I recently bought a new PC running the Microsoft Windows Vista Business 32-bit operating system. After a couple of days, the gadgets in the sidebar stopped working.

I Googled for an answer and came up with numerous posts about an issue with Internet Explorer 8. I decided to just put up with the issue and wait for Microsoft to bring out a patch.

However, I recently changed back to a standard sized font and discovered that the gadgets suddenly started working again. I had set a custom font size at 115%, which is 110 DPI – slightly larger than standard 96 DPI, but less than the large size of 120 DPI. On reverting back to the standard 96 DPI, my sidebar gadgets – including the clock, CPU monitor, calendar and weather – have worked perfectly.

To access this setting, right click on the desktop -> click on personalise -> then change font size (DPI).

My day job is in the marketing/public relations industry. It therefore never ceases to amaze me when half-baked products get launched into the market place. And so it is with Microsoft’s new search engine Bing.

In the last week, Bing has received publicity in the media that I consume. Like many others, I was tempted to take a look. For sure, the front page of Bing signals that it is a beta version. But who in the wider non-geek community understands that beta means, put bluntly, not finished.

The obvious thing was to search for a few common subjects, like my name and this web site. Sure enough, my real name comes up with numerous matches, just like on Google – but many of those pages have been around for years. A search for this blog, which is much more current, only brings up the front page. It is no wonder that Bing has only sent one visit to this web site in the last month, whereas Google sent nearly 1,000 visits.

And so it is, that like many people whose interest in Bing was piqued by the recent publicity, went for one visit, were disappointed, and have returned to their old searching ways. Microsoft will need to work harder than that to break the search monopoly on the internet, particularly because it is going to be much more difficult to get me (and many others) to take a second look.

I recently decided to get my share of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s fiscal stimulus investment allowance bonus – I bought a new computer.

Now, regular readers of this blog (hah! I don’t think there is anyone in that category, but I have plenty of passers-by — where was I? ohh yes …) will think that I am incapable of doing anything other than whinging about things, but that is not so!

I bought this computer from Computer Alliance. This PC is my primary business machine, but I based the system on the Computer Alliance bottom of the range gaming machine, which is better than their top of the range business PC, and then specified a few options. I liked the way that I could select a base machine, and then choose a few options and upgrade bits and pieces easily on the Computer Alliance web site. The resulting computer is:

• Intel S775 Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz CPU
• ASUS S775 P5QL-SE Core 2 motherboard
• DDR2 4GB Corsair 800MHz PC6400 RAM TwinX kit
• internal all-in-1 memory card reader black
• 500GB Seagate 7200rpm 16M serial ATA HDD
• 1TB Western Digital EADS 7200rpm 32M SATA HDD
• Gigabyte 9600GT 512M PCIe video card
• 23″ Acer X233HB LCD monitor
• CoolerMaster Centurion 5 case
• Microsoft Wired Desktop 600 keyboard and mouse
• Pioneer DVR-216BK 20x DVD DL burner SATA black
• Creative X-Fi Xtreme audio sound card PCIe
• Logitech Z2300 THX speaker system
• Logitech S5500 QuickCam
• integrated gigabit network connection
• MS Windows Vista Business 32bit
• MS Office 2007 Small Business Edition.

This PC runs really nicely. I have had a few teething problems, but nothing that can not be sorted out. I know that 2GB RAM is the sweet spot for Vista, and I have been told that I probably do not need the sound card as the onboard one is quite sufficient, but what the heck. Mr Rudd has kindly helped me out, so I may as well spend some money!

Now that I have used Vista on a relatively fast PC, I am a bit of a fan. I like the user interface, and everything seems to work nicely. It is not that much of a leap from my XP machine after all.

The title of this blog post is only half in jest. Yes, I have found a dodgy workaround to the Hewlett Packard Officejet Pro L7580 printer network connection problems, but one does have to wonder whether throwing the printer in the rubbish bin is actually the best solution! Read on …

When I went into business a couple of years ago I bought a HP L7580. My rationale was that HP printers had been used in many offices that I had worked in and I had been happy with their performance. The L7580 had all the features I wanted including printing (well duh!), duplex, copy, scan and fax. Most importantly, it had an Ethernet network connection so that I could share the printer across my LAN.

