Gertsamtkunstwerk

On not having a phone

Someone was teasing me today, telling me to remember the days before the mobile phone!

I got my first one in 1995, which makes me a pretty early adopter. Being a councillor who went away a fair amount for work, it was a real boon. Even when mobiles became ubiquitous, I was never a heavy user. Perhaps I was still in a mindset of being conscious of just how expensive it was to make calls. And I was a very late adopter of text messaging. Even now, I'm not a massive sender of texts.

Nevertheless, on the occasions I forget my phone or it goes inadvertently flat I do feel that a small part of me has been cut off. Last night I wanted to twit in bed; today I wanted to take photos of all the Commonwealth flags flying in Parliament Square (even though I know that camera phones are not designed for such things). I wanted to Twit my Celeb Spot of Evan Davies emerging from Westminster Underground, heck I even wanted to take a photo of Evan Davies emerging from Westminster Underground. And tomorrow I won't be able to twit my celeb spot of David Milliband (just guessing that he will be the celeb du jour!).

I'm having slight regret at having enveloped up all those old handsets and sent them off to charidee. Jimmy thinks that he get hold on someone else's old handset for me to borrow until I get sorted with a replacement, which won'tbe anytime soon, as you will read in the next post.

Hello world

It seems like I have been without internet for days. Which is unsurprising, because I have!

I first noticed it two weeks ago and reported it a week ago. On Tuesday engineers needed access to the house. Fortunately Jimmy was around. They decided they needed to climb the poll but couldn't do that in the dark. Following that, they needed access to the house,  again. fortunately Jimmy was around, at least for part of the day.

That seemed almost to work; I had broadband that was only cutting off only every couple of hours or so. It did mean that I had no dial-tone in the phone on that line, which is not the line I use for phone calls (two lines, legacy issue, round-tuit prevails). On Friday, another engineer called (fortunately I don't work on Fridays) and did something to restore the dial-tone. I had broadband for several hours but it disconnected from time-to-time and was painfully slow. Phonecalls assured me that it would improve over a couple of days.

Saturday morning, despite frequent attempts, I could not connect at all. A call to the telephony department said that there had been a lot of noise on the line but it was now working perfectly; I should contact Broadband. Broadband said there was a problem and talked me through various things.

She told me that my router wasn't working properly, because it was set up wrong. I was cynical about that, because I had set it up three years ago when I got this PC; it had previously worked okay for a year or more on the previous PC. However, I was prepared to accept that there might be an unrelated problem with the router even when I pondered that it was too much a coincidence that my router should pack up at the same time as my line!

So I went out and bought a new one, for thirty five pounds. That didn't work either, so I got back on the phone again and was practically in tears. The person on the other end said that if the 'link' or 'DSL' light is flickering (as it was on both) that is never an indication of a router fault. He did some tests and called back to confirm there was a problem on the line, and escalated it to a Broadband engineer.

The Broadband engineer called this morning (fortunately I don't work Mondays...how many households could sustain home visits on four separate weekdays within a week?). He did some tests and said there was a lot of noise on the line: noise that could be heard in a voice call. He also climbed the poll and then came back and tested the line and said it was running at 7.2 mbps. I have done a Speedtest which suggests 1/20th of that. In the past I have got 2 mbps. I am close to the exchange and use the line only for broadband, using the main socket, and I don't have it sitting on the fridge or whatever. I will buy a new filter and see what happens with the new router.

It is particularly annoying it happening at this time. Jimmy started a new job on Thursday. I knew this was coming, so my focus has been on spending time with him rather than on the PC, and this weekend would have been an excellent opportunity for catching up on blogging, blog-reading etc. Instead I have had to resort to stuff like cleaning the kitchen. Yikes (although I did do so to the accompaniment of Tristan und Isolde.

I tell you, I am never letting that man near my kitchen again. Nothing is where it should be. I have found things that I thought have gone missing. Clothes pegs, cloths for mopping, double sided sponges/scourers. I can't believe his hoarding instincts. He's the sort of person who sees a 3-for-2 offer and buys six. We have a kitchen with little storage. He was supposed to have put a new cupboard up to expand it. Instead we have four cans of lighter refill gas, three different shower cleaning sprays, three unopened bottles of mayonnaise and two of tomato ketchup. Six big boxes of teabags. Three different packets of Garam Masala, all opened. Two unopened bottles of Reggae Reggae sauce. At least my tins of sardines are neatly stacked in one place; his tins of salmon are distributed randomly throughout the cupboard.

I also went through the other cupboard throwing put numerous out-of-date packages of rice, pasta, flour and other cooking ingredients. I will concede I am responsible for those. Since I went down with CFS I have not had the energy or inclination either to bake (although that doesn't explain the rice and pasta) or to clear the cupboards, whereas I managed to do that, having cleaned the kitchen, having cooked dinner, having been swimming, having done a couple of loads of laundry. It may not seem much to most people, but for me it's a massive step forward.

