I have been reading Freedom of Information Act requests recently and I came across one filed to Merseyside Police, in February 2007, that I had to share. I apologise if someone has already reported this; I found the information in the public domain and Merseyside Police removed the name of the person who filed the request, so I can’t credit them.

Somebody asked Merseyside Police about their IT infrastructure. They asked some questions like ‘How many desktop computers do you have?’ but then some more interesting ones like ‘Of those server computers what is the Operating System and Version are they using?’ and ‘Has Open Source comparative been review [sic] for the Operating System?’.

Apparently, it isn’t in the ‘public interest’ to tell us which web browser, office suite, email client or operating system they use. Nor is it in our interest to tell us even if the software they even considered open source solutions. Whilst they noted ‘Accountability of Public Funds’ is important, it’s clearly not that important. Why? Apparently, telling us what operating system or web browser they use would ‘leave Merseyside Police Systems subject to potential attack from hackers.’

Perhaps if Merseyside Police used secure software (or could at least confirm they considered open source solutions), they wouldn’t have to worry about being subject to potential attack!

Last week, I received my MacBook Pro (running OS X Leopard) and have ‘enjoyed’ setting it up over the past few days. Below are my initial thoughts, both positive and negative:

• iTunes is more tolerable than I thought it would be. Whilst it did frustrate me initially by copying all my music, I managed to find the setting which stops it copying all music into the iTunes music folder (preferences>advanced>detick ‘Copy files to iTunes music folder…’)
• The Apple remote is amazing for productivity. I can continue typing/clicking but skip through a song. I wish more non-Apple applications, such as VLC, supported it though.
• My major frustration is with Boot Camp. Unless I format it with the Windows installer (and not Boot Camp Assistant) I get Disk error. Press any key to restart and in fact pressing any key besides the power button renders no effect. Then, when i format it with the Windows installer (as either FAT or NTFS) it says that hal.dll is missing. If anyone could tell me how to fix this I would be eternally grateful! Oh, and I can’t get into recovery console as I’m using a streamlined OEM version of XP Home.
• Parallels Desktop is great… at least for everything besides 3D graphics. It doesn’t support DirectX 9.0 and consequently most 3D games won’t work. I find it laggy even trying to handle the pre-2000 Theme Hospital! It does integrate remarkably well with OS X, though, and I’ve set Publisher files to open in MS Office Publisher through Parallels.
• I’m extremely challenged when it comes down to choosing a graphics program. For several years, I’ve been a PSP guy but the main OS X graphics program seems to be Photoshop. I dislike the idea of paying several hundred pounds for a licence and decided to give Seashore a shot which to be honest I’m very disappointed with… and The Gimp 2.0 doesn’t like my MacBook Pro much!
• Time Machine is great – really great – but is fairly demanding on disk space having used nearly 50GB on my external partition… and that’s after excluding folders like Movies!
• I’m also very impressed with the degree in which Adium, Mail and the Address Book integrate. The OS X address book is so far beyond Windows’ Address Book I’m amazed. I’m actually using my Mac Address Book whilst I didn’t ever bother with the Windows one!
• iDVD is very impressive and puts Nero 7.0 to shame. It did, however, take several hours to encode a 100 minute long film.
• I’m fairy disappointed with the DVD drive. The lack of a hardware eject button makes some situations hell and I find OS X is very fussy with optical media. Roxio Toast refused to write much onto some dual-layer DVDs I bought from eBuyer.
• Mac games are very expensive! Sims 2 for Mac costs about £30 whilst the PC version costs £10… hence my desperation to get Boot Camp functioning!
• Installing software is splendidly easy… twice as easy as installing software in Windows and infinite easier than under Linux.
• Skype seems buggy, refusing to open on the first boot after its installation (resulting in many reinstallations of it).
• Stacks and Exposè are awesome!
• I love the compose key (⌥)which allows me to easily add accented letters and other foreign/obscure characters. Ubuntu had a similar feature and both are about equally as efficient.
• The ambient keyboard provides hours of endless fun by covering up the sensors and watching the keyboard light up. The sensors are in the speakers
• Despite what most people say, Firefox runs smoothly
• Transmission is the coolest torrent client ever… beating μTorrent by far!
• Photobooth is cool too. I like the ‘flash’ it generates by making the screen go white for a short burst of time!
• The ease to add podcasts into iTunes has finally got me listening/watching them!
• Mail produces a lot of false positives for spam.

