OK, at some point in the next couple of weeks, I’ll finally be installing the nice new 500Gb hard drive I got for Christmas. The plan is to use this one for the OS install and programs. The current boot drive will become a temporary drive for works in progress, such as video edits not yet completed. Anyway, what I want to know is can the Windows Updates I’ve already downloaded and installed be ported to the new install. Obviously this would save me time, but as I’m on a 10Gb limit with my ISP, it would also allow me to download more in that month. I’ve had a google around, and asked at a couple of forums, but not found anything yet. I was hoping there would be a folder (possibly within \Windows ?) I could just copy into the new install, and then when I visited Microsoft Update, it would automatically detect that the required files were already downloaded, and just install them.
Also, a similar(ish) question regarding WinAmp. When it comes to ratings for the MP3s, and also the times played info, where is this stored? I would like to port across this data to the new install, but don’t know where to begin. Any clues anyone?

Scratch the original plans, here are the links I mentioned, not enough time left after having got everything ready for our trip to actually create proper posts. Now the DVD burner is fubared, and I wanted to burn another 3 discs of MP3s for driving to. Hey ho.

Kyrgyzstan elections not fair either - see this article and this one for more details. For those not familiar with the country, no that isn’t where we live (we’re in KAZAKHstan), however international monitors similarly do not think that the elections were free, fair and transparent there either…

Discounting apparently rife in stores - BBC article - Actually I’d call it pretty piss poor ‘professional’ journalism. They trot out the same rubbish each year, closely followed by an article in January saying how shoppers actually spent a lot more than expected. I especially loved the headline - attention grabbing, discounts sound significant, then followed in the main body of the text that this year’s reductions average at 36% off, not 35% ! Yep, 1% difference…

Wives Tales or Valid Medical Info? - Article here. If you don’t drink 8 glasses of water per day, you will use less than 10% of your brain, meaning you won’t be able to read in the dark, turkey will make you drowsy and your hair will continue to grow after death, no matter whether you shaved it or not. Or something like that I have heard before that the ban on mobile phone usage within hospitals is rubbish, espcially when you consider the power of the transmitters they need to use for their own internal walkie-talkies etc.

Eco-friendly consoles requested - BBC article - I know that some PC component manufacturers are already trying, but apparently the big three gaming giants (Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft) are being pressured to lower the amount of toxic chemicals used to produce their consoles, amongst other things.

Take care when you google - info here - My thanks to Irina for noticing this report, and also on the shoddy workmanship of the journalist once again. The article reads in parts as though they did no investigation, and simply read from Google’s press release, with contradictions in places. Anyway, bad people had been setting up sites to try and hack unprotected PCs, and were trying to drive traffic by optimizing for popular keywords.

Dynamic advert placement within PDF files - article - the title says it all here…

Info on Amazon’s ‘Kindle” - here and here - Amazon’s e-book reader, an attempt by another company to crack the market. Once again, the aims have been praised, the actual product is not so popular in some circles.

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers - check here - A long time favourite author of mine, Mr Pratchett has revealed he has the condition, though is doing OK so far. Whilst I selfishly hope he will be able to continue to write such well crafter novels, I do hope that if/when the time comes that the balance between personal well being and writing output tips the wrong way, his fans will let him retire with grace.

One for Alex - here - Poorly kangaroo goes for a swim, and gets snapped up by a shark! (As you may have guessed, based in Australia)

W00t - BBC article - Like ‘all your base are belong to us ‘ from a few years back, but certainly a lot snappier, w00t appears to have started its life in the gaming world, and is used as an exclamation, normally positive.

Not an article, but Wikileaks may interest you. Has a small section for Kazakhstan. Not going to discuss that sort of thing right now, no time.

Excuse me whilst I don’t cry - boo-hoo - with any luck the BNP will eventually go the same way as the old National Front did. I just hope any splinter groups don’t survive, and aren’t too radical whilst they are around. Don’t have much time for racist, lying, Lowest Common Denominator politics and politicians, as you may have guessed.

Misbehaving pupils shocked into towing the line - article here - I can never imagine Mr Owen having given this sort of punishment in his lessons…

Right thats it, I’m off to bed, and won’t be posting for a couple of days probably. Hope all who read this do so in good health…

On to a slightly more serious matter now, as Microsoft have announced they will dropping their much-loathed kill switch, that locks out users should their Windows Vista installation be found to be pirated. Whilst the theory held water, and you can see why it was implemented, too many users complaining about being locked out of their legally paid for install caused a lot of mad press for Microsoft.
Windows will still need to be activated (unless your OEM system has a BIOS recognised by m/soft, and so bypasses this stage), but Microsoft have promised that no further complete lock outs will occur. Some users, who have flashed their motherboard’s BIOS to fool Vista into believing all is OK, are not overly concerned.

