New TV

(Sorry for all the TV jargon in this post)

I bought a Panasonic TH42PX80B TV the other day - a 42" 720i plasma beast. My old CRT TV lasted me more than a decade and it wasn't broken, but wifely pressure saw me splashing out.

I do like it - a good picture, a decent remote, and I've bought a component video cable for my Wii, and it turns out my crappy old £30 DVD player is a Panasonic too (who knew?) so the DVD controls on the TV remote control work. I was thinking of buying a new DVD player with decent hardware upscaling and an HDMI out but I don't think I'll bother now (even though they're only £50 now). I've seen Blu-Ray in our local Sony shop (me and Mr Boy pop in there on Saturdays to watch 5 or 10 minutes of Blu_Ray WALL-E but they're too expensive for me (the players, not the disks.) WALL-E looks just great on Blu-Ray, extremely crisp and great colours. Incidentally, the first time I watched it, I forgot it was animated for the first half because it's so beautifully done..

Anyway, my point is, while I was shopping around to find the best TV at the best price I came across something I haven't seen before - websites purporting to sell TVs and computers cheaper than everyone else, which are just scammers.

At first, I thought I wanted a TV capable of 1080p (which is the highest HD quality) so I looked at the Panasonic TH-46PZ80B. A 46" monster, it's £900 from Amazon including shipping, which was more than I wanted to spend. So I looked on Froogle, as you do, ordered by lowest price first, and I found a site called UnionTechPC (which doesn't seem to be in the Froogle results now). Quite a bit cheaper - but when I registered it only accepted Western Union payments. Ah, Western Union, the scammer's friend - you send money, the scammer withdraws the money, no goods are ever shipped: Western Union is only good for transactions between trusted parties, as they themselves know. Plus, no SSL on the checkout page, very suspicious. A quick search finds this page and this page. You'll notice if you view those pages - or if you register at UnionTechPC - that they are now accepting credit card payments, of course no goods will be received and you just gave your card details and security code to a bunch of scamming scum.

So there you go: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Google the name of the website you're thinking of buying on, or if you can't find anything post on somewhere like the AVForums to see if, at least, anyone has successfully bought from the website. Doing a WHOIS search (which tells you who owns the website) is a good idea too: see the results for UnionTechPC: hmm, registered in January this year, the contact is a person not an organisation, the contact address is a PO box, dodgy, dodgy and dodgier. Just because they offer credit card payments is not an accreditation (though if they don't it's fairly obvious they're not legitimate) as above. Be careful out there..

Not a PC

Microsoft's 'I'm a PC' ads in the UK flick up the URL windows.co.uk on screen at the end. Shame it doesn't work as it stands, requiring the www prefix to redirect to www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/. All that money spent on ads and they can't apply a simple redirect or DNS record to get it right. Oh dear..

I, Mac

As of yesterday I am the happy owner of an Apple iMac 24/2.8/2GB/320GB/SD, refubished from the Apple store. I used Migration Assistant to copy all my user data and applications from the faithful old G4, bloody marvellous I have to say as everything is there and everything seems to work. I still have to transfer music & photos as they were on separate disks, but I'm sure I will be able to keep all my metadata (play count, ratings, tags etc)

Redundancy FTW! And I have a new job, here..

Key Mapper

I wrote an open-source scancode mapping program for Windows - a program which lets you remap and disable your keyboard keys. A sample usage (i.e. my own) disables the Num Lock key, disables the Insert key and remaps Caps Lock to Left Shift. What this means is the Num Lock and Insert keys now do nothing, instead of being subversively annoying (I never want to turn Num Lock or Insert off) and when I press Caps Lock it's as if I have pressed Left Shift (although I occasionally might want to turn Caps Lock on, 99% of the times I do turn it on it's not what I want, I just mashed the A key with my fat finger). Also, I got so fed up with not being able to remember how to get the hash symbol using Windows under Parallels on my MacBook that I remapped the ±/§ button on the MacBook keyboard to it the other day. Much easier to remember. Plus I remap "Left Windows" to "Left Control" under Parallels so I can still use Command-C to copy.

You can find the program's website here - there's an auto-updating version available from the Install page, or alternatively get a standalone build from the project's downloads page on Google Code.

You can also use it to assign keys to things that you may want but which aren't on your keyboard, like starting your email program or browser, or controlling your computer's sound volume.

