Monthly Archives: January 2008

Silence is golden

Whilst using VoipFone and accidentally switching lines, Rob heard the ‘music on hold’ which is part of the default software installation. He is using a different (linux) client and wanted to know what his music was, so asked me to … Continue reading

Posted in Humour, Software, Trivia and stuff | Leave a comment

It’s all in the small print

For those in any way involved with systems (especially with reference to the keywords ‘sysadmin’ and ‘documentation’) and/or standards, this may not win any awards as a Koan but can you fail to be intrigued by the opening: “At 3:30 … Continue reading

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Hard to give up the Alt-Tabs

Since the early days of Windows when we had a number of test machines without mice (they were going to be installed and left that way as POS servers) a group of us ‘grew up’ using the keyboard in place … Continue reading

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So you can close the lid on Pandora’s box

The closure of pandora.com is hard to take for those of us who have beenĀ  keen users. More details all over the place including the register.

Posted in Music, Rants | 2 Comments

Thought for the day

As is says at freesoftware.com ‘the only magazine worldwide that is dedicated to the promotion of free software as a whole’ Our primary aims are: to promote free software and its use; and to educate the global community in the … Continue reading

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RTFM, phone a friend (and then go mad)

So the latest batch of power spikes took out my SmartView KVM (allows 4 computers to be controlled through one screen, mouse and keyboard). It is really essential to the way I work. The small LED panel was dead. I … Continue reading

Posted in Hardware, Rural life | Leave a comment

Satellite – the bit Arthur C. Clarke didn’t predict

My Sky system packed up last night and I spend a fair amount of time and a good deal of money on the 08702 number in the queue before finally speaking to a person and going throught the diagnostics, all … Continue reading

Posted in Rants, Trivia and stuff, TV & Radio | Leave a comment

Penny forum

This is actually part of the registration page from a very well know open source forum written in php. Wouldn’t it have made sense to have the help text just a teeny big bigger? If you are visually impaired or … Continue reading

Posted in Rants, Software | Leave a comment

What is a UPS?

It is a question I often get asked when I say ‘most of my kit is protected by a UPS’ (actually several), since I live in the back of beyond and we have the usual rural electricity instability one comes … Continue reading

Posted in Hardware, Rural life | 2 Comments

You couldn’t make it up

I don’t need to… My oldest workhorse laptop is permanently docked and on. It has twin screens separate backup drives etc. It is my little office hub which syncs all my vital data between devices (mobile phone, PDA, other machines … Continue reading

Posted in Hardware, Rants | 1 Comment