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May 31, 2007

Microsoft Surface


http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

TechCrunch: Microsoft Announces Surface Computer

Posted by Stephen at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 30, 2007

TiVo for Australia ... or is that semi-TiVo

It's taken, let's see now, an entire decade for our television networks to consent to allowing us to have a TiVo, but the Seven Network at least has finally decided that there may, after all, be some money in it for them.

Of course, the way they decide to extract the funds might mean that TiVo in Australia doesn't offer the same features as in the US. At least, that's our reaction to the statement that Seven is looking at "new marketing products such as click-through ads", and the sudden enthusiasm by Nine for an electronic program guide - you know, the one they sued IceTV to stop.

You'll understand, therefore, why we're looking at alternatives like KnoppMyth, among others. What about you?

Posted by cw at 09:28 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Flickr is having a massage!

 

Flickr is having some networking upgrades and is down for a bit of a massage and have left us some stats to ponder whilst we wait...

Posted by Stephen at 04:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 24, 2007

Content-driven fitness

Your personal trainers at the Bleeding Edge fitness centre would like to introduce you to the latest exercise routine developed by our staff, built around a couple of devices that are more demanding than any Stairmaster: the HTPC and the PVR.

Yes folks, the Home Theatre PC and the personal video recorder will have you running from one room to the other, in a continuous search for content. You may be aware of our innocent entry into content-driven circuit training, with the arrival, a few years ago, of our first media centre, based on the Linux world’s MythTV.

In those days, we simply wanted some way of recording free-to-air TV to hard disk, so that we could watch our favourite programs on our schedule, rather than that of the networks. The first generations of these products were more personal computer than home theatre, limited by factors like size, noise and power consumption, so eventually we moved to the Topfield TF5000PVRt, which, with the addition of small programs called TAPs, such as the brilliant ProgressBarKeys developed by Perth-based Andy Cullen, delivered much of the functionality of a PC to what was essentially a member of the familiar audio-visual player/recorder product family, like the VCR and the DVD.

How could we have known then that we were acquiring an insatiable hunger that would lead us into ever more strenuous exertions?

Regular readers will have picked up the first clues when we started writing about BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file transfer program that allowed us to download programs from the US and the UK, and view them within a day or so of their appearance in New York or London. We had become multimedia citizens of the global village.

The only problem was that we needed a Windows PC or a Mac to download those programs, and they were in the home office, or the Bleeding Edge cave at the Abbotsford Convent, rather than in the lounge room with the television set. We’d discovered a regular routine for accelerating the heart rate.

At the same time, we had been accumulating a vast library of MP3 music files, which were also on our computers. The 2nd generation iPod made it relatively portable. As the collection expanded, we bought a 3rd generation and then a 4th generation iPod. At the same time we became hooked on podcasts – mostly from ABC Radio National and the BBC – and we used the SanDisk Sansa to manage them.

What we noticed, however, was that whenever we wanted to play the iPod or Sansa through the lounge room Hi-Fi, we’d have to first trek around the house, playing hide and seek. Had we used it in the bedroom last night? Or was it in the car? The office? A bag?

Last week, when the first gorgeous Bleeding Edge granddaughter – “Hello Indigo” – suddenly appeared on the scene, we realised things were about to get completely out of hand. Grandchildren generate vast amounts of still and video images – who knows, possibly even podcasts? - and we’d already experienced missing slideshow syndrome, where the images you want to screen on the TV aren’t where you need them to be, right now, before your prospective audience gets bored and starts making excuses to leave.

This brings us to something of a crisis point. Frankly there are more interesting ways of maintaining fitness, so we’re going to have to replace the Topfield with something that gives us the ability to tap our central stores of video, audio and images, without domestic excursions.

We thought briefly about the recently-released high-definition version of the Topfield, the TF7000HT, but the Korean manufacturers have not only overlooked the first requirement of an up-to-date PVR – wireless or Ethernet capability – they’ve also apparently lost touch with reality. They’ve concentrated all their efforts on high-definition resolution, and overlooked the fact that the “upgrade” eliminates the features that made their products so popular. The TF7000HT costs $1100, but it doesn’t accommodate TAPs, and more critically, can’t handle the Ice TV electronic program guide ($90 per annum from icetv.com.au) that we in the fitness centre regard as essential for the prevention of exercise-related stress. While an upgraded firmware is expected to restore the EPG capability, there’s no indication yet that it will work with TAPs.

A couple of weeks ago, however, the local distributors released a competing device, the Beyonwiz DP-S1, which has dual high-definition tuners, meaning you can record two channels, and watch a pre-recorded show, a DVD player, and a 200GB hard drive. We’d have liked to see a 400GB drive, given the size of HD files, and the $1500 price tag, but the fact that it has wireless and Ethernet networking makes on-board storage less critical. We can hook it up remotely to our computer content stores – fortunately, a few years ago we laid an Ethernet cable to our lounge room.

The Beyonwiz has codecs to handle all the popular compressed video and audio formats, and while it doesn’t yet have the programming interface to deliver the functionality of TAPs, it’s based on Linux, and could gain them.
You can plug in external USB 2.0 storage devices, and still or video cameras. You can even slide in a Compact Flash, SD or MMC card into slots in the front panel and play your content from there.

The question it raises is one that a lot of multimedia work-out fanatics will be asking themselves: is a device like this a better or worse investment than an HTPC – the Windows Media Centre or the Mac mini for example.
Although you can do more with a computer, do you really need to have another one in your lounge room? The Beyonwiz is likely to have a much faster start-up time, and will be much simpler to operate and fit out than a computer. And it’s not likely to suffer from the irritating bug that has infected some – but not all - Windows Vista Media Centre installations in Australia: the sudden regular disappearance of Channel 7 and SBS and the IceTV program guide.

Over the next month or so, we hope to answer some of those questions. Once we recover from the muscle cramps.

Posted by cw at 04:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Extremely remote control

Like the Chief Toad, I'm also a big fan of time shifting. Personally, I find walking all the way to the PC, plugging in a media box, copying the files, walking all the way back to the TV, plugging in the media box again, and finally getting to sit down, far too much work. So, I've connected up my Xbox 360 to our home PC and stream music, photos, TV, and videos directly across the network, using the Media Extender functionality.

