to Net Neutrality [Rumor?]

How stable is your PC? [How stable is your PC?]

the-laughing-man — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:46:58 GMT

I always abuse my PCs quite a lot, I'm constantly installing freeware apps that I download to trial with almost no knowledge of them what so ever etc and this can have an adverse affect on stability as you can guess. I kept my old XP PC running for 17 days once and it was the longest I ever managed to keep it stable.

I've just hit the 32 day mark with Vista SP1 and think it speaks quite a bit about the stability of Vista SP1. I'm still installing all sorts of random programs and abusing it just as much as my XP machine if not more.

I know Linux/UNIX machines are going to have Uptimes of years but...

How long have you guys managed to keep your PCs running?
Do you find Vista noticably more stable then XP?
How badly do you abuse your PCs?

in reply to How stable is your PC?

Windows Photo Gallery & Gifs [Windows Photo Gallery & Gifs]

the-laughing-man — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:14:23 GMT

Riddle me this Niners, I've always had trouble with animated gifs in WPG, which for some reason I let go but now I'm having trouble looking at any kind of gif.

How could Microsoft omit a format that is so blatently wide spread?

in reply to Windows Photo Gallery & Gifs

SATA NAS [SATA NAS]

the-laughing-man — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:56:15 GMT

I have been thinking for a while now that I'm gonna need to upgrade my hard drive to a TB. I have a thing where I have to buy at least double the size I had before to reassure myself I wont fill it any time soon.

So I was thinking of getting myself a NAS, buying myself a TB and slapping it into a NAS.

Of course you then hit the problem, what happens when it's full? Well it'd mean plugging it into my PC and getting a new one or... well it's a fair bit of messing so I reached the conclusion a 2 Bay NAS means if I fill 1TB... which will take me till we have 1.5 or 2TB drive sizes. Then I can get a 2TB, and by the time the 2TB is full we'll probably have 4TB, so I can then copy the data from the 1TB to the 4TB and have a 2TB and 4TB in the bay (making sense so far?)

I've been reading up and a few things have worried me so far, the Netgear SC-101 seemed like a winner until I found out it uses a proprietary file system which means you can't move drives out of it to transfer data which is annoying to say the least. So far none of them so far apart from the Thecus N299 (which is apparently awful on transfer times) mention being able to be used on wireless.

So I have a few questions you may be able to answer for me, Niners!

1) As it stand I imagine you could plug the RJ45 of the NAS into one of the outputs on a wireless router and map it as a network drive?
(I know the speed will be an issue but with Wireless N not far away that should become less of a problem)

2) Do any of you know if proprietary file systems are wide spread in NAS?

3) Do any of you have a NAS device you may want to recommend to me?

in reply to SATA NAS

WinFS [WinFS]

the-laughing-man — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:03:44 GMT

I just read an aritcle on the future of File systems wit ZFS, does anyone know what's going on with WinFS now? I haven't really heard anything since they dropped it out of Vista.

in reply to WinFS

Re: HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN WHEN YOU DIE [Re: HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN WHEN YOU DIE]

the-laughing-man — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:11:57 GMT

thanks but I'll just buy my ticket on the door ;)

in reply to Re: HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN WHEN YOU DIE

RAM Prices [RAM Prices]

the-laughing-man — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:01:24 GMT

I know you guys probably know but I was just checking out RAM prices at Scan.co.uk and RAM has fallen through the floor.

I bought for my Vista machine in Feb and it cost me around £160 for 2GB Corsair XMS2 CL4 it's now an amazing £40

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=402849

If you guys need any, or imagine you'll have to upgrade in the future now is the time!

I started playing UT3 on Vista and it actually takes 1.5GB of RAM to run, add to that the 700MB Vista tends to take for me in general and I'm at 2.2GB. I only have 2GB of RAM atm so I'm upgrading to 4GB for the hell of it.

(I know it wont show the full 4GB but I'm not worried, apparently it'll come in at 3.4GB? and every little helps!)

in reply to RAM Prices

Quicktime Creates Invulnerable Files! [Quicktime Creates Invulnerable Files!]

the-laughing-man — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:25:09 GMT

Well it sounds more fun than it is, but I had some problems deleting a directory the other week, it doesn't say it can't be deleted though. It starts off and if you look at the rate it's 0 byes a second.

