Hello,

Posting this here in the hope someone may be able to help. I'm now having major problems with my laptop battery. I bought the laptop two years ago.

I'm using an Acer TravelMate 6592, which originally shipped with Windows XP Home. Since then I've upgraded to Windows Vista Ultimate and then to Windows 7 Ultimate just three weeks ago. I've never had issues with the battery for most of that time.

However, now I can barely squeeze 10 minutes life out of it, even on the Power Saver profile. The problem started suddenly a couple of weeks before the Windows 7 installation, when battery life decreased from nearly two hours to 10 minutes.

I'm also using an external battery, which usually gives me 4-5 hours use. However, this morning I connected it up and it was flat in 3-0 minutes. I did have the internal battery attached also, but will try again without it this evening to see if that makes a difference.

I'm not sure if it's the battery, the electronics inside the laptop or the AC charging port that's faulty. Then again, I've also heard of the power meter on Windows 7 being problematic, but not to this extent.

One solution is to test the battery with a similar laptop. Unfortunately, nobody I know has the same laptop as me, so any offers of help here are much appreciated. Also, if anyone knows how I can fix this problem, I'd be really grateful.

Apart from all this, the rest of the laptop works like a charm.

Time to pull some more hair out I think.

Hello,

I know some of you use eSet Smart Security as your antivirus and firewall software of choice, so I thought I'd post this in case it's of any help. Note this mainly focuses on accessibility. The tips are relevant to eSet Smart Security v4, but some of the options may be available in earlier versions.

First, open the main eSet Smart Security program and press F5 to open the advanced options dialog. Note that you may have to allow the F5 keystroke through if using some access software, as many also use this key as a function of the same. A list of option categories is given on the left. Use the tab key and up/down arrow keys to navigate through it, and between it and associated options. Use the spacebar to select/deselect options or to click the OK/Cancel button at the bottom of the screen.

Alerts and Notifications Category: Deselect 'Display notifications on desktop' and Display balloon tips in Taskbar for sec'. This removes the annoying pop-up balloon tips, which steal the focus away from whatever else you're working on at the time. They are also difficult to close with the keyboard and usually require mouse intervention. Mostly, they relate to the daily update of the antivirus definitions and so do not require user intervention. Deselecting these options will cause the notifications to appear as a standard message box on screen. You can hit OK to close it immediately, and usually you will return to the exact place you left off before the interruption. Advanced users can disable the notification altogether, so you will never be prompted when a successful update has been completed.

User Interface category: Deselect 'Show splash screen at startup', 'Use animated controls' and ‘Use animated icons for progress indication'. Select 'Advanced Mode' and 'Display menu in standard mode'. This tidies up the interface a little as well as giving access to the menu through which options can be selected. However, note that the 'Advanced Mode' will override this, but you can disable that if you're more comfortable with a simpler interface with fewer options. I have noticed some slightly faster response times with the animations disabled, and it seems to work better with the screen reader as well.

Some system settings:
Antispam Module category: Use this tip only if you do NOT want to mark messages as spam. Select 'Enable antispam module’ Deselect 'Add text to email subject' and 'move messages to spam folder'. I have noticed that disabling the antispam module causes Outlook 2007 (and possibly earlier versions) to hang for a few minutes at the 50% mark when doing its initial send/receive. I feel this may be down to poor logic in the eSet Outlook add-in, which may be attempting to find the module even if it is disabled in the main program options. Enabling the module resolves this problem. Deselecting the other two options will prevent the module from having any impact on the e-mail messages themselves. I have not noticed any degradation in Outlook performance with this configuration.

System Updates category: Use this tip only if you have Windows set to notify you of or automatically install new updates, or if you check Windows Update manually. Select 'No updates' from the drop down list. This will prevent eSet needlessly notifying you of missing updates and tidies the interface a little.

I hope these will be of some use to you. Note however that these are only a few of the many options you can configure within eSet, but I felt these were the most important. My aim here is to make the program easier to use in terms of accessibility, but also to reduce the interaction level required by the user. I've tested all of these with eSet Smart Security v4 and latest updates, running on Windows 7 with all updates. I use Supernova 11.04 as my screen reader/magnifier.

Feel free to add any comments or suggestions that may help others.

After some time running the RTM through a virtual machine on the desktop, I finally installed Windows 7 Ultimate on my laptop. So far, I have to say I'm quite happy with the performance and features, even though I've disabled most of the media and network related ones.

Originally, I was hoping to use a slimmed down version based upon work by Liquid0624 over at the MSFN forums. However, after a successful installation, which was completed in 8 minutes flat, I found that a small component had been, overlooked meaning there was no detection of the Ethernet controller at all. Even the Intel automatic detection facility couldn't find it on this machine. As I was anxious to start playing around with Windows 7, I finally just went and installed the full version.

