Ive Moved
August 27, 2006
What Grinds My gear 5
April 26, 2006
hey there everyone, im back after a long hiatus. As with my good friend atariboy things at uni are going to get pretty busy so i wont have time to write many posts, not that i imagine i get many regular readers. Anyway i would just like to thank the great comments from the last grind my gears, may the common sense in us all prevail over the forces of evil, so to speak.
Ive been undecided recently about where to take this blog, so i might change tack in a while, maybe a personal blog, maybe a music/movies blog we shall have to see. Ive also been undecided about what to grind my axe about, and it came to me when i went home for easter break.
So it came down to the decision, should i take back my computer for easter break of leave it at uni, so i left it safe in the knowledge ill have my trusty laptop back at home. So i log in, a laborious task if there ever was one, after the laptop was mincing around tryin to boot. Suddenly from out of nowhere the desktop of my user profile is overwhelmed with crap…. not literally, that would be messy indeed. So just to fill you in my grind my gears is partially at my laptop, and my dad, but mostly at windows xp and Norton antivirus. Oh christ did that program make things uncomfortable to say the least.
So there i am, picking through the wreckage of what used to be my desktop, to find about the following:shortcuts for numerous amounts of software which we dont use, including
several shortcuts for the printer
several shortcuts for my dads camera (which he's barely used)
shortcuts for my zen micro for when i connect to the lappy
folders all over the damn place, and all unarranged. It almost reduced me to tears.
But no i stayed strong, just as i was about to sort everything out, i get not one but three popups on my desktop, one for tiscali broadband, one for msn, and one for …… Norton antivirus. Grrr. Yes i allready know the systems status is ok, you told me last time, and the time before last, it wouldnt give it a rest, and to think you have to pay monthly for a pop-up to say everythings ok.
Surely i should get back to facts, firstly issue one was windows xp. Normally i dont windows xp, my pc is perfectly fine running it. My laptop just went through a major reinstall of windows, and my dad, who did it, is clueless when it comes to computers. A windows "balloon" comes up, for a start why the f*** do they call them balloons, face facts they are pop-ups. It says that software updates installation has had an error. I ask my self, what installation, which updates. Thats when it came to me, like an annoying pop-up, the windows update manager had not been changed. It just kept downloading crap all the damn time, firstly there was service pack 2, that took ages. But the one that took the biscuit was the sound drivers windows decided i needed to download. There was nothing wrong with the old one, but for some reason, without telling me it downloads them, installs them…without telling me, and installs them wrongly.
Of course i did not know about this until i wanted to load up itunes, i press play and a warning signs comes up, silly me, i must have moved the file somewhere else…. no thats not it, actually why arent i hearing anything. Thats right dumbass windows installed the fucking patched wrongly. A quick restart and i get sound back, until i open of firefox. Browsing my regular sites i find a youtube video i want to watch…hang on i dont hear any sound, the same with google videos.
Damn you windows xp, i shout furiously shaking my fist at the screen, if only computers had feelings. Then i could give it what for, and they would feel realy sorry and fix themselves, whimpering in guilt whilst doing so. But no, i havent the faintest whats wong, because windows media and quicktime movies are fine. So thats an open question, does anyone have any idea what went wrong there and how to fix it?
My next target in the line of fire is Norton Antivirus. Now seeing as though my friend got a warning from redstation about defamation, im pretty sure i better take precautions in what i say……nah fuck it. Norton sucks, but of course you all know this.
Not only does it use up shitloads of memory, its useless. everytime i start my computer i would get a pop up saying everythings fine, yet everytime i would get another saying that ive got an adware file, would i like to remove it. I think hell yes, i dont want those pesky casinos and penis enlargement ad's gettin through to my desktop. So away it goes, searching, finding it and removing it….. Yeah ya removed it right,, oh you did ??, then why the fuck do i get the same warning every startup with the same adware file being flagged in the same destination. Normally i would use the destination and look for the file myself and delete it, job done like with AVG, who ive never had problems with (free version). But Norton wont show the full filepath destination, so im left having to run through the same hoops once and again. This situation happens twice as i also have a trojan virus on their, that doesnt get deleted.
