Kudos to you, Sir!

To be a typical geek, it's rare to hear one talking about "How it used to be" with any sort of affection. By default, we're all about "here, now & what the future holds" as opposed to "those were the days". I'd like to, however, draw your attention to something pretty amazing by any standard.

Around 1982, computers didn't have as much memory as they do now.  You might have a machine with 4GB of memory. Computers in the early 80's only had about 16, 32 or 48k (4GB = 4,194,304k) so to write any program normally included a very organised brain and a shoe horn or crow bar to get it all in.

A game was launched, called "Elite", it fitted in 22k of memory. This is less than your typical email (average emails are around 60-80k).  However, within this one program contained the following..

• 8 Galaxies
• 256 Star Systems per Galaxy
• Legal System for every planet in the star system
• Economy and Trade information per planet

Clearly this was something special. People that could program a game in such an efficient manner, they could squash all of that information in.

Today, the same company are trying to write a new version of this game using the same method of programming. And THIS is something I've always championed.

Too often we find software is much too large for it's purpose. Why should we find our anti virus program commanding more system time than the programs it should be protecting? Why should email programs take such a long time to start, run and close? Why should our Operating Systems take MINUTES to load?

I hope other software development companies take a leaf out of the books of these innovative programmers. People that want to return computers back to the fast machines that they are, not sludge their way through a program that makes us desire to spend more money to buy bigger and better, when quite frankly it should be good enough.

Kudos to you!

End of an Era

Today is a landmark day in the field of technology advancement.  For by the end of today, the last of the analogue television transmitters will be shut off, meaning that the 5 year changeover to Digital will be complete.

But interestingly, it also marks another landmark, for analogue carried something else alongside the television pictures and sounds that we all enjoyed. It also carried a teletext service.

 

 

 



Ceefax was launched in 1974 and was the worlds first teletext service.  Containing graphics and text it rotated on a sequence of pre-delivered pages and you could get News, Sport, Recipes and Holidays to name just a few.

The system was fast, but limited because of it's "one way" delivery. This was challenged when the Internet became more popular, and people would only use it to check the football scores while visiting the grandparents!

Now replaced by "the red button", the digital service is able to offer a lot more, including additional video content and information to make the viewer experience more enjoyable.

So we thank you Teletext, we thank you Ceefax, for bringing on tap information to the masses.  We will miss waiting for the scrolling pages to bring us the news we want to read. Silently you will disappear as the analogue transmitters are finally shut down.

And as you take a bow as the final curtain closes, please make sure you don't get run over by the super fast broadband as it whizzes past.

 

Which came first, the Mobile or the Child?

Indeed that was the question that almost got answered in a lethal way earlier as I drove back from picking up some shopping.

A young woman, busy texting on her mobile, pushing a buggy with child in front of her, started crossing the road in front of me without looking.  Thank you Saab for your Anti-Lock Brakes. And sorry that my horn woke your sleeping baby.  I guess we should be glad that it did wake up. A few more feet forward and it wouldn't have anymore.

Quite a dark start to any blog about technology, but in a grim way explains a fundamental problem that society is having with the advances that technology provides.  It seems that technology is trying to become first in our lives instead of the more important things.

Will technology ever become the death of us, so to speak?  Continued reliability certainly gives strength to that argument.  Anti virus software company's are getting increasingly concerned about the extent that a virus could cripple society.

A virus that could infect your local bread manufacturer, or pharmaceutical companies with lethal doses would certainly affect the things we buy. Or what about a virus that could infect traffic control systems, air craft navigation systems or infect fresh water with sewage?

Let's not get to distressed and abandon all hope in technology, or shun it to an extreme that we dismiss it for a horse and cart, but let's keep it firmly in it's rightful place, use it as the tool it's designed to be, and keep our real life ahead of us and focus on the more important things.

Shh, It's A Secret

I am about to tell you a secret. I could be struck off the I.T. Circle for this, so keep it quiet.

If your favourite IT geek has ever looked at your PC and made some profound comment about it still processing, or stated categorically that it has crashed, he is not The One. He cannot see into the PC and see it like the Matrix. He is looking at the hard drive light.

Most PCs have at least two lights on the front. One is the power light, the other is the hard drive light. It lights up any time the hard drive is being accessed. So when your first turn it on, you should see the hard drive light go nuts. It's also likely to happen when you open a program, particularly large games. It will also happen if you're not running much memory, as we have discussed previously.

So although your PC may seem to take just a minute to boot up and make the desktop available, it may not be ready to start processing straight away. Look at the hard drive light and you may notice it stays on almost solidly for several minutes after the desktop has appeared. It won't be ready to proficiently process data until the light has almost stopped, or is at least only flickering occasionally. If your waiting for a program to open or process some data and it appears to be taking its time, it may be worth checking the status of the hard drive light. If it's solidly on, it may well be processing a significantly large amount of data. However, if it is permanently on for several minutes it may have crashed. There is no substitute for experience in this area, hence us geeks are still valuable. Phew!

So now you know. I now have to change my name and address for safety reasons.

The Monday Morning Blues

Oh Mondays. I kind of feel sorry for you. It's not your fault you're the first day after the weekend and one of the singularly most maligned days of the week.

Having said that, this is an IT blog and we have heard on any number of occasions users questioning if computers can suffer on a Monday morning too, as they often appear particularly sluggish - and there's an element of truth in it...

If you're a good boy or girl and close your computer down over the weekend, some tasks start building up in the background. Windows' updates need checking, anti-virus needs to update and scan, emails need downloading, and any other scheduled tasks need to run. That entire process can take a significant amount of time, during which the computer will run slowly.

Leaving the computer on all the time isn't really a viable option, as we briefly discussed here. So either, you have to be patient, waiting for the early processes to complete, which can take a significant amount of time. Or you could try Wake-On-Lan. WOL allows a signal to be sent remotely to a machine that effectively pushes the power button. So an hour before you arrive, you could start the power-up process, with the machine being toasty-ready for you when you arrive. There a quite a few hoops to jump through before WOL works and it may not be practical for all networks, but it's certainly worth investigating.

Aside from that, you may just need that third coffee after all.

Read All About It

I hesitated to write this post, fearing it may be overly-picky. However, having just made this mistake myself, it would seem time to discuss the importance of reading.

We received a report that one computer was not running one program. Firing the program up, a message was displayed and I thought I knew what it said, so clicked 'No'. Sure enough, the program would not run any further. Trying a couple of other things didn't work and it was only when I stopped to read the message in full that I realised exactly what the issue was and could resolve it. Face meet palm.

The importance of looking at and reading what your computer is telling you cannot be overstated. If your website registration is rejected, it almost certainly isn't because they don't like you or because the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. The chances are the website will tell you exactly why it's been rejected. Password too short. Postcode needed. That kind of thing.

Thinking you know what a question is asking and hitting a response can be a dangerous pass-time if you haven't read the question properly. Some critical decisions made in some of the programs we've written require a specific word to be typed on the keyboard. So rather than just clicking 'Yes' or 'No' you have to type the word 'DELETE' for instance. There can be no excuse that you didn't know what you were saying 'Yes' to.

So read all about it. Then you'll know exactly what 'it' is.

I'm Leaving, and there's nothing you can do to stop..

It's certainly an amazing thing to see the amount of packages that we can have for entertainment nowadays.

The biggest contenders are people like Sky, Virgin, BT who are all selling packages to rival each other.  It's quite an arduous task to ascertain which package gives you the best value for money.

However, you might now be happy. You've got the package you want. You're enjoying lots of TV Channels, Super fast Broadband and freephone telephone calls to talk to Auntie Maud.  Is that it?

No. I'd certainly say to consider calling them in a years time. Why ?

I was sitting on an entertainment package costing me close to £70 per month.  It was only the basic TV package, Middle Broadband Package and Free Calls.. but I walked past a trailer in the local shopping centre and they were advertising a similar package for £33!

Shocked, I walked in and explained what I was paying and they advised me (quietly and discreetly) to ring the provider up and choose the option "I am considering leaving"!

So I did.

And I was asked why I was considering leaving.  Well, I wasn't... was I? So I explained that I was a little disgusted with my monthly fee and explained what I had and what I was paying.  I couldn't have the £33 option as it would have reduced the package I had, but they struck me a deal.

They knocked it down to £45. A saving of £25 per month. Yep £300 per year back in MY bank account, not theirs.

It's certainly worth doing regularly.  As years go on, technology becomes faster, bigger, better, cheaper.. so ring up and ask for your prices to be reviewed.

Save yourself some money and don't let them have it.