Just when you thought it was safe: death by browser toolbars

I’ve blogged previously about just how much I hate browser toolbars and nothing much has changed in the four years that have passed.

Call me nosey, but when I’m wandering down the aisle in a train carriage or am somewhere else where people are tapping away merrily and staring intently at their laptops, I’m always curious to see what browser they’re using.  I’m not judgemental (ahem!!) but when I see they’re rocking along with a toolbar in tow, I suddenly think a little less of them.

While I think a lot of people have slowly woken up to the browser toolbar fallacy, you still run into the occasional brarmer.

You know – something like this:

Words simply fail me on occasions like this. 

Some people are just beyond help.

Great Wireless Network Names

I’ve always gone for rather boring SSIDs in the past (but at least I did go to the trouble of changing them from the default).

My two favourites are definitely:

“Router, I hardly know her” – (which appealed perfectly to my underdeveloped sense of humour..)  Anyway, he’s obviously a prudent chap… you can tell from the padlock symbol that he ‘uses protection’ too!
 
and

“Abraham Linksys”

You just can’t have as much fun with Thompson routers sadly.

“SUPERthanksforasking” comes in a close 3rd (just for the hell of it).

Found here.

Microsoft tries taste-test with Vista doubters

From WinInfo Daily News 30/07/08:

Not surprisingly, Microsoft's recent "blind taste test" of Windows Vista has yielded the kind of PR bonanza that Microsoft couldn't beg, borrow, or steal just a few weeks ago. This week, the company released a slew of videos showing some of the 140 consumers videotaped in San Francisco using Vista for the first time. But the users weren't told they were using Vista, as they were selected specifically because they believed that Vista wasn't any good. Instead, these people believed they were using a future Windows version, code-named Windows "Mojave."

The comments made by these individuals are emblematic of the problems Microsoft now faces when it tries to market Vista to a world that, apparently, has already made up its mind about the OS. "I heard negative things; I never tried it myself," one woman says.
"I wouldn't touch the thing." "It's horrible, it has so many problems." "I've heard nothing but bad things about Vista, really." On and on it goes. On a scale from 1 to 10, the average pre-rating for Vista was 4.4, Microsoft says.

Then, the users were shown "Mohave" and walked through (Vista) features like backup and restore, parental controls, recording TV, and making DVD movies. The comments changed dramatically. "Wow!" "I like that security feature." (Breathlessly) "That's great." "It's awesome." "Really cool." "It's really impressive." "It's totally different from what I heard it would be like." "It's an awesome program, but you have to see it for yourself." The average rating after the hands-on demonstration was 8.5. "Many would have rated it higher, but they wanted more time to play with it themselves," Microsoft notes.

Most tellingly, perhaps, not one of the 140 participants rated Vista lower than their initial pre-rating after having actually used the OS. And 94 percent of respondents rated Vista more highly.

Microsoft should have done something like this say, 6 months ago, at least. Vista has suffered an inordinate amount of bad press based on staggering misperceptions, vacuous sniping and groundless complaints – almost all originating from the extreme anti-Microsoft sect. The notorious ‘switcher’ ads ran by Apple have gone a good way in fanning those flames, further unfairly tainting people’s impressions of Vista. The Apple fanatics lemmings who live cosily in their chamber of blissful ignorance and unjustified pomposity make up a good portion of that sect, of course. Don’t worry: you’re not alone - I hate them too!

But seriously, I don’t consider myself a Microsoft-lover and I recognise that Vista isn’t perfect. Still, the Vista-haters out there who go around touting their mindless misperceptions just kill me. Suffice to say that Vista-haters who carelessly strike up a conversation to try and indoctrinate me around to their way of thinking, invariably wish they never started.

How to back up … correctly

Found via How to Geek 30/05/11.

Painfully true.

Which reminds me: my old external hard drive which was my primary backing up drive but is now my secondary backing up drive because it went on the blink (slightly) is now my tertiary backing up drive because I bought another external hard drive to become my primary backing up drive after I relegated the previously new primary backing up drive to become the secondary when I got the third.

No, that’s not quite right… or is it?

Anyway, the one that’s on the blink is now even more on the blink and probably has to be retired all together.  Which means, I need a, what, quaternary drive to…

Oh forget it.  I just need to back up again.  Bugger.

