I looked at a weird Windows problem this afternoon. IE would start, work for a minute or two, then die. The XP Home crash monitor would then itself crash. Trying to download anti-spyware programs (or anything) would result in a cannot-access-file message. Outlook Express would close after variable amounts of time and errors, and everything but the mouse would freeze up for minutes before coming back to life. Some programs worked ok, but others would fail to load, or die on entry.

Normally I’d say this was hard drive related, but the computer never actually crashed, just kept doing weird stuff. It just didn’t feel like hardware. Which meant spyware. I couldn’t see anything weird in task manager, but when said program closed itself I decided it was the likely cause. Only spyware kills task manager, and a scan in safe mode did indeed find a large amount. Spybot removed it all, but the problems persisted. I also noticed that the Local Settings / Temp folder was full of hundreds of files that I couldn’t delete, but that no program seemed to be using.

Eventually I googled the download error message and things began to fall into place. A common cause was apparently a temp folder with broken NTFS permissions. I created a new user and had no problems at all, so this diagnosis seemed likely. However, this being XP Home, there’s no way to check the permissions¹. Unless you hack it. Which I did.

Some nutty piece of spyware, I’m guessing, had altered the NTFS permissions so that only System could access the temp directory. Resetting them fixed the problems.

Interesting one. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten the exact error message, so am unlikely to be much help to Googlers.

1. to be fair there’s probably some command-line utility of which I’m unaware [↩]

GCalSync synchronizes your mobile phone calendar with your Google Calendar, allowing both uploads and downloads. It’s a small java app download direct to the phone, and only takes a few seconds to set up. Unfortunately it doesn’t work on my 7610 - no apps are allowed access to my calendar data, it seems - but the idea’s great nevertheless.

Flickr launched a major revamp earlier today. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but naturally it doesn’t work properly with Opera. Google Notebook also launched today, with no Opera support. This is getting a little silly. Gmail, Google Calendar, Flickr, del.icio.us…Opera has problems with all of them. I still think it’s the most well-designed browser around, with by far the best interface, but if the rendering engine doesn’t improve dramatically then there’s going to be no choice but to switch to Firefox. Judging by the weeklies, Opera 9 has a long way to go if it’s to catch up.

Speaking of which, is there some build of Firefox that comes with the most useful extensions? I can’t believe I still have to trawl through the archive to get mouse-gestures and proper tab support, not to mention greasemonkey etc…

Microsoft has recently been forced to update Internet Explorer, to the detriment of its users. A patent ruling has resulted in users having to click a button before any ‘plug-in’ content can be loaded on a website. This is annoying as hell. Visit onegoodmove in an up-to-date IE6 and you’ll see what I mean. It’s the first time I can see a reason for average users to switch to Firefox¹.

By ‘average user’, I mean somebody with little knowledge of software or hardware. They want to use the internet just like they want to use Word or Excel - they have no time or interest in learning their way around computers. I think this represents a huge number of people, and they shall go collectively by the name ‘Joe Sushi’ in this post. I’ve arbitrarily decided that he’s a he. No slight should be inferred, it’s just neater than writing s/he all the time.

Why should people switch to Firefox? The first argument is security. This has never really convinced me, because I’ve found that Joe Sushi is wary of anything that says ‘you must update your software’. His first thought is ‘it’s working fine at the moment, thanks, and how do I know you’re not just going to download a virus?’. Although you could argue that Internet Explorer has had more security issues², both Firefox and IE need updating on a regular basis. When security issues are found, Firefox and MS release patches in the same amount of time. Old versions of Firefox and IE are both vulnerable to security problems, and once Joe Sushi becomes aware enough of the value of keeping his browser up-to-date, the security argument becomes far less convincing. Sure, IE problems are likely to be more prominent - a virus could circulate a URL that exploits an IE vulnerability and infects your computer - but is this likely? The chances of this happening to any given individual are very slim, and I think they’re outweighed by the advantages in IE’s favour.

