A few weeks ago I was moving my Dell PC around, which involved unplugging all the cables from the back. When I'd finished, everything worked except the Forward and Back buttons on my Dell mouse. That was a nuisance because I use them instinctively to navigate my way through Google Chrome. I checked in the Device Manager, and the mouse was showing up as a vanilla device. Attempts to fix the problem in the Control Panel were ineffective. Unplugging and replugging the mouse failed to bring up any 'New Hardware Found' dialog that might have let me attack the problem.
So I let it rest.
Until today, when I decided enough was enough. It occurred to me that Dell might have the solution. When the PC was brand new there were several Dell applications lying around, which I quickly bundled off the desktop and forgot about. Maybe one of them could help. What was this I found? The 'Driver Reset Tool'. That could be just what I was looking for. I launched it.
There was a pause, and then a small dialog popped up telling me that my ethernet port was disabled. It offered me three choices: Yes, No, Cancel. Well, I had indeed disabled the port when I went wireless, so I clicked Yes. Another pause, another dialog: Nokia phone disabled. I clicked Yes again. Again the pause, then a dialog that just said, "EN?" (I should add that the last two dialogs had also started with "EN". I presume it meant 'ENglish'.) There was only a Yes button this time, so I dismissed the dialog. A final pause, and then the PC shut itself down.
Years of working with computers has left me with a certain amount of intuition about what's going to happen next. I was not feeling good about this.
The shutdown finished, and the reboot started. It got as far as 'Press F2 for Setup and F12 for System Menu'. I did, repeatedly. Could I possibly have reset the drivers so much that the keyboard wasn't working? No, surely we hadn't got that far yet. In any case, that wouldn't stop the auto-boot from finishing. I decided to power it off, count to ten, and try again: same result.
At this point I had to answer a sudden call of nature.
When I got back the reboot was under way. Much slower than normal, but everything eventually came back, and here I am typing it all up. The only thing I've had to fix so far is the annoying 'network unplugged' icon which had reappeared in the system tray.
Chastened by my near death experience, I decided to ask Google if anyone else had had this problem. Hysterical laughter: it seems it's a recent bug in Google Chrome. Sure enough, the mouse is working perfectly well in Internet Explorer.
I guess there's a lesson here, but I'm still too close to appreciate it.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Cheating in Audio
I started listening to audiobooks a couple of years ago, through the admirable Audible company. I mostly listen to the books while cycling home, which makes it difficult to skip back a few seconds when my concentration slips and I miss a bit. I soon realised that this mode of reading is more suitable for fiction than non-fiction. The mind-blowing 'Decoding Reality' really deserves a re-listen in less distracting circumstances, while '50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know' I gave up around number 15, after a near miss turning onto Haxby Road while using rather less of my brain than I really ought to have.
For stories though, it's ideal, and I'm using it to catch up on authors I might otherwise never have found the time for, or getting through the complete works of Stieg Larsson (sadly only three).
I had one worry though: is listening to a novel rather than reading it cheating?
Recently I was sat down with a real book, 'Use of Weapons' by Iain M. Banks. It's one of his Culture novels (masterpieces of SF, if you've never tried them), and I stopped to count the ones I'd already read. I knew there were three, and that one of them was an audiobook. The interesting thing was that I couldn't remember which of the three was the one I'd listened to. As far as my memory was concerned, I had the internal 'soundtracks' of three novels, and I couldn't tell the difference in quality between the one I'd heard through my earphones and the ones I'd made up myself as I read the written words.
So as far as I'm concerned, the answer is 'No: audiobooks are not cheating'. At least, it isn't for me. The end result in my memory seems to be exactly the same, except that I can now combine some of the more tedious parts of my life with probably my favourite hobby.
For stories though, it's ideal, and I'm using it to catch up on authors I might otherwise never have found the time for, or getting through the complete works of Stieg Larsson (sadly only three).
I had one worry though: is listening to a novel rather than reading it cheating?
Recently I was sat down with a real book, 'Use of Weapons' by Iain M. Banks. It's one of his Culture novels (masterpieces of SF, if you've never tried them), and I stopped to count the ones I'd already read. I knew there were three, and that one of them was an audiobook. The interesting thing was that I couldn't remember which of the three was the one I'd listened to. As far as my memory was concerned, I had the internal 'soundtracks' of three novels, and I couldn't tell the difference in quality between the one I'd heard through my earphones and the ones I'd made up myself as I read the written words.
So as far as I'm concerned, the answer is 'No: audiobooks are not cheating'. At least, it isn't for me. The end result in my memory seems to be exactly the same, except that I can now combine some of the more tedious parts of my life with probably my favourite hobby.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
4' 33"
Listened to John Cage's famous piece, 4' 33", today on Spotify.
When I first heard about this piece, I thought it had a certain mathematical interest, for if you think of compositions as being ordered sets of notes, then this would be an empty set. The visual equivalent might be a TV program that showed a blank screen for its whole duration. That was when I assumed that 4' 33" would be four minutes 33 seconds of total silence. Far from it.