Open Source Law Student

As I edge ever closer to the dreaded LLM territory, I’ve been giving increasing thought to an idea I had earlier this year re my computer needs on this course and whether using open source solutions is a viable option. Can a law student successfully get by with just free open source and cloud-based options and still turn in the multitude of essays and other work required? Would I really trust Open Office with my precious dissertation or, God help me, Google Docs? Is either option even man enough for the job? Given that the latter doesn’t even support the inclusion of footnotes, I think we can quickly answer that.

So as the world heads further and further down the path of the cloud computing paradigm, much has been made of whether the traditional desktop apps are already becoming obsolete. Opinions differ of course, though I think the consensus would fall on the side of ‘we’re not there yet’. Probably, not by a long shot.

I’m certainly very curious as to whether I can survive studying an LLM using just open source software, underpinned by a battery of online cloud-based services. I certainly don’t have the unwavering confidence to place all my eggs in the open source basket and will be dual booting with Vista. But that being the case, will I resist the temptation of resorting to the tried and tested commercial programs from Microsoft, Adobe and the rest? I think I can guess the answer but it still promises to be an interesting experiment. Albeit possibly a short one.

While I haven’t definitively decided on the programs and services I’ll be using, my proposed line-up looks something like this:

• OS: Ubuntu – Hardy Heron or Opensuse 11..... probably the former.
• Office Productivity: Open Office ...If I hate writer, there’s always Abiword I suppose .... :-\
• Email: Google’s Gmail – I’ve been using this since mid 2004 anyway!
• Calendaring: Google Calendar
• Web Browser: Firefox 3.x – again I’ve been using Firefox as my primary browser since early 2004!

Roll on September so we can get this party started. Or something like that! Sigh.

Microsoft patch hoses computers running ZoneAlarm

From vnunet.com 10.07.08:

Hundreds of thousands of ZoneAlarm firewall users have been locked out of the internet by Microsoft's latest round of software updates.

Microsoft released four 'important' fixes as part of its regular Patch Tuesday update, one of which left ZoneAlarm users without web access.

The MS08-037 fix is designed to plug a vulnerability in Windows' implementations of the Domain Name System protocol, but has been responsible for "compatibility issues " with ZoneAlarm.

I was afflicted with just this problem yesterday morning when I booted up my XP machine. The previous day I’d been playing around with a couple of new programs as well as installing the 4 patches Microsoft pushed out for July so immediately thought that one of them was responsible. Having established my internet connection was just fine on another computer, I ran a system restore which rolled my machine’s operating system and program files back to a previous state. Thankfully, this finally allowed me to connect to the internet. It was only later in the day that I became aware of the ZoneAlarm problem and that this was the cause of my earlier troubles.

While Zone Labs have now released an updated version of their firewall and internet security suite, they offered three workarounds in the meantime:

1. Uninstall the MS patch – what I effectively did

2. Change the internet security zone setting down from ‘high’ to ‘medium’.

3. Adding the relevant ISP's DNS servers to ZoneAlarm's trusted zone.

For what it’s worth, this problem only hit me since I left Automatic Updates fully on since I last did a clean install of Windows. Previously, I had been in the habit of leaving the setting on ‘Notify me but don't automatically download or install’ after the 2006 debacle when Microsoft started pushing out WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) via Automatic Updates. As Brian Livingston commented in his article, Dump Windows Update - use alternatives, “the code, which qualifies as spyware under any objective definition, was programmed to contact Microsoft's servers every 24 hours.”

That didn’t sit well with me at all. In case the Redmond giant tried to pull a similar stunt, I adopted a ‘wait and see’ policy for a few days or so after patches were released to observe how they were faring on the machines of the millions of users who jumped straight in and got the updates immediately. That way, if anyone’s system was going to be hosed, it shouldn’t have been mine. Suffice I say after this experience, I’ll be returning to my previous ‘patch practice’ and holding off for a while before installing the monthly batch of patches.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I’m going to be sticking with ZoneAlarm. For one, this fiasco wasn’t actually their fault and now the dust has settled, I don’t think apportioning blame is the best thing for anyone here. Software conflictions remain a fact of life and as long as there are remedies ASAP, it’s something we all just need to live with. While ZoneAlarm isn’t perfect, I’m not convinced there are more effective products that come with fewer overall grievances to choose from right now.

