Are Amazon scrumping apples?

Just now I wanted to go to Apple's home page, but I mistyped and asked to go to www.appple.com instead. Imagine my surprise when I was whisked straight to Amazon.com and presented with the results of a search for 'apples'. This surely can't be accidental. Also, surely Apple must have heard about it by now. Maybe they figure they're more likely to get a sale through Amazon than through their own web site. Based on a highly representative sample of one product, Amazon are definitely the cheaper option.

There's a 'http://www.apppple.com/' as well, which doesn't feature Apple products, and is harder to imagine anyone mistyping, though what the name stands for is beyond me.

Upwardly Mobile

So I finally cracked yesterday and signed up for a Premium Spotify account. I'd got to the point where I'm not sure I could have listened to one more of those banal mobile phone adverts, or 'Roberta from Spotify' announcing yet again the same new service she was telling me about last year, without having to numb the horror by repeatedly hitting my head into my monitor.

It was a very painless procedure to convert from Free to Premium (apart from the £10 a month bill, but that's no more than a CD a month, and I'm listening to several new albums a week), and now I can enjoy ad-free music, and also an ad-free user interface. Oddly, for the first few hours I actually found myself missing the interruptions. That passed.

I still have my Napster subscription, as there are a number of albums that they have and Spotify still doesn't, but the gap is closing. Spotify is a far faster service, while napster.exe is a horribly slow program to start up, and one which often decides to hog the CPU and hard drive for long stretches, presumably re-indexing my music files. Okay, I have over 23000, but it's not as if they move around or anything.

It would be nice if Spotify could detect music on the hard drive, just as it would be nice if it would order all an artist's albums by title, rather than in a long list showing all their tracks, including whole compilation albums even though they only have a single song by the artist you're after. That may well change one day, when they get round to improving the UI. According to the plugs that I now no longer get, Spotify seem to be putting all their technical efforts into their mobile phone offerings. Which, now I think about it, I can access using my Premium account status.

Off to spotify.com...

Stunning Presumption from Nokia

I've just noticed that my PC now thinks that .jar files are 'Nokia Application Installer Files'. And to think, all I had to do was load their mobile phone synchronisation program. Thanks, Nokia. Another classic example of Software Manufacturer arrogance.

I should be used to this by now. Every browser I've ever set to be the system default has always immediately celebrated by claiming ownership of the .htm and .html file suffixes.

Speeding up my PC--the cheap way

Personal computers, in my experience, tend to silt up and slow down. My Dell at home was little more than a year old and already noticeably slower than when I first booted it up. Of course, I look at what's running in the background from time to time, and remove anything that looks suspect or unnecessary (such as the Adobe and QuickTime quick start tasks), but it never seems to have much effect.

I'm toying with the idea of buying a solid state hard drive, of which I've heard many good things. Trouble at the moment is that they're still so pricey that it wouldn't be much more expensive to just buy a faster PC.

Last month I lost it during a particularly slow session, and decided to take drastic measures. I would often hear the hard drive working, even though Process Explorer (this is a brilliant program, that replaces Task Manager with something really informative--highly recommended) showed no significant CPU activity, and I decided to remove stuff I'd installed that might be responsible. First to go was 'Everything', a nifty program that indexes the files on your hard drive. It's really quick at finding files, but I hadn't made much use if it, so I ran the uninstall program. "Uninstall Everything?" came up the prompt. With clammy palms I clicked on Okay. That didn't seem to do much, so I moved on to Google Desktop.

Google Desktop is another program that indexes the hard drive, as well as your e-mails and any web sites you've visited. It too is really fast, and, on the occasions I've needed to find a lost e-mail, has proved invaluable. However, I was desperate, so out it went. From now on I shall rely on the fact that all my e-mails come in via a Google Mail account. I'll search through them there instead of on my Dell.

And amazingly, that seemed to do the trick. My PC is once again a fast machine, and the hard drive doesn't (often) sound busy when nothing's supposed to be happening. Is this a known drawback with Google Desktop, or just a side effect of my PC configuration? All I know is that I feel like I've saved two or three hundred pounds.

Still, those SSDs do look tempting.