In fact, the subtlety of 4' 33" is that it has to be performed by a real life performer. Frank Zappa once covered it, for instance. Thus if you listen carefully, you can hear the creaks of the performer's chair, and maybe the odd clearing of the performer's throat. Presumably on live recordings there is audience noise to add to the interest.
I said I listened to it, but actually I gave up at 0' 28", faced with the prospect of wasting another 4' 05" of my life. I've just seen the piece referred to as 4' 33" - 3 parts: 30" / 2' 23" / 1' 40", so perhaps I should have soldiered on into part 2. However, I think I got the rough gist.
E F Schumacher's book "A Guide for the Perplexed" introduced me to the idea of "adequatio", meaning that sometimes you're simply not adequate to the task of appreciating something. It's a good concept to take to heart, and I can think of many examples of art that I initially couldn't see the point of, but now really enjoy; Jazz and Opera spring to mind. They didn't change: instead I became adequate to the job of listening to them.
In the case of 4' 33" though, I'm not sure if I will ever find myself adequate. Like the artists who works consist of piles of rubbish or unmade beds, I kind of feel that the only talent Cage needed to produce 4' 33" was the ability to keep a straight face.
Oddly, Spotify claimed the running time was 4' 39".
When I first heard about this piece, I thought it had a certain mathematical interest, for if you think of compositions as being ordered sets of notes, then this would be an empty set. The visual equivalent might be a TV program that showed a blank screen for its whole duration. That was when I assumed that 4' 33" would be four minutes 33 seconds of total silence. Far from it.
In fact, the subtlety of 4' 33" is that it has to be performed by a real life performer. Frank Zappa once covered it, for instance. Thus if you listen carefully, you can hear the creaks of the performer's chair, and maybe the odd clearing of the performer's throat. Presumably on live recordings there is audience noise to add to the interest.
I said I listened to it, but actually I gave up at 0' 28", faced with the prospect of wasting another 4' 05" of my life. I've just seen the piece referred to as 4' 33" - 3 parts: 30" / 2' 23" / 1' 40", so perhaps I should have soldiered on into part 2. However, I think I got the rough gist.
E F Schumacher's book "A Guide for the Perplexed" introduced me to the idea of "adequatio", meaning that sometimes you're simply not adequate to the task of appreciating something. It's a good concept to take to heart, and I can think of many examples of art that I initially couldn't see the point of, but now really enjoy; Jazz and Opera spring to mind. They didn't change: instead I became adequate to the job of listening to them.
In the case of 4' 33" though, I'm not sure if I will ever find myself adequate. Like the artists who works consist of piles of rubbish or unmade beds, I kind of feel that the only talent Cage needed to produce 4' 33" was the ability to keep a straight face.
Oddly, Spotify claimed the running time was 4' 39".
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Getting a Nexus S to connect to a PC running Windows XP
In an effort to prevent anyone else going through the misery and frustration I've just experienced, I will now document the steps I had to go through to get my Nexus S to talk to my PC.
Obviously I'm not talking about seeing the phone's file system as an external drive; I mean having the phone show up in the Device Manager so that you can try your hand at developing on it. Sparing you all the false starts and dead ends that I went through, and assuming you've already installed the Android SDK and have a USB cable that fits into the phone, proceed as follows:
Now use the Device Manager to Update Driver for the phone, telling the wizard to search in the C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver folder.
In the Device Manager, the Nexus S should now move from 'Unknown devices' to 'Android Phone'.
Of course, for you any one of these steps might go wrong. However, even then I hope this blogpost might give you the clues you need to get to your goal.
Obviously I'm not talking about seeing the phone's file system as an external drive; I mean having the phone show up in the Device Manager so that you can try your hand at developing on it. Sparing you all the false starts and dead ends that I went through, and assuming you've already installed the Android SDK and have a USB cable that fits into the phone, proceed as follows:
- Start up the Android SDK Manager.
- See if 'Google USB Driver Package' is listed under Installed Packages.
- If it isn't, it should be under Available Packages. Select it and click the Install Selected button
- Enable debugging on the phone in Settings/Applications/Development.
- Disconnect the phone's USB cable, then reconnect it.
- The PC should report having found a new device, and bring up a wizard to ask you whether you want to install a driver. Cancel out of this wizard.
- Go into Device Manager (right click My Computer and select Manage), and find the phone under 'Unknown devices'. Right click on it and select Properties/Details. Note the two four-digit numbers after VID_ and PID_.
- Open the file C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf for editing.
- Add in an entry for the Nexus S, using the VID and PID revealed from the device manager. It should look like this:
; Google Nexus S
%SingleAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_XXXX&PID_YYYY
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_XXXX&PID_YYYY&MI_01
The values of XXXX and YYYY you should have noted down above in step 7.Now use the Device Manager to Update Driver for the phone, telling the wizard to search in the C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver folder.
In the Device Manager, the Nexus S should now move from 'Unknown devices' to 'Android Phone'.
Of course, for you any one of these steps might go wrong. However, even then I hope this blogpost might give you the clues you need to get to your goal.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
A Sign of the Times
No posts for weeks, and then three come along! This one's been on my mind for a while though.