Blogging Heaven: Live Writer - Wave 4 - Beta

Buckle your chin-straps.  Windows Live Writer 4 is here

Most members of the blawgosphere are more than familiar with the wonders of Windows Live Writer.  I've been dedicated Live Writer user since autumn 2007 and as far as I'm concerned, it made managing a blog a whole lot easier.  Wrestling with the online blogger posting tools proved troublesome as it often garbled the post's formatting with little obvious rhyme or reason.  While I appreciate that there are a lot of passionate fanatics of the downloadable Wordpress software, there’s no denying that WLW is a fantastic freebie.

With the release of the beta of Windows Live Essentials Wave 4, comes the latest version.   The quality is top-notch and it certainly doesn’t feel like a half-baked beta that's not ready for prime time.   Save for a rather wacky (and needless) UI change, this release is the real deal.

The big news, of course, is that Live Writer now sports the ribbon interface, first debuted in Office 2007 and then ported over to in-built apps in Windows 7.  While there'll always be a few sceptics as to the ribbon UI, they remain firmly in the minority.  The Writer version of ribbon works well and should be welcomed across the board.  Thankfully, the ribbon UI within WLW retains its ability to be auto-hidden, though I’m not sure how advantageous it is to have greater screen real estate available while composing a blog post.

What I really don't get is why the labels dropdown menu was moved to the top, just under the ribbon.   It's a frankly ridiculous decision; it feels unnatural in use and seems like change for change's sake. For me (and I suspect most users) assigning labels and, less frequently, the posting date are often the last things you'll do before publishing the post.  Convention dictates that you work from top to bottom, so logic says it should be in the lower portion of the window.  Often before posting, I'll hit the preview tab (which was and still is at the bottom) to make sure it fits well with my template before posting.  The fact that these tabs (edit, preview and source) have remained at the bottom whilst the labels and posting date menus have been bumped up to the top makes it all the more strange.

Still, focussing on more positive news, this latest version feels the snappiest ever.  I've often bemoaned the sluggish performance of Live Writer (even on high end machines) and resulted in me typing up posts in MS Word - something I still find myself doing today.

When opening previous posts, there are now far more options in choosing how many load at once under the 'Open' menu.  This is great for going back and making tweaks to the labels, content or formatting of previous posts - particularly those dating from way back.   What I'd really like to see, however, is a way to set the default number of posts which load.  (Feature for Wave 5 maybe?)

Another addition are big, cheesy emoticons.  I guess you either like emoticons or you don't. If you do, bigger and brighter is better.  And if you don't, tough luck.
 

Other things which caught my eye

There are a couple of needless functions such as the ability to insert a map directly from Live Writer.  I can't see this one getting a whole lot of use to be honest. 

Word count (including the ability for real-time word count to be displayed) is a neat feature and is another reason for me to consider writing up posts within Live Writer itself rather than doing my copy and paste trick from Word of which I'm so fond.

Bug fix?  In previous versions of Live Writer, there was an issue with the ability to highlight text, particularly after inserting pictures.  Infuriatingly, the text would not remain highlighted as soon as you let go of the mouse button.  This highlighting bug was one of my few bugbears about WLW and although definitely got better over several releases (in the sense that it happened less often) it was never rectified completely.  With the beta, it's been a case of so-far, so-good, but I'll reserve final judgement until I've used it a bit longer.

I’m also hoping that the ecosystem for WLW add-ons improves considerably going forward. There are a couple of nice ones which I’ve used for a while now but my experiences with the add-ons generally have been disappointing. For the few that there are available, they tend to be horribly buggy and often fail to work as advertised. Oh well.

No matter how you slice it, though, this is a decent upgrade and certainly the most significant since WLW first went public nearly 3 years ago.  Somewhat controversially, as with the rest of Windows Live Essentials Wave 4, it’ll only work on Windows Vista and 7 so XP users need not apply. My only reservation in respect of the application itself the re-positioning of the label and posting date menu and am hoping it'll be moved back down to the bottom (where it rightfully belongs) before the final version is released later this year.   