Nostalgia comes in Box Sets

Xmas brought two new DVD box sets into our home, both TV series from my childhood, namely Wacky Races and Top Cat. I got to see them when they were orinally aired in the UK in the sixties, and the contrast when viewing them again for the first time in decades was rather surprising. Top Cat is still charming and funny; Wacky Races, on the other hand, after getting to know the line-up of competitors, is largely a one joke show, with the same plot rehashed in every episode. Dastardly and Muttly establish a commanding lead, which they then throw away in trying to set up a completely unnecessary trap for the other competitors, which naturally backfires, leaving them to come in last. Again.

I never noticed this as a child, but my nine year old son, who has been happily watching Top Cat episodes with me for the last week (not continuously, mind), summed up his opinion of Wacky Races five minutes into the first episode: 'This isn't funny'. No, it wasn't. But then, he's grown up watching The Simpsons and Futurama, which I realise sort of raises the bar a bit.

Another interesting observation was how up to date the plots of Top Cat still are, despite being nearly half a century old. Except for Officer Dibble having to keep in touch with his station via a police phone mounted on a telegraph pole (why not in a large blue box?), the only real clues to it being set fifty years ago are the clothing fashions and the car styles.

I probably watched every episode the first time round, maybe more than once, but I could only remember vague details of one show. Watching them again, my recall doesn't get any better, though occasional scenes and gags do ring bells. I did remember not being quite able to make out some of the lyrics in the opening credits. "Close friends get to call him TC, providing it's wikitity...". Never been too confident about that last word. Now, using the awesome power of the Internet (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A249842), I am finally able to decode it as "with dignity". No wonder I could never make it out, as it's a really crap lyric. At this point I remember that there is a word for misheard lyrics, but I can't remember what it is. Back to that awesome power--it's 'Mondegreen'.

And one last piece of Top Cat trivia. In the UK the series aired on the BBC, who have a policy on not running commercials. Back in 1961 the policy was so strict that the existence of a brand of cat food called Top Cat was sufficient to make the BBC rename the show to Boss Cat. They even trimmed out the first part of the closing credits to remove the Top Cat billboard. For full effect they should have gone through each episode dubbing over every 'Top Cat' and 'TC' (preferably in a clipped British accent) , but that was presumably thought to be over the top (or maybe just too expensive). Anyway, as a consequence British kids were left puzzling over the following exchange at the start of every episode.

Continuity Announcer: "And now, Boss Cat."
Opening Credits: "Top Cat! The most effectual Top Cat! ..."

Troubles in PC Printer Land

As someone who counts himself as reasonably computer literate, and one who spends much of his life sat in front of a screen trying to bend computers to his will (with mixed success), I am constantly staggered by how difficult even fairly straightforward problems on a home computer can be to sort out. Always the same thought occurs: if it's this hard for me, what must it be like for the layperson?

A couple of days ago I experienced a perfect example of just how far personal computers still have to go. A relative of mine has a laptop, and was trying to print off a PDF file. "It just comes out blank," she said. That rang a bell, so I started the machine up, reasonably confident of a quick fix.

On opening the file, Adobe Reader 8 informed me that it had an 8.1 update ready. Why not? Who knows, it might even fix the problem. While it got to work on that, I noticed that Windows wanted to do an update too. Odd that, because the machine was configured to install Windows updates automatically. (Yes, I know the downsides of that, but I still think it's the best option for users who don't really understand what updates even mean.) Hmm... Windows Vista SP2! I could see why it hadn't just ploughed ahead without permission, but I also noticed that the updater didn't think it worth mentioning that it was now going to take the next half hour to download everything, install it, shut down and restart. I left it running in the background.

It soon became obvious that the Adobe updater was in trouble (unless it really did need ten minutes to delete temporary files), so I cancelled. With a bit of luck the update would have completed anyway. No. In fact, now we no longer had Adobe Reader at all. So, off to Google to find out how to download it from Adobe. Now this is interesting: there's a version 9 available. Why didn't Adobe Reader 8 tell me about that? It downloaded and installed very easily, far faster than the 8.1 update, even before it reached the tidying up stage and jammed.