We moved our wireless router recently. No longer sat on my desk, it's now attached to the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I'm moving room soon, which was the principle reason for moving it, but in any case it was becoming inconvenient to keep it there. Without noticing it happen, we now have no less than nine devices that connect to the internet by wi-fi: three computers, two mobile phones, two game consoles, a TV and even a printer.
When the router first arrived in our house, the Wi-Fi was almost an optional extra. The main PC plugged straight into it, and only my wife's laptop needed wireless. Slowly the creep began, driven more by manufacturers pushing wireless into their devices than by us seeking it out. Every time we upgrade a machine now, it seems that it comes with internet access.
All this is probably just the beginning, if the Internet of Things is to be believed. For now I'm just amused that our household routine has acquired a slight alteration after all these years: the last thing to do before bedtime is no longer checking the front door, it's making sure the router's turned off.
We moved our wireless router recently. No longer sat on my desk, it's now attached to the wall at the bottom of the stairs. I'm moving room soon, which was the principle reason for moving it, but in any case it was becoming inconvenient to keep it there. Without noticing it happen, we now have no less than nine devices that connect to the internet by wi-fi: three computers, two mobile phones, two game consoles, a TV and even a printer.
When the router first arrived in our house, the Wi-Fi was almost an optional extra. The main PC plugged straight into it, and only my wife's laptop needed wireless. Slowly the creep began, driven more by manufacturers pushing wireless into their devices than by us seeking it out. Every time we upgrade a machine now, it seems that it comes with internet access.
All this is probably just the beginning, if the Internet of Things is to be believed. For now I'm just amused that our household routine has acquired a slight alteration after all these years: the last thing to do before bedtime is no longer checking the front door, it's making sure the router's turned off.
Searching by Image
Google Images now lets you search by image instead of keywords. You can give it an image and it returns images that look similar, at least to its algorithms. I immediately put it to the test by giving it my mugshot from Stack Overflow. Hmm. Mostly women, with a few babies thrown in. It seems to be having more luck noticing that I'm wearing a black shirt than that I'm male.
Maybe it's because the photo I gave it has the top of my head cropped off? I try the mugshot from this blog. This time it successfully finds web articles containing that same photo, and also comes up with a few faces that do look vaguely like me. Not sure what Angelina Jolie's doing in there though.
Okay, clearly these are early days for this technology, but I applaud what they're trying to do. I look forward to the day when it's so reliable that it can spot family resemblances. That would make a useful complement to the Relative Finder in 23andMe. Another search engine I would like to see is one that let's you hum a few notes of a song and then tells you what it is. Targeted ads could include places to buy the song, or Singing Lessons if it thinks you're off tune.
Maybe it's because the photo I gave it has the top of my head cropped off? I try the mugshot from this blog. This time it successfully finds web articles containing that same photo, and also comes up with a few faces that do look vaguely like me. Not sure what Angelina Jolie's doing in there though.
Okay, clearly these are early days for this technology, but I applaud what they're trying to do. I look forward to the day when it's so reliable that it can spot family resemblances. That would make a useful complement to the Relative Finder in 23andMe. Another search engine I would like to see is one that let's you hum a few notes of a song and then tells you what it is. Targeted ads could include places to buy the song, or Singing Lessons if it thinks you're off tune.
Jazz FM Reaches Yorkshire
Spinning the stations dial on our DAB radio last night, I was delighted to find, lurking among the pop channels and the dubious attractions of the numerous Christian stations (who listens to all these?), a newcomer to the Yorkshire area: Jazz FM. Seems they went national in March, but this was the first I've heard of it.
I bought the radio back in early 2008 in order to listen to "theJazz", which dutifully went t*tsup a couple of months later. Since then I've mostly listened to Planet Rock, where music from my youth is played by DJs even older than me. And though I really enjoy Rock, I honestly wouldn't miss Heavy Metal, so Jazz FM will make a nice alternative refuge for me when I'm not in the mood for pounding, endless guitar solos.
It may also save me a bit of money, as I'd been wondering for a while if I could justify buying an Internet Radio in order to get access to Jazz again. The main thing that had held me back was not the price, but the enormous choice I would have been presented with. A simple decision like Planet Rock or Jazz FM I can cope with, but when the choice is pretty well every radio station on the planet, my listening pleasure might be ruined by the continual worry that there was something better on the next channel.
I bought the radio back in early 2008 in order to listen to "theJazz", which dutifully went t*tsup a couple of months later. Since then I've mostly listened to Planet Rock, where music from my youth is played by DJs even older than me. And though I really enjoy Rock, I honestly wouldn't miss Heavy Metal, so Jazz FM will make a nice alternative refuge for me when I'm not in the mood for pounding, endless guitar solos.
It may also save me a bit of money, as I'd been wondering for a while if I could justify buying an Internet Radio in order to get access to Jazz again. The main thing that had held me back was not the price, but the enormous choice I would have been presented with. A simple decision like Planet Rock or Jazz FM I can cope with, but when the choice is pretty well every radio station on the planet, my listening pleasure might be ruined by the continual worry that there was something better on the next channel.
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