Where things get problematic is when someone tells me about some unmissable program, but I'm not at home, so I can't set it to record. Thankfully, IceTV now provides PIMP, which allows me to use any web browser to set up a recording on my home media center. Once the recording is selected on IceTV's web site, the site contacts a little program running on the media center, and schedules the recording. My Better Half also seems to have discovered the convenience of doing things this way, based on all the strange new recordings I now find on our media center.

Foxtel has now got in on the act too - they have their own Electronic Program Guide which also allows shows to be scheduled for recording on our Foxtel IQ. (For just $10 per week, the IQ is an extremely useful addition to any cable TV connoisseur's household).

With this amazing technology, 'remote controls' don't seem to control very remotely any more - real remote control is setting up a recording from Malaysia, to watch after arriving back home in Australia...

Posted by Jeremy at 12:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Shifting time, shifting files

We've been asked for some more information on the Sarotech aBigs, so, here's the original column ...

Bleeding Edge didn't quite realise, when we embraced the concept oftime-shifting with such enthusiasm, quite how much time we'd actually be shifting, and more the point, what we'd be shifting where.

Time-shifting, you may be aware, is what happens when you record television programs to a PC or Mac, a Personal Video Recorder or DVD, and watch them when it suits you, rather than when it suits the
broadcaster's bank account.

While you gain a certain amount of time and enhance the experience, in our opinion, by being able to eliminate all the commercials, you trade that off with the time you spend with the Green Guide deciding what shows you're going to record, although - as we've reported several times - you can save some of that with ICE TV's electronic program guide.

A more extreme form of time-shifting is when you use a broadband Internet connection and a BitTorrent eer-to-peer file-distribution client, including our personal favourite, uTorrent, to download overseas TV programs. BitTorrent distributes the bandwidth among many users, dramatically reducing the download time. But again, there’s a trade-off. What you find yourself doing, to support your time-shifting, is file-shifting.

Take our particular situation. We have two broadband connections - one in the Bleeding Edge cave, and the other at home - on which we schedule various BitTorrent downloads. We've got a Loewe Aconda wide-screen TV set, and an amplifier sitting in another room. In order to get the video files we’ve downloaded from both PCs on to the screen, we've been burning DVDs, and playing them on a DVD player which recognises the DivX MPEG-4 video compression codec.

Although we've saved a lot of time by using Nero to burn them as data files, rather than converting them to DVD video format, even on a fast burner it takes more than half an hour to produce and label each disc. And the cost of blank optical media starts to add up.

After several months juggling polycarbonate platters, we knew we’d have to find an alternative. What we’ve come up with is the Sarotech abigs DVP-570HD, distributed by hipgizmos.com. Essentially, it’s an elegantly-designed aluminium case, roughly the size of a hardback book, with the ability to output video, audio and digital photographs via an impressive selection of connectors; a small LCD screen; and a remote control. Insert a 3.5-inch IDE hard drive, and you’ve got a relatively portable digital multimedia player, which shifts these time transactions
firmly back in your favour.

Once you’ve got one of these things, you can forget about DVDs. You transfer the video files from your PC via USB 2.0 – at about a minute per gigabyte - and play them through a TV, using a remote control. Hook up an Ethernet cable, and you can stream files directly from a PC via an Ethernet connection (although unfortunately it doesn’t have Wi-Fi capabilities).

The unit handles digital audio and photograph files too, with a handy slide-show function – it even copes with eBook .txt files - and the fact that it includes USB 2.0 Host mode, allows you to transfer files directly from a digital camera, USB flash memory or MP3 player.

It can handle a comprehensive selection of formats, including DivX, Xvid, AVI, MPEG 1, 2 and 4, ISO video, JPEG, and BMP, and AAC, WMA, M3U playlist and MP3 files. Aside from component, composite and S-Video
connections and optical links, a DVI output allows you to play high-definition video at up to 1920x1080i resolution. The unit ships with a useful collection of cables, but not DVI or an optical link. We’ve been impressed in the past with Sarotech enclosures, so we weren’t surprised to find that the DVP-570HD worked flawlessly. It installs
automatically under Windows XP, and includes a software CD to adapt to Mac OS X, or Windows 98/SE.

Connect it directly to your TV or via an amplifier, and you’re presented with a simple, well-designed menu that allows you to negotiate the various options with the remote control, which includes some thoughtful
features, including the ability to pivot the LCD read-out to portrait or landscape, depending on whether you run the unit vertically in the supplied stand, or horizontally. There’s also a bookmark feature which takes you back to that point in the video where you turned everything off and went to bed.

The unit comes in red or black, and features include FM broadcasting, which allows you to play audio files through your car’s speakers. You can buy a car kit, with cigarette lighter power supply and smaller remote for $49. The unit costs $469RRP, but we’ve seen it for less on the Internet. It’s a definite shift in the right direction.

Posted by cw at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Vital keys to beating spam and phishing

It's taken three years so far for Yahoo's idea of DomainKeys Identified Mail to get the crucial support it needs to attack the problem of spam and spoofing and phishing, but now the Internet Engineering Task Force has adopted a draft standard that could put the bad guys out of business ... at least if this particular message gets through to enough people. You might like to become a DomainKeys IM evangelist. UPDATE: On the other hand, FastMail's Rob Mueller thinks it's a terrible idea. More from Rob later.

Posted by cw at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2007

Security: the 30 per cent factor

The head of security for State agencies in North Carolina has been phishing State employees to monitor how many of them are likely to expose the system to security breaches, by clicking on stuff, and downloading stuff, and just naturally stuffing things up. Judging from the results, it seems that roughly 30 per cent of us are just plain stupid.

Posted by cw at 01:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 20, 2007

Hating Telstra: we're not alone

We've had our doubts, but apparently Telstra hasn't been able to get away with overcharging its customers, repeatedly denying them services and innovation, bullying them and its competition and then - God help us! - whingeing like a spoiled business brat when it looks like it can't get its way. Nope. A huge number of people still pay their inflated prices without thinking, but apparently we all hate Telstra.

