Author Topic: A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own  (Read 296560 times)

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Will whatever it is that has decided to start Internet Explorer at system startup kindly stop it?
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

woollypigs

  • Mr Peli
    • woollypigs
Funny how ISP and IP's work. Installed wordfence on my blog, which can email you if various things happens on your wordpress installation. Depending on which IP my ISP have given me, I either reside in Manchester or Leeds :)

Current mood: AARRRGGGGHHHHH !!! #bollockstobrexit

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Yes, I periodically get an advert telling me that there are girls in Bracknell looking for podgy bald 50-something year old like me.

Seems a long way to go.
Presumably, there are enough podgy bald 50-something year olds in Bracknell to keep them happy.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Presumably, there are enough podgy bald 50-something year olds in Bracknell to keep them happy.

Isn't there an IRC channel for that?  ;)


Ob-xkcd:


Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Presumably, there are enough podgy bald 50-something year olds in Bracknell to keep them happy.
Isn't there an IRC channel for that?  ;)
;D

Mr Larrington

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I have made VLC stop turning everything into a silent movie :thumbsup:
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Mr Larrington

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The Win 7 box, on the other hand, is being obstreperous.  At 1 this morning it had installed 124 of its 218 updates.  It's been doing #125 for eight hours.  This I find unreasonable.  Will the world come to an end if the mains lead "accidentally" fell out (run time on batteries being about thirty seconds)?
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Mr Larrington

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The power cable "falling out" has had some interesting consequence:

  • Instant power-off
  • Subsequent restart sitting there for a long time "configuring system" or similar nonse
  • Deciding it couldn't so rolling back to 2009 (I think)
  • Starting apparently normally and, instead of the ninety-odd updates I expected, wanting to install a massive two

It'll probably remember the other 88 in the middle of the night, and catch fire.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Mr Larrington

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Did I say 88?  What I of course meant was 205 :o
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

woollypigs

  • Mr Peli
    • woollypigs
ha! The NHS appointment reminder email subject line is :  SQL Server Message
Current mood: AARRRGGGGHHHHH !!! #bollockstobrexit

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Power off again in mid not-update.  Restart, install offending update manually.  Improbably this works.  Tell it to install the rest of the updates.  Lack-of-progress bar shuttles across the window lackadaisically and then stops.  Tell it to reboot.  Installing update 164 of 178 it says.  I think it is lying but who knows?  I will keep an eye on it.  I really don't want to nuke the W7 install and start again and not just because I don't think it'll help.

Bah!
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

I find it irritating when programmer-speak is allowed to leak out to the user interface. Companies should really not let their programmers write stuff to be read by the public without it being checked by a normal person. Not least because of the high level of dyslexia amongst coders.

Things like the online banking screen that says: "Error: Bad Format or out of range or Two Decimal Digits missing" when you try to enter a whole number of pounds.

The oddest is the Vitality insurance page where it gives you points for activities.

"Cycling Base Point Event: >=30 mins AND <60 mins"

Srsly? Boolean operators and relational signs used as they would in a programming language? What's wrong with the clearer and much shorter "30-60 minutes cycling"?
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Mr Larrington

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Slowly whittling down the pile of outstanding updates to the point where I can check whether I actually need them.  Remote desktop?  Nope.  Printing?  Nope.  Proper rendering of the currency symbol for the rouble?  Nyet.

But soft!  What is this?  You want me to install Windows 10?

Fuck

Right

Off

 >:(
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Mr Larrington

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So after all that I tried Airfoil Speakers again.

Did it work?  No.  No, it did not.  Arses!

Fortunately Plan C, in the shape of an eBay Airport Express, is on its way.  I may as well install Windows 10, just for laffs.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

mcshroom

  • Mushroom
I installed Windows 10 overnight on Saturday and other than forgetting my network printer existed it went ok
Climbs like a sprinter, sprints like a climber!

ian

Finally getting rid of ye olde version of Illustrator. I'm not paying the subscription for CC. Been tinkering with Affinity Designer and it ticks all the boxes with a nice, clean UI that's not too far removed from the old beast but without the bloat. It doesn't make me draw any better though, which is disappointing.

Mr Larrington

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Windows 10 seems little different from Windows 7 on the Eeeeee-Bah-Gum PC, in that Airfoil Speakers still doesn't work >:(  And the postie tried to deliver the Airport Express while I nipped out to Mr Sainsbury's House Of Toothy Comestibles.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Just went into the other room to hear an odd chanting:

four-point-one-plus-seven-point-two-minus-ten-point-one  etc etc.

It's junior#2, doing maths homework.
Where we might have typed the arithmetic into a calculator, he's talking it to Siri.

Mr Larrington

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Trying to get rid of the XP partition on the Stupid Laptop appears to have b0rked the whole thing.  Bah >:(
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Mr Larrington

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Ten hours later and it's just hit the 12% mark for installing W10.  Together with one of the NAS boxes having a twitch and reinventing itself with a different IP address and the odd backup dying on its arse means it has been a long night chiz.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Just went into the other room to hear an odd chanting:

four-point-one-plus-seven-point-two-minus-ten-point-one  etc etc.

It's junior#2, doing maths homework.
Where we might have typed the arithmetic into a calculator, he's talking it to Siri.

Living in the future!

My generation might type it into a computer and the previous generationish would have used calculators to make their elders tut "young'uns etc" ;)

But talking to computers, that IS wrong </getting old>

Mr Larrington

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A further ten hours into the process after discovering that this time round Win 10 said "800x600 - take it or uninstall me".  Just finished Win 7 SP1 install and will let it do Win 10 in its own good time rather than trying to force the issue with a USB stick.  Bored now.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Larrers, the 800x600 thing just means the win10 update couldn't find a better video driver.

If your hardware is anything like contemporary mainstream, you can download and apply a proper driver after the update has happened.
That will include all nVidia and ATI from living memory, and most chipset embedded Intel too.

If you have something like a Matrox G200 from yesteryear, you're fsckd.
Either change the card, or revert to Win95 :-)

Mr Larrington

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Larrers, the 800x600 thing just means the win10 update couldn't find a better video driver.

Bum.  Stupid Win 10.  Though when it did the upgrade by itself it was, like, totes able to have the screen at the same resolution it had before.  Stupid Microsith.

I think the video wossnames are Intel and it's a 2009-vintage Asus EeePC so I would expect bignums of them still in the wild.
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Mr Larrington

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This post comes from ye olde EeePC, aka "Spencer The Halfwit", running a barebones install of Windows 10 :thumbsup:
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime