Both for providing directions, and relieving me and Amanda of stress as I continue driving practice this week. Of course, Amanda doesn’t think its as wonderful as I do (had to change the voice from Jean Luc to some Irish bloke to appease her), but I’ll work to wear her down.
It’s nice being on vacation…
Quite pleased we’ve finally stopped losing matches and have some points with our new manager. Don’t think it addresses the fundamental lack of a reliable attack we have, but hopefully we’ll get out of the relegation slot soon. In the meantime, I’ll brace myself for more ridiculing… but will dare to hope.
We’re off for a week, driving around the West Country. Thanks to a friend who shall remain nameless, I am equipped with a TomTom One XL with the voice of Patrick Stewart telling me to ‘engage docking procedures’ when I arrive at my destination, or telling me I’m “lost in the beta quadrant” when I make a wrong turn. It should get old, but I think I’m going to be giggling a lot. I’ve also managed to borrow Arvind’s Griffin iPod transmitter and have bought an adaptor for the cigarette lighter so we have double power.
Of course, most of the holiday will be low tech – hills, country, friends, and beer. Can’t wait.
We’ve received an unexpected parcel today – Pasties by Post from Plymouth, we think a gift from a cousin who stayed with us lately. A styrofoam box filled with uncooked pasties and ice arrived and we’ve eaten the baked product.
Nomnomnomnom….
So, when you try to do a screen grab from Windows media player in Windows XP it goes all wonky. Not sure of the exact reason for this (some driver/acceleration issue), but if you:
1) Get your display settings up (right click on desktop / display settings)
2) Go to the “Display Settings” tab
3) Click ‘advanced’
4) Click the ‘troubleshoot’ tab
5) Drag the slider for graphics acceleration down to zero
6) Hit apply
7) Then run the video and hit ‘alt-print screen’ to capture the content of the media player window…
…and it should work! Don’t forget to drag the slider back up after you’re done or you may get some slowdown / display glitches.
In the 4 weeks since I wrote the post ‘How to fix the cannot connect to Itunes store problem‘ post it has risen to the first page of Google* for the error code that comes up when Itunes has its little hiccup and I’ve had quite a few comments (loads, by this website’s standards) of people that have found it helpful.
So… I’m happy to make it a recurring feature. If people need help on how to beat Windows into submission and make it do the things you want it to, ask me, and I’ll oblige if I can. It’s not just Jack Schofield that is a font of knowledge of these things (I imagine even Jack has to look the odd thing up on the Web), so I’ll help out if I can, and if you get me interesting requests. I’ll imagine I get fewer emails than Jack on this, so if I get interesting questions from around the office they might provide secondary food for thought…
So what are you waiting for? Ask Armand. I’ll do one post a week minimum, assuming I get enough questions…
* I’m amongst other things, a digital PR consultant, so I know that the relative recency of this post helps with its height in the organic rankings. But I’ve seen the traffic and comments come in and seem to have helped a few people with this, so am buying that it’ll stay high for a while — especially as Apple still hasn’t posted the workaround on its own site.
I’m over 8 months into my latest mobile contract, which means an upgrade is less than a third of a year away, but, unusually for me, I have no idea what my next phone is going to be. Usually at this point in the year, I’m desperate to chuck the old thing in for virtually anything… but this time around, (1) my existing handset, the MDA Touch Plus / HTC Touch Dual has proved remarkably resilient against decay or technological out-innovation and (2) all the new devices I might consider have been stubbornly refusing to include keypads. My current phone has HSDPA, a 2MP camera, Windows Mobile 6, a touchscreen and a keypad. I’d like the successor to have most of the above (I’m more open on operating systems with the launch of Android) PLUS GPS (maybe, see earlier post…), Wifi, a higher resolution camera and maybe even a flash.
Front runners? The HTC HD (not announced on any UK networks yet AFAIK, no keyboard), the T-Mobile G1 (tempting, but can I cope after the pain that was the HTC Tytyn 2 – I need a keypad, not qwerty!) and maybe some variation on the HTC Diamond. Garrh – none are ideal – don’t people like physical keypads on smartphones anymore? I’m hoping that HTC comes out with a successor to the Touch Plus with the enhancements that I’m after. Maybe even one running Android… That would be ace, though sounds like they’ll be banking on the G1’s success for a while…
Any recommendations from anyone out there? How’s the new SE Experia X1? What about the Samsung Omnia? Or should I just stay with my existing phone, try to negotiate a discount on the tariff and hold out for the duration of the economic crises/credit crunch/soufflé deflation of the financial markets? Thoughts on a comment appreciated.
This post was inspired by my learning some new features on the HTC designed skin on Windows Mobile, ‘Touchflo’, that really makes me enjoy using it as a camera too.
Oh – T-Mobile is an agency client, but I don’t know anything you don’t and I couldn’t leak it on here if I did… Consider yourself disclaimed.
I know how to drive, and have held a Malaysian license since 2002. Which means, of course, I’ve forgotten most of the things I need to do to pass a British driving test, and the learning process has begun again – unfortunately, despite being a member of the Commonwealth, someone from the DSA has probably met some Malaysian drivers in the past and so judged that the licenses are not interchangeable with British ones.
It’s been a slightly tedious experience, getting into the habit of doing things that instructors/examiners look for but no sensible driver does (tilt your neck so its obvious you’re checking all the mirrors, for example), but hopefully make me a better driver… if to the benefit of extortionately expensive driving schools. Thanks in no small part to Amanda’s patience, I’m improving quite quickly…
Of course, all this driving has me hankering for a new gadget. When we embark on our tour of the West Country in a few weeks time, I’d really like to have a SatNav product in the car so that Amanda can focus on telling me what I’m doing wrong with my driving, rather than where I’m going… I don’t suppose any of the great SatNav companies fancy loaning a product to a lonely blogger in exchange for a write up of the experience on the 618th most popular technology blog on the Interweb? If I like it, I’ll probably buy it, especially if it persuades Amanda, hater of GPS and lover of maps, that having a satellite navigation system doesn’t take the fun out of driving… There’s a challenge for you.
Ping me in the comments, or at armand [at] division6.co.uk.
Apparently, this it the 618th best technology blog on the web. Which seems unlikely. But thanks, Blogged.com marketing director, appreciate the email ;-).
It was fantastic. Still in moderate disbelief that Damian flew from New York for the celebrations — and successfully managed to keep it a secret, which is not a skill you’d expect him to have.
I’ve a large pile of DVDs, graphic novels, sci-fi tomes, even Orson Scott Card’s ‘How to write Sci-Fi & Fantasy” to get through in the next few weeks, thanks to the generosity and insight of friends and family, so between that and the work towards my British driving license imagine I will be reasonably absent. Still, I’ll look for gaps where I can write and hope to entertain y’all soon…