Social Network Site Use Across The World

Whilst China and India may take the headlines for the largest numbers of regular social network site users (and remember that China has banned access to Facebook!), it is the proportion of the countries' populations that I have displayed here. It gives a different emphasis and, perhaps, a more predictable one. Bearing in mind the huge numbers of very poor in China and India, particularly, and the distance of many parts of nations like Russia from modern towns, however, there are still some surprisingly high figures.

Does 6/2x(1+2) = 1 or 9?

A popular journalist on consumer financial matters, Martin Lewis, tweeted this question today and for several hours my Twitter timeline was inundated with argument about whether 6/2x(1+2) equalled 1 or 9. There were professors, teachers, students and the whole range of responses. Some had done calculations on their phones, others on calculators, some had used Excel or programme scripts. Many just worked it out in their heads.

Everyone in the 1 camp was quite convinced they were correct. As, of course, were the 9 camp. I have to admit to being in the 9 camp too, on the basis of BODMAS. Bodmas is what I was taught at school as the order in which we should do calculations: first calculate whatever's in the Brackets, then any 'Of' calculation which, confusingly seems the same as multiplication but not the M of Multiplication which comes after Division, finishing up with Addition and Subtraction (unless of course they're in the brackets!!).

So, doing the (1+2) gives you 3 and it's re-written 6/2x3. Then you do 6/2 which is also 3. Finally 3x3 gives you the majority view of the 9 camp.

The point of this short article is really just to say that I think it is simply lazy to write such an expression in the first place. It is bound to cause confusion - it isn't clear what you're talking about and, witness very respectable programmes and top end calculator results, it will produce different results on different programmes or machines and so is not suitable as an expression in the first place.

In the real world, the expression 6/2x(1+2) will be based on some actual activity. It could be that I have six kids and need to know how many fruit in total the girls have. Half of my kids are girls and each has 1 orange and 2 apples. Clearly the answer to that is 9. I have three girls (6/2) and each has (2+1) items of fruit.

On the other hand I may have six peaches and want to share them with two groups of kids, each group having one girl and two boys? Answer 1 each. Obvious really.

In each case I would never have dreamed of leaving the calculation down to chance. In the first case I would have written (6/2)x(1+2) and in the second 6/(2x(1+2)).

Then I could have been confident that everyone understood the question and could achieve the same and desired result. And I wouldn't have a day filled with beeps from new tweets every few minutes.

By the way Martin Lewis is well worth following if you're interested in money saving matters. You'll find him at @MartinSLewis. I'm @Kirrisdad and a money spending expert.
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Censoring the internet

This chart and several others illustrating different attitudes to freedom to view internet content are featured in an excellent site by Evan You designed to promote awareness. You can also cast your vote there (scroll through the page). 

What's new at Android?

I searched for 'new' on android.com.

Hmmm.

OK, I suppose I'd better add that they have put a sweet little game. Click on the icon bottom left and see if you can get a medal :)

Yes! ASUS Laptop Resolution Fixed [by me]

You may recall the last post about ASUS support saying that my laptop didn't support Windows 7 and there was no help available for changing the resolution or recognising the ATI card instead of some default PnP monitor...

... a colleague said 'just get the driver from ATI (now AMD). Tried that but still couldn't get Windows to recognise it and spent a while going round in circles. Then I had a look at an identical laptop that had been running Windows 7 fine for ages and I did know what graphics card it had and what to do with it. Diving into Display properties you can eventually find Driver details which lists all the files apparently required. I copied those from one machine to the other. The next time I hit Update Driver, instead of being told that I already had the most up-to-date driver for a PnP monitor, Windows proceeded to get what it reckoned I needed and a few moments later I see this screen.

So I'm afraid that ASUS support haven't exactly excelled themselves on this query and, presumably, have left a whole pile of customers languishing in XP or Vista land or with ovals where there should be circles.

I'm not quite sure whether my efforts actually helped or whether Windows just took its time realising the ATI card was there. Either way, job was done in time to give the youngest son his brother's previously ailing but now looking and working great laptop on Christmas morning. As few people will have more than one of these laptops, if you have a similar problem and need the driver file list just drop me an e-mail.

ASUS: Is this problem solved? ME: No. Obviously not.

I have bought two ASUS F5V laptops in 2008. Both have done good service, one being carted everywhere with me and often used in class when the software I wanted wasn't available on College machines. The other started off with my daughter who passed it on to my son and now it's going to his younger brother. I'd put Windows 7 on mine, initially the trial version Microsoft issued and later an N version from work. That's been fine although I did have to fiddle around to get the web cam working again. So I thought I'd put a similar version on the younger son's to spruce it up a bit and, in the process, clear out all the rubbish that had accumulated as only a clean installation can achieve.

All went well, running like new except for a couple of minor-looking things. There were only two settings available for the screen resolution as Windows only puts on a PnP generic driver without the settings I need for the widescreen monitor. So I have oval icons instead of round ones. The other was the web cam again but otherwise no worries.

So I dropped ASUS suupport a line, having found nothing on their site of much use. Today I get this e-mail:

That can't be right. I know it's old but surely a driver for a screen display isn't that difficult to provide, especially as my other identical machine works OK. If anyone knows where I can find it on one machine then perhaps I can somehow copy it on to the other one.

I could also do with the registry amendments required to convince the machine that it has a DVD drive, not a CD drive. Having said that, it did just manage to read the installation DVD so that might be a dirty reader rather than a driver problem.

Suggestions welcome.

"My Program Files Look Quite Lonely..."

A clean installation of Windows 7 left my son with just a few, lonely-looking applications in his Program Files folder. "What else do you think I should get?" he asked. I was tempted to say "Nothing - you can do everything on-line these days" but I just know he won't be capable of leaving half a terabyte of space empty so before he starts downloading this, that and probably the other too, I decided to list what I had lying around and which did actually get used. And why. And, by the way, they're all *free.

It may be a useful guide to others too so I thought I'd publish it here. That also saves me typing it in an e-mail. (I've omitted games which you'll know far more about than me!)

Security stuff:
CCleaner helps tidy drives up and remove rubbish
WinPatrol (Scotty) keeps an eye on changes you may not want applications to make
Microsoft Security Essentials (it may be there already) jolly good anti-virus and general protection from Microsoft getting it right for a change
Prey (for mobile phone protection link) activate a camera and GPS or shut down if you think it's stolen

Design / photos etc
Irfanview open anything, quickly.
Picasa Google's brilliant album and editing application
JAlbum Another excellent on-line album maker
Sketchup make shapes, be an architect or just have fun
ColorPix get exactly the colour you need
Rasterbator make huge pictures and cartoon effects
Serif DrawPlus design
SerifPhotoPlus edit
SerifWebPlus publish
ArtRage draw, paint, splash around

Music
Windows MediaPlayer (if not there already)
Spotify one of the first in the on-line music field
VLC Media Player play anything
Total Recorder record anything

Utilities
Nuance PDFReader better PDFs
Skype communicate
7Zip compress and extract
LibreOffice if you haven't got Microsoft Office

Browsers
Rockmelt or just Chrome
Firefox (English UK) still useful to have around
(and ensure Internet Explorer updates automatically even if you never use it!)

*Serif offer free older versions but students can get the latest versions for about £10.
Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote are all freely available on-line via SkyDrive.