Life as a techie

Sports high and low

2011-12-27T15:03:00.001Z

It's coming to the end of the year now and I'd like to some up a few things.

Football:
Southampton have made it to the top of the championship and look to stay there till the new year. Will they get promoted? With only 3 points and 3 teams fighting for automatic promotion, only 2 will make it. Who will it be?

Cricket:
There is a match between India and Australia. It's slightly in India's favour but one of the best players was out at the end of play today. The little master is currently stuck with 99 centuries and it 1 away from the magical 100 hundreds. We have been waiting since March and he has been less then 10 away on 2 occasions. Is he thinking too much about it and affecting his game as a result?

It reminds me when Shane Warne got to 99 and then was out. He never made his century. Lets home the little master does not end on this figure. I hope he gets it in Australia.

New Lows for Cricket

2011-07-31T22:31:00.007+01:00

Link 1 - Audio replay
Link 2 - Day 3 England vs India

This is about the last 2 days of cricket between India and England. Match changing decisions have been made. Decisions have gone Englands way.

A post (from link 2) shows that if this was the other way around, England would have stuck with the decision. What happened to honest sportsmanship?

Saturday:
-Harbhajan LBW, then 3 wickets go quickly after that.
Correct decision: Not out. This has cost India 50-100 runs

Sunday:
-Bell run out.
Incorrect decision: Put back in to bat
-Trott LBW
Incorrect decision: Should have walked. These 2 decisions have given England momentum and 50-100 more runs.

2 days of decisions going Englands way. This has turned a game that was in India's favour to England. This is now over for India who will lose the series and the number 1 place to England.

Not being biased, I would have to say Broad deserves man of the series with his batting and bowling. In addition Dravid is a close 2nd with his batting.

England are missing Trott (who's not at his game). India are missing Harbhajan today, Zaheer, Sehwag and Kohli.

-With these decisions, should 3rd umpires be more involved?
-Should players on both sides be honest?

Elsewhere:
This is not the only sport at a loss, look at Football with England denied a World Cup goal and Argentina given one. Is that fair?

Hotmail - Sub folders now possible.

2010-11-09T21:11:00.006Z

For a long time I found this an annoying problem. The team have finally allowed us to create sub folders. See the attached screen shot as proof.

If you're like me, then you will be glad to be able to organise your emails. If you use outlook you will also see the folders within sub folders and all emails should sync.

Windows 7 vs Royal Mail

2009-10-15T21:45:00.004+01:00

You should all be aware that Windows 7 is out on the 22nd October 2009. This has been planned for quite some time. However only recently the workers at the Royal Mail have decided to go on Strike on the 22nd and 23rd October 2009.

I don't know if you picked this up already, but the release of Windows 7 will be delayed even longer because of employees of the Royal Mail.

If it was me, I would personally look to employ some of the 2 million unemployed UK citizens (according to the BBC) and give them £4 an hour (cash in hand). This would put pressure on the fortunate Royal Mail staff that still have a job to "shut up" and "get on with it".

Remember this, there are over 2 million people that could replace you tomorrow. So don't cause grief to others expecting goods, money, travel documents and so on.

Also I was in charge at the Royal Mail, I would teach them a lesson by paying them 1 week later. Two can play at that game...

Apple users lose files

2009-10-13T13:36:00.004+01:00

Anyone upgrading to the OS "Snow Leapord" may lose all their files when they login under a guest account.

According to the BBC "The problem, reported by more than 100 users on discussion forums, surfaced shortly after the OS's August release." Now that includes everything like pictures, videos, music and so on.

For those of you that are careful, I hope you ran a backup of your files as no OS is 100% perfect.

If you want to use a quick fix, backup the files in other accounts, delete the guest account profiles and then a new profile should work fine.

Final Note:
Tell your friends with the OS that you've heard of this great program called "iDelete". It only works when they login as a guest :)

Bolt gets new 200m world record in 19.19 seconds at Berlin

2009-08-20T19:45:00.009+01:00

Athletics has become even more interesting because of this guy. Usain Bolt makes records and beats them yet again. Only recently he finished the 100m in 9.59 seconds (0.11 off the previous record at the Beijing olympics) and he slowed down, so more time can be taken off the 100m record.