I've since done some tweaking to improve performance, mainly focussing on display settings, and disabling quite a few services based on Black Viper's work (actually, I've almost entirely used the 'Tweaked' services configuration) apart from a few modification to allow the Volume Shadow Service to work.

I've recently been having an issue with my laptop battery whereby it drains completely from a full charge in less than a minute. I'll admit I've been scared to even try the battery again after I tried the deep freeze trick, but it's something I'll have to do soon if only to know how Windows 7 fairs under a power saver profile.

I'm really happy that some obvious problems that annoyed me under Vista are resolved. These include the time to resume from hibernation, and Outlook 2007 hanging during the initial send/receive. It also seems slightly more stable and responsive, although that's impacted negatively by the screen reader. It'll be fascinating to see how the upcoming release of v11.50 affects performance in this regard.

So, all in all both me and Nicole (yes, I'm still naming things!) the laptop are happy with the new OS. I think I'm going to opt for a lean model this time, and will only install what's necessary rather than going full out and installing everything at max settings as I did before. I'm hoping I can still get some useful life out of this baby yet - after all, it's already been two years and she's on her third OS.

The only question remaining now is, how long till the first service pack? After all, we've already had a number of security fixes within the first week after commercial launch!

Today marks a very, very sad day for us all.

This morning the Stockholm District Court handed down guilty verdicts, including one-year prison terms and a 30m SEK fine to four of the key members of The Pirate Bay Bit torrent website. The charges included the promotion of copyright infringement by the site's estimated 22m worldwide users and accessory to the same. This case marks the first of its kind in Sweden, which has always taken a relatively liberal attitude to file sharing in the past, and could set a dangerous precedent for other states in the years to come. The four men charged have vowed to appeal. This case comes after several years during which TBP offices have been raided and noises made about putting a stop to their activities, however this is the first time legal action has been sought.

Today marks a dark day for the freedom of online communication and collaboration, a hallmark of the modern times we live in and one, which we have accepted as fundamental in our 21st century global society. For me, this case rings sinister alarm bells. Granted, and setting any economic nuances aside for a moment, an argument can be made that illegal file sharing of copyright material is an unacceptable offence, but I feel this sidelines the many non-illegal uses of file sharing technologies, which are used every day. These include, for example, the wide distribution of open-source material so as to increase its accessibility to a worldwide audience, and the sharing of individually created material for mass, non-profit consideration and benefit where no copyright is intended or enforced. Linux and the considerable work related to it contributed by the end-user community is just one example of this.

This is why this case is so appalling. In many ways, this case is no different to the prohibition of freedom of expression rampant in so many countries, yet which is denounced so vigorously by the general international community. If one can be allowed to share one's view verbally on the street, or publish articles in the press, why cannot one share one's media online? Granted, this is far short of major copyright infringement, but this just proves my point that this case has tarred all these activities with the same brush. This is apart from the fact that, under both Swedish law and those of many other countries, it is not an offence to provide links to any material, no matter how legal or illegal, which is not hosted by the link provider. This is akin to saying that putting up a signpost in the street pointing to a house that is not yours is illegal. It is not. Even if someone then went and used your signpost as a directive to rob that house, it is still not illegal. It's not your fault the house was robbed, unless of course you instructed the robber to do as such, which is a different kettle of fish entirely.

I suppose it is just good that not all politicians have completely lost their minds, and that even those at the European Parliament level agree that this whole affair is nothing short of ludicrous. I have to agree also that there is definitely a level of political jockeying here, as the decision of the court is almost a complete turn-around from what was being said just a few months ago.

Two articles, which I hope, shed light from both sides of the case:
TheLocal.se - Pirate Bay Guilty
Svenska Dagbladet - Peter Sunde Kaller Domen Bisarr

I just hope that this does not spawn negative repercussions, which spill over into other areas, and that it does not provoke society into becoming even more insular than it already is. That is anything but what we need in the here and now and far from conducive to a brighter, more liberal future.

Hi,

Well, I read about this free software by System Access to go today and I
was excited to try something new. Ironically, people on this list often
criticise Dolphin for poor planning and incompetence during the latter
stages of the development process, and their support to customers. I'm
sorry, but Satogo got me annoyed within 30 seconds of loading their site.
Having been a beta tester for several software vendors and being one who
likes to test out new software, I can honestly say that's a first.

OK, so the first impression of the site is great; a nice, clean interface,
just one link and a nice voice prompt telling me to press Enter to get
started. Then, a simple 2.71MB download, and I'm ready to roll. But,
forcibly terminating my existing accessibility product, which I'd
incidentally used to get to the site in the first place, without warning,
thus causing me to lose any unsaved settings in that application, and then
playing music at me for nearly two minutes, again without any feedback
left me wondering just what on earth it was doing to my poor computer.
OK, no worries, let's move on.

