Blog
RIP
Jun 26th
One of the greatest entertainers, musicians and performers that we have had. I love listening to his music and watching his performances – in awe of the talent and showmanship he had – I grew up with a lot of his music and still love it to this day. To know that he has gone is really quite sad but I know he will be remembered by many as the true King of Pop and for everything he brought to the world of music and entertainment. RIP
The New VAT Rate
Dec 1st
As of today, the 1st December 2008, the government has officially rolled out for a set time, a new VAT rate of 15% as opposed to the old 17.5%.
Immediate thoughts are that on the surface it all seems to be a win-win situation for the consumer, a 2.5% drop in the VAT has to be a positive thing given the current economic climate…right? It should encourage people to spend more…right?
Why drop the VAT rate?
The VAT rate has been reduced, not just to encourage people to buy more, but with the ultimate aim of boosting the falling economy and rescue a lot of businesses which would otherwise be quite likely to go under in the next 12 months.
First thing to note though, is that it is not a 2.5% reduction in the ticket price. It actually equates to an overall reduction of 2.13% if you do the maths.
Secondly, it means that a lot of high street retailers and smaller stores are spending an obsene amount of money changing all the POS, till systems and advertising media to reflect the new prices so as to draw in more customers and show that they have the best deal.
This has therefore resulted in a spate of obscure prices. For example, rather than having a simple £29.99 item, it is now £29.35 meaning stores need to have a lot more easily accessiblechange and it also means if we as consumers pay using cash, will more than likely end up carrying a lot more loose change around.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather pay the £29.99 and have 1p change, putting the difference back into the economy, than walk with a limp, dragging my leg because its 3kg heavier for all the change.
And before I get people claiming that all the small change adds up…consider that if you say, spend £300 a month on items that incur VAT at the 15% rate…you’ll save less than a whopping £7…
The only time you’d see a significant saving is if you spend tens of thousands…and if you’re spending tens of thousands on items which incur VAT, the difference is probably insignificant to you!
All in my opinion, and generally speaking, of course.
(Oh, and fuel duty has gone up by 2p)
Creative and the Daniel K Saga
May 25th
Creative Labs are one of the biggest players in the PC Sound Card market – great hardware, but their downfall has always been the drivers and software they develop and distribute for their products. And their attitude towards customers really does stink.
The failings of their software solutions were made even more prominent with the release of Windows Vista, which completely changed the way audio drivers work in comparison to XP. During Beta and RC stages of Vista testing, Creative had no proper drivers available (I had no sound functionality when using Vista x64 RC2), while other big name manufacturers at least made an effort to distribute some functional Beta samples ahead of Vista’s final release date.
Eventually, Creative got their act together and released some drivers which at least allowed you to get sound from your card on Vista – but that was about all they could do – many features were missing that were present in XP – features that a lot of people bought these cards for (EAX in gaming, for example). Creative blamed this on the way Vista worked saying that the software could not easily be adapted.
Fast forward to more recently (2007) when Creative released a software update called ALchemy which re-enabled OpenAL sound processing in Vista – effectively breathing life into X-Fi and Audigy series cards. Problem was, Creative released ALchemy free of charge to X-Fi users but charged for it to become useable for Audigy cards – even though the process was the same and the features were the same.
Enter Daniel Kawakami (Daniel K). Driver modder. Working on his own, he modified the free version of ALchemy to work on Audigy series cards and also modified the Creative drivers themselves for Vista users to enable functionality that Creative said was impossible to reinstate. He’d basically done their work for them and this allowed people to actually use their Creative sound cards again.
Then it all went sour. In March 2008, Creative issued a post on their community forums basically telling Daniel K to stop developing their drivers or they would take legal action:
We have read the strong feedback about Creative’s forum post regarding driver development by Daniel_k and other outside parties. Creative’s message posted on our behalf by our Company spokesperson tried to address our concern about the improper distribution of certain software which is the property of other companies. However, we did not make it as clear as we would have liked that we do support driver development by independent third parties. The huge task of developing driver updates to accommodate the many changes in the Vista operating system and the extensive testing required, including the lengthy Vista certification requirements for audio, makes it very difficult for Creative to develop updates for all past products. Outside developers have been very helpful to Creative and our customers by developing updates for many of our Sound Blaster products, and we do support and appreciate these efforts. This however does not extend to the unauthorized distribution of other companies’ property. We hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_k in supporting his efforts in driver development. Going forward, we are committed to doing a better job of working more closely with third parties to support their development for our products and our customers.
And also following direct questioning, O’Shaughnessy, the company’s vice president of corporate communications said:
If we choose to develop and provide host-based processing features with certain sound cards and not others, then that is a business decision that only we have the right to make. The main issue is that Kawakami has been including support for features that Creative didn’t intend to enable on certain cards.