Posted by cw at 01:48 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 18, 2007

A small plug for progress

Increasingly these days, in the Bleeding Edge cave’s entertainment nook, progress tends to be marked by a session of hand-to-hand combat with the amplifier, switching cables.

The arrival of DivX-capable DVD players, which allowed us to burn compressed MPEG4 video files we’d downloaded to the hard drive, without the bother of converting them to DVD video format, revolutionised our television viewing.

It also forced us to ease the surround sound control centre - our Yamaha RX-V657 amplifier – carefully around in its tiny space, and plug the Pioneer DV-686A player into the DVD slot. Let’s see now. The white cable goes here, the red one here, and the yellow one here. And, oh yes, the S-Video goes there. And, oh look, now we’ve got component video cables as well.

The Topfield TF5000PVRt Masterpiece, which we use for free-to-air TV recording, had already claimed the plugs for the DTV/CBL button.

Then the Sarotech abigs DVP-570HD – an external hard drive with a selection of outputs and codecs that turned it into a digital multimedia player – relieved us of the burden of burning the files to DVD. Because we still had an occasional use for the DVD player, we plugged its cables into the Yamaha’s V-AUX space.

For a long time, the RCA plugs feeding the amplifier’s CD output have been attached to the iPod dock via an RCA-mini Y-cable, which is scarcely the classiest connector for the portable audiophile. Last week, however, it was time to slide the amplifier around once more, with the arrival of arguably the most elegant way to hook your iPod up to your entertainment system - the HomeDock Deluxe, from Californian-based Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (DLO). Fortunately, high-quality RCA and S-Video cables ship in the box. We put ours on the VCR1 button, which means that we’re rapidly running out of space for progress.

The HomeDock Deluxe frees you from the limits of that tiny iPod screen. With its sturdy little remote, you can view your iPod’s contents on the TV screen, and play the music and video or photo slideshows from the comfortable distance of your couch.

You can use its “My Jukebox” feature to create a playlist on the fly, making it, perhaps, an essential tool for the party animal. You and your guests will never again have to ask what that track is. It will be displayed on the TV in one of a dozen colour schemes. Because you’ve no doubt downloaded the album covers – or soon will – the graphics will be up there too, in a selection of screensavers.

We didn’t expect the compressed iPod video would translate well to our wide-screen TV (a Loewe Aconda with room for vast numbers of SCART cables), but it was perfectly acceptable, if emphatically not DVD quality. In these days of what you might call social video, it’s only polite to allow one’s friends to show us what they’ve just downloaded to their iPod, without having to attach cables. And it’s much easier on the eyes, when you don’t have to view it on that tiny screen.

We scarcely needed to look at the dock’s manual. First you screw in a support stand, and slide on your iPod. We tried it with the 3rd, 4th and 5th generation iPods, but it also handles the nano (which unfortunately doesn’t support an external slideshow). The only problem you’re likely to strike is if the iPod is not running the latest software version.

Then you attach the cables, turn it on, and start pushing the buttons on the 18-function remote. Aside from the usual navigation controls, the remote includes shuffle and repeat buttons, previous and next playlist buttons, a mute and a screensaver/backlight button. A mode button allows you to turn off the TV display, and work directly from the iPod screen.

An earlier version suffered from some firmware issues that caused a few problems, including video quality. They’ve been resolved in this release, and more significantly, the firmware is now updatable. The update isn’t reflected in the manual that ships with the HomeDock Deluxe, but you can download the current version as a PDF file.

One day, soon, we’re going to have to find some more space for the amplifier.
DLO made its reputation with the TransDock, an FM transmitter that cradles and charges the iPod, while it broadcasts the output to your car’s FM radio. We’ve experienced a good deal of progress in that area too, beginning with the Griffin iTrip, quickly moving to Sonnet’s PodFreq, and more recently settling on the Belkin TuneFM.
The latest generation of the TransDock impressed us with its sound quality – possibly due to its more powerful, integrated antenna - particularly when we set it on the upper frequency range to tune out static. May we suggest, say, 107.9?

There are some other attractive features. There’s an Aux In jack that allows you to hook up another MP3 player, laptop or gaming system and listen to their output … very handy these days when people’s audio is also social.
There’s a USB jack that allows you to simultaneously charge your cell phone or other electronic device.

But the most remarkable addition is the audio/video output, which connects to your car’s mobile video system, or a portable screen. The only reservation we have about this is that it makes it awfully easy for drivers to be watching the latest TV soapie, rather than concentrating on the road. Which is, you know, anti-social.

Both products are distributed by HipGizmos. The HomeDock Deluxe has a street price of around $259, and you can pick up the TransDock for about $159.

Posted by cw at 10:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 17, 2007

"Dell online Store" Trojan emails

This is a little nasty that is currently circulating and to be cautious about.

OVERVIEW: AusCERT has observed recent email activity containing malicious links proporting to be from "Dell online Store".

IMPACT: A user visiting the links contained in these emails is potentially vulnerable to infection from malicious software. Initial analysis and similar incidents indicate this is a Trojan designed to steal online credentials.

More Information: http://www.auscert.org.au/3352

Posted by Stephen at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2007

Selling out to Telstra

Now we're learning just how big a price we're going to pay, as a community, for the Howard Government's sale of Telstra. Talk about telegraphing punches. Is there any doubt whatsoever that Senator Helen Coonan is about to do a deal that will give Telstra precisely what it wants (a no-holds-barred monopoly), and more to the point, give the Government what it wants - burying Labor's broadband policy as an election issue without having to spend OUR money providing US with essential infrastructure. The politicians have instead allocated OUR money to buying the next election for the Liberal Party. The losers will be Telstra's competition, and - yet again - the Australian people. Aren't we all thoroughly sick of these betrayals?

The language used in tonight's 7.30 Report interviews couldn't be more transparent, in our opinion. Here's the crucial exchange:

[Shadow Communications Minister] STEPHEN CONROY: It's not Helen Coonan's job to decide the prices that are going to be set in the telecommunications industry. That's why we have a regulator, that's why we have an independent ACCC.