And yes, although this is only a beta, it’s as good as done to be honest, and most bloggers will want to upgrade sooner rather than later.   Go on… you know you want to!

Daily Computing Routine

At a time when we all seem to be spending more time in front of a computer (or at least online via one of the ever-increasing array of shiny gadgets available out there) this picture seemed highly appropriate:

Found via Digg (as usual)!

Windows Seven: Much ado about nothing

Paul Thurrott on Wininfo Daily News 27/05/08:

Microsoft has been very cagey about Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista that's set for a 2010 release. Theories about the company's silence on Windows 7 are numerous, but most point to Microsoft Senior Vice President Steven Sinofsky, the man most directly responsible for Windows development. That's because Sinofsky is close-lipped and calculating, in direct contrast to his predecessor, Jim Allchin. This week, however, Sinofsky and company opened the doors and offered a brief peek at Windows 7 for the first time. A very brief peek.

Both [Sinofsky and Flores] claimed that Windows 7 would be a "major" or "significant" version of Windows, but both then went to great lengths to describe how the technical underpinnings of Windows 7 are based on Vista and will thus not incur any additional compatibility headaches. That, dear reader, is how Microsoft typically defines a minor, or R2 ("release 2") version of Windows.

Despite these mixed signals, my understanding was that the next version of windows was always going to be a Vista Second Edition. That said, Microsoft have got their work cut out rebuilding the credibility of windows after the public perception problems that have plagued Vista. Maybe that’s why they are keen to distance the upcoming release from the Vista nomenclature.

Blogging - a bit 'last year'

Have web technologies evolved far beyond the blog already? Are bloggers a bit 'last year'?  Granted, blogs aren't exactly the newest thing on the web these days and the style and purpose of blogs continue to evolve into something more community-oriented. 

But is being a blogger something to be ashamed of?

According to Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur in this week's Net @ Night podcast the blog is far from the cutting edge.

Leo: "it just feels to me that it's sooooo nineties" ...."the term 'blog' just seems diminutive".

"Blogs are big but they're a little bit mainstream"... [they] "seem a bit old-fashioned".

Amber: [the term blogger] "almost seems like an insult". 

And her response to people who introduce her as a blogger? "You know what, I don't actually blog that much". 

Avoid airport hassle by hiding your data

From The Guardian 15.5.08:

“Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. Customs and Border Patrol has not published any rules regarding this practice, and I and others have written a letter to Congress urging it to investigate and regulate this practice.

But the US is not alone. British customs agents search laptops for pornography. And there are reports on the internet of this sort of thing happening at other borders, too.”

What puzzles me is exactly what the criteria border officials use to decide which laptops to search and which to wave through. How exactly do you identify someone who is likely to have child pornography on their computers or otherwise got something to hide in the real world?  Are those searches performed purely at random?  Or, if you're of a more cynical disposition, you might be of the opinion that a person's ethnicity factors in considerably - particularly as regards perceived threats to national security.

Anyway, the article goes on to advise that simply encrypting the whole drive is not necessarily the answer here; the official will merely demand you enter the password. And while you can refuse, they too can refuse to allow you entry.

Instead, hiding your data with a hidden, encrypted partition is the way to go. PGP and TrueCrypt are two well-respected offerings as highlighted in the article. TrueCrypt is especially excellent and free, open-source software as well. There is a thorough - if a little geeky - podcast detailing the ins-and-outs of the latest version of TrueCrypt by world renowned security guru Steve Gibson as part of the Security Now section on TWiT. When I first listened to it earlier this year, I was fascinated to head that far from slowing down system performance as you might expect encryption to do, Steve found it actually increased system performance on any machine it was installed on. I have used the paid version of Steganos Safe for the past 2/3 years and find it excellent for my needs. Last year, they even made a free version available, Safe One, which limits you to creating two, 1GB encrypted drives.

Of course, there is always the option of just not carrying confidential data on your laptop when you travel across national boundaries, or encrypt it on a USB key and secret it about your person. Or, if you’re feeling very sneaky and secret-agent-ish, encrypt it on a memory card for your camera.