Now he has done it again with 19.19 seconds. Again it's 0.11 seconds off the previous record he achieved at the Beijing olympics, when he finished in 19.30 seconds. This time I don't think he slowed down. The replay can be seen on the BBC's website: video of the race.

If everyone had a half second head start today, Bolt still would have won. That's how big the victory was. A video replay will show you how much of a gap he had over the second place finisher Alonso Edward from Panama (who finished in 19.81 seconds).

I'll try an post a link to just this race soon. Well done to the Bolt. Can he strike again, who knows?

Update: The latest video replay (from the BBC).

Schumacher is back

2009-07-29T21:31:00.003+01:00

Michael Schumacher is coming back to Formula 1 (F1). A recent article from the BBC reveals this news. This is because of a traggic accident that sees my favourite driver Felipe Massa out for the rest of the season. The BBC have a clip of what happened available here.

Unfortunate for Massa when he was guaranteed Qually 3, but who would have known this would happen. I wish him the best and hopefully Michael can rack up some points for the team in Massa's absence.

1000 Best Sites

2009-07-27T19:42:00.001+01:00

Do you have a website? If so would you like everyone to know about it? If so then this is the website for you. You can upload your website to this site and say to others what makes it good. Search for other websites in your category or use this site to find interesting website that you would never have thought about visiting before.

You can also add your comments or rate the websites. See the best and newest sites from the homepage. This site is all about showing us all what you decide is good, not peoples reviews (where they are paid to publicize other websites). Because you decide, you have the power to rate a website both good or bad and say why. Your comments will not be removed (unless you swear or discriminate others).

A website that may be good this year may not be this year, so stay tunes and see how all the websites progress. Use this website as a resource for finding websites on the internet, today.

Windows 7 - Get your copy

2009-07-15T21:34:00.003+01:00

Did you know Windows 7 is officially out on pre-release? Basically you can pre-order your copy today and you will receive a massive discount. The only downside is that you do have to pay in advance, but will your bank triple your money in 3 months? I think not.

With prices as low as 67% discount, what have you got to lose? It's a win win in my book so get your copy now or lose out later on. I feel sorry for some countries as you cannot pre-order the operating system. Unlucky for them, but I'm not going to lose out when I finally get a good opportunity like this.

Twenty 20 best team is Pakistan, how about the best man?

2009-06-22T07:23:00.006+01:00

As a cricket fan, this was a must see tournament. Earlier you would write Pakistan off as they could hardly win a game. In the super 8's there was a major turnaround from this side as many would have seen their thrashing against New Zealand. That to me was significant as it showed that you cannot rule them out.

Beating both unbeaten teams South Africa and Sri Lanka showed us all that they really deserves their victory. The way they played showed that they did their homework. By bringing in Afridi earlier in the batting lineup definately made the difference with the scoring. Targetting different batsment like Dilshan with his unique manouver stopped Sri Lanka scoring their ideal run total. At the end of the day it made the difference.

If I had to choose a man of the tournament, it could have been many of the players in Sri Lanka or Pakistan with all the top 5 bowlers in the final and some of the highest scoring batsment. If Sri Lanka had one I would have said Dilshan. As Pakistan won I would say Shahid Afridi.

Would you agree to this? Would Umar Gul or the captain be your choice?

The Top Gear Stig is Michael Schumacher or is it?

2009-06-21T20:43:00.008+01:00

As I saw this today, it had to be shared. Is this totally true or just a way to introduce Schumacher onto the show. The show wanted to keep this private for quite some time, but it's going to keep people talking (great for its ratings).

If you watched Top Gear on Sunday 21st June 2009, then you would have seen that Schumacher lift the helmet making us believe he is the stig. You can see some pictures of this from the daily mail. Alternatively, you can see a clip of this on the BBC website. You could also view the full episode of the new series on the BBC iPlayer.

