Blog
13 March 2007
I heard a radio advert this morning telling my that if I blow my car tyres up to the correct pressure, I’ll be helping to reduce global warming. At least, I think that’s what the point was. It was early. Anyway, the ad finished by saying something along the lines of:
Search the web for [act on co2] for more information.
It seems that this is the latest campaign from the UK Government to help educate people about ways in which we can prevent global warming. (I think.) And since they were restricted to a 30-second advert, someone had the bright idea of telling people to search the web to find out more. What a great idea!
So let’s take a look at the results returned by the four most popular search engines...
Google – www.google.com/search?q=act+on+co2
Yahoo – search.yahoo.com/search?p=act+on+co2
Windows Live – search.live.com/results.aspx?q=act+on+co2
Ask – www.ask.com/web?q=act+on+co2
Whilst some of the information you find when searching for [act on co2] on any search engine could potentially be useful, I think it’s obvious that the UK government intended people to use Google and find the Department for Transport’s website.
Why didn’t they just grab ActOnCO2.com (which is available) or another similar domain? Or just tell people “to google” for [act on co2] instead?
(Maybe they wanted to avoid parody sites being setup using similar domains like what happened when they launched their Preparing for Emergencies campaign a few years ago...)
Labels: ask, google, microsoft, personal, rant, yahoo
6 February 2007
Seriously. WTF is going on with the music industry these days? A few years ago I decided to ‘go straight’ and stop copying CDs from my mates and give up downloading music ‘for free’ from the Internet completely. I decided that if I wanted a CD, I would buy it. And I’ve been doing that successfully for quite a few years now. But then the digital age forced itself upon us...
Last year, I bought myself an 8GB iPod nano and ripped all my CDs to it – all of which were originals and legally mine. I actually don’t know whether ripping CDs like that is legal or not, and nor do I care, but it’s not immoral and that’s what counts (your honour).
For one of my Christmas presents, I got an iTunes Music Voucher to buy some tracks that are only available through iTunes. I purchased and downloaded them without any problems but was slightly peeved that I had to “authorise” my computer to play them. I figured that I could probably live with that though and burnt a copy to CD just in case I should ever wish to play the songs I’ve purchased on another player.
And that was my first experience of Digital Rights Management. It wasn’t too bad. I’d heard so many people moaning about it but really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It seemed fair enough to me. Until tonight...
When I got my new phone in December, part of my contract gives me £5 worth of free downloads each month. The great thing about the 3 Music Store is that when you purchase and download tracks to your mobile, you can also download them to your PC at no extra cost. That’s good because I don’t want to listen to music on my mobile; I have an iPod for that purpose. The problem? The tracks you download to your PC are DRM-protected WMA files. From the 3 Music Store FAQ:
Is the service compatible with iPod?
No. However, you can transfer your 3MusicPlayer tracks to any mp3 player which supports WMA format. Some third party applications exist for converting WMAs to mp3s but these are not supported or endorsed by 3.
Just to confirm: even though I have just spent ninety-nine British pence sterling on one three-minute long music track (ignore the fact that it was actually free) they’re trying to tell me that I can’t play it on the device of my choice? No problem. I’ll just burn it to a CD and rip it into an unencrypted format so I can play it on my iPod. (Again, I don’t know whether that’s legal but it’s definitely not immoral... is it?)
Anyway, here’s where the music industry, the record companies, Microsoft, 3 and DRM all get together and screw me over. The first time I tried to burn the CD, it failed. I was trying to use some old blank CDs and figured I was trying to burn too fast. So I tried again at a slower speed. Still no luck. So I tried again in my other CD drive. That didn’t work either. Having finally found some better quality CDs, I thought I’d give it one more try with an old disc in the 2nd drive on the slowest speed possible. Surely that would work, right? Nope! Because I’m only allowed to try and burn the tracks to a CD three times!!!
What sort of craziness is that? Even though I legally purchased and downloaded that music, and was only trying to listen to it on my preferred music device, I am now only able to listen to it either through the crappy, tinny stereo speakers on my mobile phone or through my PC speakers. I honestly feel like I’ve been put into a virtual prison for a crime that I didn’t commit!
