BBC Programme Catalogue

BBC Programme Catalogue
Originally uploaded by Stuart43.

http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue


Thanks to mbiddulph for the pointer

IE7

IE7
Originally uploaded by Stuart43.

I thought I would give IE7 Beta 2 a try, since I beta test software as part of my job.

Beta 1 wouldn't install for me, so I didn't get started there.

This is a very different IE, I'm not sure I like it though, but I will give it a try.

And and it doesn't like my anti Spyware program Spy Sweeper, they lock each other.

Spring is Sprung?

Spring is Sprung
Originally uploaded by Stuart43.

18 on Friday, 19 on Saturday?

We will see ...

Sky Down

IMG_1279
Originally uploaded by Stuart43.

Andrew was complaining that Sky was down. I have just finished reading the Asterix book 'The Sky is Falling', and wondered if that was related.

Seems not, the Sky box just needed its 6 month reset.

Windows XP

untitled
Originally uploaded by Stuart43.

At work I'm being a guinea pig for Windows XP (currrently everyone is still on Windows 2000). A very colourful and loud experience until I turned all the sounds off, and made it look as like Win2K as possible.

Quite a lot of things not working, mostly caused by the fact that we have lots of things which assume that C:\WINNT exists and has lots of useful things in it.

The biggest surprise though is Office 2003. I can't cope with the new version of Outlook, it is sooo different.

Hmmm

Image1
Originally uploaded by Stuart43.

:-(

Netvibes Woes

I really like Netvibes, but have been without it for a whole day :-( The problem started when I was adding lots of RSS feeds, and suddenly all my RSS feeds just showed

Updating ...

and/or

Loading ...

I eventually got around it by deleting all the feeds and re-adding them, but I have no idea what went wrong. I also started getting '403/Forbidden' errors at the same time.

I have reported these to Netvibes, but in case its not fixed and you have the same problem, the above might work for you.

ActiveSync 4.1

I have been using ActiveSync 4.1 for a week now, and it seems more stable than 3.8, which kept losing track of what was synced, and leaving things unresolved. Its also the first update which didn't need a new version of AvantGo.

Screenshot
Originally uploaded by stuartajc.

The Games Boys Play

Andrew had his friend Laurie round for a sleepover recently. As well as playing the usual PC and PS/2 games, they finished off with a game of chess. Good to see that computer games haven't completely taken over the life of 11 year olds.

Netvibes supports Google Calendar

That is pretty quick off the mark, I reckon. Everything in this area seems to be coming together.

Instructions to set it up can be found here

Camera Time

Don't forget to change the time on your cameras now that its Daylight Saving Time. Not that I forgot, oh no.

Google Translator

Google Translator
Originally uploaded by stuartajc.

I had to make a change to a Japanese email template today, and had no idea what the words I was changing meant, so wondered if Google could help. It could and it makes sense. Very impressed.

The dust of retreat

The dust of retreat
Originally uploaded by stuartajc.


Its arrived - the remixed version of Margot and the nuclear so and so's first album. And shrink wrapped, with a Parental Advisory, now they are on the Artemis label.

www.margotandthenuclearsoandsos.com

Bitbucket

My domain name is bitbucket.org.uk - do you know what a Bit Bucket is? Many people think its the bucket that caught the bits which came out of the back of cards (AKA chads) when you punched holes in them.

Wrong.

A Bit Bucket is what was used to catch the remainders from when a computer did integer arithmetic on real numbers. The remainders fell out of the bottom of the Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) into the Bit Bucket.

A prank was often played on trainee computer operators, giving them the task of emptying the bit bucket.

Card Readers

I just had a thought, as I was transferring files around on SD and CF cards, that the meaning of the term Card Reader has changed completely, but is still within IT.

This is my Card Reader (actually its Jane's)



And this is what we used to call a Card Reader (an IBM 2501) which read punched cards: