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July Wallpapers from Smashing Magazine
A day or so early, but there are some very attractive July wallpapers over on Smashing Magazine. You can either download them with a calendar, or just as they are so they don't go out of date.
OpenOffice update and support
There's an update for OpenOffice that has just been released, 2.4.1. It's a good idea to install this as it does include a security fix.
The easiest way to do this is to click on the small icon with a green arrow point down at the top right of the screen.
This starts the update wizard, which is easier than checking for versions. Alternatively you could jump straight to the OpenOffice download page.
The other thing in the email that caught my eye was the information about professional support for OpenOffice. It costs $20 per incident but given that OpenOffice is free in the first place it's still a good deal.
How much memory does your internet browser use?
I'm don't always think too much about the performance of web browsers. As far as I'm concerned the bottle neck is normally the internet connection but Sam Allen has compared Safari, Firefox, Flock, Opera and Internet Explorer for memory usage.
Safari used the most amount of memory, an eye watering 636.9MB. The only time I've come close to that figure is when running a virtual PC. Having said that I did run Safari for a little while and it didn't seem to use that much memory. As I'll come on to say with Opera, there's no information of the actual browsing habits.
Firefox did the best with just 111MB of RAM used at the end of the browsing session. The key to what I imagine will be fairly large variances in experiences will be what add-ons are installed
It's good to see the improvement from Flock. As much as I liked this browser, I had to stop using one of the earlier versions because of a memory leak (an ever increasing memory load). Sounds like it's time to give it another go.
Internet Explorer performed about the same as Flock
Just for reference Opera is using around 166MB at the moment on my desktop compared to the 190MB quoted in the test results, and that's with 28 tabs open. Doesn't seem too bad compared to Sam's experiences but unfortunately there is no information about the number of tabs open at a time.
Thanks to Gervase Markham for the link
Windows annoyances: Stealing focus
A little explanation is needed here. Focus is the technical term for the program that has your full attention in Windows, the one that will respond to typing and has a dark blue Title bar. What is annoying me at the moment is that programs keep deciding that they should have my attention and throw themselves enthusiastically to the front of the Desktop, no matter what I'm doing at the time.
Granted, that might suggest that I'm flitting between too many programs but it is very frustrating to set one program doing something that I know will take a little while to suddenly find it leaping up.
Normally this is no more than an annoyance but it can be more serious. For example I once sent and instant message to someone with a password in it because they happened to message me at the exact time. Other times I've cancelled file copying by pressing space when the 'Are you sure you want to do this?' message appears.
Still it could be worse. Some desktops (normally in the Linux/Unix world) are set up to bring software to the front as soon as the mouse moves over them. I've tried it and it's even more confusing.
Hints of Windows 7
Information about the next version of Windows is hard to come by; we certainly had more information about Vista/Longhorn. Now it seems that someone in Microsoft has confirmed the shipping date of Windows 7 to be January 2010. Just 18 months away.
What amuses me is the claim by the Microsoft VP that "You have told us you want a more regular, predictable Windows release schedule".
That may be true of corporate customers. I say may, we're still firmly on Windows XP here, but I don't think it's true of home users. Quite the reverse. The storm of protest that we've heard over ending sales of Windows XP has been quite clear. Much of this has been the mistaken belief that Microsoft will stop supporting XP and force everyone to Vista, even though support will continue to 2014 and there is no time limit on the license agreement for XP. The overall message is that people are happy with XP and don't see the need to upgrade.
Personally, I need to hear about some new compelling reasons to consider upgrading. Touch screen control is all well and good but it's not exactly new. I saw touch (and basic multi-touch) when hp launched their new TouchSmart computers a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe this is why companies are considering software as a service and asking people to pay a monthly fee to use it. Most software is so mature now that new versions seem to struggle to add compelling new features.