HELEN COONAN: Well, I don't think I'd call it "circumventing" the ACCC, I think it would more characterise it as accommodating the kind of adjustments that might be needed to enable a new very risky bill that's going to cost in the order of $4 billion. And if the current regulatory regime can't yield that outcome, well then I would look at what might be required.

PHIL BURGESS: As soon as we have agreement with the Government on all aspects, and we have agreement on most of them right now. But as soon as they can work their way through their relationship with the ACCC, as soon as they can decide whether they're going to rein in the ACCC and have the ACCC follow the policies of the Government, as soon as that happens, we'll put all of our prices on the table.

We should carve those words on the tombstone of the democratic principles this Government has slaughtered: "If the current regulatory regime can't yield that outcome, well then I would look at what might be required."

Even Coonan can't coat this pill with enough sugar to disguise the bitter, bitter taste. What she's talking about, and what Burgess is gloating about - don't these carpet-bagging amigos make you sick? - is the abandonment of any pretence of a competition policy in telecommunications. That Burgess comment should live in infamy: "As soon as they can decide whether they're going to rein in the ACCC and have the ACCC follow the policies of the Government". Look, Mr Burgess, that policy you've instructed Coonan to change, and Coonan seems so very willing to change, is the very policy THIS government put in place, to justify the deregulation of the industry, and the sale of Telstra. The ACCC IS following the policies of the Government. It's the Government that has apparently only now found them far too inconvenient. Meanwhile, John Howard - the king of contradiction - is confirming those policies, and the regulator, are under threat, by declaring his support for the regulator.

On the face of it, it's sheer insanity. You'd expect a massive political backlash, stirred up by Optus in particular, and other members of the G9, with the ALP enthusiastically fanning the flames. And Graeme Samuel isn't likely to take what would be an unprecedented public humiliation - a de facto declaration by the Government that he's a "rogue regulator" - without kicking up a tremendous fuss.

What troubles us is that Coonan - a curious assembly of hair and teeth and tissue and no spine at all - seems to be oblivious to any potential for unwelcome fall-out. Either the average voter doesn't have a clue, and can't muster the urge to get one - we already know that Telstra shareholders are prepared to trade the idea of a common wealth and their sense of fair play for the prospect of profit - or Coonan is arranging some quid pro quo for Telstra's competitors. Something, perhaps, that would boost their profits to make up for the bundles of cash that would flow to Telstra if they get what they want. We'd dearly like to know what that is, because it's consumers like us that will be paying through the nose for this shabby deal.

No government in Australia's history has demonstrated a fraction of the contempt for the electorate implicit in virtually every thought, word and deed of the Howard Government. No Prime Minister has been able to get away with mouthing one lie after another, while doing precisely the opposite of what he pledged. No political party with any conviction or the slightest claim to integrity could contemplate the shredding of principle in such a fashion. What a truly shameless mob they are.

Posted by cw at 12:22 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

May 15, 2007

Telstra: the only poll that counts is ... umm ... no poll

Despite all its efforts to "set the record straight" - a theme to which a platoon of spin doctors, chairman Donald McGauchie, communications chief Phil Burgess a flotilla of shareholders, employees, contractors and sundry company mouthpieces constantly dedicate themselves on Telstra's Nowwearetalking corporate blog - readers seem to be getting it all crooked.

The latest example: When the Nowwearetalking organisers, led by such straight-shooters as "chief editor", the serially-and-professionally-agitated Rod Bruem, asked visitors to give their opinion on the following poll question: "Who do you think is blocking high-speed broadband for Australia?" a massive majority of readers failed conspicuously to vote for (a) the Government (b) Telstra's competitors, or (c) that "rogue regulator", the ACCC.

It's not as if they hadn't been given enough hints. CEO Sol Trujillo, in his frequent public wailings on the topic, has left no doubt whatsoever that the correct answer is (a). Alas, a mere 97.1 per cent of 13,000 of Telstra's respondents ticked the wrong damned box, and instead put the blame on ... dammit ... (d) Telstra.

It was just the latest refusal by an ungrateful public to tick the right boxes for our little Aussie telco battler. As APC blogger Dan Warne revealed, they'd also got it wrong on several other key questions:

So what does any self-respecting national carrier, dedicated to the proposition of straight talking, do in a situation like that? Well, it disables polling. Temporarily, at least, until they can get a few bugs, like, you know, democracy, out of the system.

According to Rod Bruem, the poll had been hijacked by a "computer program". Earlier, Telstra suggested it was a case of "spamming". Mind you, the fact that the latest poll question dreamed up by Chief Editor Bruem was, "Have you ever tried to rig an online poll?" suggests another line of reasoning entirely.

Indeed, in yet another version of straight-shooting, Bruem told News Limited that "Telstra-haters were directed to vote in the poll via popular blog Whirlpool."
About which Whirlpool news editor Phil Sweeney mused, "I guess Bruem had been hoping that only the Telstra-lovers they had been sending mailouts to would participate."

More than 43 per cent of respondents to the presumably rigged poll-rigging poll pleaded not guilty, on the grounds that they "wouldn't know how". Such a pity they couldn't have asked Telstra, because some of its staff have a deep interest and acknowledged expertise in poll-rigging. In fact, it seems, the bosses think it's terribly funny when they're fudging the results. Students of Freud might suggest, in the light of that, that Bruem's speculation that Telstra's competitors, now running the 'Tell The Truth Telstra' blog were somehow involved, might be a matter of projection.

Posted by cw at 12:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 12, 2007

Babeling on in Word 2007

It's a bother when people upgrade / update to a new software version. It may not be the performance aspects of the software. Or the lack of familiarity. It can be something as simple as not getting your default Language right.

If all users wrote in one language, life would be easier for us and for the IT folk. We wouldn't need Edward de Bono's Code Book. And we wouldn't need Regional Settings in every version of Windows.

I was having trouble convincing Word 2007 to default to Australian English for all new documents. An issue on a machine (a Vista) but not another (Windows XP). Now, I'm not a Word virgin. Been using Word since Word 5.0 for DOS - Esc -> Transfer -> Load and all that.

