I have to tell you that Windows 7 is a triumph for me and all the little Vista quirks such as losing Wifi after a Hibernate and the UAC aggravation have disappeared. In addition I love the interface and I am not looking forward to downgrading back to Vista when the RC expires.

However, as Windows 7 was developed directly from Vista and the experience and feedback of all the early Vista adopters has been instrumental in making Windows 7 the quality OS that it clearly is, don't you think it would be a nice gesture for Microsoft to offer all their loyal Vista users a free upgrade to Windows 7 in recognition of all the free support they have had from the Vista community?

Once the corporate lads move en masse to Windows 7 (and they will) Microsoft will clean up anyway and it's always nice to spread good fortune around, don't you think? I await my serial key with anticipation, but without holding my breath
 
Jeff Annely

Posted by dgriffin on June 3, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Is this the end of the World as we know it? Forget the Credit Crunch and Global Warming - life has suddenly taken a nosedive into total chaos:

Google has stopped working! Right now, the search engine is listing every website - INCLUDING ITS OWN - as a source of Malware, marking each found link with the phrase: "This site may harm your computer"

If this isn't sorted out real soon, I can envisage one enormous class action lawsuit arising shortly once some of the larger US corporate webmasters realise that Big G is publicly badmouthing their websites!

Curiously, it seems that SPONSORED LINKS are IMMUNE to these warnings!

Is this what Google has finally come to? You have to PAY them in order to get a clean bill of health for your website? I just knew there had to be a catch somewhere ...

So much for SaaS and our growing reliance on on-line services: I think I'll disconnect from the Web and get on with some productive work with some of my lovely shrink-wrap applications, like in the good old days!

Brian D Steel

Posted by dgriffin on February 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (1)

I read the article, "Repairing damaged CDs", in the March edition and it set me thinking. I had an XP Home CD that had been damaged by a faulty drive, leaving two scratches along the line of the data track quite close to the outside edge of the CD.  As a result I couldn't use this as an install disc.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained I resolved to try your fix.  Not having any of the suggested chemicals to hand I found a bottle of the old fashioned pink 'Windolene' which has a fine abrasive in it.  Using this I had a working CD, checked and verified by ISOBuster, in under 5 minutes.

A tip for using the Windolene: spread out a thick layer of newspaper and place a sheet of A4 printer paper on top and onto this pour a (small) puddle of Windolene. The paper will quickly absorb most of the liquid, leaving you with a thicker paste that is much easier and quicker to use.

The chemicals did no visible damage to the CD but just to be sure I copied it to a new one, slipstreaming in Service Pack 3 at the same time - now I'm prepared for anything!

Many thanks for your tip.

Bob Fearnley

Posted by dgriffin on February 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Roy Frear (vol32 no.3) was looking for a 'modern Basic' that he can use; you seldom seem to cover less mainstream software which is often far better suited for purpose. Can I trumpet a completely unsolicited voluntary for BBC basic for Windows? This has been kept alive and well and totally up to date by Richard Russell at http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/

For a very modest price, good support and easy access to a good user forum, I can't believe that it won't be able to do what your writer wants.

In the same vein you cover mainstream accounting packages, I endorse
VTtransaction+ which can currently be downloaded free from:
www.vtsoftware.co.uk. This is a straight forward accounting package which is entirely adequate for running business accounts and which will integrate seamlessly with a full blown accountants management package.

Also a good solid mail server for a small network called VPOP3 from http://www.pscs.co.uk/ (Paul Smith Computer Services), it works, you can bolt on a spam filter which also works and hierarchically sorts mail for you, similarly you can bolt on anti-virus software to vet incoming mail.

I found these three through trial and error against bigger branded products. I commend them as three British programs worthy of promotion - the do what they say on the box . . .

Thanks

Paul Hooper

Posted by dgriffin on February 2, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The following describes the actual process for installing Norton Internet Security 2009:

• Insert CD
• CD Autoruns - Installshield starts installation of Realtek AC'97 Audio Driver.  Can't believe my eyes so insert CD again but, yes, it does start installing the audio driver.
• Browse to the Setup.exe file, double click and enter the Product key.  After a while an error message is displayed stating that a vital dll has not been installed.
• Down load the SymFix_1002-1 fix from Norton.  Have to restart PC.  Installation continues, but have to enter Product key again.  Hallelujah!  Installation reports that there is less than a minute to go.  Progress bar reports that it is "Collecting Error logs- Please wait".  At least it is polite!  45 minutes later it looks like the process has frozen but then the installation fails.  It states that a clean up operation had been carried out on the PC and recommends a retry of the installation process.
• Installation continues but have to enter the Product key again.  Feel like I should know it by heart now.  By now it is 1 AM so leave it overnight.  Same thing happens with the installation failing.
• Download the Norton Removal tool.  The Knowledge base warns that WinFax data should be backed up and that it will also remove the Norton SystemWorks on my PC.
• Run the Norton Removal tool.  It finds the Winfax program and stops.  I have to uninstall Winfax manually.
• Rerun Installation, enter Product key again!  We get back to Collecting Error logs.   My heart sinks. Yep - the installation still fails.
• So far I have gone from an working system although with an expired Subscription to a system with no AV protection, no WinFax and no Systemworks. 
• I consult the Symantec Knowledge Base.  There were no relevant items although there was one which related to a failure to install on an HP Laptop under HP Recovery Manager (I don't have either).  This required that the NortonInstaller folder be deleted.  There is nothing to lose so I decided to rename this folder and retried installation.  A miracle occurs, Norton Internet Security installs! 