Im sorry but if you pay for and ANTI, and i stress the word anti-virus, then why the fuck wont it get rid of the virus. FFS my dad is paying monthly for the damn thing, i would like to think he could get some results.
So here i am back at uni, in front of my nice unconfortable chair that creeks with displeasure on knowing that its the worst chair in the world.Although the most important thing is that my pc is back in front of me, nothing is wrong with it, there are no pop-ups of crappy programs chewing up hard drive space, like a womans thong chews up… well ya know. Final words od discouragement, if thats a word, norton made my easter bloody annoying, and windows update manager didnt help much either, i would blame my dad for it but he doesnt know better.
Long live the days of internet (my university house, with uber speed broadband), with the glory's of firewalls, bitorrent, and a computer geek as a best friend. Thats right norton, you make me uncomfrotable when talk of going back home is brought up because you runined my easter!!!
anyway enough is enough
AND THAT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN IS WHAT GRINDS MY GEARS
10 THINGS WE DIDNT KNOW LAST WEEK 4
April 14, 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4895278.stm – taken from bbc news
may i draw your attention to point 1, and women have a go at men thinking about sex all the time, tut tut
Snippets harvested from the week's news, chopped, sliced and diced for your weekend convenience.
1. The average British woman worries about the size and shape of her body every 15 minutes.
2. This Easter weekend will see 2.3 million people travelling through the UK's airports.
3. Six seats in the Italian Senate depend on the votes of Italians living abroad.
4. A flag expert is a vexillologist.
5. Coins which are called "coppers", such as the penny, have been made from steel since 1992.
6. Compensation payments to teachers following personal injuries, such as assaults by pupils, amounted to £7.6m last year.
7. Berlin's tallest building, a television tower, will have a giant 32 metre football placed on top for the World Cup.
8. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.
9. The suicide rate in the UK is at its lowest rate since records began in 1910.
10. Tony Blair is the first prime minister in recent times not to use RAF aircraft for family holidays.
[Sources where no story linked: 1: Daily Telegraph]
Quick Note
April 7, 2006
Easter break + Exams = Revision < No Posts for a while
Electricity Calculator
March 28, 2006
Found this on the BBC news site. Its in response to the news that the UK will not meet its CO2 emmisions reduction target, well this doesnt help with China and the USA screwing everything up in terms of carbon emmions. The link asks you to calculate how much fossil fules, nuclear energy, alternative and foreign energies you would employ as a energy minister. To be honest im all for Nuclear and alternative, as long as they can make safe Nuclear (Chernobyl and "The China Syndrome" come to mind), and as long as NIMBY's (Not in my back yard) people dont throw up a fuss about wind turbines. They wont be complainging when their energy bills are extrotionate and when fossil fuels are run dry. Anyway heres the link.:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/electricity_calc/html/1.stm
10 THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW THIS TIME LAST WEEK 3
March 26, 2006
Taken from bbc.com – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4824504.stm
Snippets harvested from the week's news, chopped, sliced and diced for your weekend convenience.
1. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel
in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and
architects, according to a study by Sussex University.
2. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.
3. In the UK there are: 275,000km of gas pipes; 353,000km of sewer pipes; 396,000km of water pipes, and 482,000km of electricity cables.
4. Jacques Chirac spent time in his youth as a forklift driver at a US brewery.
5. More than 3,000 BT internet customers download up to 200 gigabytes each month.
6. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden, a study has found. In 1979, there were 10 per garden.
7. No chancellor of the exchequer in more than 150 years has delivered 10 Budgets in a row. Gordon Brown achieved that feat this week.
8. Electricity for Number 10 Downing Street is supplied by a French company.
9. Boris Johnson calls Harriet Harman "Hattie".
10. Under the Estate Agents Act 1979, anyone can
set up in business as one unless they have been banned by the Office of
Fair Trading or are bankrupt.
