After reading this post questioning whether antivirus software was a virus in itself, I was prompted to let you know my experience.

A few weeks ago, a guy at work came into the office and asked me to help him speed up his computer. This first thing I did was try and remove Norton Antivirus. I’ve always found this to be a horrible resource hog, and there are better solutions available for free.

No matter what I tried, the PC wouldn’t let me uninstall any part of the software until other parts of the software were removed first. Classic malware behavior. Eventually I gave up and looked for a solution on their website. It turns out their Norton Antivirus Removal Tool is the most downloaded software on their site. I’ll let you make your own judgements about that.

After about half an hour I managed to get every last trace of the software off his PC, and got a huge increase in performance.

Forward three weeks…I get a phone call from my colleage saying he is now getting bullying pop-ups from Norton on his PC telling him to update his Norton Antivirus. What a disgrace! The only solution left in my armoury was a fresh install of XP.

In my opinion viruses are a scare tactic used by big software companies to peddle their wares. Do me a favour and follow this advice.

1. Don’t install big-name antivirus software. Stick to something like AVG.
2. Don’t visit dodgy web sites….you know the ones.
3. Don’t open dodgy email attachments.

If the worst comes to the worst and you still get a virus after all that, you can be safe in the knowledge that it won’t be as bad as having antivirus software killing your PC.

Alternatively…buy a Mac.

OK. The headline is a bit misleading. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a disappointment. The reason everyone is wrong is why it doesn’t match our expectations.

I went in the theatre with fairly low expectations, but I was definitely there to enjoy myself. I still felt let-down.

Everybody places the blame squarely on George Lucas’s script. Everybody is wrong. The dialogue is cheesy, and the plot is implausible. The same, however, could be said for all Indy movies (and most other action movies). In the past it didn’t matter because because Indy was cool. So while this is a fault, this isn’t the reason why the movie was a let-down.

The reason why this movie hasn’t matched our expectations is that it was rushed and cheap.

Every dialogue scene looks like they’ve settled for the first take. The actors haven’t been given a chance to get into character for the part. It’s as if the directorial instructions were, “Get you lines said, and move on!” From the very first scene where Cate Blanchette is speaking to Harrison Ford. I couldn’t have been less convinced. Speilberg would have seen this on set, but time restrictions meant he had no choice but to move to the next bit.

Despite the extensive use of CGI, the movie looked very cheap. Indeed these things often go together. The sets looked unconvincing. Everything looked like it was filmed on a badly lit stage on the Paramount lot. I think the university car/motorbike chase was the only set I was convinced by.

It all smacks of a rush-job. Getting these titanic figures of the movie industry together at the same time was it’s downfall. Maybe Lucas or Speilberg (or both) didn’t need to be so involved after all. Perhaps if they were less involved, there would have been enough time to make this a great movie.

Ministers in the UK are considering plans for a database to hold details of every phone call and email sent in the country. Apparently the system will be a “crucial tool” to protect national security and prevent crime. From BBC News:

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Communications Data Bill will help ensure that crucial capabilities in the use of communications data for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime continue to be available.

“These powers will continue to be subject to strict safeguards to ensure the right balance between privacy and protecting the public.” The spokesman said changes need to be made to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 “to ensure that public authorities can continue to obtain and have access to communications data essential for counter-terrorism and investigation of crime purposes”.

I will never vote for any party that votes for this to go ahead. They are going too far.

Of course, it will never get passed. What will happen is a watered down version of this will sneak through under the radar of the press, chipping away a little more at our civil liberties, something which many Western governments seem to care little about. They want to spend millions in tax payers money protecting our freedom, yet are willing to trade away that very same freedom in the interest of security.

At the weekend I took my daughter to the swimming pool for the first time. I was not allowed to take photographs of the occasion because paying customers are no longer seen as people by management, but as potential paedophiles. It’s blindingly obvious that those in charge don’t give a crap about the dangers of these criminals, they’re just covering their arses should something happen in their venue. Banning phototgraphy won’t solve the problem. It will just make it less likely that they’ll have legal action against them.

In the same way, the goverment doesn’t give a crap about the freedom they claim to be protecting, they just want to be seen to be doing something by voters.

The UK is now a country whose authorities are obsessed with terrorism and by paedophiles. We have suffered at the hands of terrorists in the past and mistakes were made then. The wrong people were fingered for crimes they didn’t commit. Sad though that was, I’d rather live in a country where mistakes are made than one where everybody is considered guilty before any crime has been committed. It bet if these laws were put to statute these mistakes would STILL happen, no more correct convictions would be made, and the collected data would fall into the wrong hands.

I no longer feel trusted by the people who I helped put in power, and whose wages I pay, along with the millions of other tax payers. They need to think about the consequenses of their actions.

Read more at: The National Terror Alert and at Engadget
Photograph licensed under Creative Commons from nolifebeforecoffee

Come on…I’m sure somebody can take this idea and run. I’ll feature any efforts that link back.

Apparently today Chinese internet users are saying “enough” to international bullying. Here’s my tuppence worth.