"So!", I said. "I know - do the Language -> Set Default thing". But this is the Ribbon, not Word for Windows classic menus. Turns out that it's now in Review -> (Proofing block) -> Set Language -> select English (Australia), Default... -> Set -> click Yes to confirm.  Sounds about right, doesn't it. That's similar to what we used to do? Well, that sequence works, but "I look at the Status Bar, and the Status Bar, he look at me". It's still stubbornly English (US).

Well then, check the Language Setting for Normal Style. You know, the Style you use when you're not using a Style? But oh, where's that? The familiar vertical task pane of Styles that we got used to in Word 2003 isn't there. Yes, I did find a way to expose that in Word 2007, but that's another story. How about the Style drop down box we learnt how to use in Word 2.0 for Windows? That's gone missing as well. Yes, I know I can expose that as well. Aah. I know, this is a convenient way - on the Ribbon Home -> (Styles block) right click on the Normal Style icon -> Modify in the Modify Style dialog, click on the classic Format button -> Language -> Choose English (Australian). However, the Default button is disabled so it might work for this document but not the mother of all templates, Normal.dotm. Normal.dotm - that's a thought. Maybe we can set up English (Australia) there.

But where's that? Vista keeps it in  

c:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Normal.dotm

So I hunt this down, do the requisite things. But the Statusbar - he is still recalcitrant.

Microsoft Live Search helps find me some information. Turns out, there is a global setting for Microsoft Office Languages - we just need to Set the Primary Editing Language. I do that. Nope. Still recalcitrant. In desperation, I trail the obvious - maybe it's Windows that's set up wrong. Windows Control Panel -> Regional Settings and Language Options. Seems ok. But wait. One more step. Select the Keyboards and Languages -> General tab -> Default input language - there it is. Although English (Australia) is an option, it wasn't the default option.

Word 2007 and I? We're chummy again. And I didn't need to read the Office 2007 Resource Kit entry.
[Update] Thanks to Jake for the even quicker tip about double clicking on the Language display in the Statusbar. With further non exhaustive testing, this does well, even for all new documents, if the other two controls - the global Office 2007 Language Settings Primary Language and the Windows Control Panel, Keyboard, Language do not hold conflicting toggles.

Posted by Anandasim at 10:48 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

PC World returns to list of authoritive sources

A few days ago the Chief Toad struck PC World from the list of authoritive sources. It looks like it's already safe to be returned to the list, with the news from Wired "PC World Editor Assured of Autonomy". Seems that kowtowing to advertisers isn't necessarily always a career-advancing move...

POSTSCRIPT: And the fact that Chapman will be looking after IDG's online publications from now on doesn't give observers much confidence in IDG. - CW

Posted by Jeremy at 06:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Chaffeurs not Drivers

There I was waiting for Windows Vista to update itself on my Vista Capable Toshiba notebook. The process completed and instead of irritating me to restart every 5 minutes, there was a more diplomatically worded dialog (so someone has apparently realised that a re-word would enhance the Vista experience). I wanted to see what had updated but didn't see the option to that prior to update.

After reboot, Vista sensed (well, a more refined approach anyway) that I was eager to find out what had updated and it showed me the update history. Not just for this month, but the whole history. I found out that the Intel 945GM Chipset drivers had failed to update. Clicked on the hyperlink to get me more info and it led me to a 404 response.

"Right", I said in my most John Cleese manner, and went to the Intel website to search for the drivers. After a few tries, managed to download WINVISTA154.EXE. Ran that.

Now, this November 2006 vintage entry level Tosh notebook - Core Duo, enhanced with 1.5Gb RAM - is not the fastest, but it's quite reasonable in general use. However, the Intel driver installation program threw up a dialog telling me what version of driver it would be, then the hard disk burbled without pause. Just kept on burbling.... Then the screen changed to 800x600 resolution and I was itchy enough to go through Control Panel to switch it back to 1280x800 while I watched it burble some more. However, the whole screen went black, burble, burble. Hasty human. I waited until the hard disk light did not flicker any more. Held down the power switch for 4 seconds, rebooted. After a successful reboot (the second time was good), I had to sit through a SAT test. In particular, the WinSAT. Shades of Linux - it was a black command prompt window, was this Windows System Assessment Test. Told me test timings, told me that it was testing 3D Graphics. Finally, I'm back to normal - or what constitutes normalcy.

Which prompted me to think - whilst in some areas the Microsoft has had some re-culturing in handling the end user - diplomatic prompts and the feel good experience, the illusion was completely broken by Intel with their DOS classic or Linux classic command prompt handling. And why does installing a few small driver components need to tax the machine's goodwill so much?

Posted by Anandasim at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 11, 2007

A nod to anti-virus etiquette

In these days of declining standards of good behaviour, the Bleeding Edge School of Social Etiquette finds it increasingly difficult to ensure that all of our software has a proper set of manners. Well-behaved software doesn’t slow your computer down, or interfere with other programs. It doesn’t constantly interrupt and claim your attention, or boast about its achievements.

We are at a loss to understand why the security industry seems to have so much trouble understanding these simple rules for superior software. Frankly, we suspect that it’s because of the company it keeps.

You invite these products in to maintain law and order on your computer, only to find them acting like playground bullies, preventing you from installing other software, fouling up your firewall, and generating false positives that can feed paranoia.

It would be rude to suggest that this conduct is motivated by the prospect of financial gain, but honestly, we are beginning to wonder.

Bleeding Edge is increasingly sceptical about the constant exaggeration of security threats by the industry, but we still believe that it’s important to have a good firewall, anti-virus and spyware protection.

A few years ago, malware was largely written by misguided – and very bad-mannered - hackers looking for bragging rights. These days it’s increasingly motivated by greed. The research firm IDC estimates that the black market for procuring fraudulent identities alone is worth close to $US1 billion a year. With that sort of money at stake, today’s malware is extremely sophisticated, and increasingly difficult to detect.

We don’t believe, however, that the bloated suites offered by some of the biggest brands necessarily provide the best protection. Single-purpose applications, many of them free, could be at least as good.

Too many people, in our opinion, remain with the same security vendors, simply because of the convenience of renewing the annual subscription. The performance of these products can be dramatically affected by the rapidly-changing nature of viruses, Trojans and spyware.