My right arm has been chopped off...

I feel surrounded and trapped by holes in the road. And assorted other things. All of it is for my long-term benefit, and as an experienced maker of omelettes, I know only too well the truism about breaking eggs.

All over London, and, I believe, beyond (yes, even in the wilderness of 'outside the M25') holes are appearing for the repair of the Victorian Water Mains. Over the summer and into the autumn, it was a constant guessing game - where will my bus stop be today, will my bus stop even exist?  This was exacerbated by Thames House (spooky!) landscaping works on Millbank. Brixton Town Centre is currently a mess, as a pavement-widening and landscaping scheme progresses - which will be excellent when finished. It holds up north-bound traffic in the morning, so I, like most people get off a stop early and walk.

In the evening, the southbound stops have been moved. Admittedly, not a great distance, but an inconvenience for those with mobility problems, heavy luggage or shopping, or uncomfortable shoes. Two stops combined into one makes it difficult to judge where to stand to catch the right bus.

I like to catch a specific bus that turns right to drop me nearer my house. However, there are gas works from the beginning of last month to the end of this that cause traffic congestion, adding ten or fifteen minutes bus time for the sake of a five minute walk. These gas works also mean that the buses from Clapham Common that usually stop outside my door have been diverted, necessitating an extra walk from that direction. And on weekday evenings, the Victoria Line and thus Brixton tube, closes early; it is often not open at weekends.

Two weeks ago the Victorian Water Main renewal project arrived in Gert Cottage Boulevard. They think we live in Norwood! I thought it was Brixton (Hill), but we seem to have been rebranded as Clapham Park although phone companies think we are Tulse Hill and Royal Mail, Streatham Hill. This was a minor inconvenience - apart from the tarmac we have walked into the house, the plant that has been damaged, the builder who yelled 'you forking count' (or somesuch) right outside my living room window. They did give us three days notice of one of the days we would be without water, although not the other two non-consecutive days. They've gone now and did tidy up well, even meticulously painting back the yellow lines in bright yellow paint on the fresh tarmac, so they look weird beside the years old faded barely visible double yellows!

Oh, and they seem to have damaged the phone line. I noticed my broadband connection was intermittent last Monday. I did nothing about it initially because these things often pass. But it has continued to be intermittent and deteriorating (forget downloading; forget surfing), so I called BT. They said there is a fault on the line and engineers will fix it tomorrow. Jimmy is startled that people in India can find a 'copper fault' outside our front door! It's currently a bit like Pay as You Go Dial-Up but not as quick or convenient.

And because things never go wrong singly, I think my mp3 player is buggered and the washing machine needs nudging on from 'rinse' to 'spin'!

Techie help, please...!

I have three external hard drives connected to my PC. One is called 'Local Disk E'. It used to be a WD My Book. It contains approximately 480 Giga Bites of downloaded videos, most of which (say, 475 GB) haven't been burnt to DVD or otherwise backed up.

Last night I was moving files between Hard Drives. When I click on 'Local Disk E' I am presented with a message saying 'The Disk in Drive E is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?'

To which I answer 'No'.

I am assuming that the Disc Drive is dead, deceased, no more, a late disc drive. And the 480 GB are irretrievable. I am using Windows XP.

Has anybody got any bright ideas?

I do recall very many years ago, back in the days of Stand-Alone non-networked computers, and 5¼ a then a colleague, whom we shall Codename 'Malcolm' went along to his audit client, a well know Police Force in the London area (which at the time was a National Government function) to download accounting data from the accounts' department's PC. He inserted his floppy and went through the menu options that would permit him to format it until he got to 'Which drive would you like to format?' and he selected 'C'. The machine grunted into life,began clicking and whirling and chugging for an inordinate amount of time, at which point he realised what he had done, and, so rumour has it, fled. At the time we all thought this was one of those nightmare scenarios that all of us knew could happen so easily, but,preferably not to oneself. Actually, I would hope that there would have been regular back-up of the accounting data, so that the biggest consequence was the irritation of a bit of wasted time.

I however, don't have back-up.

It was all down-loaded from the internet; assuming that the links are all live, I am restricted to downloading 20 GB a week. So to replace it, assuming it's replaceable, could take nearly six months...

Unable to send email from BT internet?

This may also apply more generally to other ISPs in partnership with Yahoo!

On my own PC I receive email via a POP 3 client - in my case Thunderbird, I guess most people use Outlook Exchange because it comes pre-installed on PCs. I can also access my mail on the web via the website of my ISP, BTInternet, which operates in partnership with Yahoo!

