artiss.blog

Category: Life

Random thoughts on life

  • Removing “My Bluetooth Places” desktop icon

    Having just installed some new Bluetooth software, I was left with a “My Bluetooth Places” icon on my desktop. And you can’t delete it as you would with other icons.

    But there are two methods of getting rid of it (these apply to Windows XP)…

    1. Use Tweak UI – under the “Desktop” you can untick the “My Bluetooth Places” icon.
    2. Use the “Clean Desktop” option…
    • Right click on your desktop and select “Properties”.
    • Select the “Desktop” tab and click on the “Customise Desktop” button.
    • Click the “Clean Desktop” button at the bottom, click “Next” and select “My Bluetooth Places” in the list that appears.
    • Click “Next” again and then “Finish”.
    • The icon will be moved to it’s own “unused icons” folder on the desktop which can now be deleted.
  • The iPhone 4 – We may or may not recommend it

    The iPhone 4 – We may or may not recommend it

    The iPhone 4, evolutionary rather than revolutionary, has had users reporting signal strength problems since its launch. It continues to sell well, despite what appears a big flaw and Apple refusing to be helpful.

    Let’s have a quick run down of what’s happened since the iPhone 4 launch on the 24th June.

    (more…)

  • Weekend PC Woes

    Over the weekend I took the opportunity to upgrade my PC to make it a bit more energy efficient and quieter. The rubbish generic PSU was replaced by a higher spec branded model and the graphics card was removed, so the on-board GPU would take over instead.

    Now, what then went wrong I don’t know. But after this the ethernet refused to work  (sadly its built into the motherboard) and, a few reboots later, I was getting reports of corrupt system files.  And what else might now be failing?

    Which has given me the excuse to replace my PC after all these years – it was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth and for a dedicated geek, my insistence of hanging onto Windows XP was looking a bit suspect.

    It’s now been ordered, and I’ve ordered some extra goodies as well (I need an HDMI to DVI converter to be able to connect the new PC to my monitor and I’ve also ordered a SATA dock for easily copying my old drive). To keep with the quiet, efficient theme, I’ve order a Dell Zino HD.

    Initially, I was looking at the basic model but with an HD and memory upgrade (1TB and 4GB respectively). However, after finding some benchmarks for the 2 available processors, I decided to upgrade this – the basic processor is an AMD 3250e, with a passmark score of 824, compared to the AMD 6850e with a score of 1911.

    But, I was curious – they also let you “spec up” a more advanced model, which already many of the upgrades that I was after. As it turned out, £70 more will get you a Blu-Ray drive, 6GB memory, a separate graphics card (rather than the on-board model) and wireless. I can see how Dell manage to get more money out of the customer, as I plumped for this!

    It also runs Windows 7 64-bit, so I can now look forward to finding out which hardware doesn’t work with it 😉

    As soon as it turns up, expect a thorough review!

  • The Influence Project

    What is your influence? If you decided to spread some information on the internet, how well do you think you’d do?

    Well, the “Influence Project“, set up by Fast Company (a popular business magazine) is aiming to answer that.

    We started with a simple question: Who are the most influential people online right now?

    That’s what The Influence Project is designed to answer. By participating, you will have your picture appear in the November issue of Fast Company magazine as part of an amazing photo spread. The more influence you demonstrate, the bigger your picture will be.

    You may discover that you’re more influential than you think.

    Influence is not only about having the most friends or followers. Real influence is about being able to affect the behavior of those you interact with, to get others in your social network to act on a suggestion or recommendation. When you post a link or recommend a site, how many people actually bother to check it out? And what’s the likelihood of those people then forwarding it on? How far does your influence spread?

    This is the type of influence we’re looking for. We want to find the most influential person online.
    Who knows? It might even be you.

    To get started you simply go to their site, sign up (either the old fashioned way or via your Facebook account), and then pass around the URL that’s generated for you – the more people use it, the more influence you’re given.

  • PC security for the new user

    I’ve always been a believer that new computer users should get themselves a good manual or enrol on a course – just ask the resident family “computer expert” how many times they’ve had to bail out a family member who’s badly infected their PC through not knowing what they were doing – “But it said I’d won an iPod?”.

    And forums, often providing a a potential solution to the c0mputer user having problems, can just makes worse. On one such forum, it is often visited by professional and amateurs alike. One of their most striking (and annoying to me) recommendations is for people to ditch commercial anti-virus products for the free equivalents and to generally make the amateur PC user feel worried that their security is at constant risk.

    Lets cover that anti-virus recommendation first of all. It’s rubbish. The free equivalents are not as good as the full price equivalents – if you can afford the commercial version, buy it. The free one should be reserved for those poor enough that they can’t afford anything else.

    And making them feel paranoid about security means that many talk about turning off cookies and JavaScript, expecting either to be introducing vulnerabilities to their computer. And the result? Well, one user had problems after installing the latest updates to Firefox. In their response they said…

    I try very hard to follow advice on this board so far as anti-virus and stuff goes. Norton and McAfee are no-nos.

    I run SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, Security essentials, CrapCleaner, Spyware Blaster and Sunbelt personal firewall.

    So, Norton and McAfee are “no-nos”. Great.

    And, then, look at that list of software – yep, they’re running a full security program (Microsoft Security Essentials) along with an additional firewall (Sunbelt Personal Firewall) and 3 additional Antispyware products. Wow. But, hey, they’re all free.

    And it took a few replies before anybody suggested that maybe, just maybe, it was this combination of clashing software that might have been causing the Firefox problems (which they promptly rejected, uninstalled Firefox, installed Opera and then complained that didn’t work either).

    My recommendation – one, commercial, complete security solution (spyware, anti-virus, firewall). Don’t listen to those who say “Don’t buy Norton, your system will grind to a halt”. Yep, old message – the latest versions are much better at keeping resources low.

    In fact, Norton Internet Security 2010 is the package I’d recommend. You can get a 1 PC licence for under £11 and £28 for user on 3 computers – hardly a bank  breaker.