Nah... that would be silly

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‘Browser v1’ on the NeXT computer.

The NeXT computer currently resides in a cabinet outside Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s old office at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Switzerland. I’m sure if you ask nicely they will let you use it. Please form an orderly queue.

1-2-3 For Ever!

I still use Lotus 1-2-3 (for DOS) at home for all my personal spreadsheet work. My household and personal finance spreadsheets have been lovingly crafted and honed to perfection over the years, and I’m damned if I’m going to ‘convert’ them to nasty old Excel!

My first encounter with 1-2-3 was at work, in 1987. We had it running on a couple of IBM PCs, and a beefy Toshiba laptop with a funky orange gas plasma screen.

At home, I first used version 2 for DOS on my Acorn Archimedes, via Acorn’s nifty PC Emulator.

After that, version 3 for DOS came along for the ride as I transitioned through several laptops, running Windows 95, 98, XP, and now Windows 7. It now lives in an XP virtual machine on my Win7 laptop. I should be able to keep it running indefinitely, provided I can continue running an XP virtual machine on whatever host OS comes along (I’m seriously considering moving over to Linux after Win7 has run its course).

But why, you may ask, am I still using quaint old 1-2-3?

1) It’s retro. Retro is good. Plus it looks really cool running full screen on a black background.

2) It’s rock solid. It doesn’t crash.

3) It doesn’t create temp files. This has certain security benefits.

4) You can ‘draw’ lines and borders by putting extended ASCII characters in the cells via their alt codes.

5) The default font is white – you can make the text green by formatting the cell as protected. Two colours – neat!

A big thank you to Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs for creating such a fantastic piece of software.

Movie quote

Hermione: That's right. Now, if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed...or worse, McAfee'd! {turns and leaves, shutting the door behind her}

Ron: She needs to sort out her priorities!

Harry gets out his wand and yells "McAfee Crapivirikedavra!" and Ron's head explodes due to a dodgy signature update.

It's not what you know....

I’m not a fan of Stephen Fry but he does have one endearing quality - he's sung on an album by Kate Bush!

Yes, passwords are annoying...

... but really annoys me is sites that, for some inexplicable reason, force you to use weak passwords. And by weak, I mean short.

For example, National Savings & Investments (NS&I) limits their account password to a measly 8 characters. If you use Tesco.com, you’re stuck with a maximum of 10 characters for your password.

Rather than bemoaning having to use strong passwords, I think it would be more productive to name and shame the silly companies that don’t even give you the option of choosing a strong password.

Trekkie Spaghetti

I’m sure that Mr Wheaton is making a valid argument, but let’s face it, if it was Marina Sirtis that was doing the jumping up and down, we’d all be paying a lot more attention.

Banish them from society

I like the idea of ‘banishment’.

Find some large, fairly inhospitable, uninhabited island safely away from the mainland, and simply banish murderers to it. They could be dropped in by parachute. There would be no infrastructure of any kind on the island - the murderers would have to fend for themselves, and live off the land.

Probably best to limit it to male murderers to keep the population in check. The space duly released in the prison system would allow for proper ‘life’ sentences for female murderers.

RIP teletext

What I want to know is, whatever will become of Masha The Erotic Poetess, and The Fresh Prince Of Luton? We’ll never see their like again.

And if you remember those characters, you’re a true teletext aficionado.

Accolades

A few thoughts:

1) I find it deeply satisfying that although Acorn came a cropper, its heritage and technical innovation lives on, and indeed continues to thrive, though ARM. It seemed that when Acorn went under, the PC clones (and companies such as Acorn’s arch nemesis, the dull as ditchwater ‘Research Machines’) had won the day. But the boffins in Cambridge weren’t to be defeated!

2) I remember running Acorn’s PC Emulator on my Acorn Archimedes. In one of life’s little ironies, I now find immense gratification in the knowledge that Microsoft are falling over themselves to port Windows to the ARM architecture.

3) Alas, my parents couldn’t afford a BBC Micro, so I got an Acorn Electron. But I’m not bitter. It was (and is) a great little computer. Plus the fact that I could program in BBC Basic helped me land my first job after leaving school.

4) You can keep your Elites and your Chuckie Eggs. Gisburne’s Castle was, and is, the greatest BBC Micro game of all time. And you can call me Susan if it isn’t so.