A few months ago I stopped being able to send email. After some rooting around the 'net, I found I was not alone. This was because Yahoo had changed the outgoing port to 587 from default 25 but hadn't actually notified users.

A similar problem occurred this week. Further rooting indicates that they are now back to specifying Port 25 rather than 587 for outgoing mail. And the outgoing server is now mail.btinternet.com where previously it was smtp.btinternet.com.

Nice to have been told, eh?

File-sharing

I woke up this morning to the lead news story, both on the radio and on news websites, being

Net firms in music pirates deal

Six of the UK's biggest net providers have agreed a plan with the music industry to tackle piracy online.

The deal, negotiated by the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music. Hard core file-sharers could see their broadband connections slowed

I am a member of a newsgroup where people share recordings, mainly from TV and radio broadcasts, or from out-of-print albums etc; also from live inhouse recordings (but only those made before the group commenced). Let's not beat about the bush: any defence for this activity would not stand up in court, IMO. It has a partner group where technical and related issues are discussed. I posted the following:

Just a few thoughts to kick around at breakfast. I am not a lawyer and am more than happy to be corrected on points of fact.

1. How can they differentiate between illegal file-sharing (including, for the sake of argument, what we are doing) and the admittedly probably rare examples of heavy users who upload/download totally original material via file-sharing services ?
2. How can an ISP tell whether someone's heavy use is due to illegal downloading, including what we do, and the perfectly legitimate purchasing of CDs by download from record companies or Amazon, or use of things like BBC iplayer?
3. Isn't there a presumption of innocence until proven guilty ie wouldn't the onus be on the record companies/ISPs to prove guilt rather than for us to prove innocence?
4. Doesn't that contravene Data Protection? But prevention/detection of crime is an exception to Data Protection Act? But isn't copyright covered by Civil, not Criminal Law, and thus Data Protection laws still protect privacy?
5. If one were to receive a letter from an ISP, would the first response be 'prove it'?
6. If an ISP ultimately cuts off one service for heavy use, wouldn't it be very easy just to transfer to another? Or would the ISPs be sharing details of heavy users between them? If so, isn't this also a breach of Data Protection and also anti-competitive, cartel-like behaviour.

Like Billy Bragg and Andy Burnham who were on Today, I am very much of the 'home taping is killing music' generation (presonally, I think that the cynical capitalist marketing of formulaic computer designed tracks is far more detrimental to music). I would defend anybody's right to get the full fruits of their labour, by hand or by brain or by electric guitar. But I would argue that in the sort of file-sharing I do, I am depriving no-one of an income because the product isn't there to be bought commercially. Crucially, also, no one else is deriving an income from the activity - people upload as a community thing. The ones who derive incomes are Filesharing sites/hosts and the ISPs. And I doubt whether any 'levy' imposed on internet users (irrespective of whether or not they download music) will be distributed to those that create the music I download - apparently most downloaders are teenagers.

Billy Bragg pointed out that music played on commercial radio is free at the point of use; its use is paid for by advertising. He suggested a similar model might work for filesharing, via ISPs. I think that's not a bad idea, although it never ceases to amaze me that spend on adverts is seemingly without limits. Plus, I have my home PC set up to all but eliminate ads. And I fast forward through TV ads (except during live football). It surprises when I read how few people skip ads in such a way.

I am not sure whether my bullet points are accurate, but I do believe that this proposal is unworkable under law, technologically and on a common sense level.

How being ripped off reduces me to tears of frustration

Sometimes I yearn for a simple life.

A life uncomplicated by the unnecessary pressures of being a consumer in a consumerist society.

I've known problems in my life. Those times when you just don't know how you're going to pay the next bill. Those times when you stand quivering with fear as it seems to take for ever for the plastic card to be authorised - or rejected and confiscated. And you know that these circumstances are of your own making.

I've known periods of self-denial. Snortle. Sometimes I've gone almost whole days without giving in to consumerist desires. I have gone through entire weeks, maybe almost complete months when I have scrutinised every buying decision. I've even had periods where I have rejected every buying decision except 'absolutely essential'.

What annoys me is the three things I have been currently having problems with are all unnecessary. I would not have had these problems ten years ago.

The first has been resolved. I renewed my anti-virus software and now have some all singing all dancing product called Norton 360. It has far too many whistles and bells, and doesn't exactly come cheap. but c'est la vie.

I downloaded it about six weeks ago but couldn't activate it. It simply wouldn't accept my product key. To cut a long story short, my second 'free trial' period expired today, and I was nearly in tears trying to work out what the problem was. Eventually, somewhere in the bowels of their site, I found an option to LiveChat. It turns out that I was trying to 'renew' a new product. Well, bugger me! Here I am thinking that by entering the product key that came with the confirmation that I had bought the product, I would be able to use the product I had bought. The solution involved allowing Symantec's support contractors to take remote control of my machine. I did not feel entirely comfortable with that, but, as they advised, I watched what was going on and it all seemed above board. I'm okay when IT support do that at work, even though it freaks me out. But, anyway, my virus, firewall, spyware, phishing, blah-de-blah protection is bang up to date. And so simple, in the end...

