Google Chrome

Burned by Chrome | The Register

It was interesting to read the above article in The Register regarding their licence agreement, which most people would automatically accept when installing the software on their machine. I guess that it’s always a good idea to read the small print, eh?!

Regarding the software itself, I had a quick peek at it, tried it out for a bit, but was instantly reminded why I use Firefox and not Internet Explorer: Adblock-plus. I’ve become so accustomed to commercial-free browsing over the last few years that it was a bit of a shock to suddenly be faced with flashy images trying to sell me things.

The browser looks okay, if perhaps a little toy-like, and seemed to be fairly fast. My Firefox was automatically imported and appeared exactly the way as it does in Firefox (minus the “Smart Bookmarks”, which I never use anyway). A nice touch, perhaps, but I’d rather be given the option to do this rather than have it done automatically.

Will I be switching to Chrome? Definitely not. I’ve had Firefox since version 1 and despite the release of Safari, Internet Explorer 7 (and the beta of version 8). I’ve played with Opera, and I admit that it would be my second choice, but the ads have to go before I’ll consider using any other browser as my web-window of choice. It has already been removed from my machine. I’ll maybe give it another look when it has a proper release, but until then I’m sticking with Firefox.

Tesco Cop-out over “Fewer or Less”

BBC NEWS | Business | Tesco checks out wording change

I worked for Safeway a few years ago. At the end of the row of checkouts were the express lanes (which I used to hate with a passion). Two were marked “10 Items or Less”, while the third was marked “10 Items or Fewer”. One day this woman came to my checkout specifically because the sign was more grammatically correct. I hadn’t noticed until then, and sometimes I rue the day that she pointed it out.

I’ve been led to believe that if one has a specific number of items and some are taken away, then one has fewer items left. Less would be used for something that is more difficult to quantify in terms of individual items, like water, for example a 500ml bottle having less than a 1L bottle. Fewer water molecules, certainly… (I can see where this might lead!)

Anyway, Tesco is getting over this issue by changing its signs to “Up to 10 items”. This may also be cause for confusion - does it mean “Up to and including 10 items”?

SongBird beta

My first look at Songbird was a while back, when it was a fairly early release. I have to admit that I was less than impressed, and it didn’t last long. But I read last night that it had progressed into Beta stage, so I thought it would be worth a second look.

At the moment I’m using Windows Media Player as my default music player, but it has been doing my head in for some time now. It refuses to recognise all the tracks in a particular album, saving most of them into one album and then shunning one lone track into its own.

When I was playing around with Linux, I found Rhythmbox to be quite useful, and when I installed Songbird today, it has a similar interface to that on Rhymbox, which I like. I can see all tracks in a list view, rather than the Album cover view that I get in WMP, and I don’t have the same problem with “orphaned” tracks.

As this comes from the Mozilla stable, there’s the usual plethora of Add-ons/extensions, some of which may be useful in the future. For now I’m inclined just to leave it as is while it’s in the evaluation stage.

So far, so good!

Oh, shut up!

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | US sends aid, but rethinks policy

“This is not 1968,” said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphatically at a Washington news conference, “where Russia can threaten a neighbour, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it.”

Hmm, interesting, that. Okay, Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t exactly neighbours, but didn’t they have their capitals occupied and governments overthrown? And so far, as far as I can see, the so-called coalition is getting away with it!

I don’t think the UK and the US are really in a position to criticise!

Vorsprung Durch Technik

I’m pretty sure that the above phrase translates into English as “I am an arsehole”. It’s a well known fact that owning a BMW turns a somewhat ordinary driver into a complete tosser, but after my recent holiday to the Scottish Borders, I’m now starting to think that it applies to most German cars. I say most, but there are some exceptions.

Volkswagens don’t seem to have the same effect on people, nor do lower-spec Mercs and Audis. And it only seems to be people in Britain that are afflicted by this particular disease - any time I have encountered any continental models on the roads they would appear to be driven by ordinary humans. Don’t get me wrong, the Germans like to drive fast, and I’ve seen some pretty hairy overtaking manoeuvres in my time, but once they’re past you, they’re gone and you don’t seem ‘em again.

I can imagine it now. You go to your local BMW/Mercedes/Audi* (*delete as appropriate) dealership, you pay for your vehicle of choice and after a short while you receive your new car. It comes with the relevant documentation: V5, handbook, stereo manual etc., but there must be a Special Pack included which contains the following:

1. Beginner’s guide to tailgating. Yup, you’re sitting on the dual-carriageway or motorway, overtaking that lorry that has been holding you up on the two-way road for some time. Your speed is 70mph, the legal maximum for a motor car in this country. Before you know it, there’s a Beemer almost bumper-to-bumper, and its lights are flashing, asking you - nay, telling you - to move over and let a “superior” car past.
2. Licence to hog the outer lane. So, you finally got past the truck and pull into the inside lane (not to appease Mr BMW, by the way, but simply because that’s what you’re supposed to do). The German car slowly vanishes from sight. Further along the road, you go to pull out to pass another truck and there’s another, slower German car in front of you. They’re doing about sixty-five. They pass the truck, but a few hundred yards ahead there’s another one. Do they pull in to let others pass? No, they own a German Car, so no-one else has the right to overtake them.
3. Certificate of Immunity from Death. The car has ASR, SIPS, ABS and, of course, it’s German, thus the driver of such a car acts as if they’ve been granted immortality. When overtaking, oncoming traffic is simply a figment of the imagination.
4. The Autobahn card. Speed limits do not apply. Even if one is travelling at the permitted maximum speed, one must Give Way to the German Car. Always.

I lost count of how many times document number two was in force. I was travelling along the Edinburgh City Bypass and the traffic was heavy, but relatively free-flowing. And then some numpty in a blue Z3 passes me in the outer lane, but refuses point blank to pull in once he’d overtaken other traffic, and before I knew it, I was stuck behind a truck in the left hand lane doing 50mph and I couldn’t get out because of the tailback that this dick-head had created. He would let no-one pass.

Likewise, on my return trip up the A90, some git in an Audi estate kept passing me, but he’d slow down as soon as he got by, meaning that I, in the left hand lane (doing a steady 70mph) was actually going faster. But when it came time for me to overtake, I couldn’t because this tosser was blocking me in. I know one isn’t supposed to use one’s horn or flash the headlights as a rebuke, but once I’d let him know that he was really pissing me off, he put the boot down and buggered off completely.

So, I propose a new test for the police to use when pulling people over. We have the technology to detect whether someone has been drinking, or using drugs. Surely there’s something out there that detects the presence of an arsehole. If anyone is guilty of DBA (Driving while Being an Arsehole), they should have their keys confiscated immediately and be banned for driving for life. Or be made to drive a Kia. Let’s humiliate these bastards into behaving slightly better on the roads!