WHAT'S NEW
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
BRIAN'S BLOG |
Brian Grainger |
|
|
It's Bank Holiday time here in the UK so it must be time for a little puzzle to keep the brain cells active. The numbers 1 to 32 are arranged in a ring such that the sum of any adjacent pairs of numbers is a square number. The first four numbers in the ring are 10, 15, 1, and 8. What are the other 28 numbers? Hint Because the smallest sum of adjacent numbers is 3 (1+2) and the largest 63 (32+31) the only square numbers that have to be considered are 4, 9, 16, 25, 36 and 49 I'll give you the answer after the hols. Now here is another puzzle that is related to my web surfing of late. Who originally said: I have heard this phrase, or a paraphrased version, used so often I was beginning to wonder if the person I thought said it really was the original. I did a Google search today and I am now pretty certain the originator was who I thought. Why on earth was I thinking about this? Well, our US friends will know that the beginning of September means ... It also means I start looking at the ESPN web site and pleasant memories of previous years come back! Answer to this puzzle will also be given after the break, although a Google search of your own will provide the answer if you cannot wait. Well, the day has finally arrived when Microsoft change their licence policy. From today, 1st August 2002, business can no longer buy upgrades of Microsoft software. They either buy full versions when they want them or must pay a fee for 3 years and receive all updates in that period. When renewal time comes you either renew for another 3 years, or lapse. If you lapse you can continue using the last version you had but you must buy a full version again in the future to upgrade or start the rental off again. Will business step off the Microsoft treadmill? Only time will tell although some organisations are seriously looking at open source alternatives. The place where I work is with Windows NT4 at present. They will not be able to upgrade cheaply now unless they have been buying Windows 2000 or XP licences and not installing them. Many other businesses are in the same boat. How does the change affect us humble single users? I haven't a clue. Throughout the period since this change was announced I have not seen one explanation of how it affects us. Even the Microsoft site ignores us. I am assuming we cannot get upgrades anymore. All will become clear when the next release of Windows XP or Office appears. As other software vendors follow the same licensing strategy open source solutions will become more attractive. Expect a rash of announcements from Microsoft in the coming months for products that only work with Windows XP. They are poised to introduce wireless devices, which will probably head the list. Reading Postscript Files with Windows Today's problem was that having downloaded some files in Postscript format I wanted to read them! The trawl through the Internet got me lots of interesting links. In case you do not know, Postscript is a means of describing output to a printer. It is owned by Adobe but has become quite popular, because it is a standard and because it can produce typesetting quality print. Anyway, I had these Postscript files and wanted to read them on screen, not waste trees by printing them. I looked around my utility disks and couldn't find anything. I looked at my Microsoft Office File Translators and could not find anything. In the end I asked a work colleague whether he had any applications to do it. For some reason his PC was blessed with Adobe Distiller and this will do the job - not surprisingly since it is by the same company that introduced Postscript. I had solved my problem. However, I wondered how I could do the job with free software so I started some Google searching. The exact phrase, 'Postscript Software', seemed to do the trick. The first item on the list referred to Ghostscript. This was not surprising as I had heard of Ghostscript before when I wanted to edit some PDF files. Now, Acrobat Reader is fine but it can only read and print. Trying to transfer data to other applications is a pain. To do this you are supposed to buy the full Adobe Acrobat product. Ghostscript has been developed to provide an alternative method at no cost. It is a bit less friendly, but it works. You can find all about Ghostscript and get a download from: Going through a full download and install just to convert my files into readable form seemed a bit of overkill so I searched some more. I came up with two other very useful sites. First, a site that will take your Postscript file and convert it into PDF before posting it back to you about 3 minutes later. This site uses Ghostscript to do the job. While it will allow posting of the Postscript file via a browser it requires FTP to get the converted file back again. Nevertheless, it is a useful service. The online Postscript to PDF converter can be found at: Finally, if you just want the raw text, without the fancy formatting that Postscript allows, there is an online Postscript to text converter. This works via your normal browser and can be found at: Rename and Windows XP As a Windows user have you ever wanted to rename a group of files rather than just 1 file? In versions of Windows prior to XP this was not possible, unless you resorted to DOS or the good old File Manager. Windows tried to hide the fact that File Manager existed in Windows 95 onwards but it was there as winfile.exe. Now the super wonderful Windows XP has added functionality that we used to get with DOS! Microsoft says you can rename groups of files with Windows XP Explorer by selecting them and then pressing F2. The new name you type will be applied to each of the files in the group with an incremental number added on the end. Now, Mr Microsoft, how do I rename the following group of files in Windows XP?