If Schumacher is the Stig then don't forget that he helped Top Gear beat the German Presenters (Sabine Schmitz, Carsten van Ryssen and Tim Schrick) in the England vs Germany challenge when the stig beat the rally driver in the final race (Jeremy was pretending that it was James May to help Top Gear win the challenge).

If you think this is not true, or have any opinions to share about this, please share your comments.

Apple angers it's fans as well as me

2009-06-10T20:00:00.014+01:00

Believe it or not this is true. I thought I'd add to my annoyances of Apple with another article I saw online from the BBC. This is along with comments I made to fellow colleagues at work.

Any company in business has the idea of making something that people will buy. That's great when it comes out, but then they decide how can we scam money off people with a small amount of effort? How about small tweaks?

Going back to the iPod it all started well apart from the fact Apple decided that Firewire should be the dominant method for transferring files from a MAC to an mp3 player. However by alienating Microsoft the mass market would go elsewhere.

Fair play when they realise we need to support MS Windows. This allowed the money to come in. Additionally PCI manufacturers made money for making cards with Firewire ports. When the third generation came out I decided to get an iPod. The best thing for me was that know one I knew what an iPod was let alone owned one. For me the 20GB iPod was worth it for the long run, but were expensive too. Owning one was nice for listing to music on my long walks.

Drawbacks of 3rd Gen:
- The cost of this model was £300. This is far higher than the 6th Gen model of 80GB worth £180 (much cheaper now).
- The battery life was awful. You should get 8 hours playback and would be lucky to get 6.
- The battery degrades quickly and Apple wanted £100 to replace and install a new one. I decided to by a replacement elsewhere and install it myself for £15.
- USB charging unavailable yet 4th Gen don't have this problem.
- When the 4th generation came out, Apple forgot about their customers and decided to to give us features they gave to the 4th gen model (they were possible to add to 3rd gen). Remember this: our money helped you develop newer models.

Coming back to iPhone owners:
Back when we owned early iPods that should last the test of time (yet support does not), Apple ignored us. Proof of this can be found online if you look for articles about 3rd gen iPod classic upgrades.

If you have brought an iPhone v1 and paid a costly O2 contract due to exclusivity, then welcome to my world (along with older iPod owners). Version 2 brought in 3G that should have been in version 1. Now version 3 offers other minor tweaks (like faster loading of games). If I was you, forget about the ridiculous price tag. Other phones offer great functions too, look elsewhere and don't get ripped off. Small tweaks and lots of money out of your pocket, it's your fault for encouraging this behaviour.

Outside of the Apple talk:
Why do people by a personal computer called a "mac"?
- Because Windows is rubbish.
- Programs are better on the mac.

This is a PC, not a mac. It is and always will be a personal computer. The dock is not great and you could be searching through a long (unordered list). Windows quick launch and start menu are great.

From a person that has use Windows, Unix, Linux and have used a Mac, the Mac is expensive hardware and software. If you want to do this properly, buy a computer and install the Mac OS (Leopard or whatever animal it is). At the end of the day you are paying a company that is using Unix / Linux source code and charging you a fortune. Many distributions of Linux do not cost any money and you can learn a lot from them.

Support Lifecycle:
If Apple are loyal to their so called fan base, then they should provide support for years to come. For example Windows 2000 is supported till the 13th July 2010.
- How long is the MAC OS supported for?
- How long is the MAC hardware supported for?
- How long is the iPod / iPhone supported for?

Final note:
This is about software installers (linking to my previous post). Why is iTunes 8.2.0.23 41.6MB (outside of the package of 74MB bundle) and WMP 11 only 24.5MB. Windows Media player offers so much functionaly and even sorts artists individually compared to iTunes Library (where multiple artists are not separated).

I know I've ranted from iPhones, iPods, Hardware and software, but feel free to have your say as all comments are welcome (minus swearing).