The L7580 worked fine for a while. But after a few months (and most likely a HP update or two) I noticed my XP PC was runing really slowly sometimes. The PC would also overheat. The situation got to the point that I was considering buying a new computer, thinking that it was the problem.

And then I discovered that if I uninstalled the HP L7580 printer software, the computer ran perfectly. On re-installation of an updated L7580 printer driver some months later, the PC could not connect to the L7580. I could connect to the printer web interface via the IP address in Internet Explorer, but there was no way that I could actually make the printer print as designed from the XP PC. Who knows whether the original problems of the PC running slowly and overheating were still present.

For probably 18 months I battled on either printing to an old HP Laserjet 1100 black and white printer using an ancient Windows 95 PC as a network print server, or printing to a pdf and then going to the Windows 95 PC and printing to the L7580 across the network from there – go figure that a Windows 95 PC could print to the L7580, but my XP machine could not. In the mean time, I also got a Vista laptop and a Vista PC, both of which could print to the L7580 printer without a problem.

I have probably spent more than 50 hours trying to diagnose the problem (can I send HP an invoice for my time wasted because of their rubbish software?). A quick search of the internet reveals that many other people are experiencing similar network connection problems with apparently no solution being provided by HP. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software on many occasions, and followed all of HP’s useless suggestions to fix the problem. I was seriously considering the option of formatting the XP PC’s hard drive and reinstalling all software from the operating system up. But it should not be this hard HP!!!

While I am having a rant, I have to mention that any printer that needs a 318MB installation file has to be questionable. This HP printer software has to be the most bloated software on my network … note to HP software designers: get your act together. The printer hardware also has some problems, including the automatic feeder not feeding, the back panel switch telling me that the door is open when it isn’t, and the printer chewing up some types of recycled paper.

However, now that my XP PC has been demoted from my primary business computer to the family workhorse PC, I have finally found a solution to the network connection issue. Apparently the L7580 can be set up to run from both the Ethernet connection and the USB connection (but not wired Ethernet and wireless apparently). I have sitting under my printer and on my network a D-Link DNS-323 network storage box, which conveniently has a USB plug in the back to share a printer. To install, you need to install the basic HP printer driver, clicking past the Ethernet connection box (you will connect later). Then you need to manually connect to the D-Link DNS-323 lp using the HP L7500 series printer driver.

HP OfficeJet Pro L7580 printer with D-Link DNS-323 below

I now have the HP L7580 printer connected over the network to the XP PC through the DNS-323 box. All my other PCs/laptops are connected through the Ethernet. And it works! The only catch is that you should run the basic printer drivers rather than the massively bloated full install if doing this dodgy work around. Because the HP install can not see the printer over the Ethernet connection, it apparently does not install the full HP Solution Centre.

Not everyone has a DNS-323 sitting on their LAN, but a number of routers have a USB printer port that should work just the same. Alternatively, you could probably set up a PC that is always on as a print server with the L7580 plugged into one of its USB ports. Of course, this defeats the purpose of buying an Ethernet equipped network capable printer in the first place!

Given the time that I have wasted trying to fix this problem, I suggest that the best solution is to throw the HP L7580 printer in the rubbish bin and never buy another HP product – EVER!

My five year old daughter has started learning piano through Groove n Move School of Music at Coorparoo. Their recommendation is to just buy a cheap $100 keyboard from Target or Big W to get the child started.

Sensing an opportunity to get another musical instrument, I did a little research and decided to purchase a Casio CTK-3000 digital keyboard/electric piano. I bought it off eBay including a keyboard stand and AC adapter from Strathfield Music for A$289 plus A$35 postage. Delivery was super fast from Strathfield Music — they were a pleasure to deal with.

Casio CTK-3000 keyboard

The Casio CTK-3000 was the cheapest model keyboard I could find with touch responsive keys. That is, press keys lightly and the keyboard plays quietly, press hard and the keyboard plays loudly. Actually, the Casio CTK-810 was cheaper and had touch response, but it was silver in colour; I wanted a black keyboard.

The sound quality for many of the tones from the CTK-3000 is excellent for the price paid. To my untrained ear, it really does sound like a grand piano in my living room! While the piano, string and percussion tones are generally good to excellent, the tones for wind instruments leave a lot to be desired. Quite frankly, I would not use them.

