Observations on the world and its inhabitants
We’ve had a busy month in the business of measuring “Humanity.” Between the release of Humanity’s Last Exam (HLE) and the interactive bloodbath that was ARC-AGI-3, it’s becoming clear that we aren’t exactly building a new mind. We’re building a $600 billion filing cabinet that’s learned how to speak with a slight academic sneer. The ...
For the better part of three decades, “personal computing” was synonymous with Windows. It wasn’t just an operating system; it was the foundation of digital life. Blue Screens of Death and endless updates were tolerated because, frankly, there were few alternatives. Apple was expensive and maintained by a cult. Linux was perceived as an obscure ...
This is for Windows 10 and above computers that do not have a SSD or M2 drive. If you do the following on a computer with SSD or M2 drive, you will quite probably wreck your computer. But don’t believe me. Just do it – and then sue yourself! At each restart, time how long ...
Not everybody knows that Google provides: free word-processor, free spreadsheets and other Office software. How would I know that? Because I speak to ‘some’ people who don’t know. [AC_PRO id=6333]
This post will not give a full biography of Alan Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954). For more on Turing head to Wikipedia. I will be summarising what’s important to me. For a full biography read the book Alan Turing: The Enigma or the YouTube vid below (27 min). The Imitation Game – ...
This post is not for luddites and not for people who are diehard Apple lovers. Right – so I needed a solution for controlling my PC, when I’m watching Netflix or Amazon Prime. Somebody want’s to know why. Jeez. So – I’m sitting or lying several feet from my desktop which works with a large ...
All technology is ‘confusing’ to most people. Read that again – carefully this time. Anything that is new, is on ‘computers’ and requires thinking through more than two steps – is confusing. Look, I’m not debating it – the latter is what I have seen repeatedly. Right – let me get on with the OneDrive ...
Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been on an e-cleaning binge! That means I’ve been sorting out loads of electronic files of all types and cleaning up electronic messages. Did I say ‘electronic messages‘? Just checking. Yes – I did! Some fool wants to know what does ‘electronic messages’ mean. Chrysst! People don’t know what ...
I’ve found it!! There are some nifty little applications to change the dates of file images and exif data – in batches. Why is this important? Well – because I use Robobasket to sort my photos into folders, I need Robobasket to pick up ‘Date Modified’ and Exif data from these files. Robobasket will then ...
Well, for most people I know they don’t care much about this. People often don’t know and therefore don’t care about duplicate files on their computers. I’m not here to cure them – they can remain blissfully ignorant. Those who want to know can read on. Duplicate files happen – that’s a matter of fact. ...
I’ve been using labels and filters on Gmail for quite some time. But like many things you come to appreciate them better with time. So I’ve been reviewing how I use these features. Lately I’ve been flooded with all sorts of emails. Many of them I don’t need to look at immediately, so I didn’t ...
If the title of this post appears to be gobbledeegook to you, then you know what to do next. No? Google!!! Google Drive is an online cloud storage drive provided by Google. I pay $USD 9.99/mth for a 1 Terabyte of space in the cloud – and tough if some can’t afford it, or need ...
For those who don’t know and are not friends with Google, McAfee is company that makes antivirus and firewall related software. As with most things you’ll always find a following of people who will shout how wonderful things are about ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’. And if you say anything negative about anything, you’re likely to ...
Problem: Media of various types will play though laptop’s speakers but no on inserting headphones. Solution: 1. Control Panel > Sound > Select Headphones. 2. Make headphones default and click ‘ok’. Headphones then play well. Removing headphones allows speakers to play. Yes, why? I dunno why this happens and I don’t care. The only thing ...
Oh well – I know – nothing better to do, so I’ve been studying Javascript and Formcalc. Why the devil would I want to do that?!!! I think that forms which people fill out can be automated so that manual calculations do not need to be carried out routinely. So for last year or so ...
Recently purchased this Dell Inspiron 7737. I was aiming to purchase a 15-inch screen laptop but this 17-inch screen laptop deal turned out to be better than any 15-inch laptop I could find (at the time). [AND – this does NOT mean I like DELL or any particular brand. Read Disclaimer at the end.] Important ...
Okay…okay.. OneNote is not new! It’s become new to me – well sort of. Actually, I’ve experimented with OneNote (by Microsoft) since 2007. I know that because recently I discovered some old OneNotes I created from back then. I didn’t get on with OneNote back then because it was more than a bit confusing and ...
This is only for those who know about music files and playlists. I’ve regularly had the problem when I moved my music from computer to computer, or disc to disc, that my playlists would not work. I mean I have like lots of playlists – so I really didn’t want to make them all over ...
There’s been some recent excitement in cyberspace about a ‘new kind of money’. Some may be familiar with the term ‘Bitcoin’. Others are scratching their heads, whilst another lot are reaching for bottles of Valium and clutching their wallets, while lying spread eagle across their mattresses. I expect to be warned about ‘Bitcoin’ and crypto-currencies, ...
I’m ashamed of myself because I’ve been caught out by a malware trap. I accidentally clicked some link that took me to a site that looked just like the reputable Adobe. A popup message said that my flashplayer may be out of date “click ok to update”, then I get to this link (don’t click): ...
This arrived today from Amazon – much cost £1200. I hadn’t planned to go shopping for a computer. What happened? My regular laptop which I bought in May 2011 from Amazon had been developing a power input problem, then a hinge got broken – not by me (and there’s another story about that). Yes the hinge ...
A suitable smartphone to run this is required. Life Reminders is a neat little application that does the job of reminding you about stuff that’s coming at you, or has to be done. Here’s a list of examples: 1. You can also set it up to send SMS messages for a future date. 2. Remind ...
The commenting system is now fixed (fingers crossed). I’ve don’t four test comments which now appear in the right places. How it was fixed: Avoidance of panic attacks. Not spending tons of time reading what idiots have written on the net about it. I had a look but I wasn’t satisfied that they knew what ...
The site has developed a bug, where comments to one post end up against another entirely different post. Yes – the usual is to assert that “There’s a virus!” Then to start squarking and flapping around shouting “VIRUS, VIRUS!!” Or “HACKER!! HACKER!!” etc. No such thing is reality – but I know people, they just ...
The first rule of computing is backing up you data. This means keeping a copy of your data in a place where you can recover it. I’ve dealt with backup strategies before. So, this blog is not about that. I’m talking computer backup. This is the software that runs the whole computer and anything that ...
The following assumes that you have a sufficiently powerful computer that has been upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8. What I’ve discovered is that W8 being so cool, leaves behind much of the W7 installation’s old files. This is a precautionary measure – which should not be relied on 100%. Upgrading from W7 to ...
This has been a pesky error that drives people nuts!! But there’s a simple solution that I’m documenting here, in case I need to refer to it again.
Actually this is about me ‘saving myself’ using Google Drive. What happened? I was searching madly for a file on my computer starting with filename: 2011_12_ that was in a certain folder. It wasn’t there!! Panic was about to set in. Well, I’m exaggerating a bit cuz few things cause me panic. :) Bingo!! Brilliant ...
I’m often asked by so-called friends, family and work-related folk “Which computer is a good buy?” When I go, “I don’t know?” – some look disappointed whilst others take on a look which suggests, “You mean you call yourself an IT expert and you don’t know what computer is best?’ – at which point I ...
Now you know. [scribd id=127449438 key=key-4p0ug721jmr5ozbgjt0 mode=scroll] Full credit to HackCollege.com with this graphic.
Captain Walker
Captain Walker