I say 'easily'. That means ignoring all the shortcuts, quick starts and menu options that Adobe like to pollute your machine with. I can only think of one reason why you might want to start up Adobe Reader, and that's to read a PDF file. The natural way to do that is to just open the PDF. Not so for Adobe: their preferred mode of operation is apparently to launch Reader first, which is why they stick shortcuts to it on the desktop, in the start menu, in the Explorer context menu, and in the Explorer toolbars. For good measure, they also put a quick start program into your startup options so that, on those rare occasions when you need to open up a PDF file, it's slightly faster than it would otherwise have been. On the downside, your PC now takes that little bit longer to start up every single time you switch it on, regardless of whether you plan to look at PDFs at all. I've had enough experience with this arrogance from Adobe to know how to remove it all, but it's still infuriating. Not as infuriating, though, as when you do the next update, and Adobe cheerfully reinstall all the crap again, ignoring the fact that you must surely have deliberately taken it all out, presumably on the assumption that you're too stupid to know what's best for you.

I seem to have drifted a bit from my original topic. If you detect a hint of bitterness here, it's the result of many years' miserable experience of this company's attitude to its users. And don't get me started on their web sites.

So, back to the non-printing PDF. By now I've upgraded Adobe Reader, and rebooted the newly service-packed Vista. Time to open the file again. Sure enough, it won't print--nothing at all comes out. Off to the Control Panel to look at the printer. Here I see that there are several print jobs queued up, dating back six weeks or so. The earliest one is marked as 'Deleting'.

Although I can cancel all the subsequent jobs, the 'Deleting' one stubbornly refuses to go. This is a state I've been in on more than one occasion. What you want is to tell the printer to completely forget about everything it's been told to print, but for some reason it can't. My guess is it needs to confirm with the actual device that all printing has ceased, which should have given me a clue. Instead I decided to delete the printer and reinstall from CD. That didn't take long, and it did clear the print queue, but I couldn't get a test page out. Now it occurs to me that maybe there's a connection problem. And yet, there's the printer cable sticking out of the side of the laptop, and there's the other end going into the printer, which is switched on, with no error lights showing. Try pushing in the connection at the printer: fine. What about the one at the laptop? Well, it's definitely in, but suspiciously loose. Is it really supposed to be able to wobble like that? Come to think about it, since when do USB sockets go into network ports?

Mystery finally solved.

It would have been really nice if the Control Panel hadn't listed the printer as being 'Ready', just as it would have been nice if Adobe Reader had updated correctly, and to the latest version. But I got there in the end. Nevertheless, the printer had been out of action for weeks, and only got fixed because of a relative coming round with enough computer literacy to fix the problem (though, sadly, not enough to fix it quickly). So I'm left wondering how many other home computers around the world have components and programs that have stopped working because of easily solved issues like this.

There will be a day when your computer will sort out stuff like this for you itself, in language that even the layest of lay users can follow, and that's the day when the computer can finally be labelled as 'an appliance'.

Special Friend

Starting work on a bottle of real ale a few evenings ago, I was struck by how particularly pleasant it tasted. Not that surprising perhaps, as the label boasted the title,"Young's Special London Ale". Ah, yes. Young's Special, an old friend from many years back. I noticed something else on the label: Alcohol Content 6.4%.

Ohhhkay. That would work out as 3.2 units of alcohol (I know I've had enough to drink when I can no longer calculate alcohol units in my head), or roughly what the Government thinks I should drink no more than per day. Maybe I should leave a bit for tomorrow?

6.4% was rather higher than I remembered. A bit of research (read 'Google') revealed the truth. "Young's Special London Ale", which comes in bottles, isn't the same as "Young's Special", that comes on draught and is only 4.5% alcohol. Not a huge amount of imagination shown there by the Young's beer naming department, and a potential source of catastrophe for bottled beer drinkers like me.

Which brings my memories round to the first time I tried Young's Special. A party in London with a bunch of dental students, thirty years or so ago. A pub beforehand, where a friend introduced me to the brew and I polished off two pints of it. A foolish decision later that evening at the party to move onto cider. And finally, an indeterminate time staring into porcelain wishing my life was over so I could stop being sick for a bit.

Ever since my dramatic discovery that beer and cider don't go well together, I have had very mixed feelings about cider. Yes, I do drink it occasionally, but my heart is never in it. Real ale, on the other hand, has never left me with any sort of lasting aversion. And yet it wasn't just the cider that wasted me that night, so why does my body remember that cider isn't good for it while ignoring the effects of the beer? My tentative theory: cider is usually well stronger than 4.5%, so maybe my body only paid attention to the strongest drink involved.

As corroborative evidence, I would cite the fact that I haven't been able to drink Pernod since my 20th birthday, but I still like orange juice.