What Grinds My gear 4
March 17, 2006
So ive been biding my time as to what i could write about, and suddenly it came to me, actually it came to me three times in three days. Ill expain. It it actually this really annoying Chain E-Mail thats been doing the rounds. I had three emails in three days, which have just been forwarded. Its like the same as all other chain emails of this sort, people forward first and ask questions later. FFS read through the thing carefully, and heres another clue, Use some fucking Common Sense.
here is an excerpt:
Hey it is Andy and john the directors of MSN, sorry for the >interruption but >msn is closing down. this is because too many inconsiderate people are >taking up all the name (eg making up lots of different accounts for just >one >person), we only have 578 names left. If you would like to close your >account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep your >account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. This >is no >joke, we will be shutting down the servers. Send it on, thanks. >WHO EVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND YOU >WILL COST £10.00 A MONTH TO USE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT >LIST. >NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS or REPLAY. COPY THE >WHOLE EMAIL. GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. AND PASTE THANK YOU >FOR >YOUR ATTENTION > >hey everyone, i dont normally send this sort of stuff out but had a look on >the internet and its actually true . On the 1st of november , we will have >to pay for the use of our MSN and email accounts unless we send this >message >to at least 18 contacts on your contact list. It's no joke if you don't >believe me then go to the site ( >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1189119.stm ) and see for yourself. >Anyways once you've sent this message to at least 18 contacts, your msn >dude >will become blue. please copy and paste don't forward cos people won't take >notice of it.
Ok let me first start off by saying. Who are these andy and john, directors of MSN, no i think Bill Gates is the director of MSN unless im mistaken, and nobody would say yeah im mike, im the boss of the galaxy, in that case you must believe me. Nobody can actually believe someone saying “my name is andy and im Really High up in MSN”. That annoyed me first off. The Bullshit about people taking up account names, and only having a certain number of names left, Thats Fucking bullshit, MSN are the biggest computer provider in the world, if this was the case (WHICH IT IS SO FUCKING NOT) you dont think theyll be able to afford to buy more server space, DURGH!!!. But that is not the case. The key thing here is that, seriously would the director of MSN just send out a chain email, you know how crap chain emails are, if something big was going to happen, the MSN team would send an email out to everyone, i repeat EVERYONE. You know the ones, those annoying emails from the MSN team saying how great there service is.
Umm one thing, would the Director of MSN say “Anyways once you’ve sent this message to at least 18 contacts, your msn dude will become blue” – Now Seriously would the director say BLUE MSN DUDE!!, i emphasise the word DUDE, surely they would say icon FFS
Two more points to notice here. first, charging £10 a month, your having a fucking laugh, MSN Hotmail isnt a fucking Phone contract, for a start thats an extortionate amount of money, and the pranksters who thought this up seriously over-estimated an imaginary amount to charge, who the fuck would beileve that you have to pay £10 a month to send and recieve emails, ill tell you who, the sad idiots who pay for monthly games, and PEOPLE WHO DONT READ THE WHOLE EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which brings me onto my last point, that link theyve put in:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1189119.stm
That one, Ok heres the thing, which has been clarified by the BBC THEMSELVES in this article :http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4778046.stm
THE LINK IS 5 FUCKING YEARS OLD!!!!!!! – As stated in the second link, the link is 5 years old, yes microsoft had considered the thought, but didnt go ahead with it. As i said earlier people just froward and ask questions later. If you read the date, it says in plain english here:
Another point is that the BBC notes in that second link, the website has gone through 2 different site redesigns, if you look at the chain email link and the current bbc news website, they dont look the same. Also in the chain email link it has a screenshot of the Hotmail front page from 5 years ago, and the current Hotmail homepage looks totally different!!!!! Seriously i urge you to read this link once again, itll reiterate it its importance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4778046.stm
ONCE AGAIN THE HOTMAIL CHAIN EMAIL IS FAKE, AND YOUR IDIOTS FOR BELIEVING IT, AND IN FUTURE READ THE WHOLE EMAIL BEFORE YOU SEND IT ONTO ME YOU SMALL MINDED FUCKS, I DONT WANT ANOTHER FAKE CHAIN EMAIL.
AND THAT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN IS WHAT GRINDS MY GEARS
Games!!
March 15, 2006
So ive been using the stumble upon extensions for firefox, which ill probs tell you all bout at some point, if you dont allready know what it is. But ive found some really cool little games, that id thought id share with you all.
Bowman – stickmen with bows, you have to ingenuity, angles and force to cause as much bloodloss to your opponent, i recommend putting a wall in to add some difficulty.
