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Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Microsoft. Show all posts

Monday, 14 March 2011

Monday afternoon catch-up

More Firefox tabs bite the dust:

1) The Mail reports that:
'Councils across the UK are refusing to pick up low-energy light bulbs from homes as they contain toxic mercury, which gives off poisonous vapours.

But confused consumers are putting the new bulbs – classed as hazardous waste – in their dustbins when they burn out, potentially putting the safety of thousands of binmen at risk.

Previously, the public disposed of traditional light bulbs, used in Britain for 120 years, in a domestic bin.

However, they are being phased out under a European Union ruling and are being replaced with energy-saving bulbs, many of which contain mercury.

Last night UNISON, the union which represents thousands of rubbish collectors across Britain, said it was concerned at the risks binmen are facing.

A spokeswoman said: ‘We are worried as most people do not know these bulbs are not to be put in dustbins. The Government is not doing enough to make people aware of the risks.’

The most common types of low-energy bulbs are known as ‘compact fluorescent lamps’.

A study by Germany’s Federal Environment Agency found that when one of them breaks, it emits levels of toxic vapour up to 20 times higher than the safe guideline limit for an indoor area.

If a bulb is smashed, the UK’s Health Protection Agency advice is for householders to evacuate the room and leave it to ventilate for 15 minutes.'
The next time you are at the home of someone who has opted for the delights of low-energy bulbs, you'll know who there as the house will be dimmer than yours, ask them if they know what to do if they break a bulb!


2) Climate Depot
reveal that:
'Greenpeace Co-Founder and ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore, slammed a new study claiming a dramatic and irreversible mass species extinction. “This [journal Nature] article should never have made it through the peer-review process,” Moore told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “The fact that the study did make it through peer-review indicates that the peer review process has become corrupted,” Moore, the author of the new book "Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout,” added.
“The authors [of the journal Nature study] greatly underestimate the rate new species can evolve, especially when existing species are under stress. The Polar Bear evolved during the glaciation previous to the last one, just 150,000 years ago,” Moore explained.'

3) Steve Tierney thinks we should all but Kate Birbalsingh's 'To Miss With Love' book; he's right so here's the Amazon link.


4) Israelly Cool thinks that there are some similarities between Colonel Gaddafi and John Galliano; here's one reason why...

5) Rob Delaney is still an unfunny twit.


6) USA Today reports that Microsoft really wants users to stop using IE6.


7) CO2 Insanity reveals the actually not that surprising news that 'British Green Movement Backed Murderous Libyan Regime'. That's what I expect from the 'watermelon movement'.
'The shabby British-Libyan partnership of extremism first became apparent back in 2007. But only now does the BBC finally pay some attention as the madman Libyan dictatorship slaughters his own people in a desperate attempt cling to power. Finally, we get an insight into the relationship between the Gaddafi family and various British institutions and politicians.

At the time Lord Stern trumpeted the Gaddafi plan boasting it, “will show how environmental and cultural objectives can help to build a thriving and sustainable local economy in a crucial part of the world.”

However, not is all as it seems while the BBC are still keeping tight-lipped over the link between Saif Gaddafi, London School of Economics Professor David Held and Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband.

...

Despite local Libyan people long opposing Gaddafi’s plan it was enforced on them with the connivance and support of UNESCO, WWF and the Prince of Wales School of Traditional Arts.

But the story gets worse as Greg Hurst and Dominic Kennedy, reporting in the Times (March 3, 2011), reveal that the ultra green London School of Economics (LSE) secured a secret £1 million deal to train hundreds of members of the Libyan dictator’s future green elite.

Hurst and Kennedy explain that LSE’s underhanded dealings with the Gaddafi regime were revealed after whistleblowing website WikiLeaks uncovered secret diplomatic cables.

The Times reports:

“The NEDB [Libyan National Economic Development Board] is co-operating with the UK Government and the London School of Economics (Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi’s alma mater), among other UK institutions, on an exchange programme to send 400 ‘future leaders’ of Libya for leadership and management training. Eventually, [an official of NEDB] explained, 250 additional Libyan ‘future leaders’ would also be trained in Libya.”