Gamer Girls

I was kind of interested to read earlier this week that females made up 41% of the video gaming market in Australia. That, actually, was a little higher than I had expected. Slowly, it seems, the industry is shrugging off the stubborn stereotype that gaming is solely the preserve of teenage boys and socially inept middle-aged men who still live with their parents.

While I haven’t looked that closely into the statistics in the UK, from what I’ve read the situation over here isn’t that dissimilar to that in Australia. Also, from a worldwide perspective, there can be little doubt that gaming amongst females is on the rise. Whatever your view of gaming, that trend isn’t necessarily a bad thing; there’s a lot to be said for gaming and it can prove a great way of reliving stress and relaxing. While negative arguments can also be made out involving the perceived uselessness of gaming and its perceived tendency to incite violence and copy-catting, let’s face it: there are a lot worse things that people could be doing with their time. What is noticeable, though, is the distinct lack of titles pitched at females – something the article points out too. That will surely change in going forwards as the industry responds to their changing customer base. So yes, in the future, there may well be more games directed at females that aren’t part of ‘The Sims’ series. Seriously!

I’m not a big gamer and have never owned my own dedicated console. I have, however, played PC games on and off over the years and am a particular fan of First Person Shooters. Most notably, I became certifiably obsessed with Half Life back in the summer of 2001. I hope my hard-core gaming days are behind me: 18 hour, non-stop gaming stints are only feasibly possible when you’re a caffeine-fuelled, compulsive teenager. For what it’s worth, I’m also rather partial to various racing games, Grand Prix 4, various rallying titles, and the Need for Speed series.

Note to self: must also get that copy of Grand Theft Auto IV I’ve been eying.

10 ways the Chinese internet is different from yours

The fact the Chinese government are vetting internet access is hardly news these days but it’s still an interesting topic and reason to be thankful it remains the exception rather the norm. I ran across an interesting article on Networked World about ’10 ways the Chinese internet is different from yours’.

#5 It's censored [obviously]

The Chinese government is believed to employ tens of thousands of censors who monitor bloggers and delete offensive or subversive material. These censors require ISPs and other Internet companies to stop posting articles, forums and blogs about controversial subjects.

#1 It's slower [oh!?]

Due to congestion on China's backbone networks and the time it takes for communications to travel across undersea cables to the United States and Europe, travelers find a noticeable difference in the responsiveness of the Internet in China compared to the rest of the world.

#4 Blackouts are common [oh boy]

If the Chinese government finds that a user has downloaded forbidden content, it breaks the connection and prohibits the user from establishing communications with the site. These blackouts can last anywhere from two minutes to an hour.

#3 Access to foreign Web sites is limited [oh great!]

The Chinese government uses four mechanisms -- DNS blocking, reset commands, URL keyword blocking and content scanning -- to prevent Internet users in the country from reaching blacklisted Web sites or content.

Sounds bad, right? But there are some positives:

Less spam, less malware and phishing scams and err, less porn.

Micro-hoo dead in the water

From Paul Thurrott on the Supersite for Windows Blog 04.05.08:

Well, it looks like Microsoft's attempt at a hostile takeover of Yahoo! is over. And really, thank God for  that one: Yahoo! is the tech equivalent of a bad loan, something that would have come back to bite Microsoft sooner rather than later. So while it's unclear what the future holds--I'm looking for other Microsoft investments and purchases in the Facebook/MySpace area--I thought it might be interesting to look back at my coverage of this event in chronological order. In compiling these excerpts, I'm struck by how much press this generated over the past few months. And I'm so happy to put this behind us.

Given how long, protracted and eventually bitter this merger-come-takeover bid became, I'm of the same opinion as Paul on this.  It would never have worked as Microsoft had intended and the best thing they could do was to drop it like the hot brick that it is.  I've also heard on the grapevine that Yahoo are losing talent faster than the Titanic took on water as key engineers look to jump ship before it's too late.  And to be worthwhile, Microsoft were going to need to inherit every braincell Yahoo had to offer for the crazy price they would have stumped up.  By standing firm on price demands, Yahoo, it seems, shot themselves in the proverbial.  Now they've scuppered whatever chance they had of a viable future and alienated their shareholders to boot. 

