May 31 2007
May 10 2007
Nintendo DS has region-locked online play :(
Sometimes, you discover things that realy make you blood boil – especially if apparently motivated by thoughtlessness rather than by design…
Take, for example, the Nintendo DS: an excellent handheld games console (and web browser 😉 ). At first glance, it has an excellent pair of screens, it has lots of innovative an interesting games, and it really has hearts and minds behind it. In addition, the battery life is just incredible. The coup de grâce is that the console is not region-locked, so imported games (which are invariably released months sooner than UK games) can be played without problems… or so it seemed.
May 8 2007
Cost of the war
An photo-article at The Boston Globe looks at what else the money so far spent on the invasion of Iraq could have been used for…
May 1 2007
HD DVD processing key discovered, AACS LA not happy
The AACS LA have resorted to the desperate last-ditch action of issuing Cease & Desist notices to websites publishing the simple sequence of numbers:
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
May 1 2007
Vodafone/Hauwei USB HSDPA Modem & Vista
We “upgraded” our Vodafone PCMCIA data cards for USB versions when we bought new laptops with ExpressCard rather than PCMCIA sockets, only to find that the rebranded Huawei E220 was not recognised by Vista at all 🙁
Apr 23 2007
Vista: Still more questions than answers…
On the Sony laptops I’ve recently been struggling with is a Control Panel extension named “Software Updates”, which is generated by ‘\Windows\System32\ISUSPM.cpl‘. On one system (which I’ve done nothing with) this launches an application called “Software Manager” from, inauspiciously, Macrovision Europe Ltd (boo! hiss!). On the other machine, which I’ve done very little to, clicking this item from the Control Panel for the first time asked me whether the panel worked, or needed elevated privileges. How am I supposed to know? – I’m running it for the first time!
Apr 23 2007
Sony VAIO VGN-N29VN & Vista Business edition
Today, two brand new Sony VAIO N29 business laptops running the Business edition of Vista. Herein is chronicled the sad events which followed…
Apr 23 2007
Happy 25th birthday to the ZX Spectrum!
Happy 25
Apr 17 2007
Speed Demon
Several people had complained in the past that this site is a little slow… well, what did you expect from a passively-cool 300MHz MIPS processor?!
But, I implemented some of the great tips from this blog – notably installing the wp-cache plugin for WordPress, enabling caching in MySQL, and disabling some additional PHP options (although I doubt this last thing has any significant impact).
I dunno – perhaps it’s the Emperor’s New Clothes, but it feels faster to me!
Jul 1 2007
And the people shuffled their feet…
Notice anything odd at the end of last week?
No, I’m not referring (directly) to the London Car-bombs, but rather something related but much more interesting: Rather than the expected reactions of shock or fear, the general public reaction seems to have been a collective “Meh.”
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By Stuart • Politics 0