You'll need a zip for that box, by the way...

30 minutes after typing that last post the music stopped and I was faced by a 'Register' screen which wouldn't go away. For a moment I thought I would have to start apologising to all you people for not properly trying something out before screaming from the Google Plustops about it.

However, all you need is to make a quick trip to somewhere like this... The rest you can manage, I'm sure.

All's well now, The Monkees, Roy Orbison ... who needs a radio. and the TV's lousy tonight.

Open Pandora's box in the UK

Pandora is a great on-line music station. You type in a favourite artist and along comes a stream of tracks that are either by that artist or of a simlar genre. Yes, there are lots of on-line streams like Grooveshark and Spotify which are good too but what I like about Pandora is the variety and they do seem to have got things right.

The problem has been that if you go to Pandora.com outside the US then you get some boring apology stuff and that's not exactly what you need to cheer a rainy day. So I followed the advice of someone who really knows what he's talking about and comes up with a whole load of tips like this. Amit Argawal hasn't got the simplest of names to pronounce but his Digital Inspiration blog is cram full of things that I wish I knew. Well, I do now but he's the sort that thinks of them first. The best I can do is tell you all about them.

Rather than trying to get through using some awkward proxy server there's a really simple solution thanks to Google Chrome and Firefox. Now you really should be using one of these anyway but if you are still in the steam age and using Internet Explorer and don't want to change this post won't help you. In Chrome install the HTTP Enforcer Extension which sounds cool as well. In Firefox it's called HTTPS Everywhere which isn't so cool but does the job as well, if not slightly better.

Enable the extension or add-on. Go to pandora.com and, with a bit of luck, you'll get redirected to a working site.

I typed in Beach Boys and have been listening ever since. Brilliant! I even get The Beatles. You try finding them elsewhere.

Big thanks to Amit and whoever else is busy checking things out at Digital Inspiration. 

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.