I'm quite pleased with it as it handles all different keyboard layouts - all different languages, US vs European vs Mac keyboard layout: it has a drag-and-drop interface, lets you browse through the different keyboard languages installed on your computer, and even explores new ground for the (admittedly small) world of scancode mapping programs - you can have per-user mappings (as opposed to mappings which apply to every user) and remap your Pause key to a command which requires two keystrokes (e.g. Windows-L or Alt-F4 or Right-Alt 4 for the Euro symbol)

Here's a screenshot of the program with it's child windows open:


It's funny how such a seemingly shallow subject as keyboards becomes so deep when you get right into it.

Parallels Tools for Ubuntu 8.0.4 Hardy Heron

Parallels have finally released a build which allows the Parallels Tools for Linux to be installed in Ubuntu 8.0.4 Hardy Heron: get build 5624 from here. Mouse synchronization and desktop resizing make for a much nicer experience. I still have to click the Network icon and select 'Wired Network' to get a network connection, but that's easy enough to do on each VM reboot, as there aren't many of them.

Points Per Game

It seems to me that ordering the football league tables by the average number of points per game is a better indication of how a team is doing than simply by points scored, especially when the variance in number of games played by each team gets beyond one or two. Teams generally go through the season getting the same average number of points per game (or, to put it another way, it takes a big change in form to achieve any significant change in the average).

I've got fed up figuring it out manually so I've done a web page where you can look at any English or Scottish division ordered by points per game. I'm thinking of adding to it so only home or away results can be shown as well as the total.

The tables are scraped from the BBC website, so fingers crossed they don't change their format.

Piratical Doodles

Like Google, The Pirate Bay keep their one-off logos on a page for our nostalgia and amusement, they have a new one up for which the site has been renamed The Pirate Bat. Fun.

For Tom

If you're looking for a birdwatching or birding holiday in Spain, look no further than Spanish Birding Holidays.. and I'll leave exploring the double-entendres there to you.

Virginal Box

We traded in our old NTL set-top box (the one that used to display NIT on boot) for a Virgin Media box.

Upside: it's remote control receiver is better, and can actually be controlled from the far side of the room

Downside: TCP ports 1433 and 1434 are unavailable for outbound connections. As these are the Microsoft SQL Server ports and I need these for work, I now need to get a cable modem. I just can't face trying to explain this to the script-driven robots in their callcenter.. maybe I will have to upgrade to 10MB internet!

The internet welcomes a new word

I'm reading a collection of sci-fi short stories from 1957, and I come across a new word - fripoons - in a story from CS Lewis called "The Shoddy Lawns". Google has no record of it, so I thought I should document it here in context:

The male faces were not the sort I cared about: a flashy-looking crew - gigolos, fripoons.

Anyone got OED access to look it up?

Good, bad, not particularly ugly

Microsoft have a Customer Experience Improvement Program. In order to try and get people to use it, though, they use a cheap trick.

This is the Windows version of the dialog: note that "I don't want to join the program at this time" is selected - as it should be, customers should have to opt-in to being snooped on. However, the OK button is disabled and the only way to enable it and get rid of this dialog and get back to what you were doing is to click "Join the ... program". Of course, you then click back on No and then click OK but it's tacky, and I bet people sign up even though they don't want to.



Visual Studio does it right: gives lots of info on the program and enables OK when you click yes or no.

Todays MessageBox is brought to you by OMFG!

AKA "You had me at 'unable to start debugging on the web server'"..

Two stupidities in one.

I was watching some TV programme the other day when Virgin Media popped up this large message, right at the end of the programme, centre screen:

Please wait. Some settings are being updated so you won't be able to use your remote for a few minutes.

Press OK to continue.

Shut Up And Install Updates

I don't know why, it seems to be the new thing in Windows - Shut Down To Install Updates. I don't understand why I can't just restart as usual? Shutting down is a pain, as I have to get up off my arse and walk to the PC to turn it back on again if I'm remoting into it. Had it on Vista as well as XP.



