Author: Gary

I would love to meet the developers of the shooting game Black and, well, shoot them. From putting the disc into the Xbox to actually starting play takes the best part of 15 minutes. First, there’s the lengthy, tedious and unskippable opening credits; then, a cliched and unskippable montage of newspaper headlines and video clips…

The spoof video showing Microsoft redesigning the iPod box has been attracting a lot of attention, and the news that the video was created by Microsoft seems to have surprised a lot of people. For example, writing in today’s Observer John Naughton asks whether the video shows that irony has entered the Microsoft campus. I’m…

There are lots of things I just don’t get – celebrity magazines, LiveJournal, the popularity of James Blunt, people who think Jack Russells are cool dogs – and top of the list is probably MySpace. I know it’s a social phenomenon, huge visitor numbers and all that, but every time I venture into it I…

Alliance and Leicester has revamped its online banking system, which of course means all kinds of problems. However, when you call the helpdesk you get a superb message: Due to the success of our new website, we are currently experiencing high call volumes. Yes: all those incoming calls to the tech support line are compliments!

There’s an interesting post on Engadget: copy protection isn’t just annoying, it seems. It’s bad for battery life too. According to tests conducted by CNET, strong DRM “not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them.” CNET found that the extra processing power required to check licenses and…

…which makes me very happy. If you’re running Office Mac 2004, there’s a new update that adds Spotlight searching to your email messages and other Entourage items. Click on Help > Check for updates in any Office 2004 application to get it.

I’m taking far too many pictures of Megan, so rather than fill my entire blog with puppy action I’ve started uploading the pics to Flickr instead.

Microsoft has unveiled the tweaked Office 2007 interface, which looks much more coherent than Beta 1 – and utterly different to previous Offices.

Wow. Amazing 3D pavement art [via Fark.com]

Half of the “malfunctioning” products returned to manufacturers aren’t defective – they’re just duff designs, reckons Reuters. Netherlands researcher Elke den Oulden found that some firms’ products are so badly designed, even the firms’ own staff can’t work them. A wave of versatile electronics gadgets has flooded the market in recent years, ranging from MP3…