Sure, you still hear the odd, 'it might still happen' type news story doing the rounds on the net, but it truly does look as though Microsoft and Yahoo are going go their separate ways.  For Microsoft, who knows what that might mean and down what avenues they'll venture in the cloud computing era before us.  For Yahoo, though, the picture is clearer: it looks as though the only way is down.  And out, probably.

A typical computer desktop?

Most people’s computer desktops fall into one of three categories:

Spartan/Minimalist - Perfectly clean with just a small handful of oft-used icons strategically placed.

Cluttered, chaotic and disorderly – icons on your desktop are analogous to sardines in tins, rarely, if ever cleaned up.

The Filing Procrastinator - You’ve tried, bless you, but you’re losing the cluttered desktop war. Most people fall into this category (to varying degrees) and I would include myself in that. I have a bout of desktop clearing every now and then but my clearing antics are always swiftly countered by a returning salvo of new icons/files flooding in.

If you fall into one of the latter two categories, this might be just the answer. You can download a blank version as a desktop wallpaper at the correct resolution for your computer which neatly divides up the available screen real estate into ‘zones’. While you might not be able to relate to all of them, most computer users must surely raise their hands to having some of this content cluttering their desktops.

I particularly like the ‘Side Side Projects’ area and I’m certainly incredibly guilty of having an overflowing zone of (legal) ‘papers you’ve been meaning to read for months’ sitting there right in front of me but continuously ignored. Also, for certain projects (particularly protracted ones) I often place a ‘to do’ list on my desktop though I frankly don’t know why I bother, for all the good they do! Moreover, I like (and can readily relate to) the subtle yet important difference in prioritisation between the content of the ‘to do’ list and the ‘to really do’ list. And yes, I’m guilty of usually having a ‘supposed to have done last week’ list which is far longer than it should be.

But best of all, an awful lot of my desktop clutter stems from the ‘stuff you don’t know what to do with but don’t want to delete’ category. After all, it might prove useful some day.

The sign of a hard-working law student

Checked my LLM folder on my computer today, you know, just for the hell of it.

Was surprised to see it had reached the mammoth size of 283MB and had 862 files with 66 folders. Wow. And I’ve still revision work and the full fury of my dissertation to be thrown at it yet.

The fact the folder houses 862 files doesn’t really surprise me. The size is certainly an eye-opener and is due in large part to all of the journal articles I’ve used for assignments that I’ve downloaded in PDF format. The downside of open standards I guess!

While on this topic, I thought I might share my back-up and syncing strategy with the blawgosphere. Law students, in my experience, tend to be lousy at backing-up, but with the wide range of free automated backup and syncing tools available today, there really isn’t an excuse any longer.

My precious LLM folder is backed up (and synced) to a USB key using Microsoft Synctoy 2.0. Creating a folder pairing between the folder on my PC and the USB key means that syncing is just a one-button-click job – just as it should be. You could even automate the process via Task Scheduler in Windows. My LLM folder is also backed up (and synced again) to the cloud and a laptop using the fantastic Microsoft Live Mesh, though I guess MS haters out there can make use of services like Dropbox instead which works well across Windows, Mac and Linux. Technically, Live Mesh is still in Beta but I’ve been using it for virtually a whole year and have had no problems with it. Overall, I’ve found this happy back-up and syncing arrangement to serve my needs well for the past year or so.

I also perform random backups to external hard disks and the web. I’ve been a user of BT digital vault (their free service, that is) for a couple of years or so and find it adequate. I’ve used a variety of web-based back up services over the past few years (a few which have since disappeared from cyberspace) but with Live Mesh and BT’s digital vault, plus my variety of on-site backups, I think I’m reasonably well prepared. Still, there’s room for improvement, I guess: I might add a Networked Attached Storage (NAS) solution or a Home Server to my computing arsenal. After all, it’s the type of thing you can’t have too much of - when it comes to backups, more really is more.

I'm a Mac ....

All of the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" parodies have been done to death and I'm not really a fan on Mitchell and Webb either, save perhaps for their surprisingly good film, Magicians.  Still, when I came across this on Digg earlier, I thought it worthy of posting. 

 

Great stuff.

Multi Monitor Mayhem

From Future Lawyer 19/04/11:

I don't use dual monitors. I am not conflicted about work and play. When I play, I don't hide it. You don't really need dual monitors. You know you don't.

