Posts tagged Computers
Congrats on your new feature, now how do i disable it?
Mar 8th
Sadly there seems to be somewhat the starting of a trend of trying to ladle in new features to applications, and not giving any option to disable the new addition. This becomes especially problematic if your new feature takes up valuable screen space on the already limited display of a mobile device, such as with the new trending bar at the top of Twitter for iOS. Another particularly annoying one recently was the inclusion of Deck.ly support into Tweetdeck (though thankfully this was given a disable option shortly after!)
It’s normally not that much extra work or code to add something in to the options to allow users to disable these new features, and might even help you retain userbase. Sure you dont want your options dialogs to be turning into the spanish inquisition, but there has to be some middle ground here. I’ve personally ditched apps both on desktop and mobile in favour of a competitor product because I couldnt tolerate a new feature, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
So please, I’m begging you, if you codesoftware (mobile / desktop / web, whatever) then please put the decision back with the user as to which features they do and dont have to use or have displayed?
Dell all in one PC
Dec 7th
Dell have recently announced a new all in one PC, the Dell Zino All-In-One, which looks like it could be a nice machine. Usually when you see these small form factor machines there is a compromise on the spec of it due to the heat implications of the higher powered kit, but it would seem not in this case. Though some of the bits are options upgrades, you could potentially spec it to:
* AMD quad-core Phenom II processor
* 1GB graphics;
* VGA and HDMI connections for displays and TVs
* THX 7.1 surround sound
* Blu-ray Disc combo drive
* 1TB of hard disk storage.
I’m quite a fan of the idea of having a machine like this in the living room, in fact I’ve got a small machine in the living room hooked up to the TV for viewing TV and movies using the excellent Boxee software. Granted, mine isn’t as pretty as these new Dells, but I’m a geek, I don’t mind having hardware all over the house, it’s my normal way of doing things!
One of the main things I like about these new machines though is their ease of integration into family life, with their gearing towards multimedia, being a TV and more than just something to do homework or office work on, I’d expect this sort of machine to sit will in the living room of most people’s homes. With the touch screen it would even be good for getting the youngest members of the house involved, I’ve seen first hand how kids can have fun with tablet PC’s and paint apps, and anything that gets kids into computing at an early age is only going to be good in my book, the world is becoming ever more digital and the next generation need to be comfortable with the technology from an early age to get ahead.
If you’re in the market for a new machine for use by the family, take a look at www.dell.co.uk/all-in-one or alternatively further information can be found here . There is even a youtube video
~Shepy
New browser Rockmelt, first impressions
Nov 23rd
I saw a link a few days ago on twitter to information about a new browser called Rockmelt about to launch, with emphasis on the ever more connected world we live in, and social media. I headed along to the site, and it was invite only beta, so I signed up for an invite, and today that invite arrived so I downloaded it to give it a quick whirl.
I opened the browser after install, and was immediately asked for permission for it to link to my Facebook account, which I provided, and then the browser launched. The first thing you will notice is the two side bars, or edges as they are called in Rockmelt, which you can see in the screen shot:
The two edges allow you to keep more up to date with what is going on with your favourite sites and interact with people as you browse. The two edges are:
Using technology to aid the planet
Nov 16th
Sony and the WWF have teamed up to launche the Open Planet Ideas initiative, which aims to encourage people to think of new and innovative ways in which we can use technology to make better use of our natural resources, aid the planet and help it's inhabitants, organised into a few different concepts. I had a quick spy through the current technologies they have on the site, as suggestions for items which could be used (among others) to see if there was anything I could come up with, and was quite impressed with some of the items there. Things such as facial recognition and presence sensing in a TV so that it could dim the screen if you leave the room, or turn off if you fall asleep (I know i could have used that plenty in the past!)
Another one that struck me as quite interesting was a dye sensitized solar cell, which is a solar panel but not in the sense that most people would recognise one. Rather than being a traditional photo voltaic cell which is usually green or orange, these things can be made in pretty patterns, designs and even transparent, which got me thinking. I came up with:
Self Charging Mobile
What about if the glass on your mobile phone, or any other mobile device was made out of this dye sensitized solar cell material. It would mean the device could be trickle charging all day long, and while this might not mean it could replace the normal charge altogether it might perhaps get you an extra hour or two of use in a normal day, and who wouldn't want that?
Not only would it mean I could go longer without having to worry about getting to a charge point, but for people who don't have regular reliable access to power such as in third world countries, or when travelling etc, it could mean the difference between being able to make that important call, or not.
Most importantly though, every watt of power taken from the sun and solar energy is a watt of power not needed from the national grid, from fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources for it's production and I've no doubt that I don't need to explain the necessity of that to anyone.
What is even more interesting about these dye sensitized solar cells is that they have reduced energy consumption and CO2 emissions during manufacture compared with conventional silicon solar cells so are an even cleaner form of solar energy, and a higher efficiency for light to electricity conversion as well, so potentially would be better at charging your mobile than some of the solar charging options out there. I'd welcome comments and improvements from anyone, so go look at my idea and give me your input,
Crowd sourcing is becoming ever more popular, and used in a plethora of different ways, and I really like it when I see it being used for something like this. I encourage you all to head over to the site and at least find find out more about Open Planet Ideas , read the challenge brief or even better become part of it, try to make a difference and join the challenge.
Comments and suggestions always welcome
~Shepy
Is Facebook gearing up to get smarter?
Nov 15th
I, like many people, have my Twitter and Facebook accounts synchronised through the use of the Twitter application for Facebook. Every tweet I make get’s automatically posted as my status on Facebook within a few seconds. Whilst this doesn’t suit everyone I find it works well for me as I check twitter far more often than I do Facebook (barring notification email driven visits).
This evening I posted a comment to Twitter about Tiger Bread, which someone quickly responded to on Facebook. As the notification popped up to tell me so, I clicked it and was taken to Facebook, where I saw the following:
The most interesting bit of which being that last line stating “See 1 more post from twitter”. This isn’t something I have noticed previously (though I may be late to the party, as I say I don’t check Facebook much), and it doesn’t actually seem to function at the moment. Clicking the link does nothing, despite trying this in 3 different browsers.
Whilst having no immediately visible purpose or servicing any real need, this could be an interesting addition to Facebook.
- If it is based on the text of the update, then it could be interesting to show how many retweets.
- If it is based on the URL (if any) in the tweet, then it could show how far the link has spread.
- Aggregating Twitter in like this means those people only using Twitter sparingly have even less reason to leave Facebook now.
It is entertaining to watch this cross pollination of the various social media platforms, and seeing them integrate and try to draw in the users of other platforms by making the transition easy and seamless like this. With the recent announcement that Gmail wont allow API connectivity for Facebook to suck out your contact list unless Facebook is willing to open up their data in return, and the impending launch of a Facebook email service (which imo will have many plus points, like for example being able to mark things as important or spam more reliably based on those people you talk to often from the data Facebook already has about you), things are about to heat up in the social and communications space. I personally am all for it, as competition such as this inevitably drives innovation and improvement.
Comments and suggestions welcome.
UPDATE: Seems there are a few changes underfoot at Facebook HQ. I’ve used the remove post tool a few times to get rid of a Facebook sync when I have made a typo on Twitter, but I’ve never noticed these new options before allowing you easier granular control about what can and cant post to your wall without having to delve into the account settings screens:
~Shepy
Stop telling people where you live!
Nov 10th
With things like Foursquare, and now Facebook Places, people are routinely sharing every moment where they are. Now don’t get me wrong, I use Foursquare and often check in when I’m out at the pub etc and find it a great way to meet up with friends, but when I see check-ins from people on foursquare or facebook places and the location is tagged as “Home” it quite honestly makes me cringe. The internet is full of some sick and twisted people at times, and though you might not have upset anyone so far, there is a fair chance that you might one day, and they just might decide to come and have a ‘gentle word’ at your conveniently tagged home location. As most people tend to also tweet / facebook status update when they go on holiday, you’ve then not only told people where you live, but now that you’re not in the house and it’s prime for burgling.
Likewise, it scares the bejesus out of me that some people leave geotagging enabled on their smart phone, then upload photos to any of a plethora of image hosting services or send them directly. Now this isn’t such a problem most of the time if you’re out and about, but what if you’re at home and sharing a photo of something so obviously at home, like say the meal you just cooked? (I’ve seen plenty of people putting pics of similar up), or even worse, some girl chatting to someone online does a ‘self shot‘ (NSFW Google Image Search) pic to some guy she is flirting with online and doesnt realise it has GPS data logged in the EXIF of the image telling that guy (who could potentially be a not-very-nice kind of bloke) just exactly where she is?
Sometimes technology makes life enriched, entertaining and wonderful, but sometimes it can make it down right dangerous and worrying. Unfortunately the latter seems to come about all to often through people not quite understanding the full ramifications of the technology, or the information it is sharing. Please, think carefully before you chose to enable geotagging / location data in any application or device, and think about who may be able to see that information (and what they may chose to do with it) before you next check in at a location.
~Shepy
Make: A photoshop quick access keypad
Nov 9th
As you can imagine with the amount of photography posts on this blog, I spend a fair amount of time in Photoshop. Like most people using Photoshop, there are a number of tools and actions that I use far more regularly than others, so I thought it would be nice to have quick access to these on a keypad, so I don’t always have to go to the toolbar to activate them. Yes, I know I could use the standard keyboard and shortcut keys, but I just prefer having them on a dedicated and more visual pad than the standard qwerty. Having an old numeric keypad laying about, and having played with AutoHotKey a fair bit recently, I decided to set about reconfiguring the pad to activate my most common used tools when in photoshop. Here is the result:
The icons you don’t recognise at the bottom are just mapped to a few custom photoshop actions. The – and + keys increase and decrease the brush size.
