locusmeus

Very clever video – found via @Hicksdesign

Gelredome XS, Arnhem, Netherlands – 23rd June 2010

The video below was shot by my friend Rachel:

The new layout is quite obvious I think (if you’ve visited before), and the Nucleus CMS blog system is now replaced by WordPress. I’ve also moved from shared hosting in the US to a VPS in the UK, but will yet have to find out if that’s an improvement. No better way to find out, than make the new lot live, and see what happens if the site is actually used by other people than just me, myself and I.

Today I opened another envelope from UPC. In it, I found an exact copy of the letter they sent two weeks ago, but now with a post-it note on it, saying “Won’t you forget to respond? Greetings, Joost”.

Joost stands for Joost van der Plas, director of the “Small Business” department within UPC. Joost should stop spamming — if I don’t respond, that might be because I don’t want to respond.

UPC (cable company) tries to sell me their “Business Fiber Power Internet” bij faking an email printout, with the (translated) words:

“But while I was typing this email, I realised that you probably still have an ordinary internet connection, ADSL for example. That’s why I decided to print out this email and send it to you by regular mail. That way it will probably arrive sooner, and you can benefit from this sharp business deal sooner.”

Nice one offending my choice of internet connection as a selling point. They are so not getting my business!

I like it.

I’m totally, completely, utterly, done with Windows 7.
No, I don’t mean I’m done installing it. I’m done with it. Over and out.
I’ll try and avoid family-unfriendly wording in this post, but it’s hard.

Last week, I got an unexpected envelope from Microsoft in the mail, containing the Windows 7 RC install cd, so I wouldn’t have to download it. It seems to me they really want people to try out their new Operating System. Not enough people asking for it maybe?

Anyway, after installing, I ran into the same old connection problem: Windows 7 can’t find the internet[1].

While with the previous Windows 7 version (beta) it was “simply” a matter of ‘local access only’ which I could change to ‘local and internet access’ with a couple of tedious workarounds, this RC version gives me only these two connections: IPv6: no internet access, IPv4: no network access.

Switching off and on either IPv6 or IPv4 has zero effect here.

After waiting a day or two and restarting the computer, Windows 7 (which of course has also wiped out the dual boot menu with Ubuntu[2]) still shows the same things. Strangely enough, it does show my other Windows computer and my router, and when I log into the router, I get to succesfully ping sites on the internet. Clearly, Windows 7′s network troubleshooter which tells me some cable must be loose, is not very well informed.

After all the trouble with connecting to the internet in Vista and the Windows 7 beta, and now the seemingly (?) permanent impossibility of connecting using the RC version, I’m fed up. Totally had it. I’ve now started the execution of my new plan:

1. format entire hard disk (don’t want any Windows 7 traces hiding anywhere)
2. install Windows 98, so the kids can properly play their older games, and I have a native IE6 test space for web work.
3. install Windows XP, for more modern games and testing in IE7.
4. install Ubuntu, for web testing and kids surfing.
5. find a nice biohazard symbol on the web, print it out, and glue it to my brand new Windows 7 RC disc, so I can’t make the same mistake again!

Bye bye Windows 7, you’re not compatible with me.

[1] Who’d have thought that the world’s most used Operating System could so easily misplace a thing as large as the entire Internet…
[2] Why can’t Windows play nice with others and acknowledge installations other than older Windows systems? While Ubuntu politely asks how much disk space is available for it, Windows just says “I see a hard disk. Must be mine, all mine!”

Yesterday I was in Liverpool, and took this photo of the entrance of the large Marks & Spencer store:

See the woman with the child? You’d think she just came out of the store after shopping for clothes or something. Well, these days you can never be sure of anything — what if she just bought that child? Unlikely you say? Look at what I saw at the top of the escalator on the 1st floor inside the store:

As I said — you can never be sure of anything these days!

I thought IE8 was a good idea. Until I read this: IE8 Blacklist: forcing standards rendering opt-in. I’m so not impressed with Microsoft!

America has been seeing loads of snow for a while now, and this morning I found this picture in my inbox from my friend David in the UK:

In London it’s even better (or worse, depending on your point of view) – enough snow to stop tubes, buses, trains and planes.

But.. what do we get here in Holland? Yup, nothing. Some half-hearted promises by the weather forecast people, but really, as you can see on this picture I took of the path behind my house, this was the best we got:

And it was gone in 2 hours as well