While randomly browsing on the internet, as one does I came across an article on a blog which used the term God Jockey, for the guy at the front of church. It made me chuckle it did. Here's an extract:
"So I was rather surprised that the current priest made the hour long service fly-by — at one point I did actually check the clock to see if I’d really been there an hour. The resident GJ (God-Jockey) Fr Manock should be praised for the upbeat manner in which he puts across God’s message, especially his use of song during the service"
The Full Article
01 December 2006
02 November 2006
Internet Explorer 7
And finally M$ has forced IE7 upon us all.
What a frustrating experience it is.
I fear for the future. If this is a sample of how Vista is going to look and work, I dispair, not for me but for the ordinary mortals out there who have to use this on a daily basis.
I like menus, I really do. You can find all the application features in the menus. You know what the app can do, its all there in the menus. Admittedly the menus have to be well thought out, but if they are, there isn't a problem.
Then along came toolbars. Toolbars are great when used in the right place. ie. I need a button to do X, where X is a very well defined function. Print. is a good example of a button. Pick a new tool, given a selection of 5 different tools. Good button use. I HATE what toolbars have become. Apps like MS Word, go to extreme lengths to invent buttons for Everything, and so you have loads of screen space taken up by button after button, with indeterminate meanings, and most of the buttons I will never use. So the first thing I do is remove ALL of the toolbars. I dont need them, I just access the menus, Alt-F->X to quit etc. Fast efficent, little screen space needed. If I need a more complex function I can usually find it soon enough. I dont need an extra button on the screen. The other problem with word, was that the menus werent particularly well thought out, but thats a different problem.
Rather than solving the menu, problem. MS in their infinite wisdom have decided to do away with with the menu bar. Now you have indeterminate button soup at the top of an application. Except for some buttons which have text, which also explains their function as the icon isnt explanitory enough. ( Which makes me wonder why bother with an icon if it doesnt adequatly explain what the button does?, and there isnt an option to show text only. ) All the buttons are now dual function, they not only provice one function by clicking on them, they have the little drop-down arrow to the right, which indicates that the button is also a menu. Instead you have to click on the narrow bit of the side of the button to access the menu, so rather than do away with a nice heirarchical menu structure, which was easy to access, you now have a set of random tricky to access menus, hidden behind random buttons.
Eventually I found out that the menu bar isnt gone entirely. It's still there but you have to hit the alt-key to make it appear, except rather than being at the top of the screen, its now in the middle of the button soup bar. I thought that maybe that wasn't so bad til I tried customize the setup and drag the menu bar to the top. I can't. Infact I can't move any of the toolbars from their existing position to any other position where I want them. Which means I am stuck with the layout that MS have decided I need.
So I have found the menus from the button-soup bar, and the real menus from the menu bar however, when comparing the menus I find that they contain the same things in a different order. So the menus themselves are inconsistent, which is confusing again.
What about normal operation: I can type in the menu bar and get to my page. That works, is simple and efficent. Well done, they've got that right. The custom search box, I have to configure it to use google, but that works like it should. Opening tabs using Ctrl-T works like it should. I've not checked website compatibility but I fully expect that to be a lot better than it used to be.
Will I use IE7 from now on?
Not if I can help it. I will keep using Firefox for now and for the foreseable future.
What a frustrating experience it is.
I fear for the future. If this is a sample of how Vista is going to look and work, I dispair, not for me but for the ordinary mortals out there who have to use this on a daily basis.
I like menus, I really do. You can find all the application features in the menus. You know what the app can do, its all there in the menus. Admittedly the menus have to be well thought out, but if they are, there isn't a problem.
Then along came toolbars. Toolbars are great when used in the right place. ie. I need a button to do X, where X is a very well defined function. Print. is a good example of a button. Pick a new tool, given a selection of 5 different tools. Good button use. I HATE what toolbars have become. Apps like MS Word, go to extreme lengths to invent buttons for Everything, and so you have loads of screen space taken up by button after button, with indeterminate meanings, and most of the buttons I will never use. So the first thing I do is remove ALL of the toolbars. I dont need them, I just access the menus, Alt-F->X to quit etc. Fast efficent, little screen space needed. If I need a more complex function I can usually find it soon enough. I dont need an extra button on the screen. The other problem with word, was that the menus werent particularly well thought out, but thats a different problem.
Rather than solving the menu, problem. MS in their infinite wisdom have decided to do away with with the menu bar. Now you have indeterminate button soup at the top of an application. Except for some buttons which have text, which also explains their function as the icon isnt explanitory enough. ( Which makes me wonder why bother with an icon if it doesnt adequatly explain what the button does?, and there isnt an option to show text only. ) All the buttons are now dual function, they not only provice one function by clicking on them, they have the little drop-down arrow to the right, which indicates that the button is also a menu. Instead you have to click on the narrow bit of the side of the button to access the menu, so rather than do away with a nice heirarchical menu structure, which was easy to access, you now have a set of random tricky to access menus, hidden behind random buttons.
Eventually I found out that the menu bar isnt gone entirely. It's still there but you have to hit the alt-key to make it appear, except rather than being at the top of the screen, its now in the middle of the button soup bar. I thought that maybe that wasn't so bad til I tried customize the setup and drag the menu bar to the top. I can't. Infact I can't move any of the toolbars from their existing position to any other position where I want them. Which means I am stuck with the layout that MS have decided I need.
So I have found the menus from the button-soup bar, and the real menus from the menu bar however, when comparing the menus I find that they contain the same things in a different order. So the menus themselves are inconsistent, which is confusing again.
What about normal operation: I can type in the menu bar and get to my page. That works, is simple and efficent. Well done, they've got that right. The custom search box, I have to configure it to use google, but that works like it should. Opening tabs using Ctrl-T works like it should. I've not checked website compatibility but I fully expect that to be a lot better than it used to be.
Will I use IE7 from now on?
Not if I can help it. I will keep using Firefox for now and for the foreseable future.
09 October 2006
01 September 2006
Removing a Windows Service
Ever had a pesky windows service that is still listed as a service, even though you have deleted/uninstalled the application.
Fear not, an answer is here,in the form of the "sc" windows command line utility.
Eg.
Now thats magic!
By the way, only do this if you know what you are doing, if you delete the wrong service you may have to waste a weekend reinstalling windows.
You have been warned!
Fear not, an answer is here,in the form of the "sc" windows command line utility.
Eg.
C:>sc delete
DESCRIPTION:
Deletes a service entry from the registry.
If the service is running, or another process has an
open handle to the service, the service is simply marked
for deletion.
USAGE:
sc delete [service name]
Now thats magic!
By the way, only do this if you know what you are doing, if you delete the wrong service you may have to waste a weekend reinstalling windows.
You have been warned!
13 March 2006
Google Mars
I was looking at Google Earth the other day and thinking how cool it could be to see other planets in the solar system. Well the people at google obviously had the same idea. Hence Google Mars.
03 March 2006
joke de jour
A bloke starts his new job at the zoo and is given three tasks.
The first is to clear the exotic fish pool of weeds. He starts on this
when suddenly a huge fish leaps out and bites him. He is not going to let
a fish have a go so he beats the offending fish to death with a spade.
Realising that his boss is not going to be best pleased, he tries to find
a way to hide the dead fish. He hits on the brilliant idea of giving the
fish to the lions as lions will eat anything. So he throws the fish into
the lion's cage.
He then moves on to his second job, which is to clear out the monkey house.
He goes in and a couple of chimps starts throwing coconuts at him. Not amused,
he swipes at the chimps with his spade, killing them instantly. He's really
worried now, so what does he do? He feeds the chimps to the lions, because
lions eat anything. He hurls them into the lion's cage.
Anyway, he moves on to his last job, which is to collect honey from South
American bees. He starts on this and quickly gets attacked by the bees.
Alarmed, he grabs his spade and smashes the bees as hard as he can, squashing them
to death. By this point he is not too worried about the death of bees as
he knows what to do by now. He throws them into the lion's cage, because
lions eat anything.
Later that day a new lion arrives at the zoo. He wanders up to another
lion and says "What's the food like in here?". The other lion says:
"Absolutely brilliant, today we had Fish, Chimps and Mushy Bees
The first is to clear the exotic fish pool of weeds. He starts on this
when suddenly a huge fish leaps out and bites him. He is not going to let
a fish have a go so he beats the offending fish to death with a spade.
Realising that his boss is not going to be best pleased, he tries to find
a way to hide the dead fish. He hits on the brilliant idea of giving the
fish to the lions as lions will eat anything. So he throws the fish into
the lion's cage.
He then moves on to his second job, which is to clear out the monkey house.
He goes in and a couple of chimps starts throwing coconuts at him. Not amused,
he swipes at the chimps with his spade, killing them instantly. He's really
worried now, so what does he do? He feeds the chimps to the lions, because
lions eat anything. He hurls them into the lion's cage.
Anyway, he moves on to his last job, which is to collect honey from South
American bees. He starts on this and quickly gets attacked by the bees.
Alarmed, he grabs his spade and smashes the bees as hard as he can, squashing them
to death. By this point he is not too worried about the death of bees as
he knows what to do by now. He throws them into the lion's cage, because
lions eat anything.
Later that day a new lion arrives at the zoo. He wanders up to another
lion and says "What's the food like in here?". The other lion says:
"Absolutely brilliant, today we had Fish, Chimps and Mushy Bees
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