My new server came today! It is whisper-quiet, not like the old Dan server I had (remember Dan computers?) which was noisy as hell. I have ordered 2.5GB of ECC memory from Crucial for £50, so my spending is still less than £200 and I can still sell my old PC (which has a GeForce 5500 graphics card in it) The server only takes PCI-e cards anyway, and there's a lot of stuff about heating up screwdrivers with candles to remove bits of plastic on the motherboard or taking a hacksaw to a graphics card, I really don't want to go there though as I can just imagine what would happen if I tried that. The onboard graphics are reasonable enough, won't run Aero (Vista's fancy graphics) of course but as I'm hoping to remote in there's no real need. Now I need a wireless card or USB thing that's actually going to work with Window Server 2008 and WPA2. and I also need to think of something the server can do apart from crunch SETI work units (Om nom nom nom alien radio signals :)

Annoying but probably necessary

Registration web pages seem to have this new thing - "Please confirm email address". Ah, I think you mean shift-tab to go back to the previous field, command-c (or control-c as appropriate) to copy the email address I already put in, tab to go to the next field, and command-v to paste. And don't even think about trying to disallow copy and paste.

Mind you, I regularly get emails which are meant for other people. I had one the other day from Dell for a David Stuart (or is it Stuart David?) about returning a defective part: I get some from a pseudonym where I know the real address so I forward it to the real Sue Donym: and I received this cracker the other day:

Hi all,

Eric and I looked and determined the porn URL's began w/post #145 dated 12/29/07.

Thanks,

Susan

Oh noes!

I linked to a Clay Shirky article in 2003. It's a sign of the times, I suppose, that now I'm embedding a video of him speaking - "Gin, Television, and Social Surplus". Well worth watching. Turn the TV off first :)



I thought this was a fascinating speech (there's a transcript here), but as I was copying the code to embed it I thought - massively increasing participation in media? What about comments on blogs and articles? If we're looking at a 10000% increase in the mindless drivel, opinionated rubbish, bigoted nonsense and space-wasting by air-wasters we all see every day - please, turn the TV back on. (You know I don't mean you, gentle reader(s)..)

All the pieces mattered

Just watched the last episode of The Wire - don't panic, no spoilers here.

We'll not see it's like again - except, unlike of every other TV drama I have ever watched, I'm prepared to watch it again, in fact I'm looking forward to watching it again: I want to see how it fits together in retrospect. It's a testament to the quality of the writing of The Wire that alone amoung TV drama it could make repeated viewings worthwhile, like a good book rewards repeated readings.

David Simon, the creator and writer thanks us for watching. No, Mr Simon, thank you: I hope you can do something half as good as this for your next project, because that will still be twice as good as anything else on TV.

Plus, I can do a halfway passable Baltmore accent now: Yearr, like dat. Fill me?

Just bought a server

Dell are selling their SC440 servers for £105 with free shipping. I couldn't resist.. upgraded to a 250GB hard disk and it came to £125 all in including VAT.

The offer expires today, or when stocks run out. If you want one:

Go to the Dell site, Small Business Section --> Server Solutions --> Tower Servers --> PowerEdge SC440

So my old box is up for grabs. It makes a fine XP or Linux machine, as it's limited to 512 MB of RAM: Pentium 4 1.5 Ghz. Ping me or comment if you want it.

Edit: nobody wants my old PC, but I reckon I can get £50 for it in the Friday Ad which makes my new server - with it's Intel Dual-Core E2160 1.8GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB - a net cost of £75. I like those numbers! That processor is by no means stellar, but it's way good enough for me. OK, I'll need to add some memory - hello Crucial Brew - and a SATA disk or three, but mmm.

Another edit: the offer seems to be really finished. You can get a T105 with a Dual Core AMD Opteron 2.2GHz for £99 but shipping is extra, and Dell shipping is ~£50 + VAT so that's £183 with the 250GB hard disk update.

Rule Brittanica

I signed up for this Encyclopedia Britannica web stuff and to my surprise they let me in. This is a test post to see how it works: Britannica on Britannica.

Camino

Camino 1.6 has been released: if you're sick of how hideously ugly FireFox looks on OSX and you want an alternative to Safari, you could do a lot worse than give it a go. Me, I like to live on the edge and use trunk builds, and I discovered a new feature yesterday which is due to land in Camino 2 - Tabsposé! This gives you a page full of thumbnail pictures of all the tabs you have open.

Unfortunately, there's no text explaining what has happened, and no indication that to switch to a tab you click it's picture, and then the tab bar will be restored. I'm sure something will be included in the final version for those poor souls you click Command-Control-T by accident (which is what I did). It didn't help that I had 30 tabs open at the time..