Hot on the heels of IE7, Firefox 2.0 will be officially released in the next 24 hours, but it’s quietly slipped onto Mozilla’s servers already if you want to grab it now (though one rumour said nah, that’s just RC3).
Author Archives: daniel
Using old hardware: Win2K drivers in XP
How to get an old Canon scanner (which has no XP drivers) working in Windows XP: Use Win2000 scanner driver, but follow this procedure (on Canon’s German site, but written in English).
In summary you make sure the scanner is DISCONNECTED; then use the old Setup.exe to install the software; shut down the PC and THEN plug the scanner in. When you start the PC up again, it’ll detect the new hardware and — against all odds if you ask me — figure out that it matches the drivers you’ve already installed. After that you should be right to go.
It worked fine with my ancient FB-310, and it’s something to keep in mind with other hardware, too.
Australia’s new copyright laws
Kim Weatherall’s been tracking the new copyright laws in Australia. The bill has just been published, and oh, what a confusing mess.
Region coding and backup copies — Confusion reigns on this one.
Use of iPods to continue to be, technically, illegal.
Triffic.
Douglas Adams and Tom Baker in Hyperland
In this one-hour (50 minutes, actually) documentary produced by the BBC in 1990, Douglas falls asleep in front of a television and dreams about future time when he may be allowed to play a more active role in the information he chooses to digest. A software agent, Tom (played by Tom Baker), guides Douglas around a multimedia information landscape, examining (then) cuttting-edge research by the SF Multimedia Lab and NASA Ames research center, and encountering hypermedia visionaries such as Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson. Looking back now, it’s interesting to see how much he got right and how much he didn’t: these days, no one’s heard of the SF Multimedia Lab, and his super-high-tech portrayal of VR in 2005 could be outdone by a modern PC with a 3D card. However, these are just minor niggles when you consider how much more popular the technologies in question have become than anyone could have predicted – for while Douglas was creating Hyperland, a student at CERN in Switzerland was working on a little hypertext project he called the World Wide Web…
LANGUAGE: English
PUBLISHER: BBC
IE7 released
IE 7 is now available for download.
It’ll hit Windows Update in the next couple of weeks.
(via Malcolm)
PS. Friday morning: It’ll be starting to arrive via Windows Update by the start of November.
Firefox 3 ideas
With Firefox 2.0 almost out, Mozilla are asking for suggestions for version 3 via a Wiki page. But it looks like they still don’t “get” the corporate world — at one stage one subheading read: “More Bullshit vs. Less Bullshit”. Is that likely to convince any CIO that they should migrate their X thousand users over to Firefox?
Anyway, I wonder if this means they’ll look at my favourite 5 year old Title bug… Ah. Nope. Not before Firefox 3.0 (May 2007), would you believe. Hey, I’m not holding my breath.
Foxtel Scifi channel
Foxtel Australia to launch a sci-fi channel on December 1st. It’ll be interesting to see if they confine themselves to parent company (CBS Paramount, NBC Universal, Sony) shows, or if they look wider.
And will it be enough to convince more people to get cable TV? The sci-fi channel will be part of the My Escape package, meaning a minimum total monthly cost of A$51.90 if you want to see it.
(Me? I don’t watch much TV anyway. Somehow I suspect another X dozen channels aren’t going to change that…)
XP logon problems?
Is it just me who’s got problems with the Windows XP Welcome screen (friendly logon) in the last few days (perhaps since the last security update)? Firstly I note the presence of a language indicator next to the logon name; I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there before.
Secondly periodically the password box doesn’t work when I go to type in it. Clicking, typing, nothing works. Have to either restart the machine (thankfully possible via the mouse) to get it back, or Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get to a “classic” logon, which lets you in.
Weird.
Okay, it’s not just me. (Usenet thread)
PS. 28/11/2006: Another Usenet thread on this problem. Still no definite solution, though one suggested (unverified) is: regsvr32 shgina.dll
PS. 8/12/2006: The above register command doesn’t fix this problem.
PS. 13/12/2006: Some of the guys on the SysInternals forum have also noted this problem. No solution yet.
PS. 26/7/2007: Graham comments below that he’s found KB923191 appears to be the problem. But given this patches a critical security flaw, I’d rather live with the workaround.
Misc stuff
Cool links I’ve found recently:
Super (MOV to AVI conversion).
VB to Java converter. That is, it compiles VB6 code into a Java class. Latest update here. Q+A. (No, you can’t download it yet, they’re still working on it.)
Oh, guess who’s on about giving away Digital set top boxes again? Yup. I do like this argument, actually: It is not the Government’s job to champion new technology. It is the Government’s job to provide universal infrastructure and manage the task in a financially responsible way.
XML Notepad, which after a looooong time not being available, is back, and upgraded. (Requires the .Net Framework 2).
WTF?!
Google code search for “WTF”. Much amusement.
Some others (via Lauren):
Have iPods peaked?
You’ve probably heard of Peak Oil.
Have we also reached Peak iPod? MP3 functionality is now available in most mobile phones, and the bulk of people probably don’t particularly want to be carrying a separate music player around.
Meanwhile, there are suspicions that iPod shuffle isn’t totally random. Shades of the Tivo that thought its user was gay?
Vista and Visual Studio
Which Microsoft development environments will be supported in Windows Vista?
- SUPPORTED: VB 6 — ah, my old friend
- NOT SUPPORTED: Visual Studio .Net 2002
- NOT SUPPORTED: Visual Studio .Net 2003
- SUPPORTED, BUT WITH “COMPATIBILITY ISSUES”: Visual Studio .Net 2005
Good grief.
So, forcing the upgrade path for those older .Net versions? Or is it that they just can’t be bothered making it all work?
Meanwhile, Australian pricing for Vista is out. $751 for Vista Ultimate?! Yowch. Mind you, who really pays for a full version of Windows? Most people would be getting upgrades from previous versions, or OEM copies. Like Office, the full pricing is always exhorbitant.