Author Archives: daniel

Using old hardware: Win2K drivers in XP

How to get an old Canon scanner (which has no XP drivers) working in Windows XP: Use Win2000 scanner driver, but follow this procedure (on Canon’s German site, but written in English).

In summary you make sure the scanner is DISCONNECTED; then use the old Setup.exe to install the software; shut down the PC and THEN plug the scanner in. When you start the PC up again, it’ll detect the new hardware and — against all odds if you ask me — figure out that it matches the drivers you’ve already installed. After that you should be right to go.

It worked fine with my ancient FB-310, and it’s something to keep in mind with other hardware, too.

Douglas Adams and Tom Baker in Hyperland

In this one-hour (50 minutes, actually) documentary produced by the BBC in 1990, Douglas falls asleep in front of a television and dreams about future time when he may be allowed to play a more active role in the information he chooses to digest. A software agent, Tom (played by Tom Baker), guides Douglas around a multimedia information landscape, examining (then) cuttting-edge research by the SF Multimedia Lab and NASA Ames research center, and encountering hypermedia visionaries such as Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson. Looking back now, it’s interesting to see how much he got right and how much he didn’t: these days, no one’s heard of the SF Multimedia Lab, and his super-high-tech portrayal of VR in 2005 could be outdone by a modern PC with a 3D card. However, these are just minor niggles when you consider how much more popular the technologies in question have become than anyone could have predicted – for while Douglas was creating Hyperland, a student at CERN in Switzerland was working on a little hypertext project he called the World Wide Web…

LANGUAGE: English
PUBLISHER: BBC

Firefox 3 ideas

With Firefox 2.0 almost out, Mozilla are asking for suggestions for version 3 via a Wiki page. But it looks like they still don’t “get” the corporate world — at one stage one subheading read: “More Bullshit vs. Less Bullshit”. Is that likely to convince any CIO that they should migrate their X thousand users over to Firefox?

Anyway, I wonder if this means they’ll look at my favourite 5 year old Title bug… Ah. Nope. Not before Firefox 3.0 (May 2007), would you believe. Hey, I’m not holding my breath.

(via Ars Technica)

Foxtel Scifi channel

Foxtel Australia to launch a sci-fi channel on December 1st. It’ll be interesting to see if they confine themselves to parent company (CBS Paramount, NBC Universal, Sony) shows, or if they look wider.

And will it be enough to convince more people to get cable TV? The sci-fi channel will be part of the My Escape package, meaning a minimum total monthly cost of A$51.90 if you want to see it.

(Me? I don’t watch much TV anyway. Somehow I suspect another X dozen channels aren’t going to change that…)

XP logon problems?

Windows XP logon - with language indicator?!Is it just me who’s got problems with the Windows XP Welcome screen (friendly logon) in the last few days (perhaps since the last security update)? Firstly I note the presence of a language indicator next to the logon name; I’m pretty sure that wasn’t there before.

Secondly periodically the password box doesn’t work when I go to type in it. Clicking, typing, nothing works. Have to either restart the machine (thankfully possible via the mouse) to get it back, or Ctrl-Alt-Del twice to get to a “classic” logon, which lets you in.

Weird.

Okay, it’s not just me. (Usenet thread)

PS. 28/11/2006: Another Usenet thread on this problem. Still no definite solution, though one suggested (unverified) is: regsvr32 shgina.dll

PS. 8/12/2006: The above register command doesn’t fix this problem.

PS. 13/12/2006: Some of the guys on the SysInternals forum have also noted this problem. No solution yet.

PS. 26/7/2007: Graham comments below that he’s found KB923191 appears to be the problem. But given this patches a critical security flaw, I’d rather live with the workaround.

Misc stuff

Cool links I’ve found recently:

Super (MOV to AVI conversion).

VB to Java converter. That is, it compiles VB6 code into a Java class. Latest update here. Q+A. (No, you can’t download it yet, they’re still working on it.)

Oh, guess who’s on about giving away Digital set top boxes again? Yup. I do like this argument, actually: It is not the Government’s job to champion new technology. It is the Government’s job to provide universal infrastructure and manage the task in a financially responsible way.

XML Notepad, which after a looooong time not being available, is back, and upgraded. (Requires the .Net Framework 2).

Vista and Visual Studio

Which Microsoft development environments will be supported in Windows Vista?

Not the ones you might think.

  • SUPPORTED: VB 6 — ah, my old friend
  • NOT SUPPORTED: Visual Studio .Net 2002
  • NOT SUPPORTED: Visual Studio .Net 2003
  • SUPPORTED, BUT WITH “COMPATIBILITY ISSUES”: Visual Studio .Net 2005

Good grief.

So, forcing the upgrade path for those older .Net versions? Or is it that they just can’t be bothered making it all work?

Meanwhile, Australian pricing for Vista is out. $751 for Vista Ultimate?! Yowch. Mind you, who really pays for a full version of Windows? Most people would be getting upgrades from previous versions, or OEM copies. Like Office, the full pricing is always exhorbitant.

Celebrity branding

Quick! What’s Scoble’s new company called? Something to do with podcasts. Podcast.net? Podnet.com? Oh, PodTech, that’s right.

Now, what’s interesting is his new ScobleShow which is a bit like the Channel 9 Scoble started up at Microsoft: video blogging things of interest. (Did he start it? He certainly seems to have been in at the start).

ScobleShow is a bit broader, of course.

What’s got me interested is the branding. ScobleShow. Obviously PodTech want to make the most of their investment in Scoble’s geek celebrity status, and they’re doing so with this name.

But what happens when Scoble eventually leaves? Will the brand go with him? Or will it die? Or will someone else try to take it over? Will PodTech have built up their branding and audience enough in the mean time that it doesn’t matter?