Hmm. I’m not totally convinced it’s as simple as that. There are genuine advantages to a multiple monitor set-up and it doesn’t necessarily follow that one monitor has to be for work and one for play. Still, YMMV.

I have a bit of a love-hate thing as far as dual monitors are concerned; I’ve used an additional monitor at times with my laptop but I’ve consciously avoided going double (or even triple) with my desktop.  I have plenty of space on my desk but I want it to stay that way, and I’m conscious just how much would be taken up by more than one monitor.  I also spend a lot of time moving between computers, so it’s probably as well that I don’t get too cosy with a multiple monitor setup.

I think dual monitors are a genuine advantage for some types of work, but there’s a key trade off with space which I’m just not willing to pay – at least at home. The distraction factor is an issue too; if you can park your mainstream work on your your main monitor, it’s easier to convince yourself you’re still working whilst you switch over to the secondary ‘recreational’ stuff on the other.  And that can play havoc with one’s productivity!

Believe me, I have a hard enough time staying focussed as it is. 

From what I recall, I’ve found more than one monitor useful when comparing different drafts of contracts side by side for instance, and for cross-checking information from two different sources without having to flick between windows.  Plus, it’s also really nice to have the ‘extra elbow’ room whilst working generally.

Still, whenever I’ve used multiple monitors, I can’t really say that it caused my productivity to skyrocket, though I don’t know if that’s a good or bad reflection on my usual working practice.

Are any members of the ‘sphere out there harbouring any strong feelings (positive or otherwise) about multiple monitors? 

uTorrent usage up - Limewire down

From Torrent Freak 26/04/08:

New data on the ever changing P2P landscape shows that the number of uTorrent users worldwide has more than doubled compared to last year. The BitTorrent client is most popular in Europe - with an install rate of 11.6% - and least popular in the United States, where 5.1% of the PCs have uTorrent installed.

From December 2006 to December 2007 LimeWire lost approximately 25% of its user base. By the end of 2007, 17% of all PCs in the United States had LimeWire installed, compared to 23.3% last year. Similar drops occurred in Europe, Latin America, and the rest of the world.

File sharing has been in the news a lot recently what with the growing concerns over net neutrality, packet shaping practices by ISPs and the ever-present issues of piracy.  I don't consider myself to be a massive P2P user and am very picky - I prefer to think of it as discerning - over what clients I use.  For instance, I've always kept Limewire at arms length for a variety of reasons and probably always will.  I've known others who have been badly 'bitten' in using it and after their experiences, have always steered clear.  That said, I also know of people who love it and have used it for years without a single problem.  Still, for me, the memories of Limewire being a hotbed for spyware and worse run pretty deep and have always refused to give in and install it on one of my own machines. 

I do, though, use uTorrent on occasions and found it good, on the whole.  I have used others in the past, but uTorrent is the only one I return to.  I should point out here that I don't download files illegally but merely enjoy the convenience of a P2P client for downloading certain types of content. I find it surprising, sometimes, the number and and particularly the types of people that install and use peer-to-peer file sharing clients.  I also remember reading a couple of articles  about 3 years ago that predicted such clients would be dead in - you guessed it - 3 or so years time.  How wrong they were; while the file sharing landscape is a complex one that's always in a state of flux, one thing it certainly isn't is dead. 

The Law Actually Hot Picks of the Week

This week has been a pretty busy one for me; even 'hot picks' are late this time around.  I’ve not been online that much and have not got through much of my habitual reading and listening of the week as my podcast consumption has gone through the floor.  That said, I've not let my finger slip entirely off the pulse of the tech law world and have kept my eye out for some of the week's quirkier news stories.  Here they are:

Not News: Virgin Media deny clamp-down on hackers.  This one is kind of news because it’s not.  Allegations broke on the net this last week about the ISP branch of the Virgin Empire being close to reaching agreement with the BPI over the '3 strikes and you're banned' policy that the latter want implemented.  Virgin Media have vehemently denied these allegations saying that they have merely held discussions, as have all ISPs but are far from reaching agreement. 