In March I paid out money to renew my MyBlogLog Pro, and they persist on keeping me on the free service. Every week I send an email and most of the time, they do nothing.

I did receive an excruciating twee condescending email from MyBlogLog, now part of Yahoo

Thank you for working with us so we may resolve the issue you are experiencing with MyBlogLog. We have forwarded the information you have supplied to us to our topnotch engineering department for further review and investigation. If it's possible to fix this problem, rest assured they'll do it, or at least find a clever work around. (They pride themselves as master troubleshooters.)

We apologize for the inconveniences and appreciate your patience and willingness to work with us while we work to resolve your issue.

This was a response to my response to them where I detailed the problem and stated in a businesslike manner "I am paying for a service I am not receiving, please rectify this immediately."

So, because they wanted to treat me as a halfwit, I got a bit angry and replied:

Please don't patronise me. I do not want your clever engineers to do a clever work around. What I suggest you do is:

a) verify that I have indeed paid for your service via Paypal (details attached) - you might want to consult with your accounts department, it is part of their job description to verify accounts receivable.

b) write that on a piece of paper and pass it to your very clever engineering department

c) flick the switch that changes 'free account' to 'pro account'. Oh, and please restore access to the statistics I have paid for since March 2005.

Since when all has been quiet. My god, I even suggest a solution and they're too drugged up to provide it. Morons. More seriously, exactly what part of customer service includes talking to customers as if they are zombies/infant-school children/half-wits.

Two months ago I ordered a new case and wireless remote control for my camera, from Canon. A month later they wrote to confirm that it had 'shipped'. Since when, nothing. I have tried sending them a message via their webshite - order number, nature of query, blah-de-blah. I click send, and the page refreshes, but it doesn't actually tell you if you have actually sent off an email. and you get no auto-reply in your inbox confirming they have received it. The only other way to contact them is by phone, to Ireland, and at only at 3 o'clock on a Wednesday morning if that Wednesday happens to be the 31st of the month (or some such nonsense).

I may not be the most canny business woman, but I reckon there is only one way to stay in business - deliver the product which the customer is willing to pay for. There is an additional way of making money - that is, taking money under false pretences. That is illegal and immoral. Right now, I think it's the business models of Yahoo! and Canon, who are currently filed under 'Lying thieving gits'

Sat-nav, and idiots...

There are many benefits of Sat-Nav in location finding and journey-planning. I wouldn't deny that.

Like so many clever ideas, though, these benfits are diminished when let loose in the hands of idiots.

Some time ago some moron made the national news when she drove onto a railway line 'because the Sat-Nav told me to'. In my opinion she ought to be banned from driving for life because she is clearly too stupid; she wasn't looking at the road ahead of her, she wasn't looking where she was going. She is a danger to other road-users, and to herself.

I read something recently that said the number of bridge-hits has increased exponentially recently, and most of them are a result of tall vehicles being directed under them by Sat-Nav, and their drivers ignoring the warning signs. Again, idiots who aren't fit to be on the roads. Last year, a train I was on was delayed by a van hitting a bridge. At the time I blamed it merely on dangerous stupidity and didn't even factor in SatNav. This then led to a situation where I was late, and made later by trams not running as a result of a separate dangerous driver incident, probably not Sat-Nav related, which then impacted upon the timetable of the people I was meeting.

There are numerous reports of small villages being blighted by through-traffic directed there by Sat-Nav, and of through traffic being directed along roads with precipitous drops or which are not made-up. Thirty or more years ago there were some TV series called, if I remember, Six English Towns, Six More English Towns etc, hosted by someone called Alex Clifton-Taylor, a historian, who highlighted the blight on picturesque towns caused by heavy traffic trying to squeeze through narrow mediaeval streets.

That was part of a wider movement that led to many by-passes being built, cutting a swathe through the countryside including Sites of Special Scientific Interest and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, but at least removing the fumes, danger, noise and damage of heavy traffic from the homes and lives of ordinary people in small towns. Sat Nav has seen the return of this blight to the towns, as the by-passes have just generated increased volumes of traffic and are themselves congested, so the Sat-Nav finds way to by-pass the congestion by reverting to the ancient Roman Roads and Turnpikes built for horse-and-cart and designed to link towns to towns.

