Devblog

I’ve got a few movies on my laptop, all of which are in widescreen format and saved as AVIs. They are absolutely fine, play fine in widescreen on my laptop and even using my HDMI connection, play fine in widescreen when hooked up to my TV. I then decided to burn these onto DVD so people could watch them on the TV without having to wait until I wasn’t using my laptop.

Windows DVD Maker is really good. It is easier and better than any of the free tools in previous versions of windows or as part of DVD recording software packages I’ve used in the past. All you have to do is add the video files, choose a menu design and then click burn. This worked fine for the first one I did but since then it’s been taking widescreen videos, adding them to a widescreen menu and then playing the resulting DVD in 4:3 format instead of 16:9. Even changing the very limited options does nothing – it ignors choosing either 4:3 or 16:9 from the options menu – it still burns everything in 16:9!

Turns out the simplest solution is actually more free Microsoft software – namely Windows Live Movie Maker. All you have to do is download it, install it and then follow the below instructions to create your DVD.

1. Open Windows Live Movie Maker, Add your movie.
2. Click on the View tab and set the Aspect Ratio to Widescreen
3. Publish the file in Widescreen format

You can then use the new video file to create your DVD. Simples.

It has been announced that soon in Europe there will be an update released (as part of Windows Update) that when installed will inform users that they have a choice to make – which browser would they like to use?

This choice is completely unbiased – the user is informed on the first screen what they are doing (i.e. choosing their default browser) and then on the following screen will have a first level selection of 5 browsers to choose from (there are additional choices – who knows what), namely Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera & Safari.

No since IE currently has about a 50% market share, this is likely to be the portion of the browser market that is up for grabs. Anyone who has already been educated into the choice of browser – i.e. that there is one and that they don’t have to just click on Internet Explorer and use that to broser the web, will most likely have already made a choice and will probably stick with it – this prompt isn’t likely to change their mind much. That plus this is only for IE users – those that have chosen Chrome or Firefox shouldn’t see it.

So what about the rest – the 50% that’s up for grabs? Well to me it would seem that these are the people who are unaware that there are other choices out there or possibly just don’t have a need to change (either they can’t be bothered or haven’t been motivated to through IE vulnerabilities for example). For the people that don’t know about the options, I think that this will be something that will make them stop and consider the options. They aren’t likely to just scan across the list (which is displayed in a random order) and pick IE – they are likely to look and make an uninformed or slightly informed choice. For this reason they aren’t likely to choose IE – if they have limited computing experience they aren’t likely to be fans of MS, more likely they are border of staring at the Windows flag while waiting for their aging PC to boot so they can check their email. Or they’ve heard or experienced the horrors of BSOD – not something that’s likely to make them choose MS’s offering.

So which would they select? My money is on either Chrome or Firefox. Mainly because Firefox is the biggest name in the browser market but even more important, Google is the biggest name on the Internet, making them much more likely to ring a bell with the novice and gain their vote. Secondly – they look and sound cooler than the others on the list. Style is as important as anything else dont-cha know.

It’ll be interesting to see how this affects the browser shares in Europe over the coming months. If nothing changes that just goes to show that I was right and Windows update should be forced on people.

I’ve written a few articles recently about how I think the technology, in particular computers, will be changing over the coming years with a move towards mobile devices that do everything and dedicated yet versatile multimedia devices in the home – TV recorders, games consoles etc. This does mean that since most people only want a PC for browsing the internet, the desktop PC and in a lot of cases the laptop will disappear from the home altogether as the games consoles and other cheaper TV connected devices will be able to provide the internet experience that most people want – and if someone is using the TV then their phone will do the job just fine.

So, how does this affect the key players in the industry? Up until now the home market has been dominated by the same companies as the business PC market – Microsoft provides the software with hardware being handled by Dell, HP, IBM, Sony and others. However, if everything moves in the direction I think it will the main product there – Microsoft Windows – will go from being the one element that’s included on all the devices sold to a compontent included on some devices – such as a version of Windows being used on some smart phones and obviously Microsoft’s Xbox. This is a major change for Microsoft. If the death of the desktop PC in the home and growth of mobile and gaming devices causes Microsoft to become a minor player in that area then who will become the new major players? Sony? They already produce the PS3 and are a big player in the mobile phone industry. My thinking is no. I think the industry will be dominated by two companies – Apple & Google.