In response to the threat, Daniel K responded that he didn’t believe he was a hacker and that modifying drivers is common practise – take modified nVidia drivers that allow SLi in non-SLi chipsets boards, or the GeForce to Quadro mod. The full list of features which were disabled in Vista by Creative and succesfully re-enabled by Daniel K are as follows:
Dolby/DTS decoding
CMSS, CMSS2 and Stereo Surround
Advanced EQ and Special FX presets
DVD Audio
Hardware MIDI synthesizer
Equalizer
WaveRT
Overall, his general opinion of Creative is summed up in the following quote:
They publicly threatened me just to show their arrogance. If they had contacted me by email or private message, I would have done the same thing (remove everything) and no one would know about their dissatisfaction.
There was no need for Creative to remove everything that I’d posted on the forums even if it was unrelated to the modded drivers. If they can’t provide better drivers, then let people make their own choice.
And I must say, I feel exactly the same – as I’m sure other people do.
If you want to check these drivers out you can find them on various torrent sites and also links here
A Year Older, But Definately Not Wiser
Apr 14th
I woke up this morning and realised that I was 22. It’s a bit strange how an entire year elapses overnight. It was only yesterday that technically, I was 21. And I got no “Happy 21st” wishes yesterday thankyouverymuch.
I then realised that 22 is just an awesome number because it contains two of the same number – one after the other – no spaces in between or anything! First and foremost, it makes remembering how old you are that little bit easier. When you get to my old age, your memory starts to fade and having one less number to remember makes all the difference in the world.
Another reason which leads me to elevate it to its ‘awesome’ status is that consisting of two number 2’s, and there are two digits, and 2+2 = 4, and 4 / 2 = 2, and 1+1 = 2. Also, thanks to my old friend Pythagoras, a^2 + b^2 = c^2. That actually bears no relavence whatsoever, I just have a thing for Pythagoras. And his theorem is pretty funky too.
You also know when you are a bit geeky when you get lots of emails from forums you are registered on wishing you Happy Birthday. It’s also slightly disturbing to come to the realisation that you regularly post on a lot of these forums. It’s also a bit disconcerting to have to stop yourself from going immediately to said forums and post “Its my bday lol”.
Not that any of this happened to me – its just a passing comment.
Spur of the Moment
Nov 2nd
A disturbing thing happened the other day. I made a decision. For those who don’t know me, I suck at making decisions thus, me making a decision was actually quite disturbing…
The decision I made wasn’t about something trivial like what to eat for Breakfast – oh no! I decided to drive a 200 mile round trip for some sugar coated rings of heaven.
Yes, Krispy Kreme. For those who have never heard of Krispy Kreme, it is an American and Canadian doughnut chain which has been going for over 70 years. I personally got hooked on the doughnuts when I went to Canada and visited one of the outlets.
Since then, I have been trying to figure out the logistics of sending doughnuts via the postal service with them remaining edible at the end of it.
That was until I discovered that Krispy Kreme had branched out into the UK. TOTAL WIN! Well, actually not quite. Upon checking the UK website, I discovered that though they were in the UK and growing, the majority of outlets were in London and the nearest one to me was Birmingham…
A nice 2 hour drive and several litres of V-Power later, I arrived at the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham city centre (which incidentally is actually quite a funky place to visit). I entered the lower floor of Selfridges where the Krispy Kreme was located and could smell the doughnuts already. Now, this particular outlet was nowhere near as big as the ones I’d been to over in Canada, but still… *drools*
You can actually see the doughnuts being made and when the machine is on, all customers waiting in the queue get a free freshly baked, hot glazed doughnut. Mmmm…
Moving along the conveyor belt being cooked
Coated by a river of thick gooey sugar
And the final product!
Yes, yes I did buy two dozen.
Say No to 0870!
Sep 5th
Yes, I’m writing something useful for a change.
A lot of companies now use what are known as “Non-Geographic” telephone numbers for call centres, support lines etc. The reasons for this are usually because it allows them to use a number which, for the most part, is a lot easier for people to remember and it standardizes the call costs (usually 4p-ish a min to 0870 numbers). All well and good, right?
Well not exactly. If you, like many people use contract mobile phone instead of a land line, or indeed just because it is easier, you will know that non-geographic numbers such as 0870, 0845 etc are very rarely included in your inclusive minutes. In fact, O2 one of the last providers to include these numbers in their inclusive packages recently announced that this was stopping.
Not only are the numbers no longer included, you are often charges a nice premium for dialling non geographic numbers from your mobile – often to the tune of 20p+ per minute.
Now, I was recently pointed towards a website which I found so useful I almost fell over. Almost.
Some of you may have already come across this site as it has been advertised on various radio stations and certain tv shows and may be using it at the moment, good on you. Help spread the word.
