Adobe Blues

This is so annoying. You get a message to say that there's yet another version of Adobe FlashPlayer when you switch on your computer. You click install and wait while it downloads the 4MB file. That opens and you have to agree to this or that and click another button. Then, after another wait, you get this message. There is nothing else open! I have been waiting specifically for this to do its thing having found before that if I did start doing almost anything whilst the installer's thinking about what to do it stops and tells me to close it. So nowadays I just wait and sometimes it's happy, sometimes it's not.

No thanks, I don't want to troubleshoot anything. If Adobe are going to update their software for reasons totally beyond my comprehension then that's fine but why on Earth can't they just get on with it, like so many other programmes do. They don't bother me. they just do what they're supposed to do and I live my life and they live theirs. How am I supposed to know what may be running in the bckground and even if I did understand what does what I have no idea at all which may or may not interefere with 11.2 and I really don't see why I should be in any way interested in knowing either. Most people switch on and expect things to work. Simple. Occasionally I join the band of geeks who rummage around behind the scene but I'm not sure even that type of rummaging would reveal the problem and it's pretty boring anyway.

I am sure I can manage quite happily without whatever wonders 11.2 was going to bring until it does eventually manage to install itself. However, at College, it's a different matter. There, students have a desperate need to get access to at least a reasonably up-to-date version as many things simply don't seem to work and, although staff and students get similar messages, there's absolutely nothing they can do about them as none of us have any permission to install the changes. There, people do the various clicks and just get told they can't do it after a while. That's been going on for ages and it's a matter of luck whether the technicians' update round happens to come this term or next. We're probably still on version 8 or 9 there by my reckoning and that probably accounts for weird things being needed to play embedded Google presentations. One student discovered that if you press backspace when the page with the errant display arrives then, magically and quite illogically, the presentation is displayed!

So, apart from that backspace trick, this isn't answering any questions... I know. Just needed to rant as Adobe are really annoying these days. And don't even mention QuickTime!

If anyone does know what might be a typical bit of background software running that causes the problem then do let me know. I have no desire to run through everything taking guesses.

8 reasons why I spend more time on Google+ than Facebook

1. It's more like a news aggregator than a gossip column.
2. Sorting by "Most Recent" is a default. 
3. App crap doesn't pop into my streams.
4. Google+ makes it fun to discover people I don't yet know.
5. I don't see weird @status @updates posted from @Twitter!
6. Ripples.
7. Landing on "What's Hot" gets me in front of ALL users.
8. I don't get invited to random groups, being forced to opt-out.
9. No stresses of "friend" reciprocity.
10. Animated GIFs. ;)


There really is a huge difference and I just hope that more friends will make the move from Facebook soon!

Thanks For All The Fish. And Computers.

I've been thinking about all the things I do and have just updated my website, andrew-hill.net, to feature What I do and I realised just how lucky I am to be alive at this time and to have so many amazing tools just there, ready to use, so many people just there, ready to help. And it's all free. Well, apart from some electricity or phone rental, which isn't much. So I'd like to say thank you to everyone out there who makes all this possible.

My favourite author, Douglas Adams, was born in the same year as me. I share many of his interests and delights (although I never bought a Mac!) and I often think it was such a shame he didn't live to share in all this. I think he would have enjoyed it so much too.

Text design
I have always loved doing my own designs for leaflets, letterheads, posters and the like. That used to mean buying sheets of Letraset and carefully positioning each letter, rubbing over it with the end of a pencil or a stylus if I was being really careful, and hoping that the serifs would stick down properly and that I wouldn't run out of Rs or Ts. There were usually enough Es.

Now there are lots of lovely programmes that make this easy and, of course, there are web design tools too so that I can publish them and see them on screen.

ICT training
My first real experience of word processing was with golfball typewriters and then daisy wheel ones which did allow me to make mistakes and fix them without having to throw away too many sheets of company notepaper. The biggest leap was with a Digital Dual Display computer we bought for the office. It cost about £12000 and the printer was so noisy we bought a special box for it. Even that wasn't brilliant though and it finished up on the floor below where it could bother someone else! I often thought that was a bit unfair so let me say sorry now to Lyndsey, Katrina and Susan in particular, as well as thank you to Jeanne and Judy who had to go up and down stairs a lot to get whatever they'd printed.

We taught ourselves then, just as I have done since with all the programmes I've had to get used to since. From Locoscript to WordStar to Works to Word and 97 to 2010 and no doubt there'll be more to follow. I also started teaching others in the late 90s as people started buying computers either at work or for their children to use at home. I still have the Introduction to Access and Spreadsheet booklets I wrote and provided for the sessions as well as many more. That was a job that I just kind of fell into and have been doing in some form or another ever since.

Teaching
As well as ICT training, teaching other subjects has been made so much easier with places to store materials that students can access when they like. Having extra tasks on hand for those that complete the first ones, having examples I can share so that I don't have to try and explain or draw them on the board. Being able to find answers to questions within minutes as opposed to spending hours researching in books and magazines. All these internet tools have made that job something I could do and feel that I could contribute more to.