A few weeks ago I got a Sainsburys home delivery. He phoned to say he would be with me in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later he phoned to say he was on my road but couldn't find my house. I directed him. It turned out he wasn't on my road, didn't know where he was. I gave the names of a few major roads, which meant nothing to him. In growing exasperation I said "Look at your map. My road is on the A-Z." He told me that he had SatNav, the SatNav told him he was outside my door. He wasn't. Nor was he at the end of the my drive. He insisted that his SatNav would lead him to my door. Eventually he arrived, having had to stop to ask a passer-by to direct him to a named road in order that I could then direct him from there. That was irritating, mildly annoying.

Middle England and Deepest Wales complain about the blight on their twee villages caused by SatNav (I bet many of their residents rely on it for their journeys, whereupon they blight other peoples' tweeness), and request for their villages to be removed from the scope of SatNav. This won't happen, reportedly, because Emergency Services rely on it to reach destinations. Which made me realise that the Sainsburys problem was merely an irritation, but translated to Emergency Services could literally mean the difference between life-and-death.

And this morning! One of those occasions I had my camera with me, was perfectly situated for a photo (on the top deck of the bus near the front) and didn't even think about it.

I was on the A23, not very farfrom the junction with the South Circular, two major roads of Regional significance. To my right a narrow through road that has traffic parked on either side, making it impossible for two Smart cars to pass each other except by strategic use of Passing Places (as in the Highlands and Islands of Remote Scotland).

This morning, on the narrow road facing the A23 Exhibit one a long wide flatbed lorry bearing a large piece of civil engineering. Trying to turn into narrow road was a long articulated container lorry, from its number plate (and the big sticker with a black-on-white "I") clearly not local. The container stretched across the entire Southbound carriage, the non-bus Northbond lane and most of the Northbound bus lane.

Both lorries stayed rooted to the spot. I expect the drivers were trying to outstare each other. Some of the Southbound traffic was U-turning onto the unsurprisingly empty northbound carriage (and doubtless vice versa). Most of the rest of the Southbound traffic just sat there. My bus, in the vanguard of Northbound traffic, sat there stationary for five minutes. Total impasse, a game of brinksmanship, no one going anywhere, all waiitng for someone to back-down.

Eventually my bus driver decided to drive onto the pavement, a pragmatic if illegal and potentially dangerous (especially at walk-to-school time) move.

I don't know for certain that the lorries were dependent upon SatNav, but I think they were. Topographically, it seems a logical route, but anyone with local knowledge or the ability to look out of their windscreen and see the road will know it really isn't good for heavy vehicles. But, relying on SatNav, they don't have an alternative. They "don't need" maps so don't carry them, and can't plan themselves out of a fix. The only direction is forward, no deviation, no independent thought. I imagine the SatNav was registering congestion (it was school run time), hence the alternative direction to avoid slow-moving traffic, and in doing that it compounded the congestion. Any cars, vans etc attempting to get round the obstacle would have risked a fine for driving in the Bus Lane before ten o'clock; their drivers would probably have complained, but continued to use their own SatNavs as a substitute for intelligent thought.

In the event my delay was minor, of the magnitude one should plan into any routine journey as a matter of course. I am not sure what would have happened if a fire engine on a blue light wanted to get past or through.

Gadgetistry

I finally succumbed, as I knew I would. I bought a cassette deck on Saturday. Only cost me £50, stereo double decks (woah!), plugs into my new Amp, replaces a fairly crappy midi system. I also bought a gadget, a Magic Box of Tricks. Oh boy! It's what I have been crying out for a long time, something that converts cassettes into CDs just by plug-and-play into a PC. but then, I'm thinking, I have such a lovely cassette player, why would I want to convert them into CDs? I remind myself, posterity and flexibility. The analogue world has been overtaken by digital.

Remember back in the 50s some all knowing know nothing expert proclaimed that there would never be a need for more than six computers in the world. It's not so long ago that PCs were typewriters from which you could send emails. Where the internet was a wonderful place full of textual information with a few nice pictures interspersed (and pr0n, too). I am currently listening Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto "Emperor". This tape is as old as Methuselah, bought from HMV in Nottingham at a time when most pre-recorded cassettes were at least £4.99. I started expanding my cassette collection just as CD players were launching themselves onto the mass market. One of my fellow students had one, but he was a sponsored post-graduate; everyone else was on cassettes, pre-recorded and recorded off their own and others' vinyl LP collection. CDs were never going to catch on; for a start you couldn't record onto them! Twenty years on, that's what I'm doing. It's a wonderful, dramatic piece of music. It may be on a scratchy hissy tape. Other than the fact that it's the first tape I picked out, I'm not sure that's there any benefit in digitally preserving it. It's not as though recordings of this work are hard to come by. I've never heard of the soloist, orchestra or conductor (for all I know it might be a forerunner of a Joyce Hatto fake). At the moment it's a .wav file. The first movement, that is. It's actually a silent wave file. Ah well, never mind, the man in the shop said it's a bit tricky to set up. I suspect it would be less tricky if the instructions were a bit more girl-friendly. I don't know what the ground connector on the L/R cable is for; I don't know why I have an RCA male to female; the manufacturers are uncertain as to whether there is a stereo miniplug male to male included. Process of elimination suggests I might. But what I do with them is anybody's guess....

Talking of which I acquired an entirely different set of gadget not so long ago, a very specifically girl-friendly one. Not the sort you'd want to ask your brother, Dad, son, male housemate or next door neighbour for help with, so it has a useful guide to installing the batteries...

1. Slide off the back of the silver base in the direction of the arrow
2. Push the negative end of a battery against the spring at the top of the rear battery compartment and push into place.
3. Push the negative end of a battery against the spring on the left and push into place. Repeat for the right hand battery.
4. Push the negative end of a battery against the last spring at the top and push into place.
5. Position the cover so about 5mm extends beyond the end of the oh my god, I can't write that... and then push down and slide to click into place.

Hello, I learned how to insert batteries into a tranny radio when I was, like four. "Make sure that the non-sticky-out end is against the spring. Put lid back on." Duh!

Housekeeping

My laptop is getting slower and slower. This does not surprise me, even though I regularly virus-and spybot check.

And I do give it a battering, expecting it to multi-task.

If I recall correctly, conventional wisdom says it's occasionally a good idea to return it to its factory settings. I have never bothered to do this, knowing how much of a hassle this would then to reload it. But, the way I see it, as long as I make sure everything in "My Documents" - including Pictures, Music and Videos - is safely backed up on the External Hard Drive; also stuff in My Profile, such as archived emails, and importantly, all the programmes I have installed and downloaded, then there shouldn't be a problem. All I need to do is restore the factory settings, then copy everything back from F drive to C drive.

But a part of me thinks that that is a pointless exercise, because any problems currently affecting the C drive will just go across to F and back again?

Randomness

One of our early forays into the world of statistics is the concept of probability and chance. In Maths lessons they are demonstrated bytossing a coin or throwing a dice. And we know intuitively that there is an equal probability of it being heads or tails, or any one of the dice faces. We learn this by observation long before we even know we are learning.

We learn about normal distributions in Infant school when we learn that some of the children are relatively very tall and some are very small but that most are pretty much the same height , in between. We learn that design is rarely random - that certain first names are more common than others. Throughout my life the Catherines and Helens and Stephens and Davids have outnumbered the Geraldines.

Later as we study statistics in more depth, we use random number tables, and we learn about different ways of sampling. As an auditor I have selected judgemental samples (that one looks interesting or important, that one is big), random sampling...random number tables are useful in this. In Monetary Unit Sampling every pound has an equal chance of being selected, thus biasing the sample to the larger items.

Except that in 2006 everything is computerised. My life is filled with computerised randomness. I mainly have my mp3 player on random. I have a screensaver that sends photos from my hard drive randomly across my screen, so one moment it could be a nepling looking cute, the next a hillside in Scotland, followed by flowers from the garden at Gert Cottage. The main page of this blog will kick you up a random photo taken from a folder on the server called 'random'.

But it troubles me. I do not believe by observation that the selection is purely random. On my mp3 player I sense that certain albums get featured over a short period. This week it seems to be Der Rosenkavalier and The Best of Nanci Griffith. On 4th May en route to the Crossover Classical Brits all but two tracks were from Plácido Domingo or Rolando Villazón, both of whom I was looking forward to seeing that evening. Of the remaining two, one was from Gerald Finley whom I had seen twice the previous weekend, and the other was Ideology by Billy Bragg - and it was election day! Now, I realise my mp3 player could not have known these facts.

But in any case it was not a random selection. A long time ago I used to play occasionally the Lottery and chose my numbers by using the random number generator on my calculator. (It's the sort of thing auditors do...). And yet they never appeared to be random. I know that the lottery is a perfect illustration of Permutations, with each permutation standing an equal chance. Each number standing an equal chance. But my calculator always seemed to bunch them. So I would end up with three single digited numbers and three in the Forties. That could not be random, it didn't look random. At least they never kicked me up: 1,2,3,4,5,6 because everybody knows that that sequence will never win the Lottery. It's like Double Six is special on the throw of the dice.

My photos are not random - try it and see, refresh the front page, see how quickly the same picture recurs, although the folder contains 127 images. If I had patience, I would make notes of my observations and see how they compare to what we would predict using pure probaility theory.

And then I would know whether I am blinded by my identification of random digits as things (photographs, music tracks) or whether computers select random numbers by first breaking the population into sub-populations and then concnentrates on just one segment. If I could prove the latter, it could have major implications for audit and other disciplines that use computerised sampling techniques.

It's depressed me now.

Why?