I don't know what inspired me to do this but I knew there was only one file in there and it was a Quicktime file so I removed Quicktime and it deleted straight away.

I downloaded the latest Quicktime and assumed it was over. However when doing the ol' monthly uber backup I was unable to move certain files across hard drives (cut & paste) and when I looked into it - yes you guessed it it was a Qiucktime file!

Uninstalling Quicktime resolved the issue again but it's hardly an ideal solution, anyone else experienced this?

in reply to Quicktime Creates Invulnerable Files!

iFrame Replacement? [iFrame Replacement?]

the-laughing-man — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 01:27:37 GMT

A friend wanted me to design a site, but I can't get the iFrame to set in percent height and quite frankly Ive nearly given up trying.

The only reason I assume he'd have an iFrame is to facilitate updates because he's afraid of messing up the source code. Personally I'd do it all with divs and if worst comes to worst I'll explain to him how to do that and comment the source code as needed to let him know where to edit.

Is there any way to set in percent that I've overlooked? or even better is there some kind of common system people use instead of iFrames?

in reply to iFrame Replacement?

Star-Force [Star-Force]

the-laughing-man — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 03:05:38 GMT

I know we all love it, I don't want to start a slanging match though.

I got X3 a while back on the recommendation of a friend and it was protected with Star-Force, this was around March when drivers were still coming together for Vista so the fact that I updated the Star-Force driver with the tool on their site (sfdrvup.exe) and still got crashes every time didn't bug me too much.

Summer is dragging so I got 'Dreamfall: THe Longest Journey' today on the recommendation of another friend, exactly the same problems. Has anyone else got Star-Force working on Vista? Ultimate preferably although I don't imagine that'll make a difference.

Just for the ol' record here's the steps I took:

1) Installed Game
2) Installed DX9 (part of game install)
3) Launched game - asked me to install protection
4) Installed protection - asked to restart
5) Restarted and launched game - asked to update Star-Force drivers
6) Updated drivers - was asked to restart
7) Restarted computer - launched game
8) Star-Force loads and begins checking the disc - my drive spins up for about 3 seconds then stops, as soon as I click the Star-Force window it blanks and tells me it's stopped responding.

I've tried starting the program as Admin, I've done the Star-Force checks to make sure the drivers are installed and running correctly (it says they are)

Yet every time after it stops responding, I wait. Finally close it and 30 seconds later this message pops up.

I'm going to tear my hair out I can't see to find anything on it (in English anyway!)

in reply to Star-Force

Short Term Broadband [Short Term Broadband]

the-laughing-man — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 22:09:22 GMT

The odds seem against me here, I will soon be moving from one broadband provider to another, which means I will need to cancel one service and get a MAC code, ring the other and give them my MAC code and wait X amount of days for them to activate my line. I know generally speaking it's only 7 days but I haven't been that long without going on the internet for around 5 years.

Seeing as we have two lines coming into the house I was thinking of getting broadband on the 2nd line a week or so before I cancel my current provider that way I should be covered when the line cuts off up until my new provider is activated.

I cannot however find anywhere that seems to do a short enough contract I was hoping you guys might have been through something similar and may have some suggestions. Please don't anyone say dial-up :| I couldn't even imagine doing that to myself.

P.S. What do you think of Sky and TalkTalk as providers? ;)

in reply to Short Term Broadband

Channel 9 IRC? [Channel 9 IRC?]

the-laughing-man — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 04:21:47 GMT

Is there a channel 9 IRC channel anywhere?

I started out on chatrooms a long time back now and the community I used to use has recently collapsed and I'm a bit more, I had a look around but it seems there's no place for chatrooms in "Web2.0" ?

in reply to Channel 9 IRC?

ASP, PHP, MySQL [ASP, PHP, MySQL]

the-laughing-man — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 21:25:46 GMT

So I just finished college for the Summer and after 24hrs without Jack Daniels and friends I am bored out of my mind.

I'm trying to work on a few ideas for web sites and I'm gonna have to learn some new tricks to do it, I can do XHMTL/CSS with no problems.

I started reading up on PHP vs ASP for an assignment at college the other week and I'm swaying more towards PHP at the moment. I have a webhost and but I'm wondering if there's any way I can make a site on my machine first so I can test it quicker than uploading and editing all the time?

