12:12 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog ~ Vista ~ Windows 7

Windows XP was massively popular, Vista is in the Shadows, but IMHO will provide a good stepping stone towards Windows 7, which will be more popular that Vista, which Windows 7 will build upon (and be 100% compatible with).

Windows XP has been a very popular OS, it managed to successfully build on the rock solid Windows 2000 and replace the lack-lustre Windows ME in one fell swoop. XP SP2 offered a significant improvements to further improve the reputation and popularity of Windows XP. Read Features_new_to_Windows_XP - Wikipedia, to find out more about about what was new in XP.

Windows XP managed a reign of approximately 5 years before Vista was finally released.

Vista has not met expectations on many levels, slipped release dates, number of features dropped, poor release reception, manufacturers complaints about lack of support to get drivers ready for launch, then compounded by other bad press Microsoft has had around and since Vista launch. Read Windows Vista - Wikipedia for more information about Vista.

Its not all doom and gloom for Microsoft though, XP is still their old faithful, by the time Windows 7 is launched, Vista will have matured and as Windows 7 will be 100% Vista compatible people will have far less fears about upgrading. They have the foundations laid with Vista already, being able to spend time on optimising, GUI etc should make for the OS Vista should of been.

Microsoft has learnt from its past mistakes about releasing information about planned features and is being far more tight lipped, which should help to minimise the negative publicity that occurred during the development and release of Vista. Windows 7 the story so far and Windows 7 - Wikipedia both have more details about Windows 7.

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10:24 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog

My arm is feeling a lot better and am back to blogging.

I have been working on an updated version of my gallery code for YACS, I had hoped to get it complete in time for integration for the next big release - YACS 8.6 Macnana, but progress was slow and I missed the deadline. For now I will be concentrating on supporting the website, I shall be moderating the next English chat session on the 19th June and spend some time with documentation. Next week I shall be spending some time testing and helping to bug fix YACS 8.6 Macnana. One test will be to setup a dedicated blog on www.moneytrafficblog.net and serve as a great way to kickstart the www.moneytrafficblog.net project.

This week I will finish putting together my Windows defragmentation tool review and also posting some comments on why I think Windows 7 will be a massive success.

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08:54 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog ~ Broken arm ~ Scarlett

I thought I would share a photo of myself with my broken arm and my little daughter Scarlett, 5 months old. In a week my pot is coming off and I am hoping for some better sleep and be able to type more comfortably.

Me and Scarlett

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06:40 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog ~ Emule ~ P2p

Emule 0.49a was released on the May 11th 2008.

The new features of eMule 0.49a include Kad improvements ( obfuscation, better NAT, flood protection), changes to the messaging system (Captchas), GUI improvements (ability to save searches, search filtering of shared files) and the usual bug fixes and tweaks.

You can download Emule from the official Emule site. Download Emule 0.49a

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09:16 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog ~ Accident

I managed to fall off my motorbike and break my arm, a week ago.

I have broken my inner radius on my left arm right at the end near my wrist (top part broken off) and also a fracture underneath. Luckily my pot is holding the bone together so I wont need pins.

I hope to get back to posting in my blog soon.

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02:45 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog ~ Htaccess ~ Ngrhodes

I have decided to update my domain to www.NGRhodes.co.uk . My motivation for doing this was simply picking something that is more memorable, rolls off the tongue easier, but at the same time not too dissimilar to my previous domain name.

I had a quick look for .htaccess rules and found one simple easy way to redirect any domain and redirect the canonical non-www to www.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.domain.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

(from redirect www and no www)

This rule simply redirects anything that is NOT my desired domain name to my domain name.

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09:52 am ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog

Technorati Profile

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02:55 pm ~ by N1ckR ~ Blog ~ Phorm

Good news at last.

" The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued a major revision to its statement on Phorm, insisting that the ad tracking system must be deployed on an opt-in basis to comply with the law. "

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/ico_phorm_tougher/

Statement by the IOC:

" Even if Phorm is not processing personal data, the ISP undertaking the profiling may be to the extent that it uses IP addresses in that profiling and is able to link its customers to an IP address although this may not be its intention.

To the extent that personal data is processed that processing must be fair and lawful in order to comply with the First Principle of the DPA.

Regulation 7 of PECR will require the ISP to get the consent of users to the use of their traffic data for any value added services. This strongly supports the view that Phorm products will have to operate on an opt in basis to use traffic data as part of the process of returning relevant targeted marketing to internet users. "

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11:01 am ~ by NickR ~ Blog ~ NERC ~ Trail riding

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Suspend-NERC/

" This section of the act extinguished motor vehicle rights from "restricted byways". The effect has been to close half the rights of way previously open to motor vehicles.

Motor vehicles may now only use "byways open to all traffic", only 2% of all rights of way. Many of these are effectively closed to motor vehicles as they are classed as restricted byways for part their length. Motor vehicles, therefore, can use substantially less than the 4,500km of rights of way quoted by the government.

Rather than reduce the potential for conflict of use, noise nuisance or damage, the act may have the opposite effect as it concentrates recreational vehicle use on a smaller number of rights of way.

Early commencement of the legislation has left many rights of way incorrectly recorded and led to the loss of motor vehicle rights over many historic routes. Suspending Section 6 would allow highways authorities, user groups and individuals to apply to reclassify these as "byways open to all traffic", ensuring that their status is correctly recorded. "

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