I am not sure that I am ever going to use the built in rhythms, but there are plenty there that my children are happy to boogie to. And the built in songs? Well I find them a bit cheesy too. Quite frankly, the backing tracks are a bit try-hard.

While we are on the negatives, two more. 1) Sometimes the key action is not smooth, giving a kind of grating feeling. And it is not always the same keys. Go figure. While not a problem that affects the sound quality, it does diminish the tactile experience of the keyboard. 2) Some of the bass tones make the keyboard rattle. I have never had a problem with piano tones, but bashing away at the keyboard with the slap bass tone cranked up resonates through the keyboard making it rattle. Again, not a big deal given that the primary tone I use is grand piano; the rest are just novelty features for me.

The built-in speakers are plenty loud enough for living room practice. However, I am considering purchasing a small practice amplifier so that someone can use the keyboard to accompany our saxophone quartet. I am considering a Behringer Ultratone KT108 or Ashton KA100 at this stage, but watch this space …

A few of my friends/family play keyboard/piano, so I am keen to get their opinion on the Casio CTK-3000.

Casio CTK-3000 review summary
Value for money 9/10
Quality 8/10
Overall 8/10

I never thought I would have a rant about fly swats, but here goes. Me? Procrastinating from doing other things? Never!

Recently our fly swat had been swatted a few too many times and was beginning to break. After many successful swats, I was in danger of my swatter falling to bits. This, of course, is an essential item in any Australian household. I checked in Coles, but it seems they no longer stock them. So over to the trusty bargain store. Four for $2! Bargain! Or perhaps not.

Shopping in bargain stores can be somewhat hit and miss (excuse the pun!). Sometimes you get lucky and buy a reasonable item cheaply. Other times the item fails miserably and it is expensive at any price. And so it was with the fly swatters.

Fly swats - old (top); new (bottom, one already broken!)

A little thought about aspect of using a fly swatter is the flexibility of the handle. It seems that my old swatter had the right level of flex to flick through and catch the fly. However, the new bargain swatters (I was now the owner of four of them) did not. It seems that the handles were just too flexible. By the time the fly swat head had flicked through, the fly had moved on. Even adjusting my swatting action could not catch flies reliably.

This is something that us mere mortals would not normally think about. And apparently something that the plastics factory in China did not think about either! Apparently the physics of the fly swat operation and required chemistry of the plastic are irrelevant at this price point.

Ahh well. Better get back to work!

It is easy to underestimate a relatively innocuous blog like this one. Who wants to read about seemingly inane subjects like dog poo worm farms, my problems with our Subaru Forester or any of the other subjects on this blog. Well apparently if you have an international audience, other people do.

Here are a few statistics from April 2009 (excluding my own visits):

• 720 unique visitors from 281 cities
• 1059 page views
• visitors from 286 cities in 50 countries/territories.

Some other interesting statistics:

• Search engines referring traffic to this blog: Google 96.0%, Yahoo 1.9%, Altavista 1.3%, Search 0.5%, AOL 0.3% — the dominance of Google is scary!
• Browsers: Internet Explorer 48.30% , Firefox  40.21% , Safari 5.61%, Chrome 4.18%, Opera 1.44% , Camino  0.13%, Playstation 3 0.13% — Microsoft don’t dominate the browser wars, but Chrome is rapidly increasing.
• Operating systems: Windows 87.73%, Macintosh 10.84%, Linux 0.91%, Nintendo Wii 0.13%, Playstation 3 0.13%, iPhone 0.13%, iPod 0.13% — Microsoft still dominates the operating system landscape though.

Note: I can not see any personal details in my statistics — all results are aggregated and not attributable to an individual.

I will update these statistics from time to time.

While the bounce rate is high (84%), this blog does not try to generate loyal visitors. If browsers stumble across this blog while searching for a particular topic and I can share my views with them, then as far as I am concerned — mission accomplished!

I was toying with the idea of organising a Toolooa State High School class of 1988 gathering (I didn’t want to call it a 20-year school reunion) last year. However, events overcame me — my employee who I had assigned the task to was poached; and I got too busy to organise the event myself. So apologies to those people who expressed an interest in getting together.

I also pulled down the Toolooa Class of ’88 bulletin board because it became filled with spam — yes, just what I need, a penis enlargement … not!

Anyway, if you are interested in making contact with someone from the the Toolooa class of ’88, send me an e-mail. I do not check this e-mail address regularly, but when I do I will reply.