LSE staff are financed by Gaddafi money and recently argued that Libya was less likely to have a revolution because it had “more pronounced tribalism” giving Libyans a fair stake in society.

An embarrassed LSE has tried to pass off the despicable collaboration as a “purely education endeavour”. This nonsensical statement is hardly surprising being that Lord Giddens, the former LSE director, regards Gaddafi as “impressive” and “genuinely popular.”

Although evidence is yet to be uncovered that proves their claim some skeptics insist Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi’s PhD from the LSE was bought as part of the disreputable deal.'

8) The Register have found a MAC virus so wipe that supercilious smile off of your faces Mac worshippers.


9) Liberal Vision and The Mail remind us that the NHS is not the 'envy of the world' when it mistreats so many elderly patients. This from Liberal Vision:
'It is far too difficult to dismiss incompetent doctors, teachers, police officers and council workers. That in turn the result of decades of political interference in what are professional services, and concessions to unions for a quiet life. Patients don’t go on strike when you ignore them.

That culture and legal protections need to go, as do the staff who think leaving an old man soaking in his own urine is a bit of an oversight, and their managers who think the response to a such a complaint is a training course on ’respect’.'
And this from The Mail:
'Two people die of thirst every single day in hospital wards.

Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 ­hospital patients every year, the latest figures reveal.

Another 300 die malnourished, while thousands more die of ­infections and crippling bedsores.'


10) Wasps Nest has an idea for a story that is 'more appropriate for Labour’s record on crime'


More to follow...

Saturday, 1 January 2011

Android phone or iPhone?

I am in the process of choosing a new smartphone and am trying not to buy an Apple iPhone as a) I want a hardware keyboard and b) I am not an Apple fanboi. I was looking at Windows Mobile 7 but there are some key omissions from its feature list:
No threaded e-mail
No universal search
No Internet tethering
No Twitter integration
Alphabetical-only app list organization

So I was amused to note the latest news of os failures for Android and iPhone. The first relates to iPhones and seems to be a variant of the Clocks changing alarm bug, in this latest instance one off alarms set for 2011 will fail. There is a work around - simply create a recurring alarm at the time you need to be woken up and then disable it once you are awake. The Android bug seems less clear cut, but it is claimed that:
'For at least the last couple versions, Android has been plagued with a couple extremely serious bugs in its text messaging subsystem that can ultimately end up causing you to text the wrong contact -- even contacts that you've never texted before.

...

More seriously, though, there's also an open issue in Android's bug tracking system -- inexplicably marked "medium" priority -- where sent text messages can appear to be in the correct thread and still end up being sent to another contact altogether. In other words, unless you pull up the Message Details screen after the fact, you might not even know the grievous act you've committed until your boss, significant other, or best friend -- make that former best friend -- texts you back.'
This Android bug seems potentially more serious to me but it has least made up my mind for me; I'll stock to WinMo 6.1 for the time being!

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Conflicker.B Infection Alert

If you receive an email along the following lines just delete it, it is an attempt to infect your computer:

"Subject: Conflicker.B Infection Alert
Message:

Dear Microsoft Customer,

Starting 18/10/2009 the ‘Conficker’ worm began infecting Microsoft customers unusually rapidly. Microsoft has been advised by your Internet provider that your network is infected.

To counteract further spread we advise removing the infection using an antispyware program. We are supplying all effected Windows Users with a free system scan in order to clean any files infected by the virus.

Please install attached file to start the scan. The process takes under a minute and will prevent your files from being compromised. We appreciate your prompt cooperation.

Regards,
Microsoft Windows Agent #2 (Hollis)
Microsoft Windows Computer Safety Division"

Microsoft do not issue such warnings or links to software, please delete the email and do pass this warning on.

Saturday, 20 February 2010

The future of Internet browsing choice



Microsoft reveal that:
"Over the next few weeks, Microsoft will begin offering a “Web browser choice screen” to Internet Explorer users in Europe, as required by the European Commission. Internal testing of the choice screen is underway now. We’ll begin a limited roll-out externally next week, and expect that a full scale roll-out will begin around March 1, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule."
Read the whole article to see how it will work and how happy Microsoft are!

