Fixing computers is pretty mundane. It’s not often I get one of those moments when I can punch the air and shout “Yes!” But today I got a “YES!” moment, and it felt good.

I was installing Skype for a client. I had persuaded the over zealous firewall that Skype was not the work of the Devil but a safe and sensible application that could access the internet. I has searched for my client’s relatives on Skype and added them as contacts.
It was looking good.
I was just about to call the Skype test facility when the Skype rang, her sister was calling from the US. I sat my client in her office chair and clicked on answer.

I opened the video and the two ladies chatted for about half an hour. They had not seen each other for over ten years.

They were both delighted.
I was ecstatic.

“YES!” Punches the air.

Today it worked better than I could ever have planned.

Yet more snow in Hertfordshire, this time it’s really deep.

See a selection of pictures here: Spielplatz_snow_2010.

More to come apparently!

It’s 2010. Happy New Year!

That’s TWENTY TEN not two thousand and ten.

You would not say one thousand nine hundred and sixty eight for 1968, it’s nineteen sixty eight!

So let’s get the naming convention right in twenty ten and keep to it for the rest of the century.

Thank you.

Rumours are everywhere, Apple is going to release a new product at the end of January.

So here is my guess, based on the rumours.

Apple will hold a launch event on 26 January 2010.

The new product will be a tablet device. (iSlate, iTablet)
10 inch screen, touch interface.
WiFi and 3G enabled.
Forward facing camera for video conferencing.
USB and Mini Display Port.
Flash memory storage.
Bluetooth with connectivity for wireless keyboard and mouse.
Landscape or Portrait view selected by rotating the device.
Full version of OS X.

In other words a hybrid MacBook come iPhone.

My reasoning? 10 inch screen is bigger than an iPhone but does not impact on the established MacBook 13 inch range.
Connectivity so it’s useable like a netbook.
Full version of the OS so it has more functionality than the phone.

Shoot me down in flames in January when all we get is an iPod Touch with a camera…

It snowed last night! Thick and fast all night. This morning it’s very picturesque around Spielplatz, take a look at these photographs.

Stay warm people!

Except it’s not. So far the snow in St Albans is very conspicuous by it’s total absence. You can check out the weather here by looking at the feed from our weather station. (Not me but my mate Ashley has it on his bungalow.)

According to the Met Office we should get 100mm of snow overnight here at Spielplatz, so tomorrow Hertfordshire should be gridlocked with the rail and road systems at a standstill.

Flights out of Heathrow will be cancelled, so the threatened BA strike would have had no effect anyway as the weather can muck up more travel plans on all the airlines far better than a few militant BA cabin crew.

Friday will probably be hell for getting to work, then most likely it’ll rain over the weekend and on Monday we will wonder what all the fuss was about.

I am looking forward to some photo opportunities at the weekend, I do like a nice snow scene.

Way back in the days of film cameras I had some photographs lost by the developing lab. Amazingly the photographs ended up in the hands of someone who recognised someone in my photographs, thus by a convoluted path the photographs ended up back in my possession.

Well something similar is happening in New Zealand, this time with a lost digital camera. Do you know these people? If so look at this blog and reunite them with their lost camera.

UPDATE: It worked, and these nice folk are re-united with their camera. Follow the link to the blog to read the story.

Microsoft keeps emailing me to try to persuade me to pay my subscription to their Partner Program. They point out the many benefits, including the offer of a discounted Windows 7.

I have decided to decline; for the first time since 1995 I am not going to get the latest version of their operating system.

That’s it for Windows products. I will continue to support existing clients with XP and VISTA, but any new clients who have Windows 7 I will decline.

Apple Mac users will, of course, be very welcome and I support all versions of the OS from 9 through to 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Mostly it was fun Microsoft, but quite a lot was dreadful.

Now that Google has released Chrome for the Mac I can give my comparison and opinion on all the major browsers.

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.

It’s very simple, I don’t like any of them!

Internet Explorer: I don’t use IE much as I have a Mac and it’s Windows only but this one is the one I hate the most. A few days back I could not find the history, come on Microsoft, you hid the history. Get a grip, the ergonomics and menu layout sucks! It’s also insecure, slow and looks dreadful.

Firefox: I did some early development work on this back when it was at version 0.6. Firefox is one of the better browsers, what bugs me is that whenever it gets upgraded most of my add ons and plugins stop working. I know that this is as much the plug in developers fault as it is Mozilla but it’s very annoying. I also find it a bit slow. I use it some of the time.

Safari: This is the default browser on the Mac, I use it most of the time. I hate the way it handles the bookmarks. Just why Apple feel the need to put cover flow on everything eludes me. (Aside: I’d like to be able to turn off cover flow on my iPod Touch) Bookmarks are best in a list, preferable in a sidebar. So dump the silly full page coverflow nonsense Apple and put the bookmarks in side bar. Please.

Chrome: Chrome is really nice but it’s Google. They already know far more about me than I am happy with plus I hear that even after logging out of GMail and other services they can still track my searches with a cookie. Donning my foil hat and lead lining the walls and surfing on an anonymous proxy may defeat their data gathering but I doubt it. Since I have a fixed IP and am logged permanently into Gmail they know everything about me. So Chrome is a no go for the paranoid.

Opera: Why bother! My blog is broken in the latest version of Opera. Until they fix that I am not even going there. Use Firefox instead.

Next time on GollyGosh my take on email applications!

We are about to put the original Shabden 24 inch iMac up for sale.

Late 2006 Model Apple iMac
24 inch screen
230 gig HD
4 gig Crucial DDR 2 667Mhz RAM
Tiger OS X 10.4

In the box with all the bits. Mouse, keyboard and remote control. Restore discs for OS X and iLife.

We are open to offers or it will be on eBay this weekend.