Matt Little's Blog

Windows 7 and how to slow down a login

Matt Little — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:37:00 GMT

Bizarrely, if you set your desktop to be a plain colour as opposed to a fancy wallpaper, it takes an extra 30 seconds to login! Glad to see that they tested that one.

Details from Microsoft here.

Windows 7 Explorer Crash 64 bit

Matt Little — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:22:00 GMT

I installed Windows 7 on a machine at the weekend and I am sadly disappointed by the lack of stability. After a random period of time (sometimes several hours) explorer starts crashing and although it nicely restarts itself, it keeps doing this every minute or two. This issue was apparent on a fresh install with only windows installed.

I have no idea what "starts" this behaviour but once it has started, doing things like right-clicking somewhere, sorting columns in an explorer window or trying to launch the control panel all seem to regularly trigger a crash.

There are many, many reports of similar behavior on Google (the fairly specific search string "windows 7 64 bit explorer crash" brings up over 540,000 results) and many suggested 'solutions' but nothing definite.

Kinda makes me wish I had stuck with XP for a bit longer!

I've folded

Matt Little — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:07:00 GMT

Ok, I've joined the noughties and I twitted a tweet-thingy or whatever the yoof's terminology is this week.

Ok, enough is enough

Matt Little — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:34:00 GMT

Right, all this snow was really good fun whilst I was on holiday and could go sledging but now I need to get to work, can it please stop now?

Thank you.

Pedal for Scotland

Matt Little — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:52:00 GMT

I've completed the Pedal for Scotland Glasgow -> Edinburgh bike ride a couple of times and was intending to do it again next year. They've thrown a bit of a spanner in the works this time though; in addition to the 51 mile course, there is now a 100 mile course.

Details here.

Am I mad enough??

And the chance of a white Christmas is....

Matt Little — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:48:00 GMT

...available here.

30% for me at the moment.

Google Wave

Matt Little — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:59:00 GMT

Is anybody else out there on the Google Wave preview programme?

Feedback and why you shouldn't believe it.....

Matt Little — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:21:00 GMT

Feedback should be open, fair and based upon your true impression of a situation combined with evidence to justify your conclusions.

It is therefore annoying that, having bought something from an Amazon Marketplace seller and left negative feedback about their lack of communication when I complained, I received an email apologising (or rather explaining why it wasn't their fault) and offering me 10% of the purchase price back if I removed the negative feedback.

Interestingly, the seller didn't dispute the feedback, just asked that I delete it for a ~~bribe~~ partial refund.

Doesn't an approach such as that make the 99% 'good' feedback rating fairly irrelevant and pointless?

Accident Claim Helplines

Matt Little — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:41:00 GMT

You've seen the "Accident Claim Helpline" adverts on TV, haven't you?

Well, I saw one today where a woman remembered the time that she walked through reception at her work and slipped on some water. Her knee "really hurt" (cue pictures of someone grimacing and holding leg) whilst explaining that her "immediate thought was" ....

Can you guess? Did she think "my knee might be badly damaged"? No, you're wrong.

Did she think "I hope this pain goes away"? No, you're wrong.

Her immediate thought was "I hope that it isn't too expensive...." - for medical care? - no, her first thought was apparently "I hope that it isn't too expensive to claim for this".

Yes, next time you hurt yourself and feel excruciating pain, battle thorough the tears and immediately consider the cheapest claims helpline before you do anything else.

How depressing.

Oi Amaya - Get Off My Links

Matt Little — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:00 GMT

I recently installed a well known program called Amaya to create and edit an web site. The app is quite nice and works well, shame that it rewrites the way that my PC handles html and htm links.

The result (and I have replicated this on two PCs) is that when I'm sent an email with a link in it, I can't open the link or various other htm/html links. The problem can be resolved with some fairly wicked hacking with the registry via setting your default browser back to IE and then returning to Firefox.

Why and how did that get past testing?

Google buys ReCAPTCHA

Matt Little — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:48:00 GMT

Following the stories below, Google has decided to purchase ReCAPTCHA in an effort to improve its own programme of digitising literary works.

I guess that we are going to see a whole load more CAPTCHAs soon.

Captchas are NOT getting silly.

Matt Little — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:44:00 GMT

Thank you to Keith who posted a comment on the blog about why the article below may have been a little unfair.

The link to a YouTube presentation highlights the work of the Re-Captcha project; the project aims to combine the basic requirement of a captcha (only humans can read them) with a useful purpose - helping decipher words that OCR (optical character recognition) programs can't decipher.

This work aids the digitisation of many ancient books and other works such as the digitisation of the entire back catalogue of the New York Times.

In order to prove you are a human, it offers you two words in the captcha - one that it knows the answer to so as to verify that you aren't a computer and one that comes from the digitisation project. The reason that they are difficult to read (as highlighted in my previous post) is that the OCR software can't work out what the word is and they need some help!