I don’t see any bullying going on. Western governments are doing everything they can to do business with China in the same way that they do with the United States. As a result, there is minimal criticism from the Western regimes.

The Western media is obviously highlighting human right violations. It makes for good news. This however is not bullying or even a criticism of China, simply a criticism of their government’s actions. Charities like Amnesty International are also making the same accusations, so it seems a fair cop to me. Amnesty is also very quick to level criticism at Western governments for their human rights violations so you can be pretty sure there is no bias there. China made some very serious promises to the International Olympics Committee that they would put an end to their human rights violations in order to get the Olympics in Beijing. These promises don’t seem to have been kept.

The other side of this is that a lot of people are accusing these kids of blind nationalism. The thing is that blind nationalism is by no means a trait unique to the Chinese. We in the west are equally of nationalism. It’s a stupid thing, but it’s natural to support “your team.” In the UK we do nothing but bitch and moan about our country until some “johnny foreigner” makes the same accusation. All of a sudden we are patriotic without question.

I think it’s great these kids are proud of their country, but just like the people of any country, they should be under no allusion that they have a responsibility to not let their government get away with committing human rights violations.

I am in no way against China. It’s a country I would love to visit one day. I am however, strongly against torture, capital punishment and organ harvesting. I’m strongly for freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and freedom to practice religious beliefs (as long as that doesn’t harm others). I’m not against China. I wish I could criticise the Chinese government without having to clarify that, just like when I criticise my own government.

Yours Aye.

One of my most popular posts on NixonByName is this one in which I’m pretty disparaging about BBC’s iPlayer. The system was clunky, it slowed down my PC a great deal, and the overall experience was poor.

It didn’t take long for me to give up on it all together.

The iPlayer is now fully available to UK users, and with a huge promotion push from the TV channels, is gaining popularity.

I now use a Mac, so I am forced to use the flash version of the player…and I’m really enjoying it. I wouldn’t use it to watch all my BBC shows, but as a catch-up tool it’s excellent. If they could get the UI for browsing available shows to be a little better, I would say it’s perfect for when you’ve missed that vital show.

It’s pretty simple. You search for a show, click it, and it starts playing. That’s the way watching TV online is supposed to be. Even if the downloadable version of iPlayer was available for the Mac, I’m not sure I’d bother…my Media Center does the job of normal TV viewing, this is just for when something is forgotten.

My favorite feature is when you have missed the end of a show, something that can happen with MCE. iPlayer doesn’t require you to load the whole show to watch the end part. You can just skip forward near to the end, and it will just load from there. Brilliant.

One of the things that everybody asks me as a new parent is, “Has she settled into a routine yet?”

The answer is nearly always, “Yes! It’s brilliant!” And yet I am always wrong.

Babies settle into a routine for about three days, then everything changes. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just something you have to be aware of. Never be smug about those few nights of only getting up once in the night. It will change, and if you aren’t expecting it, it will bite you on the arse.

Make the most of those few days when your new baby is particularly settled. Take advantage of the rest, because next week you’ll need those extra resourses when he or she’s unsettled again.

I’ve never written a post about football, but this is the thing foremost in my mind this week.

On Saturday, Scotland take on World Cup holders Italy in our last (and their penultimate) game in qualifying for Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Italy are ranked third in the world in FIFA’s world rankings, after Argentina and Brazil. Back in March 2005 when Scotland were ranked 88th, I had no trust in FIFA’s ranking system, but now we’ve climbed up to 13th, I’m happier to accept their calculation.

Now a couple of years back…hell, even this time last year, I would have said their was NO chance of beating Italy. It was completely unthinkable. There are, however, a number of factors pointing to the fact that Scotland could pull off a shocker and put the world champions out of Europe’s biggest football competition.

Scotland have beaten the World Cup runners up, and FIFA’s fourth ranked team, France TWICE in this qualifying group. I was at the first of them at Hampden (Scotland’s home stadium) in October last year. It was the greatest football match I have ever been to, and there was only one goal scored. I can barely remember any of the match action. My memories are of the goal, and then we sang and sang and sang until the full-time whistle. I could barely speak for the week following the match. We all thought it was a but of a lucky result, but in September this year we went on to beat them again in Paris. Surely no fluke.

Italy have NEVER beaten Scotland at Hampden. You can’t argue with a statistic like that. It is a very intimidating stadium for visiting teams. While visiting fans are made welcome, no matter what the result, 60,000 baying Scots, kilted and fairly drunk, can put even the biggest teams off their stride. On the three (don’t quote me) visits they have made to Hampden in the past, they have never managed to overcome this force of will. Hopefully on Saturday, we will be able to take advantage of this.

Scotland are on a huge high at the moment. Since Bertie Vogts left as Scotland manager, the huge surge in playing abilities, support and hope means that there is somewhat of a steamroller effect. Italy will have a hard job in stopping us. They will not be relishing their visit to Glasgow, and the possibility that they won’t make it to the finals.