If someone could help me with my Boot Camp problem and my DVD writer one I would be REALLY grateful. Just comment or email me at computerjoe@gmail.com .

Tags: apple, os x, leopard

About a fortnight ago, I ordered a MacBook Pro and an up-to-date version of Leopard. I had one custom modification – a glossy screen as opposed to a matte one – and it angered me how it took a week or so just to get into the UK. However, it was well worth the wait and I have quickly taken to my new Macintosh.

Moving to OS X, in my opinion, is easier than making the Windows-Linux jump; my only frustration is with iTunes, the fact it likes to bring disorder to your music collection (or its own sense of order¿) and the fact it refuses to accept .avis (I mean seriously! And you thought Microsoft were stubborn!). It’s also slightly irritating that Alt+F4 doesn’t close a window but rather ⌘+w does, and when you close a window the fact the process isn’t killed will also take some getting used to!

I’ve decided to go with NeoOffice for my Office suite, with MS Office installed on XP via. Parallels Desktop, Firefox as my web browser, Mail as my mail client (all I need now is Google to give me IMAP support) and Adium for IM (iChat doesn’t support MSN). I’m not certain about image editing but I’m inclined towards Seashore due to its pricetag (libre and gratis).

I’ve set up Time Machine on a 50GB partition on my 250GB external HD (time will tell if this will suffice!), excluding music and videos.

Enjoy some pictures of my MacBook Pro and iPod Nano fresh from iPhoto!

Tags: apple, macintosh, os x, macbook pro, os x leopard

Excuse the punny title but this post is supposed to be about reasons I pity the average computer user. Why? Well…

1. They use Norton or McAfee. I can’t stand Norton, at all. I find AVG provides me with sufficient protection and doesn’t hog resources in the same way Norton or McAfee do. If I was to use a non-free anti-virus package I’d probably lean towards NOD32.
2. They use Hotmail. Why oh why oh why?! Gmail is much better and every Hotmail users I’ve converted so far agrees
3. They use Internet Explorer… sometimes even IE6. Why not use Firefox or another gecko-based browser which are generally considered more customisable and secure?
4. They attend novice IT classes and read novice IT books. I learnt nearly all of my computing skills from trial-and-error. My relatives often attend courses or read books which generally just confuse them more as they learn how to do things in pieces of software they lack or different operating systems.
5. New computers come with Windows Vista. I’d much rather use XP (or even better a Unix-based OS) and as much as the average Joe (and indeed myself) love eyecandy in their operating system, Windows Vista’s eye candy isn’t equal to its performance and I’d rather have the latter.

I was reading TheMadAdmin today and I came across the following post. As I’m not having time to write much ATM, I’ll be quoting and commenting.

The below are based around real requests made to his IT department:

I need a Mac so I can learn to troubleshoot the marketing department.

Does that sentence even make sense?

Using surround sound will let me hear error alerts much better.

But error alerts in surround sound are so cool!

I need a wide screen laptop so I can fit more work on my desktop.

What a pathetic excuse! I’m My son is off skool today as I he is lazy ill.

I know I am a network admin, but the webmaster training will teach me to script the server.

How on Earth are you a network admin?

Yes I need the water cooling system, how else am I going to over clock the server?

But over-clocking’s fun…

I need a server at my desk with plenty of storage, so I can backup the network, nothing to do with those movie downloads. Oh and it needs a DVD burner as well.

Honesty is the best policy.

Three screens is a minimum. Any less and I’d never get my work done.

You should talk to Atariboy; our favourite three-monitor guy.

I need the new Pocket PC phone. Yeah the one that can play music. No I need it so I can use…Remote Desktop, yeah remote desktop protocol.

Palm person myself. I wouldn’t like to do remote desktop over GPRS, though

I need to upgrade my Graphics Card, the Radeon X1900 should do well and help me open emails much quicker.

I think it’d slow down your productivity myself

I know my PC is 2 months old, but it is too slow. I need the new Duo processor and several gigs of Ram. It’s the only way I can keep up with the work flow around here.

Couldn’t agree more.

Tags: geek, funny, tech, humour, humor, lol