Tell me, is it really worth trying to play fair by supporting musicians through purchasing their music in this digital age when the record companies are punishing the innocent like this?
Labels: gadgets, ipod, microsoft, mobile, music, personal, rant
12 November 2006
I finally took the plunge and installed Windows Internet Explorer 7 this evening. (Why they changed the name from Microsoft Internet Explorer to Windows Internet Explorer, I have no idea. Nor do I care really; it was just an observation...)
Despite how other people reported that they needed to reboot as many as three times (or more) following installation, I only had to reboot once. In fact, the installation was quite painless really. My biggest issue was the time it took to download the update and finally install it. It was probably going on for 20 or 30 minutes. By comparison, Firefox 2 took seconds to download and another few seconds to install. I guess that’s the price Microsoft has to pay when it integrates the web browser with the operating system so tightly. Whatever the reason, it’s one point to Firefox.
I’ve only tried using it for a couple of hours now and there are some quite things that are already annoying me. The first and most obvious change that’s causing a problem is the interface. I’ve read numerous other reports about how bad everyone thinks this is too – so how the heck did it ever get passed usability testing? Microsoft, please don’t make me think. And if you absolutely must include some snazzy new navigation, please provide me with a “classic” option to change it back to what I know. Firefox didn’t change their interface between versions, so they get another point.
One of the first things I did was activate the Menu Bar (File, Edit, View, etc.) only to find that it sticks it under the Address Bar! Fortunately, I’d already read this post on Anthony’s blog so I knew how to stop it doing that. That makes things a little bit better but it’s still getting on my nerves. Why they decided to stop users from moving their toolbars around like they’ve always been able to, I’ll never know. As far as I’m concerned, an essential feature has been removed. Another point to Firefox.
It seems Internet Explorer now has tabbed browser, eh? Personally, I can take or leave tabbed browsing. I still don’t fully understand the difference between using tabs in a browser and using buttons in your task bar. But thousands of people rant and rave about how good they are, so I guess they must be right. What really confuses me is why there’s no option to “Open in New Tab” when you right-click a link. (And that “Open” option has always been pointless; why would anyone not just left-click?) Of course, Firefox already has that option. Yet another point to Firefox.
After trying out a few of my websites in it, I realised that there were a couple of small changes I needed to make. When I followed my shortcut to the FTP site, it opened in IE7 rather than Windows Explorer. I then had to find the “Open FTP site in Windows Explorer” option, as the page suggested. (Why couldn’t they just give me a link to click that would do that instead of making me go hunting around for it?) So that was pretty annoying... and it was even more annoying when I realised that it does this every time! Minus one point to Internet Explorer.
One thing I do quite like though is the ClearType feature. I do find it strange how they make text appear clearer by actually making it more blurred though. Either way, it seems to work. But at least you can switch it off if you don’t like it. At last – one point to Internet Explorer!
And at the end of that round, Firefox has 4 points but Internet Explorer has zero!
Ever since around 1999, my default browser has always been Internet Explorer. And before that, I think it was Netscape 4. I guess I just never got around to switching to Firefox. I didn’t really have a good reason to do so either. However, with IE7 being so different to IE6, I’m now being forced to make a change.
Should I switch to Windows Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla Firefox 2...?
Update: 14 November 2006 (21:58)
After switching between the two quite a bit tonight, I’ve just made a decision and changed my default browser to Firefox 2. I’ve also deleted any shortcuts to Internet Explorer as I know that my mouse would automatically go for the little blue “e” icon without even thinking about it...
If Firefox 2 annoys me too much in the next week, I may even try Opera 9 and see how I cope with that – IE7 was irritating me too much though after just two days!
(And I’ve already benefited from the spell check feature of Firefox 2 just whilst typing this – and yet I’ve not seen one single benefit of using IE7 in two days!)
Labels: development, firefox, microsoft, personal, rant