Are there any sites/books/anything you can recommend in terms of learning this kind of stuff for a total newbie?

in reply to ASP, PHP, MySQL

Free Vista Licensing [Free Vista Licensing]

the-laughing-man — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 18:46:08 GMT

I got a copy of Vista from Connect cause of the whole submit a bug thing.

My new rig arrives tomorrow and I'm gonna slap Vista and XP on it, I was just wondering what the licensing agreement is for that version of Vista?

Does anyone know if it's OEM or Retail? I assume it's OEM if it's free?

in reply to Free Vista Licensing

File Transfer Manager Woes [File Transfer Manager Woes]

the-laughing-man — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 11:55:04 GMT

I've just got the infamous e-mail about Vista for testers, however when I attempt to download the RTM version I get the following message on File Transfer Manager

"Application Validation timed out retrieving the current version. Do you wish to enable transfers and continue without the version check?"

If I click Yes then it just sits and idles, if I click No, musch the same... any ideas how I can fix this or what's going on?

in reply to File Transfer Manager Woes

Can The Internet Be Saved? [Can The Internet Be Saved?]

the-laughing-man — Thu, 11 May 2006 22:16:45 GMT

We all know the Internet is 'under threat' but I'll be honest I don't know the full ramifications of what is meant by this... A few things I do know at the moment are:

Windows Live wont let me log into any of its services, even ones that used to work for me...
Flash wont install and all self installers have been removed
America is refusing to hand over control of the Internet
They're trying to make companies pay for the right to load on ISPs

I wish I could say Tim Berners-Lee is gonna fly out of his secret W3C lair and save the Internet but even if he could do that we all know ultimately governements hold the key as we've seen in China, and I have no doubt before long it'll be done in the name f 'The War on Terror'

Do you think the Internet can be saved? Alternatively what do you think will be the Internets epitaph?

in reply to Can The Internet Be Saved?

MSN doesn't love me anymore [MSN doesn't love me anymore]

the-laughing-man — Thu, 04 May 2006 21:37:43 GMT

I was sat on my PC before talking away and all of a sudden it restarted, It's been warn over here and this does happen from time to time in Summer so I just ignored it... After the reset MSN Messenger wouldn't log in... I figured it was sods law and this was one of the few times Messenger was actually broken (always seems to happen when I have PC problems) Hotmail wont log me in either so:

>> I checked my Windows Firewall settings
>> Router Firewall settings
>> Removed MSN Messenger
>> Installed the WLM Beta
>> Removed WLM & all firewall traces of MSN & did a Winsock Fix.

As a last resort I installed aMSN and tried that, it worked absolutely fine... MSN Messenger works on my sisters PC on the same Wireless Network so the problem is on my PC... I just can't figure out for the life of me what it is... Someone told me it could be my privacy settings so I tried resetting that, I'm doing a virus scan at the moment, the only thing I haven't tried that I can think of is XP Recovery Console because I can't find my CD... Any suggestions? :(

in reply to MSN doesn't love me anymore

Tablet PCs [Tablet PCs]

the-laughing-man — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 23:25:06 GMT

Anyone know anything about Tablet PCs?

I've been thinking for a while I need to get a graphics tablet/laptop PC and I've been shopping around a bit and found that graphics tablets are insanely expensive and that isn't gonna change much.

However I figured if I wanted to take the plunge and get a Tablet PC that I'd want to get it from a highstreet dealer (god forbid - PC World) just so I know where I stand with it if it goes wrong cause I don't know much about laptop repairs and would just want to throw it off to someone else.

Any of you guys got any experience with Tablet PCs? Any suggestions on where the best buys may be?

in reply to Tablet PCs

Monitors, HDTVs, Projectors et al. [Monitors, HDTVs, Projectors et al.]

the-laughing-man — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 21:31:00 GMT

I'm not looking to buy a new system right away, in fact I'm holding myself back till Vista is on the shelves, wait a few months for the bugs to get ironed out (go beta testers ;)) and then I'm gonna build myself a nice little beast to run it on.

I figure I can build myself a nice enough rig to run it on but something that I am thinking about a lot at the moment is what to output the graphics onto. I'm looking for something a bit larger than the standard 19" though - I know it's greedy but I'm an impetuous teenager and I love my games, bigger the better really.