For anyone currently searching for a Direct Distributor of Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft Products, then BestPricedBrands have a web site that will be of interest to you. The first time I loaded the site, there were no products on the front page, though a quick refresh sorted that temporary issue out.

When you arrive at the site, all you need to do is click on the link that most interests you at the top of the page in their menu. You will then be taken to a page listing all the items the site currently has available. In most cases, you will find that their prices mean savings for you, compared to buying them at Amazon for example. Thankfully, each item has a price comparison section, so you can quickly see just how much cheaper they are.

Should you require a little more background information about the product, simply click on it, and you will be taken to a further page that details all the relevant information. One thing that immediately stood out is that they do accept PayPal as a form of payment, which means earning I make from the blog could be spent there immediately, rather than having to wait four or five days for the money to transfer to my bank account, as I would with other sites that only accept debit and credit cards.

(UK Related)

Without relevant and recent information, it is impossible to make informed decisions. Without the ability to see just how your company is fairing in today’s market, you can end up second guessing your competitors, especially if they seem to have a better source of data. Luckily, Business Intelligence for the Smaller Company is available from Contemporary, more specifically from their Crystal Decision application. In my last British job, my boss used Crystal Reports to create reports (strangely enough ) to ascertain how our section was doing, and to be able to provide succinct summaries to her bosses. Crystal Decision is designed in a similar vein, as it has been created to assist in performance management, from constant dashboards giving at-a-glance summaries of your company’s positions to fully detailed ad-hoc reports, should the need arise.
If you or your staff have not yet used this type of software, then you may be interested to know that Contemporary are also able to offer comprehensive training with this app. Another feature worthy of note is that Decisions fully integrates with Microsoft Office, meaning that meeting and presentations can progress smoothly, with all the required data easily extracted and then further analysed with your favourite existing tools.
So check the link, and see just how high quality Business Intelligence could help you and your business.

As you may remember from my previous posts in the Amsterdam category, I have been using a combination of Google Earth, Microsoft’s Windows Live Local and other online mapping utilities to locate the best destinations for upcoming trip. Combined with some photos and reviews, I have been calculating the Latitude and Longitude for each, to add to my PDA’s GPS software.
Well, there is a forum for Microsoft’s Virtual Earth and Windows Live Local service users and programmers to come together and discuss a wide range of topics on this topic. User’s of the the MapPoint software are also welcome, and the forum looks like it will be a good place to discover all the facts about the soon to be released MapPoint 2008 app.

I read an interesting piece of the problems Skype recently encountered. I previously posted about the problems I had signing in, and how it appeared that Microsoft’s release of patches that required PCs to restart was a major cause of the connectivity outages. Anyway, now that a little time has passed, John Naughton, writing for the Guardian Unlimited site, has had the time to write a short, but interesting analysis on the issues, and has summarized the situation, and reactions quite well, IMHO. Check here for the article. One point that other journalists appear to have missed, or at least mis-comprehended is the fact that any system that is not centrally resourced, that is to say relies on Peer To Peer protocols, will always have a weakness, if those peers (that is you, me and our computers) have technical difficulties at the same time. It was refreshing to read the work of someone who appears to know a fair amount, and research his stories properly. Given that this is the Guardian (or at least it’s online presence), it was also good to not see any obvious spelling mistakes littering the page

If you have any interest in the history of the internet, or more specifically the World Wide Web (unless you remember the days of bulletin boards and Compuserve, the two terms are probably synonymous), then an article I recently found may well be of interest to you. It details the battles fought over the need for standards in the days of early web sites and browsers. Check the Business Week link for the full run down, however it basically explains how Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape browser were very incompatible at the beginning, which lead to the ridiculous situation of web sites having to be designed, hosted, and of course paid for, in duplicate. Although the comments indicate that some in this field believe Zeldman (the subject of the article) receives too much glory, the story behind the creation of standards is of interest. To me at least, hopefully others won’t fall asleep after the 1st page ;-P

For Brits who pay for a TV licence, there will be a service launched at the end of this month that will allow them to watch TV programs from the previous week, and keep them stored for up to 30 days in most instances.
Unfortunately, the initial release will only work on PCs with Windows XP, and some people are claiming this gives Microsoft an unfair advantage. Although the BBC is hoping to bring out a version for Macs soon, it looks as though Vista PCs and mobile devices will have to wait a little longer. I was not able to source any information about plans for Linux based computers.
If the iPlayer application/service was open source, it seems more likely that porting it to other platforms would take less time, though some people fear this would make it easier to bypass the DRM (digital rights management) contained within iPlayer, that stops downloads from working after a set time, and presumably blocks anyone other than the original licence player’s PC from being able to play the videos.