Singing the praises of Adobe Lightroom
Adobe released its Lightroom software just over a year ago. The name is a play on the word "darkroom", the idea being that Lightroom is the equivalent of a darkroom for digital images, allowing photographers to filter images and add effects, balance colours and publish them.
We'd previously given it little thought given that it costs so much - the cheapest we've found it is at Amazon, where's its around £175. But you do get a lot for your money. In the past we've sung the praises of programs such as Exifpro, which perform a similar service.
For £11, Exifpro does an excellent job when it comes to sorting through a stack of new photos, categorising and rating them and tweaking them. But Lightroom offers whole new levels of functionality.
Not only is it very swish, with smooth-running screens that look great and work fast, but it also offers a few clever touches such as the ability to quickly tag photos with a keypress - that means that if you're reviewing a large batch of pictures from the weekend's picture-taking, you can easily weed out the bad ones.
But Lightroom is also easily expandable - instead of using the standard Flickr upload tool, you can download Jeffrey Friedl's plugin that hooks into Lightroom's export tool, and sends your images straight to the photo-sharing site.
The only problem is that it makes it so easy to prune a collection of pictures that it encourages much more picture-taking, and now a hard disk upgrade is in order to store them all. Well, that and the amount of screen size it requires - we had to up our resolution to 1600 x 1200 pixels just to fit everything on in a useable size (fortunately our labs have a stock of CRT monitors that can do just that) - although Lightroom 2, which should be out later this year, can apparently make use of two screens, which will improve things.
We were surprised to find that Lightroom is so suitable for not just professionals but for amateurs who want to make the most of their images. And while £175 can't in any way be considered cheap if you're not a professional photographer, for dedicated amateurs it's a good investment and certainly good value.
Game of the week: Wee War
We remain fond fans of the 1991 classic Battle Isle.
Wee War is the closest thing we've seen to replicating Battle Isle for modern computers - it's essentially a web-based version of Battle Isle, played against real opponents.
You're given a starting position in a computer-generated landscape, along with three other human players. It's turn-based so you move your units, then click to end the turn, at which point your opponents take turns to move theirs.
Games can take place over hours or days - you need to log in every so often to keep tabs on where you've got to. We're still starting out, but so far it's the closest we've come to replicating the sheer enjoyment of Battle Isle.
Competition for budding composers
Makers of musical notation software Sibelius has announced a competition for young composers, Sibelius Student Composer of the Year 2008.
There are two age groups, 10-16 and 17-18, and three categories: Film. Classical/Contemporary and Jazz. Prizes include a public performance of the piece as well as Sibelius software and computer hardware. There are eight one minute film clips provided on the Sibelius website for that category.
The full version of Sibelius is very expensive but it has also released a browser plugin called Scorch that displays and plays musical notation in a browser. Unsurprisingly Sibelius host a website called SibeliusMusic that has a large collection of music, both wholly original and arrangements of classic tunes.
Entries must be in before October 31st.
Firefox 3 is out - time for the add-ins
After a couple of release candidate versions and much palaver about a world record attempt, Firefox 3 is finally available today. Before you rush out and download, though, it's best to check whether any add-ons that you're currently using are compatible with the new version. Here's a few of our recommendations:
- Sage - Firefox can read RSS feeds, obviously, but this little sidebar is ideal for compulsive news-junkies
- Del.icio.us - Bookmarks are handy, but tagged social bookmarks are better. This new add-on from Yahoo!'s del.icio.us is much fancier than the old two-button add-on
- Qute - Firefox works well, but its icons are ugly. Transport yourself to a rounder, nicer world (as shown above) with this gloriously simple theme
Update issued for OpenOffice security flaw
Openoffice.org has released a fix for a vulnerability in versions 2.0 to 2.4 of the free office suite. According to ZDnet no one has taken advantage of it yet, but that's no reason to not bother with the update.