To summarise, Windows 7 users will have Internet Explorer automatically "unpinned" from their task bars as part of the choice process and users will get a screen warning that they have "an important choice to make", before getting the list of what Microsoft describes as "leading browsers".

Of course the web savvy will already be using alternative browsers and those that don't will not really understand that there is an alternative to Internet Explorer or what that means, they just want to access the Internet.

Saturday, 9 January 2010

Windows 7 "God Mode"

I have just learnt of a fascinating supposedly previously undocumented Windows 7 feature - "God Mode". God mode lets one access all of Windows 7's control panels from within a single folder. To enter "God Mode," one need only create a new folder and then rename the folder to the following: GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Try it but don't blame me if something goes wrong...

Thursday, 31 December 2009

Here's to 2010 (part 2)

Further to my earlier post, here's a few more.

Ten other predictions for 2010:
1. An Islamic jihadist attack will succeed and hundreds will die but still 'the West' will not acknowledge the reality of the threat
2. Iran will test a nuclear device and the UN will still pretend that they pose no threat to Israel or anyone else
3. The Man Made Climate Change religion will increase its hold on the western world's politics and the 'warmists' will make holding 'deniers' views even more difficult
4. Microsoft will release Office 2010 to replace Office 2007 but most businesses will still stick with Office 2003
5. Nigel Farage will beat John Bercow to take his Buckingham seat
6. Matt Smith's portrayal of The Doctor will not match up to David Tennant's
7. The Big Brother team will engineer a 'controversy' for the final series, I won't care
8. England will not win the World Cup
9. Andy Murray will not win the Wimbledon title
10. NotaSheep will continue to blog


Happy New Year...

Tuesday, 24 November 2009

Do you have pdf documnets on your website? If so you need to read this

Well this Register article which informs us that:
"A bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is causing more than 50 million files stored online to leak potentially sensitive information that could compromise user privacy, a security researcher said.

The documents stored in Adobe's PDF format display the internal disk location where the file is stored, an oversight that can inadvertently expose real-world names and login IDs of users, the operating system being used and other information that is better kept private. The data can then be retrieved using simple web searches.

Google searches such as this one expose almost four million documents residing on users' C drives alone. Combined with searches for other common drives, the technique exposes more than 50 million files that display the local disk path, according to Inferno, a security researcher for a large software company who asked that his real name not be used."

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Now Microsoft try and copy Apple stores as well as front-ends


Words fail me at watching this video shot at Microsoft's store at the Mission Viejo mall in California. Yes Apple is cool and Microsoft is not, get over it...

Monday, 12 October 2009

Windows 7 hidden features

Thanks to Jason Hiner at TechRepublic we know about five new Windows 7 features that others seem to have missed.... Here's one:
"3. Registry: The Starter Edition

Much like the way Microsoft is offering a crimped version of Windows 7 called “Starter Edition,” I’ve also discovered an alternate version of the Windows Registry. Since this mysterious alternate Registry does not have an official name, let’s call it “Registry: The Starter Edition” because it is a greatly simplified and dumbed-down version. In fact, instead of five hives like the standard Registry, this one only has two: HKEY_CLUELESS_USER and HKEY_CRAPPY_MACHINE. I’m still not sure what purpose this alternate Registry will serve. The only thing I can think of is that it is designed to simplify the process of building Windows software for developers who have been writing Windows code for decades but are still too lazy to follow best practices in terms of file organization and user security."
Cute, very cute.

Wednesday, 26 August 2009

More false-positives

To add to AVG, CA and Kaspersky you can now add Microsoft! It seems that Microsoft's SmartScreen Filter, which is built into IE7 and IE8, labelled every uk.com site as a phishing site following an overnight rule change. Many of the affected sites have now been unblocked, but others remain labelled as potentially dangerous to surfers to anyone using Microsoft's SmartScreen consumer protection technology.

Well done Microsoft.

