Sidetalkin'

Sing along while you look at these images, of people, SideTalkin', inspired by the completely bad N-Gage. I think this is going to have to be the current ear-worm.




N-Gage it's poop

It's when you talk with the N-Gage using the built in speakers and mic. They are situated in such a way that you look like you are trying to saw the top of your head off with a $200* taco.

*Prices correct as of November 2003**

**Probably be under $50 in less than six months

Mind you the bluetooth, play anyone anywhere thing sounds good..... oh my goodness, I almost fell for it.

Yumi update

Here we go with the latest from the worlds luckiest cat. This thing went from lifeless sack of skin and bones, to a very happy chappy (the girl sort) in a very short while.

Still terribly tiny for a cat of her age, but with a burning desire for Doritos, and taking it's life in it's paws when diving into the dogs food bowl, WHILE THE DOG IS EATING FROM IT, it's safe to say she is out of the danger zone now. Just tending to put HERSELF IN them these days.

She's cool, just likes to do all the kitten stuff, including giving people new types of blood tattoos by trying to jump up onto the lap, and of course NEVER making it fully. So lots of clawry, scrabbling ensues. Often drowned out by what passers by think, is the end to an operatic production of "Figaro, you dropped the sledge hammer on my testicles."



Yumi, looks nothing like her picture

They make those tiny feet VERY sharp. I'm surprised we haven't seen James Bond, ker-shlupping his way up the outside of some evil lair with one of his compensatory gadgets he carries. Get to the window where Odd-Big-Blofeld Job (or what ever his name was) has his office (you know the one with the fully working hologram of how the world looks after a bio-bomb attack, with high backed chair in front of world map, divided into 'Theirs' and 'Mine') only to pull from his secret compartment in his titanium contact lens, a kitten.

With a soft but decidedly complaining meow, he proceeds to cut a perfect circle in the glass to gain entry.

(Cut to view from inside the window, in the gloom and Bond looks like he is washing the window in a big slow circle with what almost appears to be a huge furry starfish. And NO, we still don't see why the glass doesn't fall and break, or how he manages to get in...)

The cat (who by now has been discarded and has run off into the building somewhere) of course becomes the ultimate reason for the henchmen (who seem to have amazing hearing, in proportion to their intellect) to dismiss the sound of someone snapping together a 20lb rocket propelled human transporter, with twin mounted machine guns, and inexplicably, a bed! This is for the part when the evil lair is no more than a pile of charred remains topped with all those matching color coveralls, and exploded fuel drums (??!), so the arch villans' lovely girlfriend has somewhere to wait for the plane filled with champagne and chocs to whisk her away for the closing credits.

I seem to be drifting from the point of these things again...

Matrix

Something I would love to have seen was the Matrix spoof, starring Bill Gates, from a recent Comdex speech. It seems there is no way of getting the video online, but you can see screen captures here.


Gates played Morpheus

To poo or not to poo

I don't think I should have put that image of poo further down the page. I was trying to go for futuristic. All clean and some blue neon. Anyway, nobody reads this, so perhaps this little glitch will go un-noticed.....


Tron, no poo in that

Old games

The previous post, didn't take into account the ghastly resolution of all things displayed on a television screen. That's how all those console games look stunning, and make you think the thing is stuffed with magic pixie dust, not the ACTUAL fact that the images are all running at about a dozen pixels across. It turns high resolution images into crap, and crap images into high resolution wonderment.

So the next thing will be to try some old Mame games on the laptop, on the television, and see if the blob of crap on my computer screen becomes the wild digital orgasm, that it was all those eons ago. The television screen is the missing component. That's why today you load up that old copy of Galaxians and about 1 second later, unload it again.

Unlike yester-year, when one went in with a handful of shiney coins, to force feed a whole host of machines, on which I could play for not very long at all actually before having to put more cash in.



Extract of XBox


Space Invaders
PacMan
Donkey Kong
Asteriods (Krysss.Com Blog Official Best Game ever)
Frogger
Defender (Krysss.Com Blog Official Best Game again, but with built in mental blocks)

Or if you can't wait, then try this...

Unreadable images

Another on the list of always wanted to do it, but never really had the right conditions to be able to get it done. Or it's one of those things where for no apparent reason you get a mental block strictly against whatever it might be. You just get it fixed in your head that this thing just will not work for you, or you cannot even begin to figure it out.

What I am referring to is in this instance putting a computer display on a television screen. Digging around my collection of connecty things, I decided that I had the right stuff to connect a laptop to a television. After a bit of messing about with pointless settings, I realised why it was indeed there was little mention of this in many places. The picture was less than perfect.


My desktop with default WinXP wallpaper

Common Geek Sense

Wow, while looking for answers about a particular DLink router I needed to learn, I found this rather wonderful little emulator. It shows you how the web interface for this router works. What a great idea, no more wading through online help, or scouring manuals for that rather basic info on the setup or config.