Gimp Roulette – a strange take on russian roulette, btw do not try it at home, you will die.
skop.com – not really a game, but a cool sound program that lets you use your keyboard to play a song, but the catch is all the soundbites are from bruce lee films, its animates with each keystoke, also a downloadable version is there too.
Battleships – does exactly what it says on the tin!!
fun cup – A nicely designed race game, using real tracks, and vw cars, the camera angle is a little anoying when tryin to steer, but looks raelly good.
Poom – this little game is really interesting, involves the player to do essentially keepie-uppie, with a ball, althogh the grid changes with every bounce.
Chinese Democracy
February 18, 2006
Taken From NME.com
so it appears that my reservations boaut chinese democracy(the album not the politcal practice) were a little too hasty, as slash has said hes heard the album. Me and my mate were discussing maybe axl should never release it, theres too much hype, and too become truly legendry he shud never release it just to tease the public about it. It could be the case that theres too much emphasis on it being the first new material in ten years or so, and people may not appreciate, or on the other hand, it could be rubbish. Ive heard the one of the new tracks from a leaked demo (there was a time, or TWAT for short, how ironic), and its no welcome to the jungle. although i listen to old manic street preachers and wonder why cant they rock out like the old times, well its becuase the manics are old now, they cant be credible rocking out at over 40, only the rolling stones can do that. Its just you got to ask yourself, its been so long, axl has missed out on whole different trends in music, different genre’s. will chinese democracy live up to the hype, well well certainly find out new month. Read the article from nme to find out slash’s opinion.
http://www.stereogum.com/archives/002328.html
Guns N’ Roses album ‘out next month’
Slash reveals all about ‘Chinese Democracy’
Guns N’ Roses’ long awaited album ‘Chinese Democracy’ is finally set to be released in March, according to former guitarist Slash.
The news comes just weeks after reclusive singer Axl Rose revealed that the band’s first material in 10 years was nearing completion.
Speaking about the release on Christian O’Connell’s Virgin breakfast show, Slash
He added: “Yeah its going to happen, I’ve been made aware it’s been heard.
“I’m really excited, it’s been a long time waiting to see what the next step around the corner was going to be for him (Axl), we know where everybody else is, but we were wondering what he was going to be doing. It’s coming out in March and apparently it sounds great.”
Tracks slated to appear on the 13-track album include ‘Better’, ‘There Was A Time’ and ‘The Blues’.
Although Axl and Slash have not spoken in the last 10 years, the velvet revolver guitarist said he was pleased that the record is finally going to see the light of day.
He added: “I’ve always been supportive over that thing, even though it’s been turned in to a big controversial blah blah blah thing.
“When I left I was pretty pissed off for having to leave in the first place. After a while all the boo-haha that was stirred and all the negative press, sort of went in his direction, so I’m just waiting for the record to come out, so I’m glad where it’s got to the point that that’s happening.” confirmed that the record is done and he said a “very official source” had already heard it.
BBC – 10 Things (18/02/06)
February 18, 2006
Taken from the bbc news website, 10 things i didnt know:
Snippets harvested from the week’s news, chopped, sliced and diced for your weekend convenience.
1. George Formby’s When I’m Cleaning Windows was temporarily banned by the BBC for its suggestive lyrics.
2. The late Dame Barbara Cartland founded a gypsy site called Barbaraville in Herefordshire in 1963, and it still exists.
3. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail.
4. Children and teenagers’ more acute hearing means they can detect some high-pitched sounds inaudible to adults – and these sounds have been used in a device to ward off gangs from trouble-spots.
5. Someone with a 20-a-day habit will spend £31,025 on cigarettes over the next 20 years, according to the NHS’s stop smoking website.
6. Male robins are the only birds to sing at night.
7. And the intensity of a bird’s song is related to its testosterone levels – it’s the fittest birds that sing the loudest.
8. Barry Cryer’s mentor was the magician David Nixon.
9. New York is to launch what is thought to be the world’s first municipally branded condom to encourage its citizens to have safe sex.
10. David Cameron’s supporters are said to play a game in which they imagine themselves in a political version of Middle Earth, with their leader cast as a Tory Frodo.