Not possible? Guess it is back to DOS then!
How about changing all your .prn files to .txt files? Guess it's back to DOS once more!
Windows XP - the most powerful Windows to date? I think not! Millennium Bug or Alien Bug The Millennium bug is not beaten yet. New Scientist reported that one of its readers had received the following message from the SETI@home project. "SETI@home continues to harness the computer power of the Internet to search for life outside Earth. Thanks for being part of this history making effort! According to our records, you have processed 27 work units, the most recent on December 13, 1901. Your contribution of computer time to SETI@home is greatly appreciated." Either the Millennium bug has struck or the PC has been around a lot longer than I thought. On the other hand it could just be a mythical story. According to Backbytes in Computing for June 26th one of its readers got almost the same message. Pilots and Mechanics Never let it be said that ground crews and engineers lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual logged maintenance complaints by QANTAS pilots and the corrective action recorded by mechanics. P stands for the problem the pilots entered in the log. S stands for the corrective action taken by the service mechanics. * P: Left inside main tyre almost needs replacement. * P: Test flight OK, except autoland very rough. * P: Something loose in cockpit. * P: Dead bugs on windshield. * P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200-fpm descent. * P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear. * P: DME volume unbelievably loud. * P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick. * P: IFF inoperative. * P: Suspected crack in windscreen. * P: Number 3 engine missing. (note: this was for a piston-engined airplane; the pilot meant the engine was not running smoothly). * P: Aircraft handles funny. * P: Radar hums. * P: Mouse in cockpit. * P: Cockpit instrument illumination inoperative. How about a webcam from space? Well, the European Space Agency, (ESA), would like you to imagine such a thing on their 'Where is Envisat' page. Envisat is an Earth monitoring satellite, built by the company where I work, and launched earlier this year. ESA have recently created this web page to show where, at any time, Envisat is in its orbit. It is obviously a simulated space webcam because the earth has no clouds! Interesting though. The pictures on this page are updated every minute so I am not sure how a modem connection copes. It may need broadband. If you are into real earth pictures from space then Infoterra, another subsidiary of where I work, can sell you some! They also provide some freebies. Have a look at their free stuff section. If nothing else this also provides free viewer software. This can view and pan huge pictures in the common formats, as well as the special format used by earth resource satellites. Those of you who cut your computing teeth on a BBC micro may be interested in emulators for the PC. If so, have a look at http://www.apdl.co.uk. These guys can provide you with a disk of goodies for £8. They also have a RiscOS computer for sale under £400, which they feel is suitable for those BBC Micro owners who could not afford to progress to later PCs. This computer is a special, while stocks last, offer and has been going since last year, so check on availability. Earlier I mentioned broadband, but broadband has a long way to go to catch up with the research guys. Global Terabit Research Network have set an Internet speed record by sending the equivalent of a CD contents (625MB) from Alaska to Amsterdam in 13 seconds. That works out at over 400 Mbits/second! Today I found out about yet another example of how sloppy Microsoft programming has become. It concerns the latest version of Office (XP). A new feature of Office is the 'task pane'. To quote Microsoft, 'these provide a common area for those commands that require more information or options than a toolbar provides.' Personally I think they waste screen estate, but what do I know! When you start Word XP or Excel XP you are supposed to get a blank document along with a task pane on the right side of your screen. Fortunately, for people like me, you can turn the task pane option off. However, for those who like them it was a bit of a shock to find at some point they would suddenly fail to show up. Microsoft recognise the problem. In their Knowledge Base article Q295341 they say that this happens when a file is placed in the Startup folder and the behaviour is there by design. If so, it is pretty dumb design. The concept of the Startup folder is quite good. It is used to store documents/templates that you want to run every time you start Word (or Excel). Usually it is templates that