Vista users should get free upgrade to Win7

Vista is such an imcomplete product, I feel I have been to forced to buy Vista when Microsoft stop selling WinXP before they got vista's service pack - Windows 7 ready. I really do think Microsoft should make it free for Vista user to upgrade to Windows 7.

It has been such a fustration, it's about experience, right?

First switch off that side bar, it eats performance

Second, wanna listen to some music? Afterall, that's what computer are generally used for these days? Dont forget to switch off the enhancements, otherwise it will take very long (5-6 seconds) before you can start playing songs in Windows Media Player.

And of course there is the much joked about User Account Control.

For now, maybe you can troubleshoot some of Window's sliggish performance using Sysinternals's case of the unexplained series.

Anyways, if it truely is all about experience, why do I have to troubleshoot it all the time?!

Life After Death

I have never quite understood the idea behind elaborate funerals. For different times and culture, elaborate takes on a different meaning. For the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, it means spending their lifetime (and many more of the others) building a pyramid just to house his dead body. As with most ancient royalties, life sacrifice is quite common and these "graves" are generally more spectacular than the normal living human being's home. Modern days, in our metropolitan cities, elaborate probably means not getting cremented but buried, when living humans are running out of spaces to live.

I think the body's life after death is meant to return to nature, to become soil again, to return the favour to mother nature, to support life, for trees to grow on. Perhaps before that, since everyone before us has made us who we are today, perhaps we can contribute our finale to the future generation. Scientist discover electricity, scientist after them discover nuclear power. Pharmacist before concocted herbal remedies, pharmacist after them concocted drugs. We may not be scientist or pharmacist or medics etc, but our finale can still be contributed towards the future:

Donating body for research:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/life-after-death-donating-your-body-for-research-1623676.html

Donating body tissue for research:
http://www.hta.gov.uk/donations/howtodonateyourtissueforresearch.cfm

There is of course, the chance to donate organs to save lifes as well!

Vista, O2 Incompatibility - again.

"Windows 7 upgrade should be free to anyone who was conned into buying Windows Vista." - quote from http://blogs.computerworld.com/microsofts_windows_7_vista_replacement_plan

I cannot agree more.

My latest Vista saga involves an incompatibility between the latest patch KB80248 and O2 mobile dongle E160 driver. The "Recommended" patch, looked innocent enough: "Install this update to remove the Windows File Protection from applicable Windows font files. This update is necessary so the Office 2010 installer can update the fonts. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer". After Windows helpfully install all the recommended patch, whenever I connect to O2 network, regardless of browser, the page says "Unable to Connect". What has font got to do with all these? Perhaps someone can explain this before a hacker does...

Having spoken to O2's technical support for 1 hour on the phone, finally we have decided a system restore is the solution, and indeed O2 mobile internet works again having reverted the patch.

I hated Vista on day one when my brand new computer arrives, Vista was incompatible with a lot of drivers, some others may say it's the drivers' developer's fault - well, I think evidence is suggesting to me that Vista is not making life any easier for drivers developer hence the mess. There wasn't anything I can do about it since my computer broke down when they stopped selling XP, and Win7 is not out... I am upgrading to Windows7, but I feel conned!!!

Three, O2 mobile broadband comparison

(UK) If you think all you need is just to check email, facebook, occationally write some blog and make calls over Skype, it's easy to think mobile broadband might not be a bad idea, especially if your landline doesnt exist for one reason or another (like a stupid tenent has cut it off).

Wrong.

I am not living in a remote hole in London and I have checked my coverage on each providers' site, I am suppose to have "good/excellent coverage". Unfortunately, the connection is minimal and interrupted in each case.

I have used 2 mobile dongles, one from Three and one from O2, here is my experience for the past 6 months or so (click on the table for a clearer view):



A note on return policy - it is really poor on both as you have to proof that you are actually having persistent connection problem while they are busy trying to blame it on maintainence work.


O2 Driver Issue on Vista:
I believe O2 connection manager is not really compatible with Vista build (I read about the vista vs o2 connection manager compatibility issue on a few forums but O2 seem to have dismissed the issue). To begin with, O2 driver has installed several times on each of my COM ports... It's not ok but less fustrating if installing the driver everytime will solve the problem... BUT, the situation has deterioate a lot lately - "O2 connection manager has stopped working" happens to me at least 3 times in the evening lately. When O2 connection manager crashes like that, you might not get cut off immediately... however it is best to unplug the dongle and restart the O2 connection manager - because if you don't, it might stop your machine from shutting down instead. Luckily, I find that the issue can be worked around by using your computer's local connection manager (as oppose to O2 connection manager) - If you happen to have a Dell machine, there is a work around to the issue - look in Dell Support Center, there is a "Get connected" function there, it works perfectly fine with your dongle plugged in but without starting up the crash happy O2 connection manager.