If you get the first one correct, it doesn't matter about the second one - someone just needs a bit of help with their homework.

Captchas are getting silly

Matt Little — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:46:00 GMT

I like captchas. I use them. But they are getting silly.

Captchas (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.) are pictures that make it hard to design a computer program to fill in online forms. Without them (and there is one on this site) you get spammers filling your inbox with rubbish as people can write simple programs to fill in contact forms offering you pills, etc. The idea is that you have to be 'human' to read them - and that is the point - you have to be able to read them

Can you read the right-hand two of the four words below? I can't.

And for info, this isn't the NSA or something, it is the Peppa Pig Live website.

BBC Invents way to cheat death?

Matt Little — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:50:00 GMT

Headline on the front page of the BBC's News Website calims that "Optimistic women have a lower risk of death, finds major study ".

Really?

So if you are female and optomistic, your chance of death is less than the usual 100%? Isn't the risk of death *always* 100%?

That's a surprise.

Bad Luck Comes in Threes (hopefully)

Matt Little — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:04:00 GMT

1) Washing machine drain pipe fails leading to flooded kitchen

2) Central Heating Boiler stops working - no heat / hot water for a week

3) Oven heat element fails - no oven until spare part arrives.

All these three happened in the space of two weeks. Let's hope that is it for a while!

Closing an account - they didn't test that business process, did they?

Matt Little — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:14:00 GMT

I have just transferred my mobile number from one mobile provider to another. Totally painless in fact, it was very, very easy.

I got an email today from the old mobile company to tell me to go to my online portal to view my paperless 'final bill'. I logged in as usual but, instead of 'View Bill', I am offered options to 'Register for Online Bills'. Can you see where this is going?

So, I phone customer services and ask for their help - yes, you've guessed it - despite about 5 minutes of searching by mobile number, name, address, post code or inside leg measurement (OK, I made the last one up) they can't find my account as it is now closed. No access to any details especially my last bill.

I am assured that all is OK as I will be sent a paper bill within the next few working days. I'm not going to hold my breath.....

Jeans are Trousers

Matt Little — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:32:00 GMT

Since when were jeans not trousers?

Apparently since GAP stared offering 30% off trousers, but that doesn't include jeans as "they aren't trousers". Cotton trousers, linen trousers and tracksuit-type trousers are all trousers, jut not jeans.

Does that seem odd? I know that we don't often refer to jeans are "trousers", but they are trousers!

How to ride a bike

Matt Little — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:34:00 GMT

I thought that I could ride a bike, but nowhere near as well as this: (YouTube)

Phorm Free

Matt Little — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:14:00 GMT

This website has registered with Phorm to NOT be included in Web Wise searching.

If that means nothing to you, don't worry about it. Otherwise, hopefully, you'll be quite pleased.

If you use Firefox, you can install De-Phormation to prevent Web Wise monitoring your browsing.

Google Street View

Matt Little — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:28:00 GMT

Google has launched Street View on UK Google Maps. Cue the obligatory 'research' of what you can see of your house/work/favourite local places.

I was surprised to see that my house is photographed on there and fairly surprised to see our car in the drive.

I knew that the Google car had been down our street as my wife had mentioned that she had seen it (although wasn't sure what it was). I was surprised nevertheless that my wife can be seen through one of our house windows!

Can anybody else see themselves or their family on street-view?

Timpson is Rubbish

Matt Little — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Following my last post, I went to my local Timpson shop to get replacement keys for Claire and whilst there, I got a new watch battery fitted.

Not too difficult? Apparently it was.....

The watch was returned to me with a new battery but with the internal mechanism not aligned correctly so the buttons couldn't be pressed.

When I got home, it turns out that 2 of the 3 keys that they had cut didn't work!!

Attached to the keys was a piece of paper telling me that if I had problems with my new keys, I could phone their 0800 helpline. I did and was told that I should go back for a refund and I should try finding a local hardware shop as they are "better at cutting keys".

Muppets.

My food is a bit burnt!

Matt Little — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:10:00 GMT

Claire was out for her work Christmas night out on Friday. Apparently they were having a good time until the restaurant caught fire!

The restaurant was Kushi's the Indian restaurant at the centre of one of 2 large fires in Edinburgh at the weekend. At the height of the fire, there were apparently 100 firefighters on scene attempting to deal with the blaze. You can see details here.

Claire is ok, but in the rush to get out had to leave her bag, so now we have the fun of trying to get all her stuff back from our house insurance. At least nobody was hurt.

It has been a while

Matt Little — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:49:00 GMT

Sorry, it has been a while!

I've just been too busy at work, to be honest. That and my birthday, my sisters' birthday and my Dad's birthday.

Yes, that is correct, I am making excuses for not writing anything.

I'll try harder in future :-)

How not to translate Welsh.....

