calm in the chaos

For those Aussie’s abroad at the moment and lamenting the demise of Channel 7’s “The Dream” during the Olympics, you’ll be happy to know JJJ have come to the rescue! Roy & HG are broadcasting a half hour wrap up of the days proceedings from their Golden Ring Show website.

I’ve exhausted You Tube’s collection of The Dream and Roy & HG so was pretty happy to find that JJJ have done the right thing and given rampaging Roy and HG an avenue to vent their frustrations with the officials and the dud Aussie teams at this years Games.

Take it away Bro’s!

I was just looking at my Google Analytics stats for this blog, and noticed that there are wave like patterns in the visits graph. They coincide with Satuday and Sunday in the US (where most of my traffic comes from). It’s weird to see patterns like this so clearly pronounced in the stats - and good to see that my blog gets some time off over the weekend as well ;-)

In an adjunct to my last post on choice (which didn’t exactly set the comment textfield on fire) I’d like to exclaim just how many ways I have to navigate back (and forward) in my browser!

1. standard browser back button
2. right click on page, select back
3. alt + left arrow key
4. right mouse button then left mouse button quickly (only just discovered this one by accident)
5. right click and hold then drag to the left (courtesy of the mouse gestures extension)
6. History > Back
7. click dedicated back button on mouse (VX Revolultion)

Anyone got any others?

The problem with this amount of choice (and I touched on this in my last post) is that it can often cause me to hesitate while I pick one of the 7 ways of going back - when I really just want to go back without thinking about it.

Damn you choice!

Without any real appreciation of just how complex it must be to release an operating system (with all the inherent backwards compatibility issues that WILL surface) or to create software that is hard to pirate yet easy for legitimate users to have fair use of - let me simply say that Adobe and Microsoft have wasted a week of my life.

I speak of my recent Vista install (which has gone TERRIBLY) and my subsequent migration (well trial migration at this stage) to CS3.

First of all, if you’re planning on upgrading to Vista - I’d highly recommend upgrading only if you’ve got relatively new hardware to run it on. By this I mean hardware that the manufacturers are still willing to support with driver releases. Turns out my beloved NForce 2 motherboard is no longer supported by Nvidia and so I’ve got a few issues with Vista talking to my hardware. Seems Nvidia are at the core of my issues, with their ForceWare drivers for the graphics card still leaving a lot to be desired. And where the hell has nView gone! I have to rely on third party software just to run different wallpapers on different screens. Come on Nvidia or Mircrosoft, get your sh!t together on the dual screen front already!

Further to this, the graphics architecture changes in the OS itself prevent me from using my laptop as a third screen. Maxivista (the software I use to do this) isn’t compatible with Vista (despite Vista being in the name!)…. yet.

My keybard and mouse are now no longer supported (kiss the extra function keys goodbye), my webcam won’t work and my VoIP software crackles and splutters, probably due to an incorrect audio driver being installed on the system.

So I’ve basically spent the last week turning a perfectly fine (commercialy viable) computer into one that is far from where it needs to be.

And the reason for this pain? Well I want to get CS3 of course! Yep, all this just so I could install CS3 (which doesn’t work on Windows 2000).

But I’m not quite ready to put my money on the line and buy CS3. I was hoping to get my 30 days trial out of it, and get the software towards the end of this period. Looks like all the system restores and bios fiddling I’ve been doing has put an abrubt stop to that. Over the weekend I tried to load up Fireworks, only to see the “Trial Expired” screen…. wtf!? But I’ve still got 25 days of trial left I thought… loaded up Flash… same thing!!! So looks like I’ve now got to load up my old Adobe/Macromedia software so I can actually do some work today!

I feel like knocking up an invoice and sending it to Bill and Bruce for the last week of farnakling I’ve had to endure.

Fingers crossed things will get better… if not I’m pulling the pin and getting a Mac. And I think that’s a serious thing for the powers that be at Microsoft. When long time PC supporters and once staunch defenders of everything PC are jumping ship, I imagine those users with less “feeling” for their computer will be marching into Apple’s camp in droves.

Could the newly announced iPhone be the solution to a world gripped by terror?

John Mayer closed the recent Macworld expo with the following comments:

“Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just make life more fun - it’s the exact opposite of terrorism.”

(And yes I’m drawing a very long Apple iBow here ;-) Perhaps if the iPhone made its way into the lives of those inflicting the terror, the fun they’re having with their shiny new Apple product may just make them forget their devious schemes…. failing that, there’s only 5 hours of battery life to watch re-runs of Al Jazeera - which should delay them for a while I guess. And if that’s not a case for the advancement of fuel cell technology, then I don’t know what is!

And it’s worth noting that the Keynote address on the iPhones site is currently unaccessible due to high demand. I’d be guessing here, but Apple’s streaming server setup would be pretty impressive, so the number of users clamoring all over this story must be equally as impressive.