So, I finally have speech back, totally ignoring my computer's sound
settings and booming out at me from my rear left speaker, nerve-janglingly
emulating the dark days of hardware synthesisers and their Darlek
undertones at their worst. Now what's this? I have to log in? Account
number and PIN? Is this some kind of scam? Oh, but no fear, I can create
an account if I don't already have one, or, I guess I could just continue
without. Since when have I needed an account to have my computer speak to
me? But moving on.

Ah, I can press Alt+H for help. Well, as they kindly didn't provide any
guidance on how to use the system before it was installed, or even whilst
it was being installed, that's quite comforting. A new window pops up,
telling me to kindly read the entire help file before contacting technical
support. No mention of just how to do that, or even that support was
available, but I do have the tendency to shoot first and ask questions
later, so maybe I'll wait and it'll all become clear in due course. And
that's it. Yes, I'm not just cutting this short so I can catch some
well-deserved shut-eye that is truly it!

Maybe if I press the down arrow it'll continue, and offer me some inkling
of what I should do next. Maybe it's one of those old-fashioned jobs that
don’t know how to scroll past the visible window. But no, I'm told, twice
no less, once by the suicide-inducing fellow and again by another guy who
sounds like he's had one too many on a Saturday night (oops, it is
Saturday night as I write this but I digress) that I'm already at the end
of the document. Is he kidding me? Try again, with the same result. And
again, just in case good things really do come in threes. Nope, clearly
not this time.

So let's just get this straight so we're damned sure there's no mistake.
This thing which is actually suppose to help people has hijacked my
computer, caused old Bach to roll over in his grave and my neighbours to
seriously consider committing me to an asylum for my taste in music, given
me the strong desire to break something and helped me do absolutely
nothing. Nothing! And it didn't even have the decency to tell me how to
shut the god-forsaken thing up. I had to work that out myself, and even
then it meant ending my entire web browsing session - I had pages up I was
consulting between, thank you very much.

So, in summary, whereas the concept is good the delivery, implementation
and support are sorely lacking. I recommend this to anyone who either
fancies a joke, or is collecting artefacts for the worst design of the
year award. Come back when you've done your homework, tested it, asked
users about it, tested it again and got your house in order. Oh, but
wasn't that what people said about Dolphin?

This review is being posted on several mailing lists, the patwaspotterfan
blog on LiveJournal and elsewhere on the web. The Satogo software was run
on a Windows Vista computer using both IE7 and IE8 and was used simulating
a blind user with no useable sight for maximum effect. No information,
which personally identifies any individual other than myself, is intended
with this submission.

The demand for web-based content to be available anywhere, at any time whilst on the go has increased significantly in recent years, fuelled by advancements in technology, innovation and massive uptake of newer, more portable, internet-capable devices. One need only look at mobile versions of social networking and new sites and the heightened advertising used to promote them to see my case in point. However, whereas firms seemed to have done a good enough job on the demand side, the supply of suitably presented material that keeps up with the technology used to render it is still somewhat stagnant.

For an example, look at this page the phone selection page for First Direct's MoneyLink service. It takes about 30 seconds to load on my desktop with an 8MB internet connection. That’s not bad. Now consider this is part of registration for a mobile-based service, and in the absence of any statements to the contrary, it would be perfectly reasonable to assume one would complete this on an internet-capable mobile phone. You know what? I tried this the other night using T-Mobile's GPRS service on my Nokia N95 8GB. The page still hadn't loaded after ten minutes (at which point the phone ran out of fuel and shut down). The only reason for this ridiculously long and (from my experience) still incomplete page load was the 50+ images of phones on the page. I'm sure it's meant to be helpful, but I'd honestly hope anyone trying to register for such a service for their phone would at least know what model they had without the need to see a picture (bearing in mind many of them look the same as one another).

My point here is that the above page, although theoretically well thought out from a user comprehension standpoint, is clearly not designed for the platforms upon which it will be viewed by the rationally discernable target audience. Replacing the images with a simple scroll down list, as is common on many registration forms where one choice out of many has to be made would achieve the same outcome, whilst reducing the page load time by 90%, not to mention making the page easier to interact with overall (do you know just how many key presses it takes to scroll down that page on an N95?).

There is heavy debate, prompted by the W3C and others, on the modernisation and streamlining of existing web and content presentation standards. Mark-up and scripting for mobile platform targets has been discussed, but is still restricted to actual standalone software development, as far as existing technologies are concerned (e.g. Java). I think the example above clearly demonstrates that more thought is needed on porting existing and new web content onto new platform targets, as well as to generating awareness of the new challenges facing viable content presentation as screens get smaller and the demand for more user-friendly devices and interaction grows stronger.