This concept is so fundamentally flawed, it's almost laughable.  Turning ISPs into the 'download police' is just crazy - something I've argued on Law Actually many times before.  That said, if the ISPs fail to satisfy bodies such as the BPI before the April 2009 deadline, the government will step-in and impose their own, possibly more stringent controls.  When this story first broke, I outlined some of the more serious issues that plague the proposal - and believe me, there are lots of them.  The ISPs also acknowledge that many problems remain - such as who will bear the administrative costs of the new policy and who would be liable should an innocent user be disconnected.  This saga has got a long way still to go.

13 year old suffers severe facial burns and blisters after a tanning overdose. Kieron Saunders, 13 frequented his local tanning salon as a means of combating his acne, an alternative, I suppose, to Clearasil. Still, he surely wasn’t counting on the blisters he was left with being much worse than his pesky spots. Unsurprisingly, there have been since been many calls for a change in the law regarding tanning salons; as it stands, such salons need not be permanently staffed. With concerns over skin cancer increasing year on year, I have to agree with the idea of scrapping these unmanned, coin-operated contraptions and tighter controls in place for salons who use conventional sunbeds. But seriously, should a 13 year old be using a tanning bed – acne or no acne? I know Mrs Saunders described her son as a ‘vain boy’ but isn’t this a touch too far?

Industry experts say jail data-loss bosses.
A survey of computer experts this week revealed that 1 in 4 thought that the bosses of companies which lose consumer data should be prosecuted. This is very much in line with what I have been arguing for a long time, now. The whole culture and attitude towards handling consumer data needs to undergo a massive shift for any substantial progress to be made with the data protection issues which have plagued the UK in the last couple of years. Three quarters of those surveyed thought offending companies should be fined while almost 60% thought affected consumers should be compensated. Hear, Hear!

 

I saw the BBC report his week that Symantec have announced that there are well over 1 million computer viruses lurking out there. You kind of have to feel sorry for the poor souls working for the AV vendors writing virus definitions – still, it keeps them in a job I guess. Indeed, you could argue that the insecurity of previous windows versions to have kept an entire industry in business for years.

 

'Dell breaks your laptop and sends out replacement full of pubes'. 
Charming. I know Dell was once notorious for pre-loading their computers with all kinds of crapware and bloated craplets but this is a step too far. Surely the first question you should ask, though, is how the keyboard got chocked up with them in the first place.

But it’s a difficult dilemma to be faced with. After all, what do you do with a laptop that has hair apparently growing out of the keyboard? I like the 3 options listed on The Consumerist:

“1. Vacuum it, douse it in alcohol, and just try to use it and forget about "the hedgehog"

2. Sell it and buy a new laptop

3. Go to the gym, run 3 miles, trim body hair directly over the keyboard, send laptop back to dell.”

No week would be complete on Law Actually without a reference to Facebook. The Metro reported this week that a user, Laura Michaels, set up a group entitled ‘I Need Sex’. A self-proclaimed sex-addict, Michaels admitted to sleeping with 50 men she met via the site. Pretty good going by anyone's standards.  Ms Michaels was choosey though; I mean, it’s not like she’d just have sex with any Facebook user out there. Oh no, she’d have to, you know, like the look of his Facebook photo first. The group (since removed) quickly garnered interest: “Within 10 minutes the group had 35 members and soon attracted 100 men, 50 of whom she slept with.”

I guess someone didn’t explain to her that the ‘poke’ function wasn’t to be taken so literally.

 

The 'Save Windows XP' campaign has drawn more than 111,000 supporters
When will those XP-philes out there just accept the fact that Windows XP is over the hill and should be consigned to history?  Given that it launched in October 2001 it's already had an extraordinarily long life cycle.  Granted, Service Pack 2 was tantamount to a ‘XP Second Edition’ but the OS is still getting rather long in the tooth. I’ve been following this story for a long time now and was interested to see Paul Thurrott over at the Supersite for Windows write up a review about whether XP is ‘good enough’ in everyday use. He concluded, yes – at a push – it is. But, then again, why would you want to, when you could have a far superior experience in Vista ? I second that. With more information about the next version of Windows - currently dubbed Windows 7 – beginning to trickle out, those stubbornly trying to hang on to the XP experience are just keeping themselves deliberately behind the times. Just get over it, move on and do us all a favour.