For those who don’t know: What this site allows you to do, is search either by company name or by the non geographic number you have, to find a direct equivalent geographic number. How freaking cool is that. Then you can dial that number, get the same service you would have got from dialling the 0870 number and it’s much cheaper (free if you are on a mobile contract!)
As well as using the service to search, you can also submit any equivalent numbers you know of to help expand the database.
Awesome.
Darth Vader gets so much Abuse
Aug 9th
I mean, he always seems to be the centre of ridicule. Granted he doesn’t help himself by wearing that ghetto costume – if you looked like this…
…you’d think people would take you seriously right? All dark and brooding and mysterious. Well actually, no. That picture makes me laugh.
You then get things like Darth and the infamous Chicken…
He tries to be all serious and then fails majestically. Speaking of ‘FAIL’ …
…And if you don’t get that picture, you just aren’t cool enough.
Even Family Guy has taken to abusing good ol’ Vader…
What has he done to deserve this!
Product Manufacturers
May 23rd
Are they having a laugh behind our backs? Are they just all a sick, twisted collective hell bent on ruining our lives just because they can?
I only ask this because I bought a Muller Corner yoghurt thing the other day – you know – the ones which have two compartments – one big one for the yoghurt and one smaller one for the fruit or the chocolate bits or whatever. I’d not eaten one in a while so I was actually looking forward to it. It was an Orange and Chocolate one, though I can’t remember the exact name. All that remained was to peel back the plastic foil lid and I’d be in.
Those who are familiar with yoghurt packaging will be aware that there is usually a slightly larger ‘tab’ in one corner which you simply pull up and peel back along with the rest of the lid. Simple yet effective method – in theory.
In this case however, the tab was stuck to the yoghurt pot. Curses. Ok, I thought to myself, I can handle this, I’m a mature adult. Sorta. So with some effort, I managed to prise the tab up and whilst removing the lid, I started to drool at the thought of being tasting the delicious snack that awaited me inside the pot.
Only, the lid ripped straight down the middle. &*%$!!!! It’s at this point I ask myself the question: Am I just a moron who has suddenly lost the ability to open fruit yoghurt pots? or have the manufacturers done this deliberately in some sort of cost cutting scheme and are at this very moment, laughing as a collective.
They probably go into work every morning and at 9.00am sharp, they all laugh as a collective for a minute before making more useless yoghurt pots.
Seriously though, I never used to have this problem.
Also, why do they have to use stupidly long and unnecessarily complicated model numbers and then laugh at us when we try to remember them?! Not on yoghurt pots, on LCD TV’s. Keep up!
The Story of Mr Bunny
May 18th
Once upon a time, there was a bunny called Mr Bunny.
One sunny day, he was minding his own business, not doing anything in particular…
…when all of a sudden he was verbally assaulted by none other than Homer J Simpson…
…this made Mr Bunny feel a bit sad.
So after getting over the shock of Mr Simpson’s torrent of abuse, Mr Bunny carried on – wondering what to do this fine day. He thought it might be fun to make chocolate moulds of eggs and stuff.
Just as he was about to make a decision, when he was stopped by a one Stewie Griffin. This vile baby spouted yet another torrent of abuse at My Bunny – far worse than Mr Simpson…
…My Bunny had had enough. He couldn’t take it anymore. There was only one way to end this all…
…yes, he jumped. He jumped from the nausea inducing heights of the top shelf without a second thought or final word…
…And that was the end of Mr Bunny. Bullying is bad mmmkay?
…
Fin.
What Happened to the Seven Ball?
May 13th
Following on from this post about a radical game of pool I invented, I thought it would be fitting to let people know what actually happened to our dear friend Mr Seven Ball.
First let me start with some background information. Mr Seven Ball was a quiet individual – in fact, he never really spoke at all. He was rather round in appearance, and despite his name and contrary to popular belief, did not have an abnormal number of testicles.
I could beat around the bush and make up all sorts of excuses like: Mr Seven Ball was left out of the game because he was of indeterminate colour and to make it appear that we were not a racist organisation, Mr Eight Ball was used instead.
Alternatively, I could also make up some more garbage like: Mr Seven Ball was on a business trip doing some PR work and Mr Eight Ball stepped in and kindly offered to take his place.
I could make up countless stories write paragraphs of total rubbish that you would never believe, so I shall save us all time and tell the truth. This is the real reason Mr Seven Ball was not present at the game:
He was kidnapped by a terrorist organisation and held to ransom for extortionate sums of money. We refused to give in to their demands to see how far they would go, and it resulted in Mr Seven Ball being packaged into a small wooden crate filled with smoked salmon, shipped off to southern America and put to work as a slave by an international drug baron. He was then tortured and forced to perform unsavoury acts before we were able to locate him and come to his rescue. It was during his absence that the game was played and hence he was unavailable.
I absolutely and positively did not totally forget that the Seven Ball existed and used the eight ball for the game because it looked cooler. Honest. =/