2013 — 12 November: Tuesday
What a very dull time of year this is.1 Mind you, the Sibelius song isn't exactly helping. Tea! I need tea! [Pause] That's better. Now, do I need to go shopping, or can I put that off until after tomorrow morning's session in Dr Fang's chair? (The root canal repair is about ready to begin.)
I think...
... the groundwork to prepare my Laptop PC for "usefulness" away from Technology Towers next month is complete. I must admit, though, that the display could usefully be higher-res (and bigger) as the Linux Mint 15 desktop is a little 'clunky'. Still, it's only for a couple of days, and all I need is email and webserver access. Of course, I won't have access to my internal server unless and until I can sort out a VPN, but at least access to the external server in Texas is all sorted.
Idly browsing Microsoft's site for desktop themes led me down quite an interesting path. Curious about their hardware recommendations for PCs "designed" for Windows 8.1 I allowed myself to end up directed from their UK site to John Lewis, of all places, where I had a look-see at a 20" all-in-one Sony Vaio PC — a snip at 5p less than £1,000 — that was doing its best to look like...
... a bigger cousin of my Asus Transformer Android Tablet PC. Surely, if you're going to sell a 20" system with a display that can sit on your lap and act like a touch-screen tablet, it deserves at least full HD resolution? Apparently not. 1600x900 is deemed good enough. Besides, I'm not at all convinced by the successful "touchiness" of Windows 8.1 versus Android. Though, to be fair, I've only ever used it in pure desktop mode. The Fisher-Price tiles of the interface formerly known as Metro are just plain horrible. <Shudder>
VPN... easy as Pi?
Brian sent me two interesting links:
Lifehacker, and
Raspberry Pi Hacks
Like father...
... like son, or words to that effect. I listened to an interview with Trent Reznor last August that sent me in search of my first-ever Nine Inch Nails album. Had I paid closer attention to the substantial stack of minidiscs Peter bequeathed to me from his University days, I could have saved myself the cost of the download. But, in my defence, I was unfamiliar with the acronym "NIN" he'd squeezed on to the minidisc's tiny spine label. I wonder what else he's got?
Just the thought...
... of attending the sort of fan gatherings I first read about in Earl Kemp's Proceedings of the 1962 World SF convention (in Chicago) is enough to induce a buttock-clenching rash. Doesn't mean I don't find them good entertainment from a safe distance, though. So I've been on the alert for this Morgan Spurlock film...
... since downloading the trailer for it back in April 2012. Thanks, Mr Postie!
Never quite sure...
... how to feel about a massive monthly set of update patches to Windows. Today's example, 199.7MB for Win8.1 alone, with another 50+MB for various subcomponents... does it mean they're doing a good job keeping on top of security holes? Does it mean they're busily installing further backdoors on behalf of the NSA? Or are they just grappling with crappy code they should have got right before ever releasing it?
Could be a bit of all three; how would we know? Fingers crossed! And let's hope they tidy up after they've finished, and sweep up any dropped bits.