Let’s Have Some Simple Computing!
I am getting more and more fed up with computing.
A few days ago, I went back to the computer in my office, that hosts my favourite computing language, Visual Basic 6. How refreshing to use something that was designed for sensible and sane people to use? It doesn’t lead you down blind avenues, that have been dreamed up by nerds in Seattle or Mumbai, who have phDs in computing, but no experience of life.
Here are a few things that are annoying me at present.
- The keyboard driver still hasn’t materialised.
- Google maps used to be simple, but now it’s been loaded with so many features, that I don’t need, it doesn’t do the simple trhings quickly enough. For instance, I’ve just booked a B & B in Middlesbrough and want to print a map, which shows the route from the station. It doesn’t seem to drag like it used to after typing in the post code.
- Internet Explorer 8 greets me with a screen, which asks me if I’d like a tour of the new features. There is no button, to say, that I’m competent and would you please stop wasting my time.
- Java anf Flash always want to update themselves, but I don’t do this, as Java updates have caused me problems in the past. There is no way to say no!
- HP always want to check my computer. It works, so please leave it alone.
- Microsoft are always wanting me to use Bing. Why would I want to deal with a dead crooner? Does he sing you the results of the search?
I could go on, but I have better things to do!
Legal Highs
I don’t like drugs;prescription, legal or otherwise. I am on three drugs at the moment, warfarin to thin my blood, statins to stop my blood clotting and some tablets to reduce my hay fever. In a perfect society that is three too many.
There has been a report today about how dubious legal highs manufactured in China, sold on the Internet are now taken by millions of people.
Are people really that stupid to take such a substance?
I just typed “Legal Highs” into Google and I could easily buy enough dope to make an elephant fly!
The government is trying to find a way to ban them, but how do you ban something, when you don’t know what it is?
Somehow we must educate people that taking illegal substances and tobacco doesn’t do your health any good.
I also have read that Raoul Moat was a steriod abuser. Did that have any affect on his character and what he did? This article poses that question and provides a few answers.
Facebook Is A Nightmare, If You’re A Bad Typist
I just tried to post something on Facebook and I ended up writing something to the wrong place. Manners said, that I should delete it, but there didn’t appear to be a Delete link for comments. At least the comment wasn’t offensive or even the tiniest bit rude!
I’ll stick to this blog!
The Yahoo Search Says A Lot
I was just checking a Yahoo group and noticed their most common search terms.
- iPhone 4 – A complete waste of space, that doesn’t meet its specification
- Tiger Woods – Overhyped and over-here
- Dream Interpretation
- Cheryl Cole – Nice girl, but she hasn’t been lucky in love or on getting malaria on her charity stunt. She deserves a lot better!
- Come Dine with Me – Never watched it and probably never will!
- Raoul Moat – He’s not worth searching for!
- Lottery – Only losers do this tax on the poor!
- Wayne Rooney – Perhaps you need to search for his talent that has disappeared.
- Mel Gibson – Someone I never think about, except if he’s in a film and then I avoid it.
- Toy Story 3 – Not a film I would see, but it has had good reviews from people I respect.
Does this list sum up what is wrong with popular culture in this country.
Fraud from Russia Concerning Amazon
I have had a lot of e-mails purporting to say that I have ordered something on Amazon. I know they are not genuine orders, as they come to an e-mail I never use for orders, but watch for e-mails.
They are baed on a fake AMazon web site, with a Russian domain name.
Be careful, as if you are a regular Amazon purchaser, your account has a valid credit card.
So login to the real Amazon, change your password and if you can, change your e-mail to something that you reserve for purchases over the web.
I Just Broke a Glass
I was drinking a glass of wine, when I wrote the last post. Because I make so many typing mistakes and have to correct them, I constantly shift from side-to-side on my chair, as I have to hit backspace all the time and then correct all of the mess created by inadvertant control keystrokes. The outcome was that the phone cable got tangled in my chair and as I pushed against it, the desk moved backwards and the glass which was in a safe place to my right toppled over. It may have been actually toppled by a fly-spray canister that was handy to zap the aerial irritants, inhabitating my office.
So no harm done really and it’s the first accident for about a week. I think, I’ll log them, as it would be progress to do a month without a problem. At least my little cordless Dyson mopped up all the broken glass, I couldn’t pick up with my right hand.
But it just goes to show, how frustrating computing is for a man with a gammy left hand! I believe that if I get the keyboard driver I want, it will improve my life in a very positive way.
Nuisance Calls
My last post took a long time to get posted as I was interrupted by an American lady on the phone, saying C had won a cruise. I dropped the phone and this hit some dodgy keystroke, which meant that the post I was editing got deleted.
If I have time, I usually greet these callers with suitable arrangement of Foxtrot Oscar, especially when they ask for C. These low-life are a very good place to vent my anger and frustration with life.
My phones are all listed on the Telephone Preference Service, so they should not be cold calls. But then American companies do not feel that they should abide by UK and EU law. It’s America first and the rest don’t count.
Until they do, I will not buy any products from US companies, unless they adhere to the ethics that all sensible people adhere to!
European Computer Driving Licence
I had never heard of this until Wednesday, when an unemployed man said that he’d been offered a course to get him back to work. I am not sure, if it helped him get a job, but it strikes me that it is simple proof, that the holder has the minimum computer skills needed in the most basic of jobs. Speaking to two friends at dinner that night, it turned out that both their sons had done this qualification at school and had thought it worthwhile.
I have read about the syllabus on the British Computer Society’s web site. As I have actually written a book on how to use the Internet and have many years of computing experience, this qualification is something I could teach or at least point people in the right direction.
There is almost a barter here, in that I might teach say an unemployed person, a bit of computing and they do a few of the jobs that I can’t manage in my state. I suspect too, that I’m not the only person with good computer skills, who needs a bit of other support.
A Classic Analysis for Daisy
Daisy is my software for analysing databases. Some of the most successful analyses has always been to take a series of date/time based events and draw a Date and Time Daisy Chart of them. Patterns in the data are often immediately visible.
Some years ago, one of our clients, a UK county, analysed low birth weight babies, by month, day of the week and post code, to see if there were any patterns. We didn’t find anything immediately, but we did in the end find a peak of twins, nine months after Christmas and the New Year. As the type of twin, identical or fraternal was not known, we could not explain the pattern. I have since told this to an honest man, who used to run fertility clinics in the United States. He felt that there were some times of the year when it was better to have IVF. He left the fertility business, as he felt this was not the sort of service, you should give couples desperate for a child.
But to return to the reason, I have written this post. It is being reported that babies born outside of office hours are more likely to die.
I don’t think the researchers are using Daisy, but it is the classic type of analysis for which the software was designed. All you need to do, is get all the events in an Excel spreadsheet as a table and then run Daisy.
Microsoft Sells Drugs
I actually think not, but this spam e-mail, which looks as if it had come from Microsoft, is actually selling the drugs, that are the main source of income for many crooks and fraudsters around the world. What gave the e-mail away was its title of “Your rod will stay”, so I suppose it was about turning software into hardware!
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The links in the mail actually point to a web site called tastymighty.com, which is registered in China and the e-mail may actually have come from a spammer in Uruguay. The web site is yet another incarnation of the well known fake drug provider, the Canadian Pharmacy.
I have seen spammers using the fake Microsoft e-mail, but not for some time. So beware anything like this, as trying to unsubscribe just takes you to the drug site.
The Anonymous Widower 