Deathly silence of crickets reigns....



Well you had to be there...

Wireless is one of the things I have had on my list of 'wanting to-do' for ages, and lately seem to be getting them done. From scans around here, it seems I am the ONLY one with a mind to unwire, but I don't think I will be running out to replace a perfectly good set of wired cards just yet.

Blame...

Heard a new one on me and a few other people, recently..... met someone who claimed to do all their word processing in Microsoft Excel! No I hadn't ever heard of that either. It turns out they do it this way as they used Excel in an office a long time ago, and had to use it for their documents also, because they had no alternative at the time. What's wrong with Notepad I ask you?. So in the end, they trained themselves to use Excel. I had no idea that a piece they had written was indeed done on Excel and not a word processor. So I asked them to show me, and now I know why I have only ever heard of ONE person that does this. Not to say of course, that there are not MORE people out there doing it, just not that MANY more.


Excel, not for writing

Anyway, here is a list of what I can remember as excuses as to why something on a computer is not working...

1. I am not used to this mouse/keyboard
2. It doesn't look like mine at home
3. Well, usually when I do that, it works
4. I'm tired
5. I'm hot
6. I'm hungry
7. I USED to know how to do this
8. I did it, but it's not there now??
9. My kids usually show me/I have someone do this for me
10. I DID do it!
11. This computer is not working because something's wrong with this chair.
12. I already clicked it a million times
13. Oh, you never told me THAT!
14. No, I don't need to write down my password, OF COURSE I'll remember that!! Which is usually followed by...
15. I DID my put password in, it must be something else.
16. I'm stupid.
17. You're supposed to be helping me.

And all of these are genuine.. as I was the one smiling plastically while hearing stories handed down through generations of eager newbies, who seem to have all passed my way before!

Stuff gets done

Installed Office 2003 yesterday, and then managed to finally begin navigating the Linux directories (in a long process of trying to use a completely free and legal computer). I use myself as a test for the rest of the organisation in regards to new things computery, so it can often be quite a ride, getting it all working straight.

There are three moments in your life you seem to remember...
1. Getting married
2. Emmigrating
3. Being in the limbo world, that is having no Outlook on your system. Sort of like in between moving houses, and all your stuff is in the van and not in any one place.

So far so good, Outlook 2003 has behaved and all is quiet on the front right now. Looks cuddly too, but they decided to keep the stupid office assistant thing!! Oh and another weird thing happened. I exported all my Outlook data, as one does before such massive undertakings. I then proceeded to remember RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the uninstall (as I ALWAYS DO) that I didn't make a note of server settings and other assorted email configorations. So I resigned myself to an age of getting them all back from the relevant dustier portions of the relevant websites, spending ages trying to figure out why I wasn't getting mail etc. The strange thing was that on first run, Outlook 2003 decided to grab all my Outlook settings and place it in er... place, so no need to do anything. NOT EVEN import my Outlook .PST file again!

The install decided to hang for a LONG time and then inform me it was complete. So anyone out there taking the plunge, be calm and sit it out if you have to.

All folder setups were there, all email accounts in place, everything. Just ran in again and everything worked. I uninstalled first so there would be no problems setting up with the new one. I know by now never to do ANYTHING automatically if I can help it on the computer. I believe it has been Microsoft who have been leading the field in this area of my education....

The first round of email (most of mine is junk anyway) was ok. It got two of the three emails that were junk. As for the other programs, I will have to see what is useful. Coming from a long time of Office 2000, the bells and whistles are a refreshing change, but as usual, they have to be USED in a useful way to be bothered with.... we shall see.

Oddly enough, I went to Amazon.com and they reccomended Office 2003, the exact same version of it I had installed not thirty minutes previous. Perhaps the Tivo unit has been selling Amazon all my strange viewing habits and now can read my mind (not a hard job I admit). I wonder how long it takes before the Tivo does all my thinking for me? That will only leave me with 23 hours and 58 mins for myself!!

I am trying to use Open Office as much as possible to see where the benefit of saving hundreds of dollars as well as having useful features comes in. For anyone reading that doesn't already know, Open Office is free, really!


Hundreds of dollars


Free REAL alternative

Please choose now

Anyone reading who doesn't know what all this is talking about, it's a suite of programs that offices use for productivity. Most people will only ever see the Microsoft version and assume there is simply nothing else out there. Remember folks, that your customers or anyone else couldn't care less which program wrote them the note, worked out the cost, or wowed them with the idea, they just want to do business.... think on...

More There stuff

I know I have said it before, but look at this link and see a movie made in the world. Everything you see here is exactly as the world works while you are in. Well everything except the music and awful acting.