Monday, 13 July 2009

Microsoft Office 2010 launched a little early

Showing that Microsoft may still be a bit naive when it comes to the web, they launched the Microsoft Office 2010 website before the product was launched. The site has now been pulled but Google, who must now be Microsoft's biggest rival in Office software and maybe soon in operating systems, have it cahed - take a look here for details of the software:
"Microsoft® Office 2010 gives you rich and powerful new ways to deliver your best work whether you’re at work, home, or school on a computer, Web browser, or Smartphone. Grab your audience’s attention and inspire them with your ideas using enhanced tools, customizable templates, and photo editing capabilities. Work with multiple people from different locations at the exact same time using new co-authoring capabilities. By offering more ways to access your files from virtually anywhere, Office 2010 puts you in control."
The plus side of the new Office 2010 is substantially larger Excel models (I spend more working time in Excel than any other Microsoft product bar Outlook) but on the negative side the bloody ribbon bar remains albeit with the option to customise the Ribbon. Looks like I will continue to use Office 2003 for most work and maybe Excel 2010 for larger modelling jobs albeit with a 2003 menu add-in.


Of course it is also possible that Microsoft deliberately let the news sneak out early to gain publicity nad if that is the case then I have helped them!

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Windows 7

I see that Microsoft have stopped pretending that Windows 7 will be released in 2010 and that it will be released to manufacturing in August and hit the retailers in October. The big question is will my old XP running laptop survive long enough that I can jump straight to a new Windows 7 laptop and so miss out entirely on Vista?

Thursday, 1 January 2009

Microsoft do it again

In the early hours of New Years Eve (31 December 2008) every 30GB Zune (Microsofts' iPod slayer) froze and refused to work any more. There is an easy fix, open the player (thus voiding your warranty), unplug the battery, wait a few seconds, plug back in again and all will be well.

However what is more interesting is why all 30GB Zunes crashed at the same time: glitch in the operating system, sabotage, virus or maybe just a good old fashioned dose of Microsoft incompetence - it wouldn't be the first time.

Am I glad I just have a rather elderly iRiver, never goes wrong.

Wednesday, 29 October 2008

Windows 7 complete with bug

Take a look at this BBC report and check-out the screen expanding bug - you have got to love Microsoft...

Here is a rather more polished demonstration of Windows 7


For the geeks amongst you this is a video showing bits from each of the major iterations of Windows from 1.01, through 2.03, 3.0, 3.1, Windows For Workgroups 3.11, 95, NT Workstation 3.51, NT Workstation 4.0, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista. How many have you worked on? My tally would be 12 out of 14, I was outside of the Microsoft operating system and then was on DOS for a long time before moving to Windows v 3.0. Ah the different iterations of DOS, happy days... and as for CP/M...

Thursday, 23 October 2008

Another Microsoft security vulnerability

Microsoft are about to release an emergency security update to plug a vulnerability which could allow an internet worm to be spread via a computer without the user doing anything. This update is rated as critical for users of Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 and the less severe rating of "important" for users of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. The patch is scheduled for release at 10.00am Pacific Time (6pm BST) with a webcast 3 hours later to explain the issues. Here is Microsoft's current explanation; useful?

Thursday, 22 May 2008

Microsoft Office 2007 getting you down?

Microsoft Office 2007 getting you down? Productivity reduced due to "The ribbon"? There is a solution, I have just found Toolbartoggle, looks like it might be worth a try.

Sunday, 23 March 2008

Microsoft do it again

I see that the BBC have finally realised that Microsoft have released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for their Vista Operating System. Being a Microsoft update there had to be problems and this is no exception - "Microsoft has warned that the update could clash with some security software and other programs customers may have installed on their machine...In late February Microsoft released a list of programs that SP1 could break when it was installed. Among those listed were anti-virus programs from BitDefender and Trend Micro."

Having experienced the initial teething issues with Vista I was not a fan, although I must admit the last few Vista installs have been trouble free, so the thought of SP1 should fill me with joy... However for someone reason I have a bad feeling...

Thursday, 4 October 2007

Microsoft Vista

In my other life I am often asked for advice on PCs and am increasingly asked "what have you got against Vista? It must be good Dell pre-install it".

Thanks to Fake Steve via the ever wonderful Devils Kitchen I now have a video to show my interlocutor...