We’ve tried many over the years. We quickly became impatient with the bloat and various problems caused by Norton Anti-Virus – so impatient that we are reluctant even to try their latest version, Norton 360 – then switched between programs like F-Prot, the Melbourne-developed Vet and Kaspersky Anti-Virus. We’ve also flirted with free software, including AVG, Avast, and ClamAV.

Over the past year or so, we’ve become increasingly impressed with NOD32, developed by the Slovak company, ESET.

It’s fast, reliable, and largely unobtrusive. Every hour it checks for updates, which it downloads in the background without any fuss. Because we have our email virus scanned at the server by the specialist email service FastMail (fastmail.fm), we’re well protected against most virus threats. We’re more concerned about new viruses whose signatures haven’t been picked up and programmed into virus scanners. That’s one of the reasons NOD32 appeals to us.

In addition to using signatures to identify malware, it “ThreatSense” engine looks for virus-like activity that helps it identify new threats. The Shadowserver Foundation – a volunteer group of security professionals that gathers, tracks and reports on threats, keeps statistics on so-called “zero day” threats, testing theability of major anti-virus programs to pick up previously unknown malware.

At Shadowserver.org, the latest statistics show NOD32 heading the current list, with a 99.09 per cent success rate. If you’re looking for a free anti-virus tool, the performance of Avira’s AntiVir is also quite impressive, at 97.67 per cent. It’s available at free-av.com.

NOD32 also performs well against rootkits, which mask their presence once installed on the system.

You interface with NOD32 through its Control Centre, which you access either by clicking the TaskBar icon or launching from the Start menu (All Programs/ESet/Control Centre). NOD32 is highly configurable, which endears it to more experienced users, but it has a good Help section for novices, at the bottom of the Control Centre. It provides good details on the various “threat protection modules” that you can choose to enable.

One of the first things to check is that the program is set up for automatic updating. You find that option under the Update menu. It will tell you when the last update was completed. The Scheduler/Planner selection under NOD32 System Tools allows you to automate scans.

NOD32 will run faster if you clear temporary files from your computer. You can do that with the freeware CCleaner from ccleaner.com. One thing to remember with CCleaner is that it will also clean out things like cookies, and histories and recent documents by default, so check which files have been ticked before you choose “Run Cleaner”.

On the local ESET distributor’s site you’ll pay $64.50 for NOD32, which seems a touch steep given it’s available on the eset.com home page for $US39 ($A47.30). The local price does, however, include GST.

To get the best performance from any new anti-virus program, you should fully uninstall and remove your previous scanner before installing the new product. Norton products can be more difficult than most to erase. You might have to run the Norton removal tool.

Removing NOD32 is much easier … as you’d expect from a well-mannered program.

Posted by cw at 11:06 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 10, 2007

Internet-powered shopping

The chief toad recently made the valuable observation that the first offered price is rarely the best. Over the past couple of years, we've discovered another shopping secret that has saved us up to 50% on our IT purchases - although hopefully sharing it with you isn't going to destroy the effectiveness of this trick...

Step 1: Use a site like Shopbot or ShopFerret to find the cheapest vendors in the country for your chosen gadget. Let's say we're buying a Brother HL-2070N laser printer - we'd start with a price comparison, which in this case shows prices ranging from $245 to $366 at 32 stores.

Step 2: Print out the web site quotes for a couple of the cheapest stores - they'll normally be no-name little shops in the middle of nowhere, and may well not have stock, but don't let that stop you!

Step 3: Visit your nearest big IT store like Officeworks or Harvey Norman, after checking they have your chosen item in stock. A quick check shows Officeworks, which is near me, has it for $349.

Step 4: Show the sales person your printed quotes. Most of the big shops have a policy of always matching competitive quotes. Thus far, I've never had an example of them failing to do this. In this case, I'll get my printer for $245, which is a 40% saving on the quoted price!

Posted by Jeremy at 04:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Three X-Series

I saw in the Green Guide today an article about Three's new X-Series service. The service looks impressive on paper, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I was most surprised to discover that it no longer appears that Three are insane. I called up the Three service center, spent about 2 minutes on hold, and told the consultant I'd like to upgrade to X-Series. "No problem", he says. He asked me what kind of phone I have, and I lied, telling him I have a Dopod D810, one of their officially supported phones (which, incidentally, is highly recommended by Bleeding Edge - probably the best small phone you can buy right now). Two minutes later, and I was connected!

I did the broadband speed test before the upgrade, and got 280Kbps. I repeated it after the upgrade, and got 580Kbps. Not a bad improvement - but what else had I achieved? Well, previously I was paying $69/month for 2GB, but now I'm paying $40/month for the same thing - a more than 40% discount, for a faster service! There's also some free extras I haven't yet tried, like Cricket TV and the very interesting Orb service, which streams music and video from your PC at home to your mobile.

So the final score?: A 40% saving on mobile broadband, and a doubling of speed. That sounds like a good result to us...

Posted by Jeremy at 03:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Less hasta with Vista

So is Vista (a) faster to start up or (b) infuriatingly slower? The correct answer seems to be (b), but you don't need a stopwatch to find out. No, you can immerse yourself in swags of data, using the hidden Vista diagnostic tool that Ed Bott located after a chat with Microsoft engineers. The tool might help users solve start up problems, but maybe Microsoft should be paying people to use them. Maybe it's all a Communist plot? Maybe Vista causes paranoia? Follow the circus in the comments.

And PC Magazine has a Vista resource you might find useful.

Posted by cw at 08:42 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 08, 2007

Only compare

One of the things a lengthy career in journalism and consumer advocacy has taught us is that it's never a good idea to accept the first price you're quoted for anything. Last week, for instance, the Bleeding Edge spouse asked us to order a new cartridge for the Canon D680 multifunction laser. The spouse has been buying hers from MicroVoice, and she liked their service.

That's a good reason to continue to do business with a company, but we wondered whether she was paying a premium. The particular cartridge we were looking for was a C4127X - a remanufactured one, obviously, because the originals generally contain less toner and cost more.