IE, for all its flaws and rendering issues, is the browser standard to which all websites must comply. Almost every website in the world will work fine with IE, and this is the killer feature. Yes, Firefox’s rendering engine is excellent, but it has problems with plenty of websites that look fine in IE. Sure, this is normally the result of bad page design, but Joe Sushi doesn’t care. Many online banks demand IE because it’s far easier to comply with one browser than the myriad available, and they have to pay technical support staff to answer phones. Joe Sushi just wants a website that works. Somebody with a little knowledge of browsers will switch to IE for that particular site, but is Joe Sushi going to want to do that? Of course not. Do you want to tell him why he should juggle two different programs when one seems to work fine?

The basic Firefox package is essentially an IE6 clone, with tabs. Joe Sushi doesn’t care about extensions (or tabs, for that matter), he just wants to browse the net as he always has. Firefox provides an Internet Explorer not made by Microsoft, but, to to Joe Sushi’s eyes, it’s inferior. IE is also integrated into Windows (for better or worse) and many programs are hard-coded to run IE when launching a URL. This is indeed rather silly, but there’s no way around it.

However, IE has never annoyed Joe Sushi before. Clicking a pop-up button, with associated beep, gets old very quickly. A large number of sites will be affected, too. IE7 should fix the majority of IE6’s problems, but this issue may remain if MS can’t overturn the court ruling³. It’d be nicer if software patents were scrapped outright, given that they inhibit practically all innovation, but I can’t see that happening. I should think IE’s annoyance factor will win Firefox a few converts.

Interestingly, an MS spokesman says:

This is not an issue just for IE…This is a potential issue for Netscape Navigator, for Opera and for other browser vendors. This is an industry issue.

Netscape Navigator? As long as they’re keeping up with the times. However, I’d bet that nobody’s going to sue the Mozilla foundation, or Opera. MS is where the money is, after all.

1. I’ve deliberately used Firefox as an example because I think it’s designed as a direct IE replacement, especially in the default download. Much of the above applies to Opera etc. too [↩]
2. and this may have more to do with the number of people looking for exploits, rather than inherent security problems, although this is a contentious topic [↩]
3. there may be ways for website designers to bypass the issue, but older sites will still suffer [↩]

Windows has a built in screensaver that purports to show random photos from the My Pictures folder, and the Google Pack contains something similar. Neither seem to work very well, though. Google’s in particular seems to iterate through folders in a regular order, and despite having 10,000 photos I see the same shots on a regular basis - there are whole directories that are never touched. According to my parents the Microsoft version is the same.

I know that true random numbers aren’t really do-able by microprocessors. But there must be at least a faux system that’s appropriate in this case, surely? Google’s screensaver always shows me images from the root directory first - that can’t be the result of problems with random number selection. Are there any random photo screensavers out there that at least give the appearance of being random?

Google today released a free version of SketchUp, the before-now-$600 3D modelling program. It’s fun. Here’s a house I want:

Never mind the pool, tunnel and space elevator: death slide, baby!

The program itself is far easier to use than any other 3D program I’ve ever tried. Hell, if I figured it out it must be simple - I normally give up in frustration after trying to build a square and ending up with non-Euclidean geometric primitives. The built-in tutorials are very helpful, too.

You can’t go inside the houses, so it’s not much use as an interior design program, but for exterior house modelling it’s certainly interesting. It fully supports real dimensions, and you can use your own textures, so it should be possible to create very accurate replicas of buildings. Google are touting the built-in Google Earth links, which let you create a 3d version of your house for display in GE, although I don’t find this as exciting as does the SketchUp website You can download (and upload) models from an online warehouse, so if you ever wondered what the White House would look like with monkey-army-deterring turrets in the front garden, now’s your chance.

You know what’d be great? An exporter into Second Life You could rapidly construct a mansion in Sketchup, then do all the interior design inside SL.