The key tops are just printed on card, ‘lacquered’ with clear nail varnish to protect the ink a bit, and then glued to the numpad keys. At the moment it’s dedicated to Photoshop, but I’m considering re-printing the tops and having them dual use for Photoshop and Bridge. It’s not the most beautiful thing in the world, granted, but it does the job well and it will suffice for now till I feel justified in buying an Optimus OLED keyboard :P
The AHK script and icon for anyone who is interested, can be downloaded here: PS-Pad
~Shepy
Windows Re-installs made easy.
Jul 15th
I have recently built a new PC, so I’ve been planning to format and rebuild the old one to make it into a media server for the lounge to replace the ageing and slow machine already performing that function. One thing I was not looking forward to though was having to find all the drivers for the various parts, its so long since I built that machine that I don’t recall what motherboard, graphics card etc, etc I used when building it.
Now normally when I build a new machine, I’m pretty good with keeping all the driver discs etc together and handy for re-installs, but over time they seem to drift and after 2 years I’d have more chance of finding the Holy Grail that finding those discs.
Luckily a few weeks back I happened across a program that claimed to be able to rip out and backup all of the drivers from a system, ready for import onto a fresh install, so what better opportunity to give it a try.
One swift download and unzip of DriverBackup (which incidentally is free and open source) later, and I’m looking at the main driver backup window. When the program first opens, it doesnt show any hardware, but clicking the ‘Refresh’ button made it go scurrying off and collecting data about all the drivers in my system. A few seconds later there was a complete list of drivers and hardware, including some stuff I had forgotten I had even owned, but obviously still had driver files lingering in the system long after I had stopped using the device! From here you just click the “Start Backup” button, the software asks you where you want it to save the output, so i pointed it to a 4GB usb key and away it went copying driver files merrily. After about 2 minutes it had finished copying all files, and I was left with a nice directory structure of 1 folder per device, with the folder named after the device.
Sceptical about how reliable this was going to be, I formatted the machine and re-installed XP, and then once at the desktop for the first time went to investigate the state of the device manager. As I’d expected, maybe half a dozen items with no drivers, most importantly of which the network card. Not expecting much, I right clicked the offending network card and selected to update driver, then selected the option for “look in this location” for the driver, and sure enough after pointing it at the correct folder on the usb key, it had installed the driver fine and the network card functioned as expected, I was pleasantly surprised! I continued down through every one of the non-functioning items, updated driver and pointed them at the relevant folder on the usb key and they each worked perfectly every time.
I must say I am quite impressed with how effortless this made the whole thing, I half expected to have to spend an hour or so checking what hardware was in the machine and hunting down drivers, but no such pain, all sorted in mere minutes. Installing the sound card driver didn’t only give me basic sound but still installed the correct surround sound management application as well, I can see no difference between having installed this way and doing so from the original CD or downloaded setup file.
If you have a machine you need to format and re-install, you should seriously consider having a look at DriverBackup before you take the final plunge and format it, it could just save you some wasted time when it comes to getting it all back up and running again!
As usual, comments and suggestions welcome.
~Shepy
Multi monitor Youtube full screen solution
Jul 11th
If you use a multi-monitor setup, then you likely already know the pain that is trying to have a Youtube video running full screen on one screen while you work, and the clicking in to any other application only for the youtube video to drop back to normal size.
Now I understand that this is an intentional ‘feature’ of Flash to prevent flash movies from taking over the full screen, pretending to be the desktop or such like (though if its a feature, why not have it configurable in settings?)
Often when I’m sitting working at the computer I like to have a video playing in the background on one of the monitors, usually some documentary or suchlike, so it is annoying not being able to have the video at full screen (as the small window is just too small to keep an eye on in peripheral vision). This has always been a niggling gripe of mine, but it has become more annoying since a move around of the monitors on my desk means its now a bit wider, so I’m relying even more on peripheral vision to see the video. Whilst unfortunately there isn’t a lot I can do about the limitations of Adobe Flash, I can at least make it so that I can easily flick any Youtube video to the maximum size of the browser window, which isn’t far off being full screen.
To that end, I’ve written a little bookmarklet that when clicked whilst viewing a youtube video page, will automatically take you to the flash only view of that video, which is by default maximised to the full size of the browser window. Not a perfect solution, but certainly a lot better than having to stick with the smaller player.
If you would like to use this bookmarklet, then just drag the link at the end of this paragraph to your bookmarks or bookmarks toolbar, and then you can click it on any Youtube video page to test it out. Youtube Max
Any comments and suggestions always welcome.
~Shepy
P.S. – Yes I know there are standalone programs you can drag Youtube links in to, but i really don’t want to have to bother with an external app.
Trying to win a free Drobo
Mar 28th
So, there is a competition at the moment to win a free Drobo (portable drive, essentailly) and all you have to do is have a link to their page on your page, so i thought why not, thats got to be worth a post, so here goes:
http://mydl.me/2009/03/want-to-win-a-free-drobo/
Ad just for good measure:
Obviously its just to create a psuedo link-farm to get plenty of links in, but thats fine, i can handle that if it gets me free stuff :P
~Shepy