It’s been a while since i went through all my social accounts and external sites.  this morning I decided to take stock and see what I haven’t used/updated in a while and clean house.

Twitter has gone, I ended up with far too much junk on there after making the mistake of following back almost everyone that followed me, it was damn near impossible to get anything of value out of it after that.

I cleaned facebook out the other week, getting rid of all the games and crud I allowed to hook up to my profile at some point or other.

And this morning I’m starting work on tidying up this blog, there were far too many plugins slowing this down so I’ve cleaned out a few of the less useful plugins and trimmed down the sidebar a bit, if you notice I’ve removed something you found useful or have a suggestion for something you think should be added in, let me know and i’ll consider the options.

Apologies in advance for any inconvenience, hopefully downtime will be at an absolute minimum if there is any at all.

Share This Post

Hide Sites

I tried out ReadyBoost under Windows 7 X64 last night, after picking up a spare 16GB 200x USB Key, with some interesting results.
If you’ve never heard of ReadyBoost this WikiPedia article is a useful primer. It’s dead easy to set up and could help speed up your system.

I didn’t notice any immediate improvement to the general running of Win 7 but I expected that since I already have 8GB of RAM.  I was rather impressed with booting up though.

Booting from the Bios was about as fast as it normally is to get up to the login screen, it’s after logging in that the magic started, all apps that load and run in the background were instantly available, this alone provides me with a better boot experience and saves me hanging about for things to load.

After a little reading I noticed that in order to make use of the whole 16GB on the stick I need to format it as exFAT, this way Win7 will use the whole stick and hopefully I’ll continue to enjoy a faster startup from here on out.

Of course, this is just a poor man’s answer to not having an SSD to boot from, but it seems to work, so hey! budget boot speed… nice!

Share This Post

Hide Sites

A friend of mine recently passed on a very handy tip.  It seems that Microsoft have built in a handy GodMode into Windows Vista and Windows 7.

GodMode is simply a custom folder with links to administration activities you normally have to click through several dialogs to reach.

At this point I should stress that if you use this to trash your machine you are on your own, so don’t blame me and be sure to back up your machine regularly especially just before you make any key changes to the way your operating system works.

So, to enable GodMode:

Access all windows admin settings from one place.

Create a new folder on C:\ or on your desktop and name it exactly as follows:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Be sure to get that exactly right or this won’t work.  Once the folder is created, you may notice a change in the icon, open the new folder and scroll through the many links in there, chances are you will find something useful.

Again, if you are not sure what something is for, you probably don’t want to go playing with it until you’ve done some key research.

Enjoy.

Share This Post

Hide Sites

10 years ago many people thought the world would end as all the computers went pop thanks the the millennium bug.  That all ended in a bit of a whimper of course, and technology progressed at an incredible rate.

We now have digital cameras everywhere and film has become a specialist market populated by the hardened stalwarts and artisans. Most mobile phones have digital cameras in them that is as powerful as the mainstream digital cameras of 10 years ago.

The Internet has given birth to ‘Social Scientists’ who are experts in things like Twitter and Facebook and offer wise words and direction for people looking to ‘connect’ with the world.

Flickr is now home to an incredible array of talent that has made good use of the new found freedom offered by advances in digital photography and the supporting software.

The personal computer has become small enough to fit into a pocket and even comes with the ability to make phone calls and send texts.  You don’t have to worry about asking directions anymore either since that same computer has GPS embedded and can direct you to the nearest coffee shop or bookstore, and when you arrive you can browse the Internet using the built in Wireless networking whilst sipping on your chockamockalatte with an extra shot.
Don’t worry about the website loading slowly since they are all smart enough to realise you are browsing on your… ‘phone’ and will resize to suit.  even if you do decide to ‘go large’ and use your netbook instead, the pages will still load quickly and thanks to a sprinkling of AJAX and Flash you’ll be enjoying websites that are functional, funky and fresh in no time.

Operating systems are not so boring anymore either we’ve seen Windows XP become a huge success despite many flaws, we’ll ignore Vista and instead Skip to 7 which has seen Microsoft reclaim some of the excitement we saw at the end of the last decade with Windows 98.
Linux has become mainstream and has seen huge success in the form of Ubuntu, and people all over the world have been reaching into cupboards and drawers to dust off the old laptops and PC’s giving them a new lease of life all thanks to the Open Source revolution.
Of course Apple still leads the way with it’s functional and sexy OS, it’s just a shame you need to spend a fortune on hardware to get it.

I can now load my entire album collection onto a tiny little storage card and pop it into my MP3 player of choice, which currently serves as a pocket size computer and phone too, and using Bluetooth I can chew through my collection anytime anyplace.

Suffice to say that the last 10 years has seen an amazing amount of progress which can only mean that the next 10 years are going to be bloody scary, and yet also exciting ;0)

Have a great new year folks!

Share This Post

Hide Sites

…responsible for launching space ships, some of the best code ever written, some of the worst code ever written and of course this blog.

people who know me, know I have a thing about coffee, I like variety and I’m fussy about the way it’s ground and the freshness of the roast.  I guess I have a touch of OCD when it comes to coffee.

until recently I’ve only ever had one place to get the best freshly roasted coffee to order. I’ve been happy with that supplier but this week a friend of mine introduced me to a second supplier and that is just the best pre-Christmas news a caffeine addict like me needs ;0)

So my friends, I introduce you all to the wonders of  hasbean.co.uk Has bean is based in Stafford in the North East of the UK, practically on my doorstep in fact.  Check out the website, you’ll find tons of information on a huge selection of coffees all ready to be roasted especially for you :0)

The guy’s at has bean clearly know their coffee and are determined to get it to you in the best possible condition.  the packaging is excellent, tough resealable packs that are really easy to open – no sharp implements required here kids ;0)

You can get the coffee in any form from green bean to your favourite grind and if my order was anything to go by you will get it fast as lightning too.  I put in a reasonably large order and it arrived safe and sound the very next day – perfect!  there are also some neat tasting video’s there too so you can really immerse yourself in the coffee taste experience.

You can follow hasbean on twitter too to catch up with all the latest coffee gossip if twitter is your thing.

I’m not endorsed or sponsored by Has bean, though I’m open to offers ;0P this is simply me letting you know that I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…. :0D

Share This Post

Hide Sites