Matt has no gloss

Sorry but I just can’t get excited about this.

Matt Smith makes a poor Doctor. He’s too small. He’s too lanky. He’s too young. He doesn’t have screen presence. His voice is weedy and expressionless. He comes across as a gawky teenager literally playing “Doctor Who”.

All this might be forgiven if the storylines were any good, but since Tennant’s departure the stories have been ridiculous, and, frankly, all over the place.

Doctor Who needs a radical revamp in time for the 50th Anniversary. The Doctor and his two current companions need replacing post haste, so that some life can be breathed back into the brand.

Matt Smith should step aside and make way for someone he could do justice to the role: Paul Shane. With Sue Pollard and Orm & Cheap as the companions.

Particularly good joke?

How do you make a French horn? Stamp on his foot.

I didn’t say it was a particularly good joke.

Oh well, as the old Chinese proverb says: “Man who go to sleep with itchy bottom, wake up with smelly finger.”

Diamond Kite

Some observations:

1) Let us not forget that David Gilmour was instrumental in bringing Kate Bush to the attention of a grateful world. For that alone, he deserves more than a nod of recognition.

2) Gilmour's son, however, is a very naughty boy.

3) Cliff Stoll was writing about the pitiful state of US military computer security in the 1980s (The Cuckoo's Egg is a cracking good read). It seems not much has improved since then.

Dan-ti-matter

Aw come on...

... Dan Brown's come a long way since Susan Fletcher "almost fell off her chair with excitement" in Digital Fortress.

Wipe that photocopier!

Okay, message received.

But where on earth am I supposed to insert my DBAN CD ???

The operating system that refuses to die...

The simple fact is that Windows XP was the best operating system that Microsoft ever produced, or will likely ever produce. It’s been all downhill since then.

Vista, as everyone knows, is completely and utterly awful. Windows 7 is better, but it’s still dreadful compared to XP. People realise this.

So I have radical suggestion. Microsoft should abandon Vista and Windows 7 completely. They should acknowledge them for the mistakes they were. They should re-establish XP as their ‘current’ operating system, and concentrate on shoring up its defences through additional service packs.

In addition, they should make XP free of charge. This is the only way Microsoft can counter the threat from Linux and Google’s Chrome OS, which will only gain momentum over time. Sure it will affect Microsoft’s bottom line, but they have plenty of revenue coming in from their non-OS divisions.

If Microsoft don’t take radical action to make good on their disastrously faltering desktop OSs, I think the Windows platform will be doomed.

Nursery rhyme time!

There was a young crook who swallowed a flash drive

I don't know why he swallowed a flash drive - perhaps he’ll die!

There was a young crook who swallowed an iPod,

That wriggled and wiggled and tiggled inside him;

He swallowed the iPod to catch the flash drive;

I don't know why he swallowed a flash drive - perhaps he’ll die!

There was a young crook who swallowed a Playstation;

How absurd to swallow a Playstation.

He swallowed the Playstation to catch the iPod,

He swallowed the iPod to catch the flash drive;

I don't know why he swallowed a flash drive - perhaps he’ll die!

There was a young crook who swallowed a BBC Micro;

Fancy that to swallow a BBC Micro!

He swallowed the BBC Micro to catch the Playstation,

He swallowed the Playstation to catch the iPod,

He swallowed the iPod to catch the flash drive;

I don't know why he swallowed a flash drive - perhaps he’ll die!

There was a young crook that swallowed a PC;

What a hog, to swallow a PC;

He swallowed the PC to catch the BBC Micro,

He swallowed the BBC Micro to catch the Playstation,

He swallowed the Playstation to catch the iPod,

He swallowed the iPod to catch the flash drive;

I don't know why he swallowed a flash drive - perhaps he’ll die!

There was a young crook who swallowed a CRAY,

I don't know how he swallowed a CRAY;

He swallowed the CRAY to catch the PC,

He swallowed the PC to catch the BBC Micro,

He swallowed the BBC Micro to catch the Playstation,

He swallowed the Playstation to catch the iPod,

He swallowed the iPod to catch the flash drive;

I don't know why he swallowed a flash drive - perhaps he’ll die!

There was a young crook who swallowed Steve Ballmer,

He's dead, of course.

Whirlpool....

.... trust them to make a hash of it...