Sorry this isn’t terribly in-depth, I’m just heading out to dancing.

The BBC breaking news alert thingy just popped up. Either something is going on that is beyond comprehension, or there’s a BBC employee banging his/her head into the desk right now

I never used Google Talk much. I played around for while when it was first released, but there was little to distinguish it from other instant messaging programs. Everybody I knew was using MSN (a fair few having migrated from ICQ), and I didn’t need the voice calls feature, so after a few weeks of sitting idle in my system tray it was ditched.

Roll on six months and there’ve been improvements. And I’m now finding it pretty good. Firstly there’s the integration with Gmail, which allows quick chats from the browser interface, as well as very easy configuration of ‘friends’ - anybody with a gmail account can be added in one click - that stays in sync with the desktop client. Chat histories are now saved automatically into Gmail (unless you hit the ‘off the record’ button) and are fully searchable, which comes in surprisingly handy when you’re looking for a URL somebody told you, for example. A big thing for me is that GT will also now integrate nicely with my Google Desktop sidebar, meaning I can see who is online at a glance and start a chat with one click.

My favourite feature is quite a small thing, however (and, to be fair, was there at the start). Whenever you don’t have the chat window in focus, the most recent message will pop up at the bottom of the screen for a second or two. It’s amazing how useful this is. If somebody is only saying “back in 2 mins”, it saves the break in activity that would normally result from switching to the chat window. It’s a little feature, but really helps.

There’s a new version (which doesn’t seem to be official as yet, so you may want to wait edit: now officially released) available which adds small avatars, as well as very simple themes for chat windows. The avatars somehow manage not to get in the way, although can be disabled, and add a splash of colour to the otherwise clean-yet-slightly-dull interface. Rolling the mouse over a contact now displays their information in the same way as Gmail, too.

I don’t think it would replace MSN, as I transfer files regularly and make the odd video call, but for everyday chatting I think it works very well. Fast, neat, useful and ad-free. This makes me happy.

This looks very interesting…The guy has bundled every hardware driver he can find into ‘DriverPacks’ for graphics cards, storage devices etc. and configured them for the purposes of slipsteaming a Windows XP install. I’d like to know whether it’s compatible with a BartPE CD, as that would immediately become the most useful boot CD in the world. Via digg.

The recently-released beta of IE7 is apparently ‘layout complete’, which means websites should render as they will in the final release (barring any major bugs, presumably). wongaBlog looks fine, and the text-just-not-appearing-sometimes IE6 bug is fixed - woohoo! Fun new features include (full list here):

• Tabbed browsing - I’ve found it’s impossible to explain this to people without it sounding like, well, Windows. They just have to try it to see the advantages
• Alpha-channel PNGs (a type of image that allows transparency at full colour depths - try this page in IE6 and Opera/Firefox/IE7 to see what I mean)
• CSS updates and fixes - just don’t get me started on IE6’s CSS problems
• RSS support and a reader - this should be great at bringing feeds to the average user
• Printing that works - it’ll resize to the paper, apparently(!)
• Generally improved security (including ActiveX opt-in)

Unfortunately, IE7 overwrites IE6 on install. Whether you use Firefox, Opera, or whatever, you’ll know that sometimes you just have to run IE6 to get some broken site working properly. I can’t really afford to lose IE6 access, so this is a problem. It turns out that there is a way around it, but it takes a little setup. Using instructions from here, I did the following:

1. Downloaded the IE7 Setup file
2. Extracted the contents (using WinRAR)
3. Created an ‘ie7launch.bat’ file as described on the site

Running ie7launch.bat launches IE7 in a ’self-contained’ mode, and the batch file clears up all registry entries after it’s closed. It’s awkward, but far preferable to losing IE6 altogether, imho.