Apple Software

2009-06-04T18:02:00.004+01:00

Have you ever noted that when installing iTunes on Windows for your iPod you have some options of what to install. When you run the installer, some of us like to choose what should be installed.

In the installer, you can say not to install "software updater" and guess what happens after the install, it installs it anyway. Now if that happened with other software, we would all complain, yet with Apple software, nobody does. I thought I'd mention and let others pick up on this. Next time you install the software, see if you notice this too.

If you would like to remove it, please install CCleaner. There is an option to remove it, but beware as the next Apple software install will add it back even when you say no.

You will need to remember to stop the following services:
- Bonjour
- iPod Service
and remove the registry key in HKey Local Machine that is called iTunes Helper.

NB. This is on version 7 and higher in iTunes. Possibly earlier, but 6 was along time ago. As for Quicktime and Safari, please let us know.

Audio Blog

2009-05-24T00:02:00.004+01:00

To make all posts more accessible on Blogger, I have added the ability to listen to all my posts by clicking on the link "((•)) Hear this post". This can be found at the bottom of each post. You will need flash enabled on your web browser.

Thanks to vozMe for this great service.

Rate My Motor

2009-05-16T13:24:00.004+01:00

Do you like cars, bikes or other motors? If so then this is the site for you. Upload some pictures for your motor and shares some details with others. Let people rate your motor and see who comes out on top. It's all about keeping the hobby of motoring alive and you can share your thoughts with the motoring community online.

When uploading images, please try to hide the registration plate and only upload images that you own. If you like doing up your motor, upload the pics to show others how it is developing.

Rich - Poor gap shrinks

2009-04-26T18:17:00.003+01:00

On a non-techy note, due to the recession, this had to be talked about. The rich are getting poorer. It's not just us poor people affected by the recession.

According to Philip Beresford who compiles the rich list, the number of billionaires has fallen from 75 to 43 with a total loss of £150bn.

On the up side, they are still rich and can afford their luxuries still. With all that is going on the gap between the rich and poor is finally dropping.

Conficker begins stealthy

2009-04-09T22:58:00.004+01:00

Many of you may not know what Conficker is. This is a virus (worm) that runs on the Windows operating system (2000, XP, Vista and so on). Over the last few months this has been attacking many computers in industry.

Recent news about this is that it is updating. What's new in variant C is that it will take keystroke information and send this back to the attackers / creators. I would advise you to access secure data only if you are 100% clean of the virus.

Please have a read of the two articles from the BBC:
Conficker begins stealthy update
AND
Q&A: Conficker protection

Windows Vista and Windows 7

2009-04-09T22:45:00.005+01:00

I have recently read that Microsoft have given people the choice to downgrade Windows 7 to Windows Vista. Looking at the OS's I don't see why you would as personally I think Windows 7 is better and that we should bypass Vista.

This looks like Microsoft want more people to use Vista. Their excuse is that this will help to extend the lifetime of XP. I have seen that many businesses have moved the majority of computers to XP (from 2000) in 2007, only 6 years after XP came out. It's nice that Microsoft want us to move on, but a good OS stands the test of time. I would have to say XP is my favourite, but given 10 years, things move on.

I'm just glad that we have longer support for XP.

IE8 and browser detection

2009-04-08T13:30:00.006+01:00

Do you develop websites of your own? If so you may use browser detection methods to find out what the browser used and tweak your website to look nice in other browsers.

Finally moving to IE8 and bypassing version 7 I found that the browser is not detected using PHP. In IE 7 I could use the code:

if ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'MSIE 7') )
{
$browser = 'ie7';
}

This works for 6 and 7 by changing the number. However for in PHP IE8 reports:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; InfoPath.1; MSN OptimizedIE8;ENGB)

The work around in PHP I used was "OptimizedIE8". By tweaking my detection script, I added:

if ( strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], 'OptimizedIE8') )
{
$browser = 'ie8';
}

For those of you that like to avoid JavaScript and use PHP, I hope this helps. Others that use ASP, I'm sure you have something to combat this too.

