Paul Smith's Blog

While going through my logs last month I came across a rather interesting search query that somebody used to find my blog. why didn't dinosaurs evolve again after the big bang After a little chuckle I carried on, however I did jot it down for future use. I suppose fundamentally it represents the terrible truth that ignorance dominates in our society. Nothing demonstrates this more than Sherri Shephard: We knew the shape and size of the Earth 2200 years ago, it is disappointing to see not everyone is aware of it today....

Today it finally happened. After so much waiting and hard work, so many recipes and so much chilled meat and northern spice, Dinendal, Guardian of Cenarius finally has his [Chef's Hat]. Below is my buying the [Chef's Hat] off Derek how exciting! Hi Derek how are you doing? Now at long last I can wear my new silly hat in raids, and show everyone how much low level rubbish food I can cook, and more importantly how quickly I can do it....

I've had a couple of people e-mail me asking what they should install on their new Windows 7 computers since some of the firewalls and anti-virus software they've used in the past aren't compatible. Long time readers of my blog will know the epic battle I've always had with anti-virus. To the point where during the Windows Vista timeframe I didn't run anti-virus. Obviously I don't recommend the average computer user to do that....

For those people installing Windows 7 Professional you might notice that the Games Explorer and Start Menu look a bit sparse game wise. By default the games aren't installed in the Professional version. You can of course quickly add them back. Press Start -> Control Panel --> Programs ---> Turn Windows features on or off Up the top of the list of components you should see Games. Check that box, or drill into it and specify individual games....

As you may recall a day or two ago I blogged about a pretty major mistake the BBC made in an article looking at Windows 7. Well I'm following up with another issue I have with the review. At the end of the video the chap doing the review throws out: In truth we've had a couple of problems with programs and updates we've tried to install. Oh really? At the same time the following is displayed (yeah they couldn't even be bothered to use some screen capture software, instead filming a monitor argh):...

Just a quick note for those blasting Windows 7 onto their machines this week. You may notice lower than usual volume with your SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS. I've had a few e-mails along these lines and it seems to be due to the drivers currently on Windows Update. I'd recommend trying the latest Daniel K drivers, in the past these have resolved problems I've had with lower than normal volume compared to Windows XP/Vista....

I'm surprised I missed this before. But yes Windows 7, an operating system not even released has already surpassed the latest version of Mac OS. During September Windows 7 usage accounted for 1.52% of traffic measured by Net Applications, and as of this last weekend it broke 2%. During the same timeframe 10.6 (Snow Leopard) which was released the previous month, accounted for just 0.77% of traffic. I'm willing to bet with a few weeks of launch Windows 7 will eclipse the entire Macintosh user base....

So the BBC have been putting up a few articles on Windows 7, it is after all released on Thursday. But they've also made a few mistakes, usually when comparing it to Windows Vista. What I'll cover here is the Gadget platform. If you recall in Windows Vista you could open the Sidebar on either the left or right sides of the screen which could hold all the Gadgets, or if you wanted to you could drag them off the Sidebar and place them where you wanted, and even close the Sidebar....

It looks like the new version of Mac OS X has shipped with a rather major flaw. Users of the new Apple operating system Snow Leopard are experiencing massive data losses when logging into their machines under a guest account. The problem appears to affect those who had a guest account enabled before upgrading to Snow Leopard. Users have in some cases lost their entire main profile, including sites, pictures, videos and documents....

PC Pro (and no doubt others too) show how utterly gullible they are: Microsoft is planning to make Windows 8 an 128-bit operating system, according to details leaked from the software giant's Research department. Uh huh. A move to 128-bit support would be a bold move for Microsoft. Many, including PC Pro's own Jon Honeyball, were urging Microsoft to make Windows 7 64-bit only, but the company continues to offer a 32-bit version of the forthcoming OS...