Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on August 22, 2008 by CyberNet.

Fun Friday

You’ve heard of Murphy’s law before, I’m sure – “If anything can go wrong, it will” or “whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way.” Since Murphy’s Law came about a long time ago, there have been all kinds of variations to it. A site found at murphys-laws.com has lots of those variations available that pertain to certain categories like real estate, teaching, and technology. There were all kinds of Murphys Laws that pertained to technology, so we sifted through them and found the ones we liked the best, which you’ll find below.

Be sure to visit the Murphy’s Laws Site to checkout the complete list!

1. Technology is…

Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand.

2. The attention span of…

The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.

3. A failure will not appear…

A failure will not appear until a unit has passed final inspection.

4. New Systems…

New systems generate new problems.

5. To err is human…

To err is human but to really foul things up requires a computer.

6. The primary function…

The primary function of the design engineer is to make things difficult for the fabricator and impossible for the serviceman.

7. Any circuit design…

Any circuit design must contain at least one part which is obsolete, two parts which are unobtainable and three parts which are still under development.

8. A complex system…

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.

9. Computers are…

Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable.

10. Build a system…

Build a system that even a fool can use and only a fool will want to use it.

11. If something breaks…

If something breaks and it stops you from doing something, it will be fixed when you:

– no longer need it

– are in the middle of something else

– don’t want it to be fixed because you really don’t want to do what you were supposed to do

12. It is never wise…

It is never wise to let a piece of electronic equipment know that you are in a hurry.

13. Don’t fix something…

Don’t fix something that ain’t broke, ’cause you’ll break it and you still won’t be able to fix it.

14. When it comes to software…

When it comes to software, the moment you read software reviews and manage to master it, a new version of the software is released/

15. In today’s fast-moving tech environment…

In today’s fast moving tech environment, it is a requirement that we forget more than we learn.

16. A working program…

A working program is one that has only unobserved bugs.

17. A hardware failure…

A hardware failure will cause system software to crash, and the engineer will blame the programmer.

18. A system software crash…

A software crash will cause hardware to act strangely and the programmers will blame the engineer.

19. Profanity…

Profanity is one language all computer users know.

20. Whenever you need a crucial file…

Whenever you need a crucial file from your hard drive, your hard drive will crash…

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This truly outstanding photo taken from the International Space Station shows the Japanese HTV-4 spacecraft illuminating the Earth’s clouds as it disintegrates in the atmosphere during re-entry. Unbelievable shot.

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At Mobile World Congress in 2012, Samsung announced a pico projector smartphone known as the Galaxy Beam. Although it was a cool concept, the phone’s downfall was its middling specs, aging OS and large chassis. Two years later, it appears that…

This article was written on December 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

Earlier today I posted instructions on how to download and install Vista SP1 RC, and now that I’ve kicked it around a bit I thought I had enough thoughts to constitute an article. The reason why I didn’t include this information in the earlier post was that my installation had not completed, and in the end it took about 45 minutes to finish installing. A bulk of that time was spent after the computer restarted the first time, so don’t think that your done after the first restart.

–The Good–

Microsoft focused the first Service Pack for Vista purely on performance, stability, and reliability. After running it for just a few hours I’ve noticed that they went for the updates that offered the “biggest bang for the buck.” By that I mean they really hit home on some critical areas where performance wasn’t the greatest, and where users would really notice a big difference.

To be more specific here are some of the things that have really stood out to me in Vista SP1:

• They fixed one of the issues that has irked me the most! Previously when I would start up my laptop Vista would pause for about 15 seconds while it was connecting to the network. During that time no programs or Windows services would load, but things like the Start Menu were still usable. After a lot of research I determined that the delay was caused by Vista looking for other computers on the network, and if I disabled file sharing the problem disappeared. I’m happy to say that there are no startup delays for me in Vista SP1!
• Searching indexed files and folders is way more instant than before. I have Vista index all of the files on my entire computer, and sometimes when performing a search for files it would still take several seconds to bring up any matching results. Now it is able to pull in results almost instantaneously when I begin typing. For the curious minds out there I have 150,000+ files in my index that Vista is searching.
• Big file transfer speed improvements! Transferring files from one machine to another is amazingly faster. Before installing Vista SP1 on my computers I transferred a 500MB file over my local network. It took 3 minutes and 25 seconds to complete, but after installing Vista SP1 on both machines it only took 2 minutes and 22 seconds. That’s a 30% difference!
• Remaining time for file transfers is calculated faster, and seems to be a bit more accurate. When I transferred the 500MB file mentioned in the previous bullet the remaining time was calculated immediately upon initiating the transfer. Sometimes it would take 10 or 15 seconds for it to calculate, so it’s a lot nicer now.
• I have yet to see firsthand the advantages of the hotpatching we discussed yesterday, but the less frequent reboots will surely be a nice touch.

–The Bad–

• One thing that really bugs me with Vista SP1 RC is that Microsoft felt the need to brand my desktop as an “evaluation copy.” Sure I’m not running the final release, and Vista SP1 RC will expire in June 2008, but did they still have to do this? If you’re annoyed by the “Evaluation copy. Build 6001″ message here are some instructions on how to remove it, but I’ll probably just leave it alone.
  
• There hasn’t really been any improvements to the User Account Control (UAC) in Vista. I guess this is something that would be included in Service Pack 2 since it is more aligned with new features, but some minor tweaks could have made it less frustrating for new users. A “remember my choice” checkbox on each of the prompts would make it 1,000 times better!
• I would have liked to see a few improvements to the Vista Gadgets, such as an autohide option for the sidebar. There should also be an easier one-key shortcut to show/hide the gadgets in the sidebar and on the desktop. The WinKey+Space Bar just doesn’t cut it for me.

So those are my initial impressions of Vista SP1, along with what I was hoping to see included. Vista SP1 should be in final form the early part of next year, and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that two years won’t go by before we see SP2 (there was a two year gap between SP1 and SP2 for XP).

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I never get tired of Daniel Simon’s design work, the man behind the vehicle design in Tron Legacy, Oblivion, the Lotus C-01 motorbike. His classic Cosmic Motors series are amazing.

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