DamnSaxon

^^ This is true, but the fact that our politicians need a kick up the ass only slightly lessens my pleasure at seeing a bit of sense at the international level.

Yeah, a pretty good list! I'd add the Super C Video Converter to the media section - if you really want to watch that Star Wars DVD on your mobile, or turn your favourite ringtone into a CD track, it'll do the honours. And everything inbetween.

DAMNSAXON'S SCORE Your scored -5.5 on Moral Order and 7 on Moral Rules. The following categories best match your score (multiple responses are possible): 1. System: Socialism 2. Ideology: International Socialism, International Communism 3. Party: No match. 4. Presidents: Jimmy Carter 5. 04' Election: David Cobb 6. 08' Election: Dennis Kucinich (who he?!) They'd hate Shetlink - a right bed of socialistic liberals (with apologies to Styles )

You're right, you couldn't make it up. Those Saudi males must be really, unbelievably short on self-control if (gasp) two eyes on a woman is seen as seductive. How long, I wonder, before even the monocular look is too much for them ...

Hurrah! At last!

The Shetlink forum: Unparalleled high culture. There! I've said it now! --------------------------------------- I've heard it said It sometimes rains in Shetland; Who can believe this? --------------------------------------- I'll write you haiku, or limericks, or sonnets: Just send me money ... --------------------------------------- Now I've got going, and haiku flow like water ... Help! Someone stop me!

Prio is a nice little utility. Tweak your programs' process priorities (if you dare), and (mostly) it adds some quite useful information to the Windows Task Manager.

Happily, other people are starting to play with it now. May be worth keeping an eye on it (if not actually using it yet )

Mmm, but when I provide "only an email address to which they can send the key" this generally means I'll have fired up a disposable email which won't be there for next year's key. It's no business of theirs who I am (even if I'm trusting them enough to protect my box ).

Or maybe they're just trying to distract your attention from the fact that they're pimping your surfing habits to an ad agency. If I had been a BT customer, I wouldn't be now. I'm not, and it's staying that way until they learn how to behave.

Well, a few weeks have passed ... now tried Antivir and Avast. Antivir - a bit like Fjool's review of Avast - instals nicely, no viri, etc., but the AVG nagger ain't got nothin' on these fellers. Darn great windowful of solid nag every time it fires up. It lasted one day. Avast, not so much of a nagger but they appear to want you to register - a free piece of software? Sorry, guys, you didn't last much longer. My advice is, take Fifi's advice. I'm now back on 7.5 and it's like seeing an old friend again. Ticks away quietly in the background and, as she said, seems not to nag any longer. And my only recent infection was due to my own stupidity in double clicking an exe i was sure I'd scanned but ... you can guess the rest. I knew something was wrong when both the AVG and Spybot icons suddenly vanished from my system tray ... Especially if you're a Windows user, double check everything - especially yourself! Welcome back AVG 7.5.

True. But I just play with his Java, and as long as you don't commission an Aberdeen to Lerwick bridge from him you should be okay.

Well, I currently live in one of those "isolated urban pockets of DAB reception", and I'm afraid I'm with Tom Morton: you ain't missin' nothin'. To be sure, if you leave the radio in just the right position you can get the station without dropouts. And yes, it is nice to be able to listen to the World Service once in a while. But because the UK jumped in with both feet and used the grotty old MP2 (I think it is) codec, the quality is horrible, and of course there's the old chestnut about getting the "pips" after some arbitrary delay, which surely defeats the whole purpose of transmitting a time signal. Maybe one day they'll upgrade the whole system to the newer AAC+ codec, which is being proposd as a world standard for DAB. The bad news on that front is that AAC+ is already in use on the (still fairly experimental) DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) transmissions on shortwave and, er, it's pretty horrible too. A bit like replacing all your CDs with low bitrate MP3s. IMHO, digital radio generally is a white elephant. Nobody has yet come up with a system which just degrades a little when the signal gets a bit "iffy" - you either get "perfect" (er, see previous paragraph) or nothing at all. And, of course, in the brave new world where Ofcom (hock, spit) want only to turn the spectrum into cash, the bitrate is always going to be a lot less than what's needed, so Ofcom (hock, spit) can collect from as many stations as possible. I've got a DAB radio, and can hook into internet "radio" (why do they call it that, when it comes down a wire?!?). I still listen, almost exclusively, to FM, which still offers far and away the best quality. And that isn't as good as it used to be, because these days they stuff all the audio through compressors for the car radio market, rather than leaving it sounding natural for the home listener. No, if you want to hear decent sounding music, go to a live performance ... and if there's a drumkit surrounded by microphones, go to a different live performance. Better still, learn to play an instrument!