Acer Aspire One: first impressions
You wait ten years for an affordable but tiny notebook, and then three show up at once: hot on the heels of MSI's Wind and the Asus Eee 901, Acer's Aspire One has arrived in the lab. Like the Wind and 901, it's an Atom-powered mini notebook, but at £199 for the entry-level Linux model it's significantly cheaper.
First impressions are good: the 1,024x600 display is fine for web surfing, and the keyboard is larger and more usable than that of the the Eee 901. One clever feature is the second memory card slot: put a card in there, and its capacity is automatically added to that of the main SSD storage. The 2200mAh battery is rather small, but Acer's representative tells us that a six-cell version, that should run for seven hours, will cost £79.99.
As with the Eee 901, look out for the full Computeractive review and verdict soon.
Get in a creative mood
Sometimes it can just be hard to get creative, or to get creative in the right context. Moodstream is an interesting new website from Getty Images that is a good way foster the right mood.
It is simple to set up what sort of mood you want: happy, sad, humourous or contemporary are just some of the options. Alternatively the presets wheel has six different options to get you started.
If a picture, music or video track takes your fancy it can be added to the Moodboard to find out more information about using the media.
Otherwise it is just a good way of being creative.
Eee 901: XP and Linux versions £319
Asus dropped into the office to confirm the details of the forthcoming Eee 901 mini-notebook PC. Launching on the 1st of July, both the XP and Linux versions will cost £319 (less than the current Eee 900), with the significant difference being a 20GB SSD on the Linux model and 12GB on the XP version. Both use a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of memory and will include a 6600mAh battery and Bluetooth.
First impressions of the 901 are good: it's similarly sized to the original Eee 701, with a curvier body holding the (larger, higher resolution) display and (similarly small) keyboard. Interestingly, Asus's Helen Ling predicted that plenty of 901s would be available at launch, telling us that "we don't have a problem with Atom supply". MSI was far more cautious when discussing its forthcoming Atom-powered Wind notebook, due for £329.
We'll bring you a full review in Computeractive very soon.
Firefox 3 to be released June 17
We recently reported on Mozilla's decision to launch Firefox 3 with an attempt to break the world record for program downloads - an attempt that should be guaranteed success since no previous record exists to beat. At the time, though, Mozilla wouldn't give us an exact date for the attempt, stating instead that "Mozilla is driven by quality, not deadlines".
Well, this vagueness is no more, thanks to a Firefox blog post. Anyone wishing to participate in the world record attempt, or indeed to simply download the latest version of Firefox, should put a note in their diary for Tuesday June 17th.
Password Protection or not...
There's an article on Lifehacker about recovering passwords with free tools. It's a little scary really. After all, we go to all this trouble to create a safe password with all the trouble of learning the random collection of digits, and then someone comes along with a free tool and steals it as if you'd just used password.
It goes to show that physical security can be just as important as virtual. Give someone access to a computer and it is suddenly very easy to steal all sorts of stuff.
If you do read the article, remember with great power comes great responsibility. Don't be stupid and try and steal other peoples details. It's against the law for one thing.
New version of Windows Search released
Word over on the Windows Experience Blog that Windows Search 4 has been released. Download the 32bit Windows XP version here, or go to the Microsoft Download Center for other versions for 64bit and Vista. Or you could hang on a little while as Search will be available through Windows Update soon.
Second-hand computers
It's not always neccessary, in computers, to get the latest and greatest. That might sound strange in an industry that's so geared towards the novel and the cutting edge, and it's true that if you're a gamer or you're into video editing, for instance, you do need a very powerful computer.
But for many people who just want to do word processing and check their emails, it's possible to get away with spending less than you think. Obviously prices of new PCs are dropping sharply in any case, but even then the second-hand market is worth checking out.
There's eBay, of course. There are plenty of second-hand computers on sale, but of course, the usual caveats apply about checking the provenance of what you're being sold, and making sure the seller is legitimate. The seller's feedback rating can provide some of that, but even then you may be without a warranty.
