They say when you have a drink...

 Many thanks to the tens of people reading this blog (and growing). It makes the time writing it worthwhile. Thank you.

They say when you have a drink; you can lose up to a thousand brain cells. I think I have one left... cheers!

This is certainly how I felt as I lay on a barely padded rack. I said as much to my chiropractor as he was gently detaching my head from the rest of my spine. I can never figure out if this process actually does some good... or if the body is just cowed into submission and does not have the courage to be in pain in case it gets a repeat of the treatment. Maybe it's the amount he relieves from my wallet which causes me to walk more upright. Who knows?

On the subject of frustration... can I be the only one who constantly feels Microsoft have lost the thread when it comes to searching for help? I wanted to have two screens one above the other for my laptop and an external screen which for space reasons (and because it reduced my neck strain see chiro above...). MS help says right mouse click on the desktop, open the personalize option, click display settings, drag the monitors  into the arrangement you want. Except there isn't space to have them one above the other or at least that how it appears to me. For the solution click the link below.

For a while I have been thinking that the Top Grear team have been going through the motions (literally and figuratively) rehashing old ideas and regurgitating them without additional polish or twists. So this week episode was a pleasant revival. Not so much new ideas, but much less tired. The repeat will be worth a watch or catch up on iPlayer (link below) .

At the end of this piece I’ll give you a link to an online magazine called the Daily Mash. For some reason it does not score highly on Google if you search on ‘satirical’ and ‘daily’. For each individual: the best satirical stuff is probably the stuff that is closest to the edge. The Daily Mash should score reasonably highly in as much as they can be so close to the edge that they probably go over it once per article. To give you a flavour a recent sports story was: Webber to start next race in a '98 Punto. Interesting to see what they write about Massa and Alonso...

The old journalistic catechism rings true: never let the truth get in the way of a good story! 

For instance, this previously unknown picture of Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev suggesting to Steve Jobs a good Russian solution to the iPhone4 aerial reception problems...

It's the right colour: black... plenty of space for the Apple logo... we can get it made in China for a song and sell it for may be 50 bucks.... it has rounded corners, it even does the job - sold!



Links:

The Daily Mash
Webber to start next race in a '98 Punto
They say when you have a drink joke origin
Vertical aligned monitors, Staff Agency software, Staff bank software, Nursing agency software
Top gear

Function keys stopped working (suddenly): broken, not working, kaput!

There I was happy working away and suddenly and  (function keys F5 and F8) in the application I was using suddenly stopped working. Now I've had sticky keys before, but in 10-15 years never more than one at a time. I use F8 and F5 lots, by the well known law if a key fails, it's likely to be one used lots. I tried a few applications: no joy with these keys in any of them. It looked like it was the keyboard.
  

Nipped next door and got a PS2 keyboard (round plug on the end as opposed to the new square plug that goes in the same place as every other plug). That keyboard simply did not work: PS2 keyboards need the computer to start up with the keyboard plugged in. Since the computer was doing a long running background task – I did not want to restart it at that instant. Went upstairs and got a USB (Square plug) keyboard. Still there was no joy although the keyboard worked for all other non function keys. I still sort of convinced that I needed a replacement keyboard so went via Staples that evening and picked up a spare – more about that later...)
  

Following morning: I restarted Windows. there were still no working function keys. Powered down, unplugged, left for 30 seconds, powered back up. Still no function keys! This was serious – I needed these keys! Without them this PC is next to useless for my purposes and I need this computer. Ok I have (at least) 3 others with all applications installed and all the files synced across the cloud (Sugar sync), but this one has both my 2560 by 1600 screens and complicated stuff is much easier when there is that much desktop real estate. (Yes I know at this point you have stopped feeling sorry for me because 30 stands for 30 inch.). Googled Function keys not working: 3 pages of rubbish about application settings.  Google is great but there are some things no matter what you enter, it goes off in a different direction.

It turns out that some keyboards have a function lock button (circled in green) and a little light (also circled in green) to tell you it's locked on. Of course when it is off and the function keys are doing other things to normal then it does not draw attention to itself.... 

This was true of this keyboard (not true of every other keyboard I tried). Probably for some historical reason the state of the function lock key is stored so it's kept when you unplug the computer or unplug the keyboard.

One small key press solved the problem Ahhhhhrrrrgggg....

Actually it was not such a bad day. I had one of those Staples discount vouchers and whist looking for a spare keyboard, spied one of those dinky little palm tops: Asus Eee PC 1001PX (Seashell). They are going for around £220 now. Feeling sure my 20% discount voucher would not apply to the more expensive items, I asked at the till. Apparently it was covered! Scanned in and came out at 20% off. Staples do offer very good value for money. I’ve not yet found anything significantly cheaper elsewhere or even on-line. At just over £180 Asus Eee PC 1001PX was a bargain.   

Not bad performance  so far: windows 7 starter edition and gesture recognition on the touch pad. 

There is only one major disadvantage as far as I can see...Having bought a carrier bag to protect this nice device, it looks awfully like I've adopted the pracise of carrying a Handbag or "Man bag" down the High street.

Computer loss, Council employees, sharp objects

I was half listening to the TV news in the background. An item came up on, what seemed to me to be, an astonishing number of laptop computer losses from a council. A representative of the council was interviewed over this. Their response was that the council had investigated these losses. As a consequence of the investigation, they identified that council employees had not received any council training in preventing their laptops being stolen.

Politically I occasionally feel I may be slightly to the right of Genghis Kan. Other times I have quite liberal views (hanging too good for them etc). Therefore I feel quite at home with our currently elected (or unelected: none of us actually put an x in the box marked ‘coalition’) government. The major push that gets my full support: is making sure we tax payers receive value for money in government expenditure. How often has (in financial terms gold plated) red tape been used to justify the status quo when change was clearly and badly needed.

Now this caused me to wonder what else jobsworths or council employees needed training on? Had for instance council employees received adequate training on the use of toilet facilities? If they had, to what level: basic potty training or advanced? If they haven’t: is it only a matter of time before the proverbial hits the fan? What about sharp objects? Should we be wary on the (thankfully infrequent) occasions when we come into contact with council employees of an increased risk of personal injury? Would it be a good idea to have a refresher course on first aid prior to such an encounter? Are our human rights being infringed when we meet someone who (unknown to us) is a council worker? There is clearly an added danger encountering any individual who needs training in remaining attached to valuable objects, going to the loo or handling anything sharp. It seems common sense that such people should be forced to wear “I am a council employee” badges or t-shirt, perhaps better still one of those “end of the world is nigh” type of shoulder mounted advertising boards suitably inscribed.

We should be told...

PS If you like to see Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilon 'assemble' a Formula 1 car to council standards then click here...