Yasutaka Tsutsui

I enjoy reading novel's by Haruki Murakami, and indeed, it has become such a trendy thing to do these days. But what I have just realise is that I have, over many years, been in love with Yasutaka Tsutsui (筒井康隆)'s novels. One way or another I came across animated version of his work: A Girl who leap through time, Paprika (side note, Paprika's soundtrack was composed by Susumu Hirasawa, who also composed the soundtrack for Millennium Actress and Paranoia Agent, which are both very good productions). It's probably not a comparable comparison, but to an untrained eyes (leisurely reader) both writers' novel have a kind of dreamy attribute, the swapping of concious and subconcious point of view of the character. But Yasutaka's novel is less depressing, more satrical, and often more powerful and complex. Yasutaka Tsutsui is born 15 years before Murakami, it's unfortunate that his work did not get translated very much... In any case, if you enjoy reading Murakami, try Tsutsui (well, maybe the one that has been broadcasted on BBC lately - salmonella men on planet porno - is not the best way to introduce him... try Paprika instead!)

Should I buy eBook Readers?

As a book lover, the need for a eBook Reader seem to have been growing in my mind over the past couple of years.

Looking around, eBook readers devices seem to have automatically mean one that uses E-Ink technology. The notable ones that caught my eyes are Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Ebook Readers and the latest entry to the market, Barns and Noble's nook. To get an idea of the best possible I can get from these E-Ink devices, I have decided to compare the latest version of them. And this is a summary of my findings:



Now, if you are not in US, then the "best possible" (latest) models are not available to you! Their previous models are (except for Barns and Noble which is only available in US). But at least you can have an idea of what is coming next. All is not lost, even the hardware might be less advance with earlier models, the service you get differs from country to country - in the UK, Sony has announced a partnership with local libraries, so you can borrow books from Library on their reader.

Should I buy eBook Readers? Maybe not (yet).

Once I have read that these ebook readers devices have revive the habit of reading, well, at least in the UK, I think I am seeing loads of people reading news paper, books and magazines in the paper format, in contrast, I have only ever saw one person using such device... So I think printed materials still have their attraction, especially because their tactile quality is still not replaceable by digital version (the ease of turning, skipping pages). Moreover, there is no DRM terrorising the books, you can read your book anywhere you carry it to, which ever bag you carried it in, you can lend your book to your friend (and he can just forget to return it altogether!). In terms of robustness, you can drop your book and it will not smash, occationally you can drop your book into water and you can always air it dry. Last but not least, you can change your book shelf without loosing all your books (if you have been using Kindle, then your books are stuck with that hardware)!

But the idea of e-book is a good one and, in my opinion, will probably take off one day when it can:

• Integrate the reading of all forms of published matter (magazine, news paper, books, blogs) into one hardware device - an interesting one for the commercial world to fight over wrt business model...
• Allow a library amount of books to be carry around but weighing only like one - I'd say we are already there.
  
• Support most languages - as oppose to the current support on only Latin characters.
  
• A purchased book should not vanish unless you conciously bin it - Amazon has remotely deleted users book with refund on a recall! While companies are so busy protecting their properties, why should our properties suddenly vanish?!
  
• Turning, scanning, skipping pages should not be obscure and should be instant - now that's what I call a basic idea, all the fancy stuff is nothing if the basics of reading a book cannot be done...
• Books should be portable to different devices, even when you switch the brand of eBook Reader device - that would be down to enforcing ePub (or any future) standard is being use!

An alternative to that, download some e-book reader software (http://www.jedisaber.com/ebooks/Readers.asp) and install it on the portable hardware of your choice (laptop, tablet etc)!

Must Have Extensions for FireFox

For those with identity problem -
If you have multiple identities on the same site, this should be perfect for you:

Cookie Swap - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3255

For example, if you have 2 gmail accounts:

1. open gmail in a tab
2. sign in as abc.efg
3. Note the profile name on the bottom right corner of the firefox window e.g. "Profile 1"
4. Click on the "Profile 1", change it to something different, e.g. "Profile 2"
5. Sign in as uvw.xyz using profile 2

Note: this will only work if you are keeping cookies "until expire" under Firefox > Tools > Privacy > Option, it will not work if you are only keeping cookies "when I restart".

You are now set up to do the swap! Whenever you want to login as abc.efg, you click profile 1 on the bottomw right corner, profile 2 for loggin in as uvw.xyz. As you swap between the profile, the page will reload with the identity as defined.

To make your life easier, you can actually rename the profile:

1. left click on the "Profile 1" on the bottom right corner of the window
2. select manage profile
3. select the profile and click rename (opens in another window)
4. edit e.g. change "profile 1 to "abc.efg", "profile 2 to uvw.xyz"

Note that a change in profile will apply to all your tabs in all instances of firefox of the same profile. So if you are looking to set a profile against one tab instead of all of the tab, Cookie pie seem to do that trick, but that is not on the official add on page.


For those who cannot cope with Flashy pages -

Flash Block - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/433
This add on will not forbidden the flash, it will just replace them with a "play" button, so if you really want to see the flash, that's no hassel - just press play!
(thanks Matt for pointing me to that!)

For developers -

A must have for those who code websites, or for anyone who is pariticularly concerned about getting the placements of objects right in the page!
Firebug - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

A must have for the server developers, wanna know what is wrong in those request message headers?
Live Http Headers - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3829