We did some homework. First we checked out StaticIce and found prices varied from $149 to $167. That seemed a little high, so we rang Cartridge World. Their price was $130. Then we rang MicroVoice. They quoted $149 plus GST. The following dialogue ensued.

"We can get it for $130 inc. GST from Cartridge World."

"Let me check with my manager. [Short interruption.] We can match that price. We can have it for you on Monday."

"That's a pity. I have to have it today."

"Let me check. [Short interruption.] We can deliver it, free of charge, before closing time today."

"Great. We'll have two of them."

This morning, having discovered a loose screw sitting at the bottom of the cartridge slot when we replaced the cartridge on Friday evening, we decided it was time to have the printer serviced. We checked out Canon's list of approved service agents and discovered one on St Kilda Road. They informed us it would cost $162 for them to come down the road and visit the printer, plus any parts. If we took it there, it would cost $94 an hour.

It didn't sound like a particularly service-oriented firm. Worse, they insisted it would take at least an hour and a half to do the service. Because it wasn't being done on-site, we wouldn't be able to see whether it was actually being serviced, or was just sitting there, automatically earning fees. Call us suspicious, but this seemed like a well-rehearsed scenario to us. And they couldn't do the job until Thursday morning.

We checked Google, and came up with LaserFast. They charge $80 for a house call, which they could make either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. We'll let you know how it goes, but they seem promising.

Posted by cw at 01:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Race against Telstra

So which particular high-speed broadband network - more to the point, which particular alliance - would you like? First there's the coalition of the G9 (Optus, AAPT, iiNet, Internode, Macquarie Telecom, AAPT, PowerTel, Primus, Soul and TransACT), and ACCC Commissioner, Graeme Samuel. "The G9 has a plan for Australia," says the full-page ad in The Age (and presumably other newspapers) yesterday, which is just the first shot in what promises to be a nasty fire fight.

The G9/Samuel network will "initially reach four million households and businesses" and grow progessively to "densely populated regional centres". Then there's that other network, the one planned by Telstra. It "only goes to mainland capital cities", says the ad. More to the point, according to Mr Samuel, it is being developed by a particularly unholy alliance: Telstra and the Howard Government, behind closed doors. Or, as the ad puts it: "Telstra's plan only promotes Telstra's interests. The G9 plan promotes and protects Australia's interests because it delivers lower prices and more choice."

In an interview on Radio National yesterday, Samuel blew the whistle on Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan, confirming that the ACCC has been excluded from discussions between Telstra and the Government over its FttN (Fibre to the Node) network offer. "The Minister's discussions themselves are something that we're not party to," he said. "That's something that (Coonan) has been undertaking with her department over recent months and we've not been privy to."

Of course the Government is desperate to patch together something that would help it evade the political fall-out from a long season of neglect that the ALP's recent proposal threatens to exploit, but it's beyond belief that it should expose itself to the sort of campaign that G9 and Samuel are now mounting, with accusations that the Government is ignoring the need for a competitive tender process, and exposing the country to a massive rip-off.

The advertisement declares "Telstra is reported to be asking for an average access price over $80" - more than double that of the G9 proposal, and says that "Telstra wants to hold the country to ransom - no new high-speed broadband unless it gets its broadband monopoly".

"[Telstra would] love to be able to do this behind closed doors," Samuel - dubbed "the rogue regulator" by Telstra - told the ABC, "but it's not the way we, the ACCC, the regulator can operate. It's not the way the law, the Parliament mandates us to operate. It says bring it out in the open, make it transparent."

Samuel mused: "I've got to ask myself, why is it that Telstra doesn't want to bring out its information into the public arena? Why doesn't it want the public to see what this is all about? Why does it want to try and do a deal that sidelines a regulator that is required by Parliament to consider what's fair for the investor, for competitors and what's fair for the Australian consumer?" We all know the answer to that, of course. Because it believes it has a divine right to profit from monopoly, and its prepared to use all its money and power, and the influence of its shareholders, to tilt the playing field in its favour.

The advertisement, which is clearly addressed to the Howard Government, says "It's time to put Australia's interests first." And how to do that?

  1. Ensure all broadband plans are open to public consultation.
  2. Ensure the Broadband plan and access arrangements promote competition.
  3. Allow the ACC to set the access price.
  4. Ensure existing telecommunications laws apply equally to all competitors.

Telstra, meanwhile, hits back, declaring that its proposed charges are reasonable, and what's more

Only Telstra has the proven size, leadership, commitment and capability to deliver the next generation of broadband infrastructure across Australia..
This is going to be heaps of fun. Provided, of course, Coonan doesn't stitch us all up.

Posted by cw at 11:24 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

May 05, 2007

Digg, Techememe, Microsoft & Yahoo

Whilst wondering what was on Techmeme after hearing on the grapevine that Digg's founder Kevin Rose is now backing the Digg community and are now ignoring a 'Cease and Desist' declaration by the AACS regarding a DRM decryption code for HD-DVD's that is traveling around the internet Kevin Rose himself has posted the decryption key on the Digg Blog.

But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

You can check out many of the conversations going on by having a look at the top stories on Digg for the past 7 days that shows this is old news, actually only 2 days ago though wondering what the blogosphere might have been talking about this issue I jumped over to TechMeme to see a the page full of blogger's and news sites talking about a  Microsoft/Yahoo US$50 Billion merger though the Wall Street Journal reports the discussion is over for now.

Off for some leisurely reading now...

Posted by Stephen at 01:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 04, 2007

Things we hate about Apple ... and publishers

You can strike PC World from your list of authoritative sources, after the new publisher, Colin Crawford, decided that the magazine had completely forgotten its primary goal: being nice to advertisers.

Crawford, whose blog tends to indicate why accountants should never be allowed to meddle in journalism, tried to kill a story titled "Ten Things We Hate About Apple". After all, that sort of story would never have been run at Macworld, where Crawford had previously been CEO, and Steve Jobs used to get him on the phone whenever he had a problem with a story. Unfortunately, real journalists regard that sort of interference as a serious breach of their ethics, and it left former PC World Editor-in-Chief, Harry McCracken, no alternative but to resign.