If this still does not work on IE and my website then please let me know. Thanks.

My ISA interest rate has dropped considerably

2009-03-25T23:59:00.002Z

Slightly off techy, but with inflation at 0% money is on the agenda. If you have an ISA, you should look at the interest rates at the moment. They are down considerably for all bank accounts and worst of all ISA's.

Currently I have an ISA with Lloyds and back when I started this one, the interest was around 4%. Looking good and conveniently easy to commute to local branches, I saw this as a worthy investment. From recent years, my money didn't exactly earn much elsewhere so a new bank was on the agenda.

On a side note, late last year I had an account with Halifax. Unlike many that kept there money in Icelandic accounts, I decided with Halifax to get out while I had the chance. Guess what happened weeks after? The bank when bust and Lloyds have a stake in them. Lucky for me, that's where my money went.

Back on the matter, looking at today's interest rate with Lloyds, the shocking news for me and everyone out there is that the latest interest rate is 1%. This is above inflation, but not that good if you had an ISA for nearly 12 months. What a joke. Is an ISA worth all that bother, I think not now. I will be taking my money and using it for other purposes once I have the small interest. Only a couple of weeks to wait to find a better way to use it.

If your considering doing the same thing, what are you plans?

Million Pixel Website

2009-03-12T12:15:00.004Z

Have you wanted to advertise online but don't want to pay a fortune for the advertisement, then this website is to help you grow you website. Rather than creating another website full of adverts that annoy viewers, this website uses pixels that you can use to link to your site.

How do I advertise you may ask? You choose a range of squares (pixels) and create an image to upload to the website. Our viewers will see the wonderful images and if they like yours, then you will be fortunate enough to get more customers to your website.

All I ask is that you don't offend others by discrimination, swearing or other put downs. I will monitor this daily to remove adverts that I believe to be bad in some way.

Internet Nightmares

2009-03-12T11:54:00.003Z

Having worked on a few websites now and using the internet before the millennium, I had to create this website. This website is to help us all voice our frustrations of other websites and make them more user friendly.

There is always something that annoys us about websites, whether it's the hotmail adverts on the right on the email, features removed on websites like monster preventing CV uploads for existing resumes (recently added back after complaints a month ago) or even websites that do not work with JavaScript (JS) off. Some websites use JS excessively and don't provide functionality with this off. Additionally lack of support for other operating systems like Linux / Unix (i.e. BBC iPlayer).

Voice your concerns here and help us all put pressure on the websites owners to improve there website or lose their customers.

ISP Nightmares

2009-01-16T19:03:00.004Z

Don't you hate it when your ISP treats you as a nobody, or whether they lie to you and waste your time? Recently I had issues when different staff said different things and when I found the truth the only help they could give is that the correct department is only available during 09.00-17.00 Monday-Friday. That's no good when you work all week during the same hours. Not having internet access for a few days to use the out of ours support, what can you do?

Now lying to customers to get rid of them is bad customer service. It's not on and I won't take it standing down. Help us all share your bad experiences as these companies take our money and should lose customers if this happens again. Bad reputation is bad for their business, badly treated customers is bad for us. Who should suffer, us or them? You decide?

Birak Group Homes - Advertising your home for FREE

2008-11-28T17:05:00.009Z

Recently I have been working on home improvements. This involved doing up an old home and painting, redecorating and home repair. Whilst doing this and working it came to mind how much companies charge for advertising.

If your a Home owner and wanting to sell or let your home there are lots of costs involved. Estate Agents take a lot of money from you too. If your a buyer or a tenant there are fees when putting yourself on a waiting list to find a home.

With all this in mind and the fact of the credit crunch I decided to do something about this. I have created my third website (in the last 12 months) by connecting you to your purchase. This is by helping buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants find each other and lower these costs to a bare minimum. This website will allow you to speed up a sale and if you are planning to move towns (students affected mostly) then use this website to find a home on in the area not far from your University campus. This will help you lower those debts in the long run by hopefully living in a home rather then University accommodation.