Lifehacker pointed me towards a fun program called Desktop Earth. It dynamically changes your desktop wallpaper with a picture of the Earth from space at that moment, combining the wonderful Blue Marble: Next images with City Lights. You can download the latest cloud data (right click on the icon for this option, as it’s not in the main preferences panel). I’ve set mine to update every five minutes. Very cool.

Don’t know how impressed my relatives in Australia will be, mind You can set it to display the full globe, with black bars at the top and bottom. My desktop is unusually tidy because of the recent reinstall, btw.

My sister sent me an invite to the Windows Live Messenger Beta (the next version of MSN Messenger) and I now have ~40 invites of my own. If you want one, let me know in the comments or via email. New features include:

• Offline messaging (finally! ICQ had this back when we still lived in trees)
• Shared folders, allowing easy file swapping
• A slightly revamped look and feel

In case you’re wondering, I am indeed in a slight dry patch work-wise

Last weekend I decided I needed some kind of budgeting software. I could make a spreadsheet, but I know me and my laziness and can be pretty sure that wouldn’t work. I looked on the moneysavingexpert.com forums and the program that came out on top was Microsoft Money. They all seemed to like it, and even those with their own spreadsheets were often planning to move the data into the 2005 version. It definitely seemed to be the one to go for.

You can buy and download MS Money directly from the MS website, but only if you’re in the US. Also, there are different software releases for the US and the UK, so ordering from a US online store wouldn’t work. No UK sites allow downloads, and the 90-day trial expired back in October. On Tuesday I was about to drive to PC World and pick up a copy at £18.99, but then decided I’d avoid rush hour by waiting until Wednesday. By then the price had dropped to £12.49, which was nice I installed it last night and have spent a good few hours inputting all my data and configuring the program.

A major advantage of MS Money is that it can import online statements. If the bank offers transaction data in QIF or OFX formats the software will automatically detect the download and insert the data into the appropriate account. My HSBC bank account supports this, although Egg does not. Still, it saved me a lot of time. I categorised each payment / deposit from the past two months, then set up a budget and with some trepidation calculated my financial forecast for the next few months.

Hmmm. With my computer-repair income I’m just afloat currently, providing I stick rigidly to the budget¹, and that’s without any kind of saving for the future. At least I know that I can’t afford another 512mb of ram right now
The software is quite impressive, although I think it could do with a printed manual. Switching between a .pdf user guide and the main screen is a pain, and it’s easy to lose your place. I’ve got my savings and current accounts all set up, plus my two credit cards and a ‘cash’ account for tracking ATM withdrawals. Every scrap of money I have is accounted for, which is great for an overall picture. There certainly seems to be room for expansion, with panels for ‘investments’, ‘debt reduction plans’, ‘life events’ etc.

The only problem I’m having is getting it to forecast credit card payments in advance. I seem to have to insert them manually, which is weird considering it knows the current balance, plus statement and payment dates. I’m probably not understanding it correctly, though.

I think MS Money is an excellent investment for me, as I hate not having a grip on my finances.

1. until I get a part-time job, anyway [↩]

For more than a year I’ve been coming across a problem with Windows XP, USB drives and mapped network drives. Each computer here has four mapped network drives, which are assigned the letters F:, G:, H: and I:. When I plug in a USB key Windows tries to assign F:, fails and gives up. Disconnecting the network drive and reinserting the key (or going into device manager and hitting ‘populate’) was the only way to fix it, and this was tiresome. However, it’s one of those problems that you forget about as soon as you’ve solved it.

I finally remembered to look up a solution today, and there isn’t one. The official Microsoft response says that you should use as high letters as possible for mapped network drives. I’ve moved them to W: onwards, and the USB key can now happily use F:.

The problem apparently occurs with all types of removable media, so hopefully somebody will find this useful.

Btw, Wordpress 2.0 is out. Looks very interesting - I’ll most likely have a play with it tomorrow. Not sure whether I’ll be able to resist the temptation up upgrade, mind…The site may break for a while!