My site stats say that the overwhelming vast majority of my visitors use Internet Explorer:

Even that understates reality, because the Firefox stats is distorted by my use.

At work, we have no choice but to use Internet Explorer, which drives me nuts.

But I don't understand why people use it at home, when they have the choice not to.

Mainly, anyway. I absolutely hate sites that say they won't work except in IE. Often from big big big organisations. I clicked onto the BT Internet help page, which is a big sinner in this respect, and they presented me with a pop-up survey to feedback my thoughts. Only they insisted I used IE. Why do big companies do this?

And why does anybody use IE when they have the choice not to? I had it preloaded onto my PC when I bought it. In  a spectacularly ugly rendition.

And, on a related note, why do people use Outlook Express?

I know what the answer is - 'it came with the PC, and I see no reason to take two minutes to change it'. But that's like saying, I bought a cassette player and it came with a complimentary cassette, so I thought I had better play that cassette every day, even though it's full of music that's not to my taste. 

I would be interested to know how many people, having tried Mozilla/Firefox/Opera/Safari ever return to IE as their browser of choice.

The naming of parts

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.

Before Christmas we decided on Cleopatra for the laptop. And at Christmas we realised camera is almost anagram for Carmen.

We knew the mp3 player must be named; Created by Zen, it became Zerlina. The Palm is now Ulrica. and, of course, the phone, which is mobile, is now called Gilda.

I think we did well in the naming of parts.

I'm back

Woot yay!

I'm back in the land of those who have IT at home! This afternoon I bought the second cheapest laptop at a local well-known high street chain. Probbaly not the cheapest in South London, but reasonably comparable to prices I had surveyed. Probably could have got it for less if we had shopped around but why drive all the way to the sticks to save thirty quid or somesuch.

Paul will try and retrieve the data off my old PC, presumably at his workplace.

I haven't actually used a laptop in this century, would you believe. I work for a bizarre organisation that doesn't provide laptops for auditors. But I don't shout too loudly about it, because they also, unlike certain former employers I could mention, don't expect you to work in your hotel room in the evening.

Substantive blogging willcommence in due course...!

Analogue switch-off

Cumbria sceptical of switch to digital

I must admit that two years ago I was amongst the refuseniks. Now I have the fervour of the new convert.

the switch off of analogue mobile phone signals passed with barely a murmur, but, to be honest, that affected early-ish adopters. I've had a mobile phone for ten years. Not the same phone, obviously. My first one was a brick. The battery life had a standby time of ten hours, so you always had to carry a spare battery, and woe-betide you if you left it on overnight. You could store ten numbers in the memory, but you couldn't give them a name. I don't think you could txt from it. I had it for three years, and it was pretty much obsolete halfway through that time. Mind you, I've had the same one now for over two years - must upgrade.

I've basically had the same number since 1995, too, although with the Big Number, the dialling code changed from 0374 to 07774, although, apparently, you're supposed to say 0777 4xx xxxx. Mind you, most people don't know that the dialling code for London is 020.

A couple of weeks back, I got an email from a friend who had lost his phone, and hence people's numbers, and asked that we sent him our numbers.

Those of you who are concerned about such things will be relieved to know
that I was due years of upgrades, so my mobile phone number remains the same, and I also receive a brand spanking new phone with a full video-editing suite, the complete symphonic works of Schubert, Mahler, and Prokofiev as ringtones, a miniture built-in sauna and health farm, and an interplanetary probe capable of detecting signs of life at a distance of 8.6 parsecs. I am told I can also use it to "make and receive telephone calls", but I haven't worked out how to use that advanced function yet.

Middle East Mobile

Situated on an international border and within sight of two more countries, the mobile phone reception in Taba varied. I was served by, variously, Vodafone EG and MobiNil, both Egyptian; AlJawwal, which is either Saudi or Jordanian; Orange Israel, MobileCom, also, I think Israeli; and my favourite, who, as I passed Judea, txtd me:

Marhaba. Smell the jasmine and taste the olives. Jawwal welcomes you to Palestine.

Subtle and beautiful propaganda! Yesterday, MobiNil txtd

Hope you enjoyed your stay in Egypt & MobiNil's services (please use us next time you visit Egypt)

I am not really bothered who provides the cell, as long as I can send and receive texts to the extent that I wish to.

I was surprised at some of my fellow holiday makers. One complained that she was stuck with a Saudi provider, and she didn't want that, she would have preferred an Israeli one. Someone else moaned that it kept changing. I explained that in the UK we move from cell to cell, without knowing it - we've only noticed it in Taba because of the presence of international borders.