To understand why you have to think about what the customer in the home environment wants – simple, elegant, stylish devices that do everything they want. Problem is “everything they want” is not what it used to be – we don’t want an operating system that allows us to connect extra hardware to perform the functions we need and a million things we don’t. We just want a device that performs functions such as texting, calls, music, camera and as such is small enough to be carried around – anything that this clever little device cannot do is either not worth having or much more likely acheivable through some provider on the internet. Does this remind you of something? iPhone maybe? Apple Inc?

But just because Apple were the first to produce a good, popular mainstream product, doesn’t mean they’ll be the dominant player for years to come. The success of the iPhone has highlighted to the manufacturers you big the market is and as such everyone wants a peice of the pie. So who’s big enough to acheive this? The one company who is innovative enough and is already playing catchup in this area – Google. They have a massive user base both in terms of it’s search engine but also Gmail and it’s other products mean that they have the capital, marketing ability and product design capabilities to make something as good as the iPhone.

Where does this leave Microsoft? Well, the Xbox product line which could become the main living room device assuming they accept the fact that the PC won’t be part of the package, they’ve got the technology to ensure that the Xbox is one of the devices in everyone’s home. That and their dominance in the business software market means they aren’t going to disappear. They just won’t be the biggest technology company in the home.

I personally hope this is the case. I won’t miss going down the pub and being greeted with “Windows has gone and done….”. And I don’t think it will take too long for this to happen – I’ve already got the iPhone and Xbox (and Wii, and Sky) and as such very rarely turn on the laptop except for work related tasks.

My company is a fairly small one that has a very simplistic network, a few broadband connections and PCs with mainly Windows Home based machines because they do everything we need them to. This means that we just upgrade the OS when a PC is at the end of it’s useful life or when we get new staff. As a result of our expansion over the last year nearly all of our staff are on Windows Vista. The only exceptions are me (Head of IT) and Mike (Graphic design). Due to our jobs you’d think that we’d be at the top of the list for an upgrade but due to us having much faster PCs to begin with and having a better level of computer knowledge so we can keep them running better for longer, so we’ve stuck with our now aging XP machine. Until about 3 months ago that is.

At that point my Windows XP laptop was starting to suffer from various hardware problems – fans starting to seize and cause shutdowns, network failures for no reason, nasty wirring from the harddrive on occassions. This led my boss to give me a shinny new Vaio (VGN-FW48E if you’re interested) with Shiiny Vista. I would have been happy to stick with XP as that bit everything I wanted and had become stable and reliable to the point where it just ran and ran, day in day out. Unfortunately everyone in the office is on Vista and keep asking “how do i…” and the reply “how should I know – I haven’t got a new PC” apparently doesn’t count as quality IT support, plus XP is quite old now and although I was happy with Windows 98 at the time, things change and you eventually have to get up to date.

So – Windows Vista – what’s it like. Well…. everything has moved around to make it simpler for novices, making it annoying for me since I knew where everything was, plus now I can’t have access to all the advanced settings we used to have. UAC is a bit annoying – it’s like Health & Safety – just because some people are idiots who can’t but one foot in front of the other without having an accident, we all have to suffer.

What else? Ah yes – it’s looks have been overhauled and it does look very good. Gone are the playgroup colours and images, it’s now a lot sleaker looking and modern. But…. if you’re after something that looks good – why Windows? A Mac or even most Linux distros look well better than Windows, can perform the same tasks and in the Linux case – are free. But hey-ho, it’ll do for now.

Anyway, after a month or two of playing with Vista it became time to receive my free upgrade to Windows 7 that came with my laptop when I bought it. The actual upgrade was smooth enough – uninstall this, run that, re-install that. Then it was time to go – so what’s it like. Well, there is yet another facelift but as mentioned before – it’s not all about looks, personality counts too. So what else has changed?