Matt Little — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:59:00 GMT

As reported on the BBC news website, a Welsh road sign written in both English and Welsh; the English version read:

"No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only"

the Welsh, when translated to English, read:

"I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated"

That's right, someone emailed the translator and got a reply and assumed that it was the translation - no, it was the out of office message!

Nicely done.

It has been a while....

Matt Little — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:47:00 GMT

Apologies for not having been around for a while.

What have I been up to in the last 6 weeks? Well, in no particular order....

I fell off my mountain bike whilst out with Alison practising for a 60 mile charity bike ride. It hurt. I mean it really hurt. I came off the bike and, after a few seconds of getting my bearings, stood up only for the world to go a lovely shade of purple accompanied by a wicked nauseas feeling. I assumed at the time that I had broken my collar bone (it hurt like hell cycling the 9 miles home) but it appears that I had separated the shoulder joint instead. Much better now.

I went on holiday to Cornwall with the family for some sun, relaxation and diving. The weather was fair - often warm, sometimes sunny with only occasional rain. I couldn't dive because of the shoulder injury noted above. Boo.

Didn't do the charity bike ride - see shoulder injury above.

Changed jobs. I left my job as Senior Developer and became Head of Development! I had realised over the past couple of years that while I still enjoyed developing computer systems, it was the managing of teams that really got me excited. I enjoyed planning projects and executing those plans, ensuring that the team was operating efficiently by using the right tools and process and developing strategy, not just code. My new role is great and I am loving it - stressful and busy, but loving it.

That is a brief update on my world - apart from that, all the usual stuff has been happening too, but I won't bore you with it now ;-)

Sholder Separation

Matt Little — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:22:00 GMT

It may not be a broken collarbone, but I can assure you, it HURTS.

Details here.

Windows Update Reboot Timeout

Matt Little — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:22:00 GMT

I might have posted this before, but if you want to change the amount of time that windows give you between suggsting that you reboot following the recent windows update, you can do the following (care of Microsoft):

1. Click on Start and then click on Run.

2. Type in 'GPEDIT.MSC' without the quotes and click on OK.

3. Within the Group Policy Editor, navigate to 'Local Computer Policy / Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update'

4. On the right hand pane, double click on the policy named 'Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations'.

5. If the automatic computer restart prompt needs to be completely disabled, select "Disabled" and click on OK.

6. If the default time interval needs to be changed from a value of 10 minutes to some other value, select "Enabled" and type in the desired time interval in minutes in the following box. Click on OK.

7. Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

You can, if you wish, disable the reminder instead of changing the timeout.

Usual caveats apply - don't do this if you don't know what you are doing and remember that if you don't reboot, your machine is not properly protected.

Here be Dragons

Matt Little — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:33:00 GMT

I was using firefox 3 today and needed to add a site to the list that firefox will pass my windows credentials to. I have blogged about how-to before.

I typed about:config in the address bar today and got:

Very amusing!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Matt Little — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:59:00 GMT

I got out to watch the new Indy film at the cinema over the weekend. What was it like?

It was so predictable - you just knew what was going to happen next. You had seen it all before [when is he going to learn that when you have got the treasure and emerge from whatever cave/hole in which you found it, the bad guys will be waiting for you?] The characters were paper thin and the plot was almost non-existant. The fridge - the less said about that the better.

Was it any good? It was brilliant.

It was like being 10 again - just let yourself go and enjoy it - it is a real Indy film, not some modern remake of what has always been a bit corny and far-fetched.

The decision not to use too much CGI and instead concentraste on set-based effects really paid off - it looked like a film made 10-15 years ago and that just added to the warm feel that it gave you.

I can't remember when I last had so much fun watching such a rubbish film. I want to see it again :-)

BTW - spot the references to previous films throughout - recognise the hanger? See what was in the box? Why is the boy named Mutt? Where have you seen Marion before? Sankara Stones. And about 100 other things.

SQL 2008 Release candidate 0

Matt Little — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:47:00 GMT

The first release candidate for SQL 2008 can be downloaded here.

Some of the nice new features you can use are [taken from this website]:

Backup compression (25-35% at least) - huge cost savings and hey it's native! (note SQL 2005 encryption is not supported by product support but
Transparent Encryption - transparently encrypt the data without the application needing to be aware or know about it.
Database Mirroring Enhancements - compressed logs, more automatic fail over options
Policy Based Administration - manage policies across databases and even across instances and servers
Cluster enhancements - easier to configure and more scenarios that it supports including many in WS08 that provide more intelligence for failover
Resource Governor - limit wild database resources or control one database resources from another!
Easier to deploy - Easier to install, easier to configure, on and on
Reporting Services in SharePoint Mode (report builder rocks!) - easy reporting solutions built to leverage SharePoint mode with more flexibility and with ease.
Data compression - smaller databases with the same amount of data (compression will vary, but watch the overhead on enterprise environments or heavy used environments)
Powershell integration - super extensible and super scriptable

More in-depth details can be found here.