Surely Norton must have tried installing over a previous version?  That cannot be such an unlikely scenario.  Even their "nuclear" tool which removes all trace of any Norton installation fails to work properly. 

I had sworn never to use their products again but having seen several very favourable reviews I weakened.  What a mistake.  Now all I have to do is reinstall all my other Symantec applications.  The one minute installation has now taken about 5 hours and resulted in the loss of several clumps of hair/beard.

Alec Bowman

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on December 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (6)

I have just bought a copy of Nero 9 and was surprised to find it delivered in a cornflake sized box.

Like cornflakes, the box was mostly air and contained only the ubiquitous dvd clamshell-style case. Donning my anorak and with abacus & ruler in hand, I calculated the software took up a mere 15% of the box - 85% of the packaging was wasted!

I know the argument that software vendors have to compete for valuable shelf space etc. but I bought the product mail order from Amazon and I have seen it on the shelves at PC World in a much smaller box. During a quick scan of my local computer store, I noticed lots of the software products on display were wrapped in only the minimum packaging. So it
can be done.

Nero claim over 300 million units in worldwide use -  so reducing profligate packaging would make sound economic sense as well as helping to save the planet - a win-win situation if ever I saw one.

Anthony Beken

Posted by Kelvyn Taylor on December 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Your otherwise fine nostalgia-fest "History of PC Games" feature (PCW April 2008) barely mentioned the text games that were so popular in the early 80s.

Back in the days when graphics cards were unknown, Ram was 640KB, operating systems and applications were loaded by floppy disk, the internet barely existed outside the military and monitors were monochrome and text-only.

Back in 1980, when I was working for a metropolitan authority that shall remain nameless, the playing of text games, particularly Zork and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was endemic amongst us grunt workers  to counter the sheer bureaucratic ennui of our daily existence.

They were gripping, required us to use our imaginations, and were often fiendishly difficult - I still remember with pride being one of only three people to finish Hitchhiker's Guide after what must have been hundreds of hours' of play over a year.

Their best advantage, though, was that because they were text our bosses thought we were beavering away at word processing or data entry, a luxury modern cubefarm drones no longer have in the days of high-quality 3D graphics.

I mourn the demise of text games which, like a good book compared to a multi-million dollar film, require you to use your imagination rather than bludgeoning your senses with whizz-bang special effects. They also ran on the lowest spec PCs, required no graphics cards, needed no motor skills other than typing, and you could learn how to play them in minutes.

I hope that, one day, gamers will return to the technical simplicity but narrative complexity of text games, and that new titles will be produced by writers with imagination. And if this ever happens, I hope and pray that a sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide is one of the first to emerge.

Fred Riley

Posted by Will Stapley on April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the news article "German beats wartime Colossus on Nazi decrypt" (PCW April 2008), you describe how Joachim Schueth recently used his laptop to beat the replica Colossus at Bletchley Park - I suspect living nearer to the transmitter helped him too.

On the same page, you also mention Ada Lovelace, so it is rather odd that you didn't mention the connection between them. Joachim used the Ada programming language to process the radio signals and to simulate the behaviour of Colossus.

How refreshing it is to see someone choosing to write programs in Ada, whether it is for the sheer fun of it or because they want confidence that their programs will not let them down on the day. Well done Joachim and Ada!

Terry Froggatt

Posted by Will Stapley on April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Pacman to Pentium (PCW April 2008) was excellent reading which brought back many Memories; I had completely forgotten about The Last One.

I appreciate that the article was not intended to be a complete history of computing, but I was a little disappointed that two of my machines were not represented - one was the Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P. Here's to the next 30 years.

Ivan Drake

Posted by Will Stapley on April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought your article on archiving (PCW, January 2008) was very interesting. It gave a lot of useful information about how to get content into digital form and organise it as well as some information on physical storage mediums. However there are some really important points which weren't touched on at all.

Choose the file formats you use carefully, When you or your children want to view the content years from now, will the software and the machine to run it on be available? My own advice would be to choose file types that are simple and non-proprietary, like BMP for images, WAV for sound and TXT for text.

So that it's likely there will always be a reader available, if you don't do this you will have to keep an eye on what's going on in the IT world and reformat the data every so often, not a trivial act when we are likely to be talking about multiple gigabytes or even terabytes of data.

The same thing should be considered when choosing which piece of software to use to organise the data. If you have to migrate your data, the task is made much easier the database within the product is capable of being exported in a simple form - CSV being the most commonly accepted format.

Database corruption or loss is a real possibility over retention times the length of a person's life or beyond. Images and other items should be capable of being stored externally to the software so that the database contains only links, not embedded files.

If you choose to use a physical medium for your backups, such as DVD, beware the same obsolescence problems. One manufacturer of "archive grade" DVDs that I checked did not quote any figures for lifetime of media that I could find, even for this flagship product.

My own advice would be to use online services and let the data migration be their problem, not yours. As always use two services, not based in the same town as each other or as you.

Roland Bavington

Posted by Will Stapley on January 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)