Working with pictures
I remember getting photos back from the chemist and being pleased with a few of them but seldom all of them! You could get enlargements but it was expensive and quite complicated. You had to try and indicate exactly which part you wanted enlarged and could seldom do much about the ones that weren't straight or with poor lighting. I so much wanted to do more with my photos and there was one school friend who understood developing and even had an enlarger and all the papers and chemicals at home but it looked difficult and I couldn't ask him to spend much time on my ideas.

Photocopiers were a great advance and I did quite a lot with them but the grainy and solely black and white images weren't really what I wanted. So when computers came along and I could actually scan my own pictures, crop them and do all sorts of editing I was in heaven! Then digital cameras arrived and, whilst the first one I had (free with some software and with something like a maximum of 320 pixels!) wasn't particularly great, the next one was and, in fact, had it not been stolen in 2004 I would probably still be using it now.

To be able to take as many pictures as you want and not worry about the cost is extraordinarily liberating and I can experiment and even when the results aren't quite right there are tools that can help fix them. More than anything, I think, this has been the most pleasurable development, even though it hasn't made me any money!

Writing
I have always written things, from articles to books and poems. I love writing. Whatever I did write, though, stayed virtually unseen in a pile of big books, little books and scarps of paper. I dreamed of publishing them but could never afford it. I did try printing a 450 page novel at one place where I was running some ICT courses. They had a super fast printer that did things like double-sided printing and could put two pages onto one. That enabled me to have an actual printed copy of the book and some spares to give to friends with page numbers that changed automatically if I made changes to the chapters too.

Previously, with an Amstrad PC and printer it took 1 minute to print a page and you had to remove that and insert a fresh sheet each time. I calculated that my 450 page book would take several days to print! (I did do it, though. Once.)

Now I have been able to publish my novels, with my own cover designs and jackets. I have poems on blogs and articles in a range of technical on-line journals. I'm not making any money from this but the feeling of holding your own hardback book after so many years is wonderful. To see my articles and poems on screen is good, too, and to be able to share them and hope others might enjoy them too is most satisfying.

I now write regularly for a range of TV shows and entertainment programme reviews. Again, it's mostly for fun but some of these are proving remarkably popular with lost of people seeming to read them so that makes it worthwhile too.

Whereas previously all I would have done is scribble away to myself and hope someone appreciates it when I'm gone or finds it of historical value of some sort, now I can get the kick of seeing people enjoy what I write shortly afterwards.

Numbers
I have played with numbers and been fascinated by maths since my school days. Now, with spreadsheets, I can produce all sorts of graphs and series and things and just play with formulae for hours if I ever have a few spare.

There are also great resources available on-line for those that wish to learn more. My children have enjoyed the Khan Academy courses and I have even tried to teach myself some python programming with Udacity recently.

Editor
Whilst I seldom spot my own mistakes very quickly, I do seem to be able to spot others' almost instantly and enjoy helping rephrase text as well as correcting spelling and grammar for people, especially where it's in an important document they're proposing to share with others. Word processors make this a simple task although I don't rely on their in-built checks! Even I will have trouble with some words, though, and to be able to look them up on-line and get a quick spelling idea saves me a lot of time. Word count, too, is a real time-saver!

Being able to compare students' texts to both other students' submissions and what might be published elsewhere is also an invaluable tool.

Business
I once had a client who wanted to develop a business and he provided me with new sets of figures almost every week. I spent days and nights setting up a sort of spreadsheet (although it wasn't called that in 1982) which would do all the calculations for monthly balances, cash flow etc. It was wonderful and meant that I could do more of that sort of interesting work more often. Now I can illustrate different scenarios and produce charts for this as well as nice sheets of numbers in a flash with software like Excel.

This led me into the world of helping new businesses assess feasibility of new developments and, of course, those that did proceed would need stationery, leaflets promotional material and logos, corporate identities and, more recently, web sites too. Great. Just my sort of work and I have had a wonderful time helping ideas become real and helping to make them look good too. The computer and all the software tools have made this possible whereas before I would probably never have got so involved.

Music
Then there is music. I love the sound of the Sixties as well as every decade since. As a teenager, I would have to try and record tracks with a microphone held up to the radio or TV speaker and hope no-one made any noise in the background. The tapes were fiddly and not brilliant quality but I was able to build a collection of favourites. Albums and singles were expensive for me. Yes, I bought quite a few but not nearly as many of the tracks that I would like to have done at the time.

Now, I have a really comprehensive collection of good quality music and can listen to what I want, when I want and almost wherever I want. It's crazy. There was even a track I thought I would never, ever find because it was something I heard for just a few weeks one summer. It never got into the charts but I sort of got hooked on it and never forgot it. A little while ago I discovered that all Radio London's Fab Forty Chart programmes were available on-line and, sure enough, there were a couple of weeks when that track was to be played. With a simple bit of recording software and some editing, I now have that track in my collection and can play it any time I want. That's all so cool.

In fact, everything I do is amazingly influenced by having software that is mostly free, on computers that are not expensive. I can compete with others for business. I can express my views on things and expect at least some people to see them. I can do so much that I love doing without spending a penny now that I have the essentials. I will never have time to do everything I'd like to.

The possibilities are now endless. But I shall enjoy every moment.

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.
.