I like the taskbar and quicklaunch changes – that’s a very nice improvement. However, as I have Firefox pined to the taskbar, it took me ages to find out how to pin it back to the start menu and as a massive fan of keyboard shortcuts (Win + down + enter to get Firefox up) this was really annoying.

So, what are my overall thoughts after my swift upgrades from XP through Vista and onto 7? Well, Microsoft – listen up! You’re not a government – you don’t have to force your “Health & Safety” policies on us all! After digging around you can turn all this crap of and find the advanced tab we were looking for, but don’t make it so hard! Turn on the security by default for the novices but have an Experienced user account for the computer professionals that easily lets us use our PCs the way we want.

Be warned – this isn’t a comprehensive review of the game – I’ve only had it for one evening so far. I’ve been a massive fan of the NFS games since NFS III in 1998 playing them all on the various PCs over the years. For the most part they have been great, getting better and better with each new release…. until Pro Street. Up until this release the NFS games had had a great formula: great tracks and courses to drive on, collect or earn great cars and a fairly simple plot that didn’t get in the way of the racing too much.

With Pro Street they have gone down a different path – back to single race events which would have been good apart from a few things:

• The driving was aweful because the physics engine was crap
• It crashed all the time
• There was too much hip hop, neon cars and other crap that wasn’t needed

This was the first release that put me off as soon as I started playing it. It’s also the first release that wouldn’t run on which ever computer I had at the time – whether it was a mid spec desktop or fairly high end laptop, all the rest ran fine on very high settings. Pro Street just about ran on minimum settings on a high spec Sony Vaio for maybe a race and a half before crashing every two minutes. During the short time I’d had to play it had put me off completely I never did anything to try and get a PC that would run it. Onto the next release.

Need for Speed: Undercover looked much more promising so when this was released I bought myself another mid-spec PC to play it on – something that met the minimum specs and should have been able to play it – surely that’s what the minimum spec is for. However, when the game turned up and I installed it, it just crashed Vista whenever I tried to play it. Many a night was spent trying to find out the cause and fix it with no success. Eventually it just went on eBay.

So, back to the present – a new NFS game and a new laptop to try it on. This game kind of snuck up on me – I hadn’t even heard it was being made and then suddenly it was being recommended to me on Amazon. Luckily EA had decided to release a demo with this one so I downloaded it, installed it on my laptop and fired it up. After ignoring the recommended “low” graphics settings and putting them up to “medium” I managed to crash it a few times – it is a laptop with laptop graphics after all, but after putting them back down to low, it ran fine and enticed me enough to lift the EA boycott (Red Alert 3 annoyed me as well but that’s another story).

This did present me with a problem though – I didn’t want to play the entire game on “low” settings so what was I going to do about something to play it on. Getting a decent PC to play this on that would last me a few years to make it worth it could end up costing me over £2000 and apart from the huge cost to play a handfull of games, me and the missus already have laptops so wouldn’t use it for other computing activities, we don’t have anywhere to put it and with the way things are moving in the PC games industry – it might not work on next years games.

So, alternatives? PS3, Wii or Xbox 360. We already have a Wii and while I love the innovative controllers and gameplay this opens up, the graphics aren’t brilliant and the controller for racing games is similar to what you use on a PS3 or Xbox 360. I could have had a look at the PS3 but since I’ve also had my eye on Project Gotham Racing for a while, I decided to take a look at the Xbox instead. I was tempted to save some money and stick with the Wii (there is a credit crunch on) but then I came across the Xbox 360 Arcade edition and as I’m not a hardcore gamer who will be playing on it all night the limitations of the Arcade edition didn’t make much difference to me and the cost was low enough that I just went ahead and ordered one.

So, this got me thinking – does my change from long term PC gamer to having two consoles (my previous console before the Wii and Xbox was a Sega Master System!) mean that things have changed so much that PC games could be on their way out? I think: Yes. With cheap plasma TVs, cheap laptops, wireless networks, cheap networks etc – the hardcore PC gamer who has a top end system that does everything must be becoming something of a varity.