are stored here, which is useful for third party software suppliers to provide hooks into Word. It is common for scanner software to store templates in this area so that when you start Word you have revised menus which allow you to scan straight into Word. Now, with Word XP, after you install your scanner Word will suddenly stops displaying the Task Pane! In my place of work we can store files into our document management system directly from Word. If we had XP our task panes would disappear as well. Microsoft's solution to the problem? Delete the files in the Startup folder! So, if you want Word XP to work with these marvellous task panes you must remove the interface to your scanner, document management system or whatever else has been hooked in. The same problem occurs in Excel XP. In this case Microsoft Knowledge base article Q293820 provides the solution(?) above or a more sophisticated solution using VBA. Never trust Microsoft to implement a new function correctly first time. It usually takes to about revision 3 these days before the software is really stable - by which time they have introduced other new features which don't work properly. It has been nearly a month since I have blogged! I am afraid my astronomical interest in the recent planetary alignment, (and views of the International Space Station), have kept me from my computer. After an earlier blog about learning Java, I have been informed of a superb site for learning online all aspects of web page make up. HTML, XML, Cascading Style Sheets, Scripting - it's all covered and it is FREE! The site is: Why is it that going into space is considered 'Rocket Science' at the leading edge of technology? Those of us who work in the industry know that it is very conservative! This was confirmed this week when it was reported that NASA searched Internet auction sites and dismantled old medical equipment to get their hands on Intel 8086 chips. (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/space/1407479) These were the chips that powered the first IBM PCs and obviously cannot be obtained from Intel anymore. Unfortunately, NASA needs them as spare parts for the space shuttle! Now don't go offering NASA your old PC. They only buy in bulk Want to learn about Java - but in a fun way? You need to have a look at Robocode. Robocode is a fun programming game that teaches Java by letting you create Java "Robots," real Java objects that battle it out onscreen against other robots. Robocode, with its snazzy graphics and hyper battles, is similar to a combination of Logo and CoreWars. While playing Robocode, you will learn how to write Java code, how to handle events, how to create inner classes, and more. Robocode runs on Windows 95 and later, Power Mac and Linux. Robocode is FREE from IBM's Alphaworks division. You can find all about Robocode and how to download it at: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/robocode?open Please note that I have not evaluated this free product but it sounds fun and useful. The answer to the puzzle from 2nd May is 3. I've recently been looking at free software that is used for image manipulation. The following items have caught my eye. DCTune This is a new algorithm for producing JPEG files that have minimal perception of loss of quality. It has been developed by NASA for use in producing images from spacecraft for transmission to earth. It has recently been licensed to a company to exploit commercially. Details and evaluation freeware can be found at: http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/dctune/index.html WinJPEG A no-nag shareware image manipulator and graphic converter. This was created for Windows 3.1 but has a good interface. A slight drawback is the use of 8.3 filenames. The download has a size of 459 KB and can be found at: www.pixvision.com/htm/downloads.html PixWizard This is the Windows 9x/NT version of WinJPEG. The download size is 3.17 MB and is found at the same address. PictView Various versions of this image viewer/converter exist but the only one I got to work without hassle on my Windows 98 computer was PictView viewer and PCW32Con as a console version for the converter. This is really compact code and has an impressive list of read and write formats (including the ability to write Windows icon files). PictView has a download size of 121 KB and PCW32Con has a download size of 120 KB. Both programs have been updated recently (March/April 2002) and can be found at: Here is a little puzzle to keep you and your computer busy. There is a number that if you:
you get back the original number. What is the number? Answer after the holiday. Let's start the (we)B LOG with an irreverent look at making model aeroplanes. Go see: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