After two years of successful operation of a dog poo worm farm (blog post 1, 2), I accidentally nuked it. The last time I gave my dogs an intestinal worm tablet, I promptly forgot about it. I remembered a couple of days later, but by then I had put several lots of poo in the worm farm. The worm tablet had gone right through my dogs and their worm tablet tainted poo nuked nearly all the worms in my worm farm!

After a couple of weeks the Reln Can-O-Worms worm farm was getting decidedly stinky — they should have a rain-forest type smell if maintained correctly. A little investigation revealed that worms were no longer happily munching away on my dogs’ poo, and the whole lot had become a putrid mess. The stench was so bad that even after showering and washing within an inch of going down the drain, the smell was still in my nose. There are no photos it was so disgusting!

I dug out the top working trays of my worm farm with no evidence of worms. Amazingly, the bottom working tray still had worms in about two thirds of the tray. It seems only one area of that tray was contaminated; worms were surviving in the other area — some worms were four to five inches long! I figured these worms must be tough so I kept them. I dug out the dead area, filled the hole with some re-hydrated coir block and put the lid back on the worm farm. I have sinced topped up these remaining worms with a Worm Affair booster box of worms from Bunnings.

Let’s hope that I have managed to re-start the worm farm successfully. It really is the best way to dispose of dog poo that I have used over more than 20 years of dog ownership.

Some time back I wrote a few handy tips on keeping a dog poo worm farm in working condition. I have been using a Reln Can-O-Worms to good effect for a couple of years.

However, the dog poo worm farm has, quite frankly, become a bit stinky of late.

My long suffering wife reckons that I have a theory for everything, and this is no different.

1) In the last six months our small dog died and we replaced it with another Hungarian Vizsla. So we now have two medium to large dogs. I think that the poo from two largish dogs has overloaded the worm farm.

The poo machines: Roger and Candy

This theory is based on the fact that the last couple of times I have emptied the bottom working tray of the worm farm, there has still been many worms in it. The worms should move to the upper working trays once all the nutrients in the lower trays have been eaten by the worms. So apparently the worms were not finished their job when I emptied the bottom working tray.

The other aspect to this is that I am losing a lot of worms when I empty the bottom working tray, which means that they then need to breed back up to cope with the additional dog poo from two dogs. This means that they were not consuming the top tray as quickly as they should and it was becoming rather smelly.

2) My second theory is that over the years the ventilation holes in the top and bottom of the worm farm have become clogged, meaning less than ideal conditions for the worms.

The solution to theory number two is easy, although somewhat messy. When you empty the bottom working tray, give the air holes in the collector tray (base) and the lid a blast of water to clear any gunk from them. Easy … just stand well back so that you do not get covered in splash back! This should help the ventilation.

The solution to the first theory is slightly more complicated. I could have just bought a second worm farm and split the poo between the two. However, I already have a second worm farm for vegetable scraps and a compost bin for grass clippings, so I was not keen to add yet another worm farm to the backyard.

Instead, I have purchased two more working trays from Reln (e-mail sales@reln.com.au). That means that I now have a dog poo worm farm with five working trays. This should give the worms ample opportunity to finish their work on the bottom tray, while also allowing them to breed up to a level that they can quickly consume the additional poo in the top tray. It should also mean that I do not lose so many worms when I empty the bottom tray.

The problem now is the Reln Can-O-Worms legs. They struggle enough with three full working trays (keep the worm farm on level ground to minimise the risk of the legs breaking), let alone five. The solution was to get rid of the legs and mount the worm farm on a couple of large concrete bricks. An easy and cheap solution that will stop your extra large worm farm toppling over and spreading worms and half-digested poo everywhere.

Now my concern is whether the worm farm will get enough ventilation through the air holes to keep five working trays in ideal worm living conditions … time will tell, but things are looking (and smelling!) good so far.

Incidentally, I have seen comments on the internet of people having trouble with the tap breaking off their worm farms. I personally leave the tap always open, permanently draining into a bucket. This has the additional benefit of keeping the moisture in the worm farm down.

The other point I have seen on the internet is people putting whole eggs in their worm farms. While egg shells may help with the worm farm’s ph balance, any egg left in those shells will become very stinky. Anyone for the smell of rotten eggs in their worm farm?? Not good!