I spoke with First Direct's web development team today and explained the above, including the specific example. The good news is that they are going to look again at mobile accessibility for their site, but they did tell me to disable images in my phone's web browser in the meantime. OK, it's one workaround, but still not quite the point. I'll be interested to see what, if anything comes of this.

(Well, in a manner of speaking)

Hi,

A long-overdue tech post for you. Since Uni started handing out Microsoft ExchangeLabs powered e-mail (associated with Windows Live) accounts, I've been looking for a way to get at my mail on my phone. I know there is a fallback IMAP option, but as I become ever more mobile and time at my desk becomes constrained, I quite fancy the idea of being able to sync my calendar, tasks, contacts and mail across both phone, web and desktop at any given time. And this is only available if you interact directly with MS Exchange.

I've taken some time over the last few days to research this, and initially started with Nokia's own Mail for Exchange software, which at first glance seemed to do everything I wanted. Ah, but there was the minor problem of it not connecting to the server. I found a document describing the setup for a Windows Mobile based device, but after adapting it for my Nokia, it still wouldn't connect. I tried calling the IT helpdesk, was connected through to their out-of-hours service operated from Newcastle, but even though they were friendly and all, they didn't actually manage to help me. I got the impression no one had even asked about such a thing before.

Back to my desktop and the net, and I finally found the address for Microsoft's own Exchange server for use with mobile devices, which, by way of using a corporate domain for identification, it's possible to make a connection. But now, whereas it would connect OK, MFE kept falling over with a rather ambiguous system error each time.

I was getting a little antsy by this point but remembered seeing something called Roadsync during my travels around the Download! Application on my phone. On checking their official RoadSync website the software ticked all the boxes and had a 30-day trial, so I installed it, plugged in the same settings as for MFE, and what do you know, it worked! I can't remember now, but I'm pretty sure I must have done a happy jig of sorts, or maybe several happy jigs.

The mail synced perfectly, all 487 messages (yes, that's only since September 23 2008 and yes that's pretty damn scary for just a Uni student) but I was still annoyed at why the same wouldn't work for MFE. I used the same settings and config as for RoadSync, so I was sure it wasn't my network, Uni or me. On checking the logs this afternoon it turns out it's actually hitting an error 451, which from checking the mail specifications, seems to indicate a timeout possibly related to DNS? This is odd, as RoadSync has no such problem, but for the sake of completeness I changed the DNS on my WiFi to a static one (once for the UK and once for one in Belgium just for a trial) but with no luck. I've checked this online, and it turns out many others have similar issues, so maybe it's a case of wait and see until Nokia fix any bugs with a new release.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the way things are working. I might even consider paying the $49 for RoadSync, but then again I might also look into obtaining it by alternative means. I was considering writing a small tutorial for Uni to host to help others in a similar position of wanting to get Exchange working with Symbian, but as MFE isn't playing ball I'll probably put it on hold until it does.

Today was the first time this session that I didn't go to class, as I simply felt totally terrible when I woke up this morning. Unfortunately, the lecture and tutorial for the same class were today, but fortunately, it was operations management, which I'm fairly comfortable with. I went to see the nurse this afternoon, but all she did was prescribe me some cough mixture and leave it at that. Honestly, is this the standard response nowadays? I have three bottles of the stuff here at home already! Anyway, I have accounting and economics tomorrow and Thursday, so hopefully I'll be able to attend those classes, as they're actually ones I enjoy.

One odd thing did happen today, and that is that I saw condensation on my bedroom window, the first time this year that I can remember. It was such an unusual event, and the first time I have noticed such a thing in the morning, but I took a photo of it, which you can see below. I just thought I'd throw that bit in for a laugh.

( photo )

In other news, I'm having a bit of a major problem with my credit cards now with regard to available liquidity. I had to ask BarclayCard to increase my limit twice now, as due to the time it is taking for the university to refund my original deposit, and the students awards agency to refund my transport costs, I don't have enough money on the card to cover those same transport costs for which I should be being reimbursed. It’s all quite a mess, and I’ll be very glad when the first of those checks start coming through, and I can get back on to an even keel. I suppose that's something I'll just have to put up with until the whole system gets working smoothly again as it has in previous years.

Well that's about all for now. I don't know if you can tell that this is the first post I've made using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 Professional, which I installed on my desktop over the weekend. I’m actually quite happy with it and the reliability and accuracy is quite amazing. Even as I'm writing this, I can see there are actually very few mistakes in the whole post, which I will of course edit before I send this to the web. But until next time, out.

Phew, what a day