by Kevin Partner on 27 October, 2009
I live in Milton Keynes and have been to Bletchley Park many time. As you probably know, Bletchley Park was the home of the “codebreakers” in the Second World War who cracked the various enemy codes (including the infamous Enigma Code) and are credited with shortening the war. The park became, by default, owned by BT but is now independent. It is, however, in grave need of preservation. I heard about an Early Day Motion in Parliament related to the park and asked my local MP, Phylis Starkey, if she supported it.
Here is her response:
[click to continue…]
by Kevin Partner on 27 October, 2009
Just run the Safari browser to check a site (it was already installed) only to find that it has automatically set itself to be my default browser. The Apple control-freakery spreads…
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by Kevin Partner on 26 October, 2009
by Kevin Partner on 26 October, 2009
To my utter disbelief, I have today received an email from my “Royal Mail Business Consultant” (some might call it spam, especially since it’s not personalised, but that’s quite another matter) offering to meet me to discuss a new service they’re offering (“Royal Mail Tracked”).
ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH? My post isn’t even being DELIVERED at the moment! Sort out the dispute, stop demonising the posties (oh, and posties, get real about what you can expect in terms of job security and terms and conditions) and get my post delivered before I will even CONSIDER talking to you.
I shall be emailing my new “consultant” to that effect.
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by Kevin Partner on 25 October, 2009
Extremely irritated by services that insist I change my password. The latest is EKM Powershop, an online ecommerce service. Now I have yet another new password to remember.
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by Kevin Partner on 25 October, 2009
I bought a cheapish Dell desktop (Studio 540 with Q8200 chip) a couple of months back and have been pleased with it so far. However, I've just had occasion to go to the "Power Options" panel (not something you do often on a desktop) to find that I've been running the "Dell Recommended" plan which bizarrely combines a low Energy Savings ratio with a low Performance (3 on each). In other words, my computer has been running at less than 100% performance (indeed, if you believe the rating system, it's been throttled back by 50%!) since I bought it. What's the point of that in a desktop? I could have bought a second hand computer from 3-4 years ago to get the same effect at much lower cost.
I can't be bothered to run "before and after" tests on my computer's performance but I really can't see any reason for Dell to strangle the performance of my desktop for only a minor benefit in terms of energy saving.
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by Kevin Partner on 21 October, 2009
Recently moved from XBox 360 to PS3 but am finding the need to update every single game before I can play it driving me NUTS. Bought “Little Big Planet” yesterday, slotted it in, spent the next hour downloading and installing 500MB of updates! Can’t they get the bloody thing right before releasing it? Why is this updating SO much worse than on the Xbox?
The console came with version 3 of the OS installed (released, I think, last month) and, before I could even use it, needed to be updated to 3.01: another 40 minute delay? What ever happened to buying a console, slotting in a game and playing it for heaven’s sake?
Overall, however, I like the PS3. Little Big Planet has the most amazing graphics and, of course, I get a Blu-ray player built in (though I haven’t yet watched a blu-ray disk due to their expense). Incidentally, the up-scaling software built into the PS3 is excellent: benefiting 3D animated movies such as Kung-fu panda and Toy Story especially. I certainly don’t feel as though I need to upgrade my DVD collection to blu-ray any time soon.
I love the integration of BBC iPlayer into the OS (although why can’t I download programmes? The system has a 120GB hard disk after all!). The overall experience is similar to the XBox 360 but much, much, much quieter: oh what a relief it is to not feel as though you’re playing games in a tornado.
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by Kevin Partner on 20 October, 2009
Yahoo’s developer team has come up with 34 best practices (http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html) for speeding up your web pages. Now, some of them are marginal in effect but all the tips get you thinking about how you go about the most common activities (for example, inserting images into a web page) and how they affect the page loading speed.
Download speed is something that many designers pay little heed to these days. It was an essential aspect of the web designer’s skill set up until around 5 years ago but designers now seem to believe that broadband makes it unnecessary. This isn’t the case for a number of reasons:
1) Some people can’t get/don’t have broadband
2) Broadband performance varies markedly around the country and during the day. My connection, for example, varies between 3000kbps and less than half that. So, my perception of internet performance is altered according to the time of day I use it
3) It’s not just about brute speed: one of the main factors to slow down a page is the number of HTTP requests. Minimise these to speed up the perception of your site’s speed.
4) Everything’s relative. Whilst compared with dial-up, any site viewed on broadband will seem faster, once you’re using broadband you’re then influenced by the relative speed of each site. In other words, whilst a page that took 10 seconds to download might take 2 seconds on broadband, this will seem slow compared to another page that takes 1 second. People expect responsiveness these days.
Take a look at the Yahoo list and think about how easy or hard it would be to incorporate them into your development practice/server configuration. There’s always a judgement to be made about whether the effort is worthwhile but some of these are simply a change of practice and ought to become standard practice.
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by Kevin Partner on 19 October, 2009
The BBC’s new look website has now made it impossible to quickly see what is going on during a radio programme. I heard someone being interviewed today on Five Live and wanted to know who it was. Previously, by going to the website, I’d see the programme schedule for that day and be able to identify who was speaking. This is no longer the case: it’s been replaced by general news of the day and links to blogs.
I wanted to get in touch with them to voice this concern and eventually was directed to www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/?ref=/fivelive/ . As you’ll see this page (the page I’m supposed to use to contact them) is broken.
So, I then clicked the earlier link that said “report technical faults” only to be told to click the “contact us” link on the fivelive website. This link brings me right back to the same page (telling me to click “contact us”) so my only option, it seems to me, is to email the programme’s presenter.
What a load of old rubbish.
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by Kevin Partner on 16 October, 2009
Just been prompted by Carbonite to renew my subscription. That’s odd, I thought, it didn’t seem as though a year had passed.
On clicking the prompt, you get sent to a screen that invites you to pay but doesn’t tell you when your current subscription expires.
Curious, I logged into my account to find that my current subscription expires in THREE MONTHS! Very, very naughty Carbonite. By prompting me to renew, you are implying that my subscription is nearing expiry and, given that it’s a backup service, the temptation is simply to pay for a new subscription. Now, I’m sure the new one would only begin when the old one expired but why should I pay 3 months in advance?
I am now looking for an alternative backup service that doesn’t take the mickey.
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