Posts by Fenwar

obsolescence schmobsolescence?

I would rather have access to a PC that could only run Win98/NT/2000 or stripped down GNU/Linux than no PC at all. If I want to learn some ICT skills, how am I going to do that with no hope of affording even an obsolete PC, let alone an up-to-date one?

The PCs supplied by Computer Aid *are being used* and there is clearly a continuing demand for them. They are helping kids in Africa (and elsewhere) to be computer-literate. They are breaking down the digital divide and taking another step towards levelling the playing field for these nations in the global economy.

Sure, it's only a small step - there are other aspects to this such as the generation & supply of electricity, and long-term it would be better for kids in the developing world to have access to the same spec PCs that our children do. And it would help if Computer Aid's website gave some reassurance about what happens to the PCs after they come to the end of their lifespan in Africa.

But don't knock what they are trying to do. If you don't think these old PCs are good enough for Africa then why not donate some you think *are* good enough?

Unmanned aircraft rubbish says pilot...

... "Christmas should be scrapped" says turkey?

Optimisation and scaling

At the end of the day an envelope calculation is all that's needed. If the time spent on optimisation is less than the total time saved by optimised code, do it. (This applies to development processes just as much as it does to the code itself.)

Even removing tiny delays (<100ms) from software can have bottom-line justification for optimisation - particularly in the area of interface responsiveness, which has a significant effect on a user's perception of software and thus on their overall productivity, (and the likelihood of repeat business, if you're selling it!)

Although I'm definitely often guilty of trying to shave a few more ms off a routine "just for the hell of it" as the article hints ;-)

RE: Bad design is bad design

"If these things were good, well designed, games there would - self evidently - be no need to build bots to take the tedium out of playing."

Spot on. This is why I don't touch MMORPGs. Give me the constant action of Unreal Tournament or Counter-Strike.

Sure, there are cheats and bots for these games, but they are easy enough to spot and kick, and it takes seconds to find another (£free) server if they aren't dealt with - meaning admins are motivated to keep an eye on things.

RM used to be fine with Amazon deliveries...

CDs, books and DVDs from Amazon fit through our letterbox and our postman used to just pop them through every time.

For some reason they have stopped doing this recently, so identically sized packages are no longer posted through our letterbox.

I can only assume they had some complaints about items getting damaged when dropped through letter boxes. This has never happened to us and is surely Amazon's responsibility for not adequately padding their packaging, anyway....

This week my wife has made 3 visits to our local delivery office to pick up 2 packages from Amazon (the extra trip was because although the red card said to allow 24 hours, the package wasn't there when she called in *32* hours later...?!)

On the other hand, I can't imagine any other courier providing a better service. The one positive experience I have had was with CityLink - after attempting delivery in the morning without success, their guy rang the neighbour's doorbell, found out when I got home from work, and actually returned at 6pm *the same day* to deliver...! (Perhaps it was his first day on the job, who knows ;) )

RE: All went smoothly for me - a correction

The T&C's now appear to have ruled out £10 discounts on future orders after your first one. (This has changed since I first took advantage of it!)

Cancellation of an order needs to be addressed to the retailer (which can be done on ebuyer's site by logging in to your account, opening the order details and selecting "Cancel Order").

(Although in an ideal world I'd agree you should be able to cancel the payment itself, which in turn would automatically cause the order to be cancelled.)

Gmail "Not Spam" does not whitelist

"Do you select them and explicitly mark them as NOT spam?"

I did this to messages from a certain mailing list, but Gmail continued to mark new messages from the list as spam. The fix was to add the from: address of the list as a contact in Gmail.