I've just happened across Tim Tyler. He is evidently a grade A, first rate mathematical geek, but is also a pretty slick programmer. Anyone who (like me) enjoyed playing with John Conway's 'Life' algorithm should also enjoy at least a couple of his sites, either of which will warm up your CPU nicely - "Lotus Artificial Life" and "Atoms". There are also quite a few intelligent essays accessible from his own site, for when you get tired playing with artificial life, atoms, etc. Great fun.

Flann O'Brien. His "The Third Policeman" is surely one of the best comic novels in the English language, as well as a gorgeous example of how Irish writers can use English in a weird, hypnotic but completely absorbing way. Also, his columns in the Irish Times (writing as Myles na g'Copaleen) during WWII leave me helpless with laughter even after several readings (the book title is "The Best of Myles"). This list wouldn't be complete without him.

^^^ Arrr, that be a bit 'ard to do, Cap'n Inky, wi' me bein' five 'undred miles saarrf of 'em. My sort o' pirate don't use RPG's an' stuff like them modern lubbers, yer know, an' me cutlass ain't got that sort o' range. Found me smiley, though - http://th106.photobucket.com/albums/m252/RiverIsMyGoddess/icons/th_smiley_pirate.gif - ha haaarr!

My vote goes to the BBC website's recent "improvements", in particular their love of the 'orrible Flash. Consider the access to the News 24 stream: Before "improvement": 1. Click on my link to the Real stream. --> Media Player Classic opened up in seconds to play it; --> using about 7MB of memory and a few percent of CPU; --> and giving a nice 200% size pic you could see and which was not jaggy. After "improvement": 1. Click on my link to the BBC News page. 2. Wait while Firefox opens. 3. Click on the News 24 link at the top of the page. 4. Wait while that opens. 5. Click on Flashblock logo. 6. When it starts, click on "Pop-Out Player". 7. Wait whilt a new Firefox window opens. 8. Click on Flashblock logo. 9. When it starts, close the first Firefox. 10. Resize to hide the unnecessary text guff at the bottom. --> Now we have: --> Firefox using about 70MB memory; --> and about 99% CPU (I pay for the electricity it's wasting!); --> to give either a pic too small for comfort, or a jaggy fullscreen. Thank God for Radio 4 news. Don't even need the PC on for that and, until they "improve" radio by forcing us all to go digital, it uses very little power. "Improvements"? Grrrrr.

I think the last two or three posts are a bit unfair to the EU - compared with the way we Europeans settled our differences before it, a great talking shop sounds like quite an improvement. And most of the objectionableness of the stuff attributed to it is local (i.e. Westminster) in origin. Take the smoking ban. Here, the smokers must be demonised and driven out of all bars, public buildings, etc. In Spain, under *exactly* the same EU directive, the bar owner decides whether to be smoking or non-smoking. About 70% of them continue to allow smoking, result, everybody's happy - as against our sceptred isles, where dozens of pubs per week are closing and everybody's complaining. As for whether Brown should go ... who cares? Whatever replaces him would be just as bad, maybe worse. They're all (by definition) power hungry, or they wouldn't be in that business. (Cynical? Moi?)

Arrr, I be 'earin' the lads be collectin' fer that Mary Curey this year. I likes a wench what glows in the dark, yarrr. (Where be the pirate smiley? This be scurvy admin skulduggery!)

Another legal substance causing problems ... http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/paracetamol-given-to-babies-is-linked-to-global-rise-in-asthma-935408.html Better ban it, then. Who gets headaches anyway?

OK, not actually an internet link, more an Easter egg, but ... If you're using Firefox 3, type about:robots into the URL bar.

^^^ And was it available?

^^^ Eee, that were quick! Thanks, I'll try it.

^^^ As long as nobody thinks I'm accusing anyone on Shetlink of nagging ... it's the idiot who wrote it into my "good old" 7.5 I want to strangle. Are you saying 7.5.524 doesn't nag ? According to this review, changing to either Avast! or Antivir looks like quite a useful upgrade from AVG (presumably 8.0). Perhaps Fjool could review Avast! for the forum & I'll try Antivir. [Edit - Forgot to thank AT for the confirmation. Thanks, AT!]

A handy site for the next time you can't get Shetlink ... no bells or whistles, just raw functionality. http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ Warning: This does not work if you have just watched a JCB making off up the road with the end of your cable ...