Posts by Dave H 2

F*ck you, thunders disgruntled fanboi Apple user

This has been irritating me too...

For a while now, El Reg has been referring to Apple users as fanbois, regardless of context. Apple users complain about a bug and the headline reads "Fanbois howl" - how is that an accurate use of the term? Real fanbois deny all failings of their beloved whatever. Insult them when they have it coming, not all the bloody time!

Blanket attacking a usergroup actually seems a lot like fanboi behaviour to me (and don't start on me - I've never owned anything apple).

Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx: A (free) Mactastic experience

Security...

Thanks, I'll admit to being a bit dumb over the wireless keyboard - it's my first wireless or USB keyboard ever, and I've only had it a couple of months, so I'd never looked for that setting before. I figured out the problem a couple of minutes after posting, though, and I accept the same thing would cause problems in any OS, so it's no valid criticism of grub or Ubuntu.

On the subject of security... I currently run just MS Security Essentials, but I've gone months without virus checkers, in the past. I only bolster security if other members of my household are likely to use my machine, otherwise, I dislike the hassle. Since I don't google for pr0n and stick mostly to sites I've been using for years, I tend to consider myself pretty safe, without having to show my credentials everytime I want to change something on my own PC.

Paint...

I remember the first time I saw Windows Paint - I couldn't stop sneering. I'd come from Amiga's, where we'd had Deluxe Paint, then later Personal Paint & Photogenics bundled. It just seemed such a bloody joke in comparison. I remove it immediately, so I wasn't aware they even had updated it in the last 10 years! PSP9 is as good as it gets on Windows, IMHO. That's without moving to higher brow apps like Painter or Photoshop, of course.

I'm not surprised about W7. Once you cut through the fanboy claims of faster boot times (thoughtlessly compared to several year old XP systems) and better than Vista (not saying much), it never seemed like an OS I'd want to upgrade to.

Really, not for me.

Well, I solved the grub wireless issue (bios setting, d'oh), but got irritated trying to reconfigure grub to boot windows first (more "you don't have permission"). Delete partition, fixmbr. Life's just too short.

Not for me...

It's been a while since I tried linux, so I thought I'd give this release a chance.

1st problem - the bootmanager doesn't like my wireless keyboard, which is pretty much a deal breaker, unless there's a solution?

2nd problem - I encountered a bug almost immediately. The restart option worked once, but after the reboot, "Restart" and "Shutdown", no-longer worked, both options just logged me out. I ended up having to power-off.

Finally, I remain (from previous linux experiences) unimpressed by how quickly I run into "You do not have the rights to access that" type messages. It's my home computer - I don't need or want to be wading through nerdy Fort Knox crap like that!

Oh, and I'm not a fanboy - I use windows grudgingly and have so far stuck with XP.

Ridley Scott talks up 'nasty' Alien prequel

Oooh a 3D prequel...

...I'm just wetting myself in anticipation of the snarky review I'm going to post on imdb when it comes out.

Ten free apps to install on every new PC

I like iTunes

Yes, it's slow to launch, yes it installs crap that needs removing. Yet I still use it, because I dislike all the other music players. I've tried WinAmp, MediaMonkey and many others, but the interfaces are always too fiddly and annoying in comparison, so I put up with iTunes.

I don't understand the support for VLC, though. I've tried it a few times, due to constant recommendations. It's always seemed ugly, unstable and generally less reliable than MPC to me. Oh, and I hate its icon.

Media Player Classic also allows all menus to be removed, so you just see the video display, which is a killer feature, IMO.

A couple more...

"Partition Wizard Home Edition" & "Macrium Reflect Free Edition" saved my bacon last week. All 3 partitions from my primary drive just disappeared after a reboot. Because I had a recent system image, made with Reflect, I just pasted that onto an old drive and then used Partition Wizard to get the partitions back on my main drive. I was up and running again in less than 30 minutes. I'd highly recommend both.

Oh, and although I like CCleaner, it's on my list of possible culprits, as I'd allowed it to "Wipe Free Space", not long before the parititions disappeared!

Pirates of the Caribbean say 'narrr' to Bulgarian airbags

AC 11:41

Maria Bello, "that gawd-awful thing", seriously?

I haven't seen the movie, because the first sequel was bad enough, but Maria Bello has been pretty decent in other stuff.

PC tune-up software: does it really work?

Agree with clean-installing...

I've also dispensed with some "protection" - I stopped using Spybot S&D, particularly because it's "TeaTimer" component was getting so sluggish to load into the system tray (slow on my dual core/2GB machine, unbearable on my old lappy). I've also dropped AVG, in favor of MS's new Security Essentials. Will see how that goes, but truth be told no security app has warned me of anything useful in 5 years. Malware inflicted on my system (by family members) always required more "specialist" tools to get rid of. Family members have now also been gotton rid of (to their own machines, of course). :-)

So now I'm just using Windows Defender & MSSE. I'd also like to give a nod to "Macrium Reflect Free Edition". I used it recently to move my OS to a new drive - I didn't want to re-install due to time and because the current install was only a month old, so XP Activation would have given me grief. Worked a treat. I actually look forward to finding the time to make a clean install, just so I can image it.