Category Archives: Musings

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: TL; DR (Part 2)

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Chapters 6-9

  • Men
    • are sine waves
    • need occasional time by self “in cave” before they can be loving
    • want to be trusted and believed to be capable
  • Women
    • are cosine waves
    • need to spend time in a grump before they can bounce back
    • want to be allowed to feel upset, even if it’s illogical or an overreaction
  • Author translates from Martian to Venusian and vice-versa to illustrate how arguments can arise from simple misunderstandings.
  • Author is still repeating himself like a bad tabloid writer paid by the word.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: TL; DR (Part 1)

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Chapters 1-5

  • Women like to share problems
  • Men like to provide solutions
  • Men should pretend to listen when women share their stresses
  • Women should let men forget about their stresses
  • Women should not offer help unless it’s asked for
  • Men should offer empathy not solutions
  • Authors feel the need to write the same thing three times
  • Editors will make you read it a fourth time with random pull-quotes.

10/GUI

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10gui.com

This is as much an HCI concept as it is about the GUI.

I think a multitouch pad would be great.
5 fingers, i.e. one hand, would be plenty though, and having one hand remaining on the keyboard allows for faster resumption of typing long text.

My HTPC keyboard already has a simple multi-touch action, two finger to scroll, and I’m sure moving up to five fingers would be perfectly achievable by most users. In fact, in the video above there were only s few times when you’d have to use more than two or three fingers.

I think this is all fantastically interesting, and discussing the subject with people who won’t just shoot down the unknown/unfamiliar will lead to some great things.

I wish I could be more involved with this area of research and development.

Leaving Bitopia

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Prior to the big move, I’m leaving my current job at Bitopia at the end of the week.

Last Friday, all the staff went to watch Saints beat  Castleford Tigers.
At the end of the evening I was surprised and honoured to be presented with a personalised and autographed Saints shirt by Paul Sculthorpe.

Paul Sculthorpe presents me with a personalised autographed Saint shirt

Paul Sculthorpe presents me with a personalised autographed Saint shirt

I’d like to thank Christian for arranging it all for me, and Steve, MD of Bitopia, for paying for the evening!

Recommended: iammoving.com

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iammoving.com was recommended to me by the estate agent who advertised the house we’re moving to in August.

After registering, for free (though I would pay for the service), you select the organisations you need to notify from a large, categorised list, and provide your account number (or whatever detail is appropriate).

You can then send each message individually, or send them all at once.

Unfortunately, some companies still require that age-old ink on paper malarkey. In these cases, a preformatted letter is made available to print.

iammoving.com is ‘in association with Royal Mail’, which makes sense because it could save them from thousands of undeliverable/redirected letters.

RAC

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The RAC have impressed me.

Whilst driving to my fiancée’s parents’ at the end of last week, the car conked out (while on the M6 Toll).
Fortunately, the power simply seemed to dissipate rather than instantly disappear, so I was easily able to slow to stop by an SOS box.
I have a mobile phone of course, but the SOS box allowed me to give a very precise location.

Calling the RAC was straightforward, just a matter of answering questions and confirming my own and the vehicle’s details.

The RAC man (an ex F1 engineer, apparently) arrived within 20 minutes (better than the estimate given on the phone), having called my mobile to let me know that he was a couple of minutes away.

He identified the problem simply by listening to the engine for a couple of seconds, and confirmed it by replacing the dead coil (a transformer that supplies the power to the spark-plugs).

I’d be very happy to recommend the RAC to anyone considering them (or their competitors).

BT (Bastards Telepunish) Woes

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My ISP, BT, have got my goat again.

They’re punishing me by crippling my (already joke-worthy) download speeds, because I used a lot last week.
So they’ll probably charge me for that (fair enough, I suppose).

I understand that they need to provide a fair service to all their customers, but why does that have to mean reducing my speed when I’m not even trying to download excessive amounts? Surely they should simply cap my speed?

A double punishment.
I can’t even call to complain or plead my case because the relevant department is only open 9-5 Mon-Fri. Isn’t that absurd? They have the power to make their service even worse, on purpose, and don’t even have the guts to be around to answer for it.

Firefox 3 to break Zoom (Edit: I’m mistaken)

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Mozilla is about the make a big mistake, the same as that made by IE7.

Zooming the whole page is not a good idea.

Browser Zoom Method Comparison

Current Firefox text-only zoom on the left, IE7 on the right.

Using the current Fx way you can easily read the text without having to scroll sideways, but the new way (which is how IE7 works) means you have to scroll right for each line of text, then back to the left, and so on.

I simply cannot fathom how they thought this was the right move.

Automatically Added Start Menu / Desktop Icons

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I have just allowed Adobe (Acrobat) Reader to update itself, fair enough, though it is still remarkably slow to load on first use.

I keep a clean desktop, with shortcuts only for the things I use on a regular basis (at least daily).
I keep my Start Menu under control (am still using XP).

I think I might have computer-specific OCD, but that’s not my point.

My point is that Adobe have decided to re-add a shortcut to a programme which is never run directly.
If I ever have to use Adobe Reader, it’s to read a file, so it’s a (link to a) file that I open.

The updater also added a shortcut to my Start Menu, despite the fact that there’s one there already, in a folder I created.
This in turn caused Windows to inform me that a new programme had been installed.

Are they trying to get me to use the programme more often? If so, why? It’s a free programme anyway!

You get what you pay for…

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PC World, TechGuys (PC Service Call), Parceline – One of them screwed up.

The fianceé’s laptop died on a Thursday. It would POST, but it would simply restart itself before Windows started loading.

It’s a Vista machine so I tried to use its self-repair options, but to no avail.
I took it to work to see if my colleague the IT support guy had any further ideas but alas.

It was less than a year old so I was able to take it to PC World (where it was bought originally).

So I take it to the shop after work.
The guy at the desk clearly can’t be bothered trying to help and insists that I have to call a support number to get a code before they’ll take it from me.
Can I use their phone? “No, that only makes internal calls.” (*cough*bollocks*cough*).

I give in, take it home and call from there. I’m taken through the same repair process that I’d already attempted multiple times by a friendly but non-technical call centre employee. At the end of the call I explain that I’d like to complain that I couldn’t make the call in the shop. He’s surprised I’ve been told this since he has himself taken calls from PC World employees.

I arrange a collection and am given a code.
Monday morning it’s collected by Parceline, and am told that they usually don’t take very long to return.
Next morning I get a call from the post room saying that they’ve got a laptop for me. That was quick.
Talking to the courier we agree that it’s probably a mistake. Unfortunately, he can’t take it back since he doesn’t have the correct paperwork. Fair enough, insurance etc.

I call the TechGuys and explain the situation, that I’m irked and that I’d like some kind of express service to compensate.
The call centre kid appears to take it personally and puts me on hold for about five minutes before the call gets disconnected.
I call again and am told that I will have to wait for more than 24 hours before it gets picked up. I have no choice so I agree.

It’s collected on the Wednesday morning as arranged, and returned fixed on the following Monday (10 days after I first reported the problem).

‘Fixed’ I called it. Actually, all they did was replace the hard-drive, something I could easily have done myself.
Fortunately they installed the correct version of Windows.
What of the files? All gone.
What of the broken hard-drive itself? Not returned to me. (I may have wanted to send it to a hard-drive recovery centre.)

Communication from any of the parties involved? None, apart from the ripped proforma which accompanied the fixed laptop, with 5 ticks and the scribble regarding the replaced hard-drive.

I’m glad I’m not having to try and get any money back.