It’s been long known that outdated computer equipment could have direct consequences for productivity, by slowing the workers down to the speed of their machinery. But a new survey concludes that it also has effects on morale in offices, causing not just unhappiness, but also more issues with things like eye fatigue, headaches and RSI.
(Hey boss, can I have a new PC?)
Customer vs Netspace in VCAT, after Netspace moved customers on “unlimited” plans to “Fair Go” (eg. not quite unlimited) plans. The customer won, though Netspace claims the case isn’t proven, because they failed to appear due to a mixup.
I’m a Netspace customer. I’ve found them to be pretty good, but I know of a few who disagree. What’s going to be more interesting is if this has ongoing effects for ISPs who change their ToS after customers signup.
If you’re just mucking about with IIS, you don’t really want to pay a CA to get a legit certificate, do you?
No, of course you don’t. Fortunately these guys have a freebie certificate generator. Mucho handy.
Just don’t even think about using it in production code.
Oh, and don’t get the page to email you the certificate to a mailbox you can only look at via Outlook. Outlook’s dumbarse “protecting you from shadows” attachment filter won’t let you at the CER certificate file that comes through.
Feel safe using Firefox and/or Mac OS X? Don’t. This article discusses recent research showing both are subject to a number of vulnerabilities. Not as many as poor ol’ Windows users using IE, but still enough that it’s wise to be wary.
Not to mention the issues in the various media players.
Original versions of Star Wars 4-6 to be released on DVD.
At last a chance for those people who still have their old VHS originals safely in storage, not even daring to pop them into a VCR for fear they wear out, to get shiny discs to replace them. Sounds like George Lucas got sick of being upstaged by all the pirated versions out there.
Windows XP users in some countries who use Windows Update have got a new tool on their machines: the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. Basically if it reckons your Windows installation isn’t legit, it’ll pipe up “This copy of Windows is not genuine. You may be a victim of software counterfeiting” on the logon screen, with similar messages appearing as popups at random times.
Could be irritating enough to get people to cough up. I’m sure it won’t be long before it’s hacked into submission, of course. Meanwhile Office is joining in with an Office Genuine Advantage verification being pilotted.
Ed Bott writes about Explorer Destroyer, a programme some Firefox fanatics have dreamed up to try and force people into dumping IE and using Firefox.
I’ll side with Ed on this. To deliberately degrade an IE user’s browsing experience is just the kind of thing FF supporters should be against.
And bear in mind that a significant number of web users aren’t in control of what browser’s on their desktop. They might be home users on a machine set up by a geek who don’t know how to change browsers… they might be corporate users who are using IE because of corporate policy… they might be in a Net cafe.
To my mind it’s just as ratty as, say, MS deciding to release some software for XP only, when there’s no technical reason it can’t run on Windows 2000. Screw the user, it’s all about market share at any cost.
As a contrast, here’s the WordPress mob’s campaign: BrowseHappy.
Not-quite-legal, not-quite-illegal site AllOfMP3 introduces the “AllTunes” music browser. ArsTechnica also reports on the current legal status of the service, which is not illegal in Russia due to a loophole in their copyright laws (which apply to physical media only), but is unlicenced.
We’ve got MySql problems here at Geekrant central.
MySQL said: Documentation
#1016 – Can’t open file: ‘wp_comments.MYI’ (errno: 145)
Doesn’t sound good, does it? The ISP is looking into it.
Nothing else seems to be AWOL, but I’ve taken a backup of everything just in case. Wouldn’t you know it, the backup I have of wp_comments isn’t particularly recent. Hopefully the ISP has a newer one, but if not, I’ve grabbed a bunch of comments via Newsgator’s cache. Gawd knows how I’d restore them though.
Update: Fixed. May I just say, the support guys at AussieHQ hosting are deadset legends.
Google goes after the Yahoo Geocities amateur page hosting business, with Google Page Creator. It includes a web-based AJAX-based WSYWIG page designer, themes that look remarkably Blogger-ish (no surprise I suppose) and hosting at googlepages.com.
In beta, natch.
Here’s the SQL to find which of your WordPress posts have the most comments:
SELECT wp_comments.comment_post_id, count(*) as commentcount, wp_posts.post_title, wp_posts.post_date FROM wp_comments, wp_posts
where wp_comments.comment_post_id = wp_posts.ID
group by wp_comments.comment_post_id, wp_posts.post_title, wp_posts.post_date
order by commentcount desc
Every parent must wonder when their kids get to computer-using age, about installing monitoring/pr0n-site blocking software. I’ve pondered it myself, but not gone down that road yet, since there’s other methods of avoiding nasties.
What I’ve done with my kids is to set them up with an account each on the computers, and set up their browsers (both IE and Firefox) with Google Safe Search turned on. It will stick if your browser is accepting cookies.
They’ve also been shown how to customise their accounts with their own wallpaper, colours, bookmarks/favourites etc, which is a motivation for them to properly logon as themselves when using the computers. Not that it’s hard with XP; just point at the name/face from the Logon/Switch User screen. (One of the two machines is Win2K, so no Switch User capability, but we survive.)
As an added bonus, their accounts are standard users, not Admin, preventing them downloading and installing software. My account has a password, but theirs don’t (surprised they haven’t objected to that actually).
They’ve been taught not to download programs without permission anyway. Through the school internet policy they know to close any browser window/tell an adult if they see anything “making them uncomfortable”.
And I’ve taken the advice that a wise man once told me: while Net Nanny etc have their uses, nothing beats the kids being educated in what they should and shouldn’t be looking at, and placing the computers in a public, visible part of the house, rather than tucked away in a back room.