# I've got some people telling me I can't go wrong with a CRT - but I'd lose desk space for the quality of the picture...

# Obviously there are some good 19" TFT Monitors out there and that's where I'm swinging at the moment but if there's anything bigger than doesn't comprimise quality then that may be an option.

# I've got some people telling me to get myself a HDTV and plug that in and use it as a monitor aswell as a TV - but I'm not too sure how the picture quality will be on these for running Windows/Games? From what I've seen at work up close (like the other side of my desk) the picture looks a bit naff.

# Projectors are a side note at the moment but LED Projectors are on the way and I hear these will be cheaper and wont require bulb changes?

No doubt you guys have got a lot of first hand experience with the different types which you can impart on me so please, any advantages/disadvantages you can think of - as I said I have a while yet this is just so I can get a head start on the game :D

in reply to Monitors, HDTVs, Projectors et al.

My Music Icon & Read Only Jams [My Music Icon & Read Only Jams]

the-laughing-man — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 20:49:04 GMT

I was ripping a few CDs before, when I got to the end I suddenly realised that the icon for MyMusic had changed. I imagine a reset will fix this but I'm in the middle of trying to keep my PC up for the longest time ever without totally dying and this seems to be the begining of the end :(

Normally you can right click > properties > choose icon however you can't with things lke MyMusic and MyPictures so does anyone else know how to fix this?

Here's another problem I have, what's with files jamming on read only setting? I've tried changing it through cmd, right clicking and all sorts and it seems to change but even if you just click OK, go back to properties within a second it'll have changed back to Read Only, any ideas guys?

in reply to My Music Icon & Read Only Jams

Distributed Computing [Distributed Computing]

the-laughing-man — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 23:29:56 GMT

I first heard about SETI@ home about 5 years ago but never really got into it for some reason. A year ago I decided to take a deeper look into it and found Grid.org and Universal Devices.

I saw that the BBC has jumped on the band wagon today with a distuributed system to look into Climate Control, another worthy cause.

I was wondering if any of you guys are running any of these systems like Folding@ Home, SETI@ home, UniversalDevices and if so how long have you been crunching? ;)

in reply to Distributed Computing

File Names [File Names]

the-laughing-man — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:48:39 GMT

This sounds like a really stupid question to me and I bet one of you guys knows the answer but I can't for the life of me find this function in XP Pro...

Is there anything that allows me to sort of set parameters for file renaming? I hate it when my friends send me files and then when I come round to sort out My Recieved Files about 6 months later and find 500 files that need deleting and 800 that need renaming.

I have to confess I'm quite anal so when this happens I do have to name them all perfectly like all my videos are saved as:

Show - Series# x Episode# (Name if there is one)

So is there any way I could set it to automatically rename stuff? I don't want anything too clever just something to help, like when I ripped Bob Marley - One Love the entire thing was in CAPS and being the way I am it had to be "Bob Marley - Name Of Song" so I just spent 20mins renaming it all :(

Anyone know if this is built into Windows at the moment/if they're planning on anything similar for Vista/WinFS?

in reply to File Names

Getting in on the Windows Beta Programs [Getting in on the Windows Beta Programs]

the-laughing-man — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 01:19:21 GMT

Is there any way to get in on the Vista/IE Betas? I've been looking around the net for months to no avail then I stumbled upon this place and was a member of the Windows Live Betas within a few days and I must admit I love it.

I'm only a teenager and I'm doing an IT repair course at college 4 days a week and working part time in a computer 'superstore' the other 3 days a week so I'm really looking to throw myself into the IT field somewhere, still don't know if I want to get into tech support, networing/programming or what yet, keeping my options open.

I'm just trying to participate in betas at the moment, I figure the more I help out the easier these things will be for me to use in the future (well hopefully they'll take my feedback on-board and change a few things) ;o)

So does anyone know of anyone I can get in on Vista/IE7 any of the other more closed Betas cause it's something I'd really like to do!

Any information would be much appreciated

Edit:

I just saw the unofficial sign up wikis (don't know why I didn't look there before, doh!) so I guess I'm out of luck but if there's anywhere I can e-mail Microsoft so I can beg them to let me put their half finished computer destroying programs on my PC please let me know.

in reply to Getting in on the Windows Beta Programs