Below I have added some example pages of the website:
To make it clearer to find a home on sale or rent.
To make it easier to find a your buyer or tenant.

The cost for you all is nothing, that's right, it's totally FREE. Save yourself money and advertise for decent prices. I hope you all prosper and I will develop the website to suite you all.

SimpleCAPTCHAs.com - Website after Project

2008-06-30T16:49:00.004+01:00

After my project at University was over I decided to use the knowledge I gained along with findings from my survey of University staff and students to create a new website.

The new website is called:
SimpleCAPTCHAs.com

Here I have added a number of CAPTCHAs that are available for download for free. Not only this, I have added the ability for others to join and upload CAPTCHAs for others to download too. CAPTCHAs can be downloaded and members can leave some feedback on their usability. I would like to keep all content on this site FREE for it's lifetime.

Let me know what you think about the website and if you have anything to add, by all means let me know so the website can improve.

Final Year Project

2008-05-18T17:15:00.011+01:00

Over the last 7 weeks I have been working on my final year project for University. This is about creating some software and carrying out some research. The work can be seen here: www.BaldeepBirak.com/project

I'm at the stage of writing up my report and with 2.5 weeks I need to make sure it is at a high standard.

BaldeepBirak.com - New Domain

2008-05-18T17:12:00.010+01:00

There has been a problem over the past week with the website. Unfortunately for me this was out of my control. I have not been able to access my account and have decided to copy over my website to a new domain.

The domain is: www.BaldeepBirak.com

It's the final countdown

2008-03-07T17:39:00.008Z

Today was the last day of lectures (YAY). Next week we have 2 exams and 2 coursework deadlines to go.

It will be weird not listening to lecturers babble on and moaning how boring some lectures are. But oh well, work and money are an interesting thought.

Website Update

2008-03-01T11:43:00.006Z

In the last month I have gone from no website to multiple web pages. Have a look and let me know what you think?

I have still got an interests section to go and WAP. With uni work I have to spread the work load in favour of university work. Hope you like the website and please do provide feedback. Thanks.

The website is -> www.BaldeepBirak.co.uk

Website

2008-02-15T15:07:00.006Z

Recently I have been creating a website. This is to help further myself, CV, education and so on. I have made about 40% of it (not including the detailed sections of music and sport). The in depth stuff will be talked about later on. I hope to have RSS feeds and WAP working soon. This would help me keep a static homepage so that it does not affect the look of the homepage.

With RSS I hope people will bookmark my feed so that they get updated bookmarks. Hopefully people and companies would like the technology used and offer me a job :)

The wap section of the website is going to be used for simple wap image downloads and have the ability to download my cv so that someone can copy it from their phone onto pc whilst travelling and say how cool it is. WAP is not difficult to implement (just ask for help).

The website will be available at www.BaldeepBirak.co.uk as long as no one steals it first.

First Blog

2008-01-31T20:52:00.006Z

What do you say without boring everyone at the start. At this moment in time, myself and fellow University mates are in exam mode. I have completed 2 of the 4 exams in the final year of my degree. One exam is based on a unit called Multimedia Networks and the other is on Distributed Web Systems. I need to do well in both in order to get a 2:1.

In a weeks time half the year is complete. I will be looking forward to starting my project. Before the project begins, I have 2 units that are taught in one third of the allocated time. This is because we have 10 weeks to complete our project from start to finish. I have to aim as high as possible to achieve my desired 2:1. Easy to say, hard to do.

Coming back to current times, revision revision revision. One lecturer said we can take into the exams lecture notes as long as we want provided they are HANDWRITTEN. To get ahead of the game, I have written up 18 pages covering two thirds of the course material. You may say excessive. But a mate said he is on the same with one third of the content. I don't aim to use the material much, if at all. But it does help get the information in my head. Later on I don't have to be at my computer or reading lecture notes as I would have the information in one comfortable place.

I hope you are not bored yet. Please visit back and carry on reading. I promise not to swear, so you can let the younger audience have a read.