This piece of censorship raises possibly the Eleventh Thing We Hate About Apple: a bizarre form of corporate narcissism that reflects the personality of Steve Jobs. At The Guardian, Jack Schofield - who makes the point that "it's impossible to imagine a similar dispute about an article called, say, 'Ten Things We Hate About Microsoft'"- reflects on the curious fact that "Apple's media coverage often seems to lean towards the sycophantic side, whether it's because of doing exclusive deals with Apple, its advertising clout ("Are you running any anti-Apple stories?"), or simply because so many publications (including The Guardian) are run on Macs".

This uncritical, even perhaps adoring so-called journalism appears even in mainstream publications, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Schofield takes a recent example: "There was a spat at Time, reported in New York magazine, about an exclusive story on the new iPhone, "in which writer Lev Grossman tweaked Apple CEO Steve Jobs about his secretive access to the product ... and suggested that Apple had 'some explaining' to do about backdated stock options". According to New York "When the story hit the Web, Jobs called [managing editor Richard] Stengel to complain (as it happens, Apple is a major advertiser in Time, and Jobs is a good friend of Huey's). Stengel reacted by immediately excising the offending paragraphs from the Web (they have since been restored). Then he had Grossman come into the office to rewrite part of the piece for the print edition. Grossman was infuriated. "

“I feel bad about the whole episode on both sides,” Stengel now says, explaining that the flap resulted from a miscommunication. “I’ll take the blame in the sense that there was an understanding that I had with Steve, which I did not tell the writer and that was an oversight on my part.” The backdated-stock-options part of the story wasn’t eliminated, he argues, just moved into a sidebar that ran in the magazine. Still, Stengel concedes that it was a weak moment for the magazine’s journalism. “Maybe a little bit,” he says.

If you've got the time, and you're interested in the way cosy relationships are affecting journalistic institutions like Time, the New York Magazine story is worth the read.

Posted by cw at 12:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 03, 2007

Good deal on voice recognition software

Just as soon as I get a spare moment, I'm going to write an article comparing Dragon NaturallySpeaking v9 to Windows Vista's builtin speech recognition. However, in the interests of saving you some money, let me give you two salient points right away:

The link above will get you a price of around US$150 including priority shipping, which is equivalent to AU$180 - this compares well to the RRP in Australia of $400!

Posted by Jeremy at 04:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Joost invites

If you're interested in trying Joost for yourself, I suddenly have 999 invites in my account. Let me know, and I'll send one your way.

Posted by cw at 01:48 PM | Comments (44) | TrackBack

Joost shapes up for a TV fight

Bleeding Edge isn’t normally interested in boxing – it reminds us too much of our day job, slugging it out with technology - but last week we watched a couple of fights televised by SkySports from Ulster Hall, in Belfast. It seemed an appropriate choice, given that we weren’t viewing the action on free-to-air (FTA) or cable TV. It screened, instead, on our PC.
What we were looking at was a closed beta introduction to Joost, a start-up which is battling commercial TV, and for that matter a number of other contenders, for your viewing time. There’s all those BitTorrent downloads, and and video services such as Google's YouTube, all competing for an audience that, according to research company Gartner, is expected to reach 48 million by the year 2010.
Joost, however, is impressive. It uses peer-to-peer streaming to deliver video which, while it isn’t quite TV standard, is certainly quite viewable now, and will almost certainly improve. It shows commercials, just like the networks do, although much more sparingly. The major difference, aside from the fact that it’s coming down your broadband Internet connection, is that the content is on demand - available when you want it, rather than when the networks want to show it to you.


Joost – a homonym for “juiced” – seems to be fighting out of its division, when you consider the content and technical superiority of FTA television. But it isn’t entirely without prospects.
It’s the latest venture of Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the developers of the file-sharing program Kazaa, who two years ago sold another of their projects, the Voice over IP program Skype, to eBay, for $US2.6 billion. Their experience and resources have no doubt been critical in gathering support, with CBS and Viacom signing on in deals that will give Joost access to shows like CSI/CSI:Miami and CSI:NY, Paramount Pictures and MTV releases, along with Warner Bros Music and other music video choices, National Geographic, and full-length independent films. By last week, it had 92 individual TV channels with a total of 3281 shows.
Only 14,000 people have been involved in the first stage of beta testing, which is by invitation only, but in the past couple of weeks, those invitations have been under much greater demand. They’ve been selling for more than $10 on eBay (tinyurl.com/2xl8uf). Fortunately, a visitor to the Bleeding Edge blog sent us one to aid our research.
The program downloads and installs easily, taking up 27.64MB of hard drive space. Based on Mozilla Firefox, the interface is easy to navigate. It opens with full-screen video by default, although It’s much better viewed in a relatively large window. There’s an extensive preferences screen which allows you to change that default, and adjust over elements of the interface, including the delay in opening the video control panel and pop-up menus , which appear when you pass the mouse cursor over a screen edge. They close by clicking on an icon on the top right of the screen.
On the right edge is a button that opens the channel guide, and on the left is a button for “My Joost”- which switches to full screen, and gives you access to widgets – a clever feature that turns viewing into a social experience, with elements like Jabber or Gmail instant messaging, channel chat to viewers of the same channel, a clock and an RSS feed news feed reader .
Unfortunately, Joost’s content is limited by regional restrictions. Warner Bros Records shows can be viewed only in the US, National Geographic is available only in the US and Canada, Alliance Atlantis Sci-Fi, World Poker Tour and Bridezillas – a show on the mania of New York weddings – go worldwide expect the US and Canada, Soccer screens in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and the GONG Animé & Manga Network is limited to Europe.
There’s a couple of supporting blogs, at joost.com/blog/ and at joostteam.com, where you can discover news of developments like a hack to run Joost on Apple TV, which gives you an indication of the popularity of the program among technology enthusiasts.
You will need to remember that Joost chews up bandwidth – roughly 320Mb per hour downstream, and another 105Mb upstream. And because it continues to run in the background after you close the main window, make sure when you finish with it that you right click on its icon in the Windows task bar and click on Exit.
The latest development is that Joost has now signed a deal with CNN. This fight is getting even more fascinating.

Posted by cw at 12:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack