Further to my comment the other day that Poland seems intent on marching forward into a new Dark Age, Doug Ireland has an excellent in-depth piece covering the background to the new anti-gay bill.
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Interview With Adam Curtis
Via Not Saussure, here’s a pointer to an interview with Adam Curtis about his latest work, The Trap. Worth reading.Leave a comment
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A Birthday Wish
Reginald Dwight, better known as Elton John, turns 60 this weekend. While that’s a sobering thought in itself, he uses the occasion to bring our attention to something far more sobering – the continuing abuses of the human rights of gay people around the world. Go and read the article – it’s a good one – and then read some of the comments left on it. It is clear from them, as Elton says, that homophobia is far from dead.Leave a comment
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They Hate Women Too
Another reason why I feel that Poland appears to have a lot of growing up to do.2 responses to “They Hate Women Too”
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The President and Prime Minister, otherwise known as Thing 1 and Thing 2, seem hell bent on taking Poland back 50 years to an era of subservience to the Vatican. Perhaps they hope to face the tide of modernity with mounted cavalry, as they did Hitler’s tanks.
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Thing 2, I take it, is the one who has the rumours that he is gay swirling around him? Another example perhaps of the power of the closet to warp minds.
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Baghdad Life
I’m a bit late in noticing it, but yesterday the Baghdad Blogger – Salam Pax – had an article published in The Guardian. Go and read it.Leave a comment
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Monks Have Their Uses
Although, probably not those that you might expect. How about helping to save people trapped under earthquake rubble? It’s all to do with acetone, apparently…
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What’s Wrong With Gay Sex?
An excellent question, to which Stephen Law, over at his eponymous blog, provides some excellent answers. The pay-off merely confirms one of my long-standing assumptions about God – that deep down, he always was an exceedingly nasty piece of work.
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The Me Generation
The concept of the Me Generation is not particularly new – it’s been around since the 1970s, but I wonder whether the intensity dial isn’t being turned up a notch or two higher by our technology.Danah Boyd, over at Apophenia, has been wondering something similar, and as usual explores the issues in a thoughful way. She comes to the conclusion that technology isn’t the culprit, rather it’s ourselves.Leave a comment
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Not On My List
A film that is definitely not on my list of films to see is 300. Despite the high coefficient of male beefcake (at least amongst the Spartans, apparently), that in itself does not tip the scales in its favour when the whole raison d’etre of the film appears to be simply an exercise in exquisitely choreographed ultraviolence. Scaryduck has more.Leave a comment
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The Lonely Robot
That was the subtitle of the second part of Adam Curtis’ new series on BBC2. Another hour of exposition of theory illuminated (mostly) by a dense weave of archive footage. This second part struck me as being somewhat easier to grasp than the first, but it’s still tough going for me. Still, I shouldn’t complain at having something on the telly that deserves to be well-chewed and savoured. It makes a welcome change from the usual diet of pap.There were some good moments in it. I screamed an obscenity at the point in the interview with James Buchanan, when Curtis poses the question to him on whether some politicians could act out of idealism. Buchanan’s point of view is that politicians and bureaucrats are self-serving and that public duty is a myth – it is impossible for them to interpret and express the general will of the people. Buchanan’s reply to Curtis was one of puzzlement and denial that idealism could ever exist – a "it does not compute" reaction. My scream was powered by the certain and personal knowledge of one politician – my father – who certainly was never self-serving, and went into politics out of a sense of duty. He may well have been a rare bird, and perhaps these days his breed is even rarer, but for Buchanan to deny even the possibility of the existence of such a species was too much for me.Not Saussure and Fixed Point have more, much more, in-depth analysis on The Lonely Robot. Recommended reading.Leave a comment
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Forward to the Dark Ages
I see the leaders of Poland are determined to turn the clock back. They want to introduce a law to ban discussions on homosexuality in schools and educational institutions across the country, with teachers facing the sack, fines or imprisonment.It’s only a few years since the pernicious Section 28 law was at last repealed in the UK, and now another EU country wants to go back down that road. And as proof that being a leader of a country is no obstacle to being barking mad, we have President Lech Kaczynski, the twin brother of the prime minister, supporting the law, claiming that:the future of the human race is dependent on discrediting homosexuality in the classroom. During a visit to Ireland last month, he said: "If that kind of approach to sexual life were to be promoted on a grand scale, the human race would disappear."Er, Lech, fat chance. Life doesn’t work that way. But then, rational thought clearly doesn’t seem to be his strong point.Leave a comment
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The Workaround
Well, after that rant about stupid packaging decisions for Windows Home Server, it comes as something of a relief to be able to say that I had one piece of good luck today. You know that conflict between the Windows Home Server client software and CA’s Anti-Virus 2007 product that I’ve been banging on about? Well, I discovered that there’s a workaround…I was watching a video podcast by Ian Dixon on TheDigitalLifestyle.com when I noticed something curious. He was demonstrating how to restore an individual file from a Windows Home Server backup, and he right-clicked on the file. I spotted that in the pop-up menu there was an entry for CA’s Anti-Virus. Hang on, thought I, how has he got that running on his machine, when he has also got the Windows Home Server client software running as well?An exchange of emails brought the answer… and for those of you wanting to have the workaround, here it is…- Change the startup of the “Windows Home Server Connection Service” service [sic] from “Automatic” to “Manual”
- Remove the Windows Home Server tray application (WHStray.exe) from the list of programs that are started when Vista boots up. You can do this from the Software Explorer in Windows Defender or, alternatively, just delete the link to the application in C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStartMenuProgramsStartup.
Then you should find that Vista will boot normally. Once you’re up and running, then starting the Windows Home Server console will start both the connection servce and the tray application for you. There you have it…
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Windows Home Server Packaging
While I’m still waiting for Microsoft to come up with a fix for the conflict between their software and CA’s anti-virus product, I thought I’d mention another oddity about the Windows Home Server software.
Microsoft are saying that one of the selling points for this product will be the fact that your home computers and your Windows Home Server will be remotely accessible from anywhere on the internet. They’ve gone on record with this. Indeed, when I connect to my Windows Home Server over the internet, once I’ve logged in, this is the welcome screen that I see:
See those “Connect remotely to any of the computers in your home” and the “Access any home computer” claims? Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Just one slight problem. It’s not true…
What happens when you click on the “Computers” tab in the welcome screen is that you’ll get a screen rather like this:
Look carefully – you’ll see that the computer called Monet has two entries – one when it’s running Windows XP Professional, and one when it’s running Windows Vista Home Premium Edition. And look, the Vista Home Premium Edition entry is marked as “Not Supported”. What’s that all about? Well, let’s click the helpful text just below that reads: Why can’t I connect to some computers? Then this screen will pop up:
Er, hello? Microsoft are telling me that the only operating systems that support Remote Access via Windows Home Server are Windows XP Professional, Vista Ultimate, Vista Business or Vista Enterprise?
Let me get this straight, the Windows Home Server product, the one that is supposed to be for ordinary mortals, not geeks, the one that is supposed to give you remote access to any computer in your home, won’t actually do this if you have Windows XP Home, Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium installed on your home computers? You actually have to have XP Professional, Vista Ultimate, Vista Business or, gawd help us, Vista Enterprise installed on your goddam home computers?
I’ve heard some nonsense in my time, but this takes some beating. The whole raison d’etre of Windows Home Server is being torpedoed by a product packaging decision… how stupid is that?
Well, of course most homes will have XP Home, Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium. Only geeks buy XP Professional or Vista Ultimate… What really irritates me is that I had Windows XP Professional at home on all our systems, but wanted to move to Vista Home Premium in an attempt to be less geeky. More fool me, I suppose.
I should just add, taking a deep breath after this rant, that I’m not the only beta-tester of Windows Home Server who has gone “What?” at this packaging decision. I see that this issue is now marked as “Closed(Postponed)” on the feedback site, and it could just be that the final version of Windows Home Server will emerge with Remote Access to all your home computers enabled – just as Microsoft is currently claiming, when you don’t read the fine print, that is. Let’s hope so, otherwise Windows Home Server starts to lose a lot of its attraction for me.
Update, November 2007: Well, the final release still doesn’t support remote access to “any home computer”, despite Microsoft still seeming to imply this (unless you read the fine print). I’m not impressed.
6 responses to “Windows Home Server Packaging”
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I had heard this from a friend but it seemed to ludicrous to be true. Ah well…
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Never underestimate the capacity for Marketing to open mouth and insert foot…
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[…] really find this ridiculous. I’ve blogged about this before – I came across it while I was beta-testing the product. I had hoped that Microsoft would […]
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[…] WHS will open up the ability to access all flavours of Windows operating systems via the internet. At the moment it does not, even though you might be forgiven for thinking that it does if you just listen to […]
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[…] Wand" Skip to content HomeAboutGardensWedding AlbumWines I Have Known ← Windows Home Server Packaging Forward to the Dark Ages […]
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[…] one of the potentially unique selling points had been removed. Despite being aimed at home users, remote access to your computers from outside the home wouldn’t work if you had home versions of Windows installed on your […]
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Eurovision Beckons…
The season of Eurovision is upon us. Last Saturday, the UK chose its "song for Europe". There were some real stinkers in the line-up, but I’m pleased to say that camp won through, with Scooch and Flying the Flag (for you).Is it just me, or did this song and the act remind anyone else of the brilliant Scottish sitcom The High Life?Leave a comment
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Viva del Toro!
Last Thursday, the postman brought a package. It was the Guillermo del Toro Collection – the DVDs of three of del Toro’s films: Cronos (1993), The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). A veritable feast!Cronos is like the eponymous mechanism at its heart – golden, intricate and deadly. It brings a whole new twist to the myth of the vampire. It’s also the touching story of the love between a kindly old man and his granddaughter. I was struck by the fact that the granddaughter often wears a red plastic mac, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a deliberate reference to the great Nic Roeg film: Don’t Look Now?Now, I should have watched The Devil’s Backbone next. That’s the chronology, and also the sequence recommended by the good doctor. However, I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the DVD of Pan’s Labyrinth to be released, so that went into the player on Friday night.It is simply a masterpiece. It draws on the deep wells of folklore with the characters of the faun, the fairy princess in mortal form, and introduces the spectacular "pale man". The stories too are recognisable ur-tales: the toad with the golden key at the root of the tree, the fairy banquet. But the monsters in the labyrinth are nothing compared to the monster above: Capitán Vidal. The film has heart-stopping moments of terror, horror and beauty. I look forward to watching its companion-piece, the Devil’s backbone, but I think that I have just seen del Toro’s best work to date.One thing that niggles, however. The original Spanish title of Pan’s Labyrinth is El Laberinto del Fauno (the labyrinth of the Faun). I expect it was some ignorant dork in Hollywood who gave it the English title. It should have been literally translated to The Labyrinth of the Faun. Because I don’t think the faun in the film is Pan, it’s just a faun…For lovers of trivia, the faun and the pale man are both marvellously played by Doug Jones, who also played the aquatic Abe Sapien in Hellboy (another del Toro film that I enjoyed enormously), and Hellboy himself was played by Ron Perlman, who was also the sadistic nephew in Cronos. I look forward to further films from Guillermo del Toro.Leave a comment
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Safe Haven
And yet another story from today’s Observer – this time about a row that appears to have erupted over the Isle of Man and its status as a tax haven. As a native of the island, I can’t say that I’m totally surprised that perchance in some instances tax avoidance has shaded into tax evasion. Nonetheless, what really caught my eye were a couple of elementary mistakes in the article in the opening two paragraphs.The story refers to the population of the island as being 26,000. Erm, what happened to the other 54,000 people then? Have they all just disappeared? And then in the second paragraph, the Common Purse Agreement is referred to as the Common Pure Agreement. Sloppy.Leave a comment
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