If we beat Italy we will most likely go into Euro 2008 as a top 8 ranked team despite not qualifying for a major championship in a decade. I won’t predict a score for Saturday, but I think it can be done. I’m not counting any chickens, and I’ll definitely be looking for any possible good luck charm for the day, but I am hoping for glory.

opinion, sport, football, scotland, italy, euro 2008, hampden, tartan army, soccer

I’ve spent the last week getting used to using my new Mac. It’s true what they say…it just works, but when you are so used to using Windows every day, there are some things you have to learn, and unlearn….and for the first time today, I tried to do something the Mac way in XP.

I’ve now transferred my music over. This was an extremely long process, even though it was iTunes to iTunes. Apple really should make it easy to keep all my settings, ratings, play counts and playlists. As it turned out it took me four hours to transfer the music with a bit of hacking of my old library file to “make it mac” and even then all I kept was my ratings. I tried Senuti, but it kept failing on the transfer of the files.

I’ve settled on Photoshop CS3 and Bridge for processing my photos. I managed to get through a few this weekend, and I’m pleased with how it worked. I tried Aperture, but with only 1 gig of memory on board, it wouldn’t even install. I’ll give Lightroom a go once they iron out their Leopard issues. I was very disappointed with iPhoto. It works well, but I really wish it would properly rename and tag files. It’s something that users have been calling for for some time, but Apple seems to know better.

Adium is just brilliant. There is nothing that even comes close on XP. I’ve been able to ditch a whole raft of programs, because the single one does it better. The only other chat client I’m still using is Skype.

Tonight I’m beginning to get back to blogging. Ecto seems to be the tool of choice, and all seems to be working well with it so far. It doesn’t seem to be as good as Windows Live Writer, but I’ve only been using it twenty minutes, so I’m not in any position to judge yet.

I’ve had one or two issues with folder sharing and with Airport, but the former was a windows problem, and the latter is a known issue with Leopard.

So far so good. Despite what I thought, my MacBook has now become my main computer. The desktop has only been switched on in the last few days to take files off it. I’m still learning, and more importantly enjoying learning to use Leopard

Photo by Andriy

Trevor Carpenter posted the rather emotive challenge of responding to the following question.

Why do you think Jesus doesn’t have what it takes to be important in your life?

I normally shy away from all religious debate. I find faith a very personal thing and rarely discuss it, even with my own family. I don’t attend any church, so I don’t have a congregation of like-minded people to debate with every week. However, for one time only, I’m in. I hope that none of my views offend (and neither should they) but they allow you to understand how I feel about faith.

I am not religious, but I am not against religion. Each to their own is my feeling. I am, however a little more uncomfortable with large organised religions. Any system which gives people power and influence is open to the flaws of humanity. I believe vast majority of leaders are in it to impart their beliefs to their flock, but I don’t doubt that there are more than you would want in who are in it for their own agenda. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The holy bible is said to be “the word of god”. Once again, though, man gets in the way. The bible was written by man, and translated numerous times by man. Who’s to say that not one of these people had their own flaws. I’m sure that the bible is a great ‘guide to life’, but it surely must be taken that that advice is not perfect.

These are reasons why I don’t partake in organised religion, but that wouldn’t stop me being a Christian, right? I could go my own way, and pray to God and to Jesus in a way that makes me feel comfortable. The truth is I don’t have faith in that way. I need at least some scientific evidence suggesting that something may be true for me to believe something to be true, and there is no scientific evidence that God exists. I understand that that is the point in religion, and that you have to give yourself to your God with all your faith. If there were evidence you wouldn’t need faith, and it wouldn’t be a religion, just some dude in power who we could moan about every time somebody died senselessly.

I have heard the question; ‘If you have no faith, how can you have any morals?’ Well it’s simple. I set my own morals. Obviously I am influenced by my family, my friends, and by society as a whole…and as an extension by religion. Number one rule in my life is Be Good. From there everything pretty much looks after itself.

So back to Trevor’s original question. Why does Jesus not have what it takes to be important in my life? Well the truth is he is important in my life, and in the lives of most citizens of European, North American and South American countries, the majority of which have some denomination of Christianity as their “official” religion. We all live our daily lives influenced by him, either directly or indirectly. To me personally, all the evidence points to his existence, and that he was a great spiritual person, not only to the Christians, but to the Muslims and Jews. I don’t believe he was the son of God, but he was a great man.

I don’t mean to in any way diminish his impact, there is probably no other man who has lived that has made a greater impact on our planet. It’s just that there are many others who’s advice and leadership we should also respect to an equal level. All of this advice, leadership and influence should always be questioned though.

I have a lot of respect for Trevor for posting his question. Some people are dogmatic in their faith, and unwilling to hear-out, let alone respect what others believe. By asking questions about others faiths or belief systems, Trevor is re-affirming and strengthening his own beliefs. In my (extremely humble) opinion, an inability to question your own faith results in a very weak faith. In asking the question, Trevor has also asked me to look inward at my belief system. It’s a refreshing experience for which I’m very grateful.

[Photo: The Heart of Jesus Christ by Thomas Hawk]