I rise to speak on the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (R 18+ Computer Games) Bill 2012. I am sorry that I cannot join in the debate about slide rules and slates, but, like the member for Solomon, I do remember having the Commodore 64. I do remember that, to play a computer game, you had to sit and wait for a tape player to load a game for about half an hour, and hope that it did not get caught some way through it, so that you could play a game of Aztec Challenge or Soccer. The most violent it got then was that a gorilla might throw a barrel at your head while your character was playing, but that was about it. But things have moved on enormously since then. There have been advancements in technology, advancements in innovation and advancements in people’s creativity, and that is a good thing. It is extraordinarily to be welcomed. But it is time for the law to catch up.
Author Archives: daniel
Make the mouse scroll wheel work in VB6
Still maintaining ancient VB6 code, and wishing the mouse scroll wheel would work in the IDE? Microsoft has the solution, via a VB add-in. Q837910: Mouse wheel events do not work in the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE.
(Or for some reason if you reject the add-in, you can downgrade back to Intellipoint 4.12… doesn’t sound like a terrific idea to me.)
Windows 8 preview
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview is now available for free download.
ZD Net has an article describing how to set it up in Virtual Box, and how much power your box needs to run it properly. Good way to try it out, I reckon.
Might have a play on the weekend.
Android: Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades
Computerworld has a list (that they are continuing to update) of which devices are getting Google Android 4 (Ice cream sandwich).
Alas, there’s no news of some phones, including my HTC Desire S. (The Desire non-S is looking very iffy, apparently.) There is a hacky way of getting it onto a Desire S… if you’re willing to forego being able to use the camera. No thanks. No doubt some other devices have this option available too, for the hardcore.
The bigger picture on this is that with a myriad of phone manufacturers, Android updates are a lot more hit and miss than Apple’s, where Apple’s absolute control clearly benefits customers by making operating system updates available quickly on all recent models of phone.
Old shapes in Visio
I know I’m using an old (2003) version of Visio, but seriously… paper tape?
(I suppose these days “cards” could refer to some kind of portable storage, though I bet it really means punch cards.)
Wikipedia is now blacked out
Wikipedia is now blacked-out for 24 hours.
Note that at the time of writing, clicking the “Learn more” link takes you to a page that momentarily has more information, but then itself gets blacked-out. D’oh. I’m guessing they’ll fix that soon.
I’m guessing the Google Cache will get a good workout in the next 24 hours. To use it, search Google as normal; look for the Wikipedia link, and click the right button [1] to make the cache preview appear, then click the “Cached” link [2] to look at it in full size.
Top spams
The work email server spam filter does not simply reject everything suspicious – this would risk us losing legitimate emails, something made worse by some companies choosing to send invoices and remittances as PDF attachments with no accompanying text whatsoever, something the mail server considers dodgy.
So (until I work out a better, foolproof automated process, or take the time to properly tweak the spam settings on the server) I manually look through some of the doubtful messages to pluck out those that are not actually spam.
The most common types of spam messages caught seem to be…
5. Your credit card is blocked (enter all your details into our dodgy web site)…
4. Work from home and earn $$$…
3. Marry a gorgeous Russian girl…
2. Cheap replica watches (Rolex etc)…
1. Cheap medicine to help gentlemen with, err, size-related personal problems.
…though it appears cheap Canadian pharmacies are also gaining in popularity, despite this being for a .com.au address.
Remote server frustration
I can understand the principle of locking down web browsers on server machines, but there should at least be a straightforward way of overriding it.
The other week we were connected to a remote server trying to debug some ASPX code. That’s remote as in: on another continent, and not using the fastest connection. (It was designed to be fast for a remote population of users, not us.)
A good way to debug the code without switching on debug errors for everybody is to RDP onto the box and browse it from there.
This didn’t work because, despite Windows 2008 IE ESC (Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration) not being enabled, it was blocking cookies, and every option I could find to try and turn it back on was either disabled, or did nothing.
‘Cos you know, browsing localhost (which has your own code on it ferchrissake) is a terrible security risk. Sigh.
In a rush to resolve it, we eventually resorted to downloading and installing Firefox on the machine. (I love Chrome, but its automatic updates and things scare me slightly; probably not good for a server. Some day I’ll dig around and figure out if it can be turned off. Come to think of it I should make sure FF doesn’t do the same thing.)
Firefox brought its own problems. Straight after installation, it decided to load up some hideously slow (on this less than ideal link) page with video. No, actually, two pages — using two tabs — and despite it proclaiming how fast and responsive it is, wouldn’t respond. Blargh. Thanks a bundle, Mozilla.
It must have taken a minute or more to come back — a long frustrating time when you’re in a hurry.
This solution did, however, work — we could finally see the debug messages, thank goodness.
Is there an official way of getting IE to behave itself?
Did Gmail’s certificate expire?
Surely not? Yet I’m getting this error in Chrome…
IE doesn’t appear to have this problem.
Update 21:43. Ah, it’s come good. Momentary blip? Wonder how many others got the scary message.
The trouble with Seesmic for Android
I really like Seesmic for Android, except for this: sometimes when there’s a short period of a poor mobile reception, it gets jammed, despite the signal subsequently improving.
In this case, after going through a poor signal area on my train commute home, I was back in the land of strong 3G and even wifi at home, but still it was stuck, trying to update.
The only way to deal with it appears to be a Forced close then a restart.
Surely it could be tweaked to handle bad connections better?
Bye bye Google Wave
Google Buzz went west; the lesser-known Google Jaiku is shutting-down in January. No surprise to hear another aborted Google social media product will go belly-up: Google Wave to go read-only from 31/1/2012, and being switched-off on 30/4/2012.
They must really be hoping that Google Plus stays the distance.
Ozemail floppy disk
Amazing the things you find during a clear out. Here, from 1996, is an Ozemail disk.
Australians would remember they used to turn up in magazines and so on, though they were never quite as ubiquitous as the America Online disks that seemed to show up everywhere in the North American magazines.
I haven’t tried to see if this one will still install on Windows 7… in fact for now it’s still sealed in its plastic.
The Ozemail web site www.ozemail.com.au forwards to iiNet, so I guess they got bought out by them somewhere along the line — in 2005 according to Wikipedia.