Then people complained that it is £5 per minute to call, and 'it's all satellites in the end it mustn't cost them anymore to send a call to and from a satellite regardless of where you are...'. Well, true. I was surprised, really. They were all boasting about their wonderfully successful businesses (remember Harry Enfield's 'I'm significantly richer than you are'). It shouldn't really have taken a Civil Servant to explain the basic principles of pricing policy - ie that prices are sometimes based on cost-plus, and sometimes on what the market will sustain. Only, I didn't phrase it that way - I would have sounded like an accountant. Instead, I said - hey, that's the way International Capitalism works. If you don't like it, overthrow International Capitalism.

Thinking about it, though. I survived without a mobile in Cuba, because there is no international agreement between my then provider, Vodafone UK and the Cuban provider. I survived for three weeks in the USA because their flaky technology was not at the time compatible with my GSM phone. Prior to that I survived in very many places because I didn't have a mobile, or it was received wisdom not to use it abroad.

I had a modicum of sympathy with the guy who knew he was paying a fortune for incoming business calls, and for the inadvertent dialling when he left the keypad unlocked in his pocket. Then, I thought, a simple change to his voice mail "I am currently out of the country. Please leave a message or call my business partner" followed by the 'off' button would have saved him a fortune.

People don't always realise when you go abroad, and people call you from home, you pay for the privilege of having that call transferred from the UK to wherever you are. I was abroad with someone last year who ran out of credit as a result of receiving calls from home. Fortunately for her, she was with a sister I mean friend er acquaintance with a monthly contract...

Spam email

We all know they are the bane of life, but sometimes...

One has just popped up in my Mailwasher, enticingly titled "Can Wilfred come over and watch?"

I'm not sure what's happening that anybody would want to watch, but Wilfred conjures up an image of a very very ancient wizened old man. And I know don't want to induce cardiac arrest in a voyeuristic nonagenerian.

Idiots

Banks sound alarm on online fraud

Maybe there should be emergency legislation passed to confiscate computers, and telephone facilities, from people who are too stupid to act responsibly.

According to an Apacs survey, 4% of the UK's online account holders would automatically respond to e-mails that appeared to come from their bank.

You know, this bloke came up to me in the street the other day and said he was from my bank, could he borrow my ATM Card and, by the way, what's my PIN? He said he was from my bank, so I knew he was trustworthy, and gave him my card and told him my PIN.

In other news, I've bizarrely gone £10,000 overdrawn.

Incidentally, on virus checking, it amazes me the number of people who say - oh yeah, I've got an anti-virus programme, but they were going to charge me £40 to renew it.

I've got an up-to-date reputable anti-virus programme. I update at least once a week. I check the entire computer in theory weekly, in practice about monthly. Last night I discovered a Trojan Horse. So, even reasonable vigilance isn't enough.

Technical advice needed

I am in the process of reconstructing and expanding my catalogue of all my recordings, to go hand-in-hand with The Project. I expect it will take me until I am forty...

Obviously with tapes, and some older/obscurer CDs the only viable way is plain boring typing. But with some (most?) CDs all I have to do is load the CD into the PC, open WinAmp, access the CCDB, and copy and paste each track detail into Excel. The copy-and-paste is tedious, and I was wondering if there was a way that I could do it for the entire CD in one swoop, and then play about in Excel. I do not wish to pay any money for the privilege of this.

Secondly, I have been hanging onto the PC I replaced in 2002 mainly because it contains the 'old' database. I transferred it to this one, then this one had a fatal crash before I had done a back-up. The floppy containing the 'old' database was corrupted, and I kept meaning to get back to the old PC to transfer. Now I can't be arsed, so there's no point in keeping the old PC. I ususally put old electrical equipment on the street and someone takes it (it's known as Community Recycling). I don't want to do that with this one, and I don't want to just donate it to charity, because there is some personal stuff, some confidential stuff (old work and council casework)and some potentially embarrassing (downloaded and self-penned erotic - okay, porno - fiction). I guess the simple solution is to smash it with a hammer - whilst wearing goggles, of course. Anyone have any better solutions?

Bloggy diffy

Mousey brokey - has to be used by holding in hand and manually twirling inside rods.

Must get new mouse.

Must go to Victoria Street.

Maybe I can go to Army and Navy and buy a crochet hook. I own absolutely no crochet hooks.

Discovered in spare room - loads and loads of balls of wool. I fancy crocheting a blanket.

Anyone got any brighter ideas?

Bet you didn't know I was a whizz knitter with a special penchant for fancy multi-coloured designs.

Lots of left over wool.

Can't remember how to crochet, though.

Must buy "Idiots Guide to Crochet". Or Ladybird book. That's how I taught myself to crochet the last blanket I made. It was named after a Hurricane that deterred me from going to Old Trafford despite utter boredom.

Am I the only person who made an active choice between Stretford Ending or crocheting?

I like to think I'm different. Unique. Weird.

Prolly a load of horlicks.