Maybe the PC game is an endangered species….

I’ve just been given an old laptop to re-install by the Boss – you know, to make it faster for 10 minutes until Windows Update has made it as slow as it always was, and in the process of installing Windows came across one of the most stupid ideas that laptop makers have come up with yet.

Putting the Product Key on a sticker on the BOTTOM of the laptop

So, pick it up, read a block of the key, put it down, forgot the 5 digits, pick it up…. die of old age!

Only 35 years left till retirement….

So, Microsoft have a released a new Internet Explorer and as per usual, we’re going to have to re-code all our sites for it. So, what’s this versions problem: file uploads.

I have a site that uploads a file in the usual HTML form way and then the PHP on the server checks if it’s a JPEG and uses copy() to move it to a desired folder. I tested it in FireFox and everything was working fine and since it’s so simple a script I left it at that. Then a client with IE7 called me because he was trying to upload a jpeg and nothing was happening. I fired up IE and gave it a go and when I clicked on the Submit button it just sat there, doing sod all.

A bit of digging and I found that the problem was because I’d included the following in the code for the Submit Button:

onClick=”this.disabled = true;”

This was being executed by IE and then it appears it just sits there and forgots you clicked Submit. You can give IE a good kicking and get it working again by changing it to:

onClick=”this.disabled = true; document.form.submit();”

I hate IE and M$

We use MySQL Databases with PHP front ends for pretty much all our organisations needs but occassionally we need to get something done before I can come up with a system for it. The most recent example was the collection of Contact data which would eventually be integrated into our main Customer database.

We let our Admin staff loose on the collection process and as I didn’t have any input, they used MS Excel to store the info. Now the time has come to add the info to our main MySQL Database and process it for any errors. To minimise the amount of work I’d have to do I wanted to use both Access and PHP to do some processing and data manipulation so I installed WAMP on my laptop and the Mysql ODBC Connector.

After loading up Access, I tried to connect to the MySQL table I’d created but after choosing:

File > Get External Data > Link Tables…

After choosing “ODBC Databases” from the Files of Type, nothing happens.

Turns out it is the “wonderful” Norton Internet Security at work again. You can fix it through the following method:

• In the System Tray, double-click the Norton icon
• Click Norton Internet Security.
• Click Settings.
• Click Additional Options, then Virus and Spyware Protection Options.
• Click Miscellaneous.
• Clear the Turn on scanning for Microsoft Office Documents check box.

Close Access if you had it open and then open your DB again. Should work fine now.

In a previous post I wrote about Outlook, Firefox and “General Failure” messages and a solution to stop these messages from appearing. I’ve just had an update to Firefox and had to go through the same process again because the error messages were coming back. This time it didn’t work though.

A bit of poking around the interweb has given me this little gem though. Basically it has to do with DDE, an old method of allowing applications to communicate with each other. The simplest thing to do is disable it for Firefox:

1. Go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> File Types.
2. Click on: Extension: {NONE}, filetype: Firefox URL
3. Click on Advanced
4. Click Edit
5. Uncheck the “Use DDE”, and OK twice.
6. Repeat 2-5 for the the following:
   1. “URL: Hypertext Transfer Protocol”
   2. “URL: Hypertext Transfer Protocol with Privacy”

Hopefully this one should fix the problem permenantly

I was browsing the “My Pictures” folder and noticed that the previews of the various images in the folder were wrong. It wasn’t all of them and it wasn’t a certain file type either, just some of them were wrong. After a bit of poking around I found the cause.

I have recently got a new laptop and when I transferred everything across I just dumped things in a shared drive and copied it across, including certain files such as Desktop.ini and Thumbs.db. The last file was the cause of the problem and the simplest fix is this:

• Open Windows Explorer (or My Computer) and go to “My Pictures”
• Go to “Tools” > “Folder Options…”
• Uncheck “Hide protected operating system files [Recommended]” and click OK
• Delete the file “Thumbs.db”
• Change back the setting for hiding protected files
• Preview the folder again – everything should be back to normal

You might have to do this with every folder that contains images and therefore a Thumbs.db file.