One way around that is a refurbished computer - when people send in theirs for repairs under the warranty, if it can't fix them the company will send out a new one, then refurbish the old one and sell it on at a discount. A number of manufacturers sell their own refurbished kit on in this way (Dell refurbished store, Apple refurbished store).
Some of them sell their refurbished stock on to other companies who sell it for them, such as Euro PC, MCS and Morgan Computers (Morgan has offices in London, Manchester and Derby, while Euro PC has a shop in Glasgow). It's possible to pick up excellent bargains at these shops if you know what you're looking for, and not just for computers - they sell monitors, projectors, music players and cameras, among other things.
Finally, some of the bigger shops run their own clearance sales - both Comet and Currys run auctions of 'clearance' products. Those tend to be the same deal - refurbished products that have come in for warranty repairs, or that have been used by customers and then returned. Of course, both of those retailers sell lots of products other than computers, so there are plenty of electrical and electronics bargains to be had.
Coming events: future music
There are some interesting goings-on at the Dana Centre in London (it's in South Kensington, near the Science Museum). The Royal Academy of Engineering is sponsoring a series called Fine Tuning, in which the institute wants you to come and use computers to explore how music is created and played now, and how it will be in the future.
There's Sorted Sounds (this Thursday, June 5), in which visitors will be able to find out about new kinds of music using new computer programs and search techniques that look for similar kinds of music, not for keywords.
We're very interested in Virtuoso Stress (June 17), a concert with a difference. Two musicians will be wired up to bio-engineering equipment so the audience will be able to see how their bodies react (in terms of stress, heart rate and so on) while they're playing.
Finally, if you fancy yourself more as a composer, check out Making Music (July 10). There's a workshop during the day in which you can put your hand to a composition using software that helps blind and visually impaired people to make music. Then the composition will be played at the evening event.
Finally, and unrelated to any of the above, we've just heard that American website Thinkgeek is selling a flux capacitor, as found in Marty McFly's time-travelling car from the Back to the Future movies. We're not convinced it will actually work, but it was far too cool not to write about.
Technical preview of Live Writer available
Now this is something I look forward to trying out, as there are plenty of improvements for the next version of Live Writer.
I've found Live Writer invaluable when writing this blog as it is much faster than relying on a web editor and can quickly switch between different blogs. You can download it here.
Microsoft Store arrives in the UK
Microsoft is now selling direct in the UK with the Microsoft Store. It has most versions of Vista, Office and the Expression design series available for purchase.
What is interesting about the site is that the software can be downloaded immediately, no need to wait for deliveries. It is possible to request backup media but this then incurs shipping costs.
Thanks to Darren Strange over at OfficeRocker for the link.
Windows XP vestiges in Windows Vista
Whatever the claims of large updates to the inner workings of Windows, one of the bigger frustrations of Windows Vista is that there are still lots of little bits left over from Windows XP.
For example, the Display Properties window is just like that of the previous version of Windows once you get to it.
According to the Windows UI Taskforce, there are even more extreme examples of this, the Add fonts window hasn't been changed since Windows 3.1, making it harder to use than modern dialogue boxes.
I'm not programmer but surely it can't take that long to redesign a dialogue box. As much as I applaud the code reuse (and the money is probably better spent on security) it doesn't really give a very good impression.
I suppose it's an area where open source has an advantage as you can get the non programmers with a flair for design to do all of the legwork. Maybe.
Windows XP boot CDs
A Windows XP disc is a very useful thing to have on hand when things go wrong with a computer. Unfortunately, most computers are not supplied with Windows CDs in an effort to reduce piracy. Who says this is a victimless crime?
All is not lost thankfully as it is apparently possible to create a bootable disc using the files stored on the computer.
This looks very useful for me as I have a computer in desperate need of a fresh install. After six years, it's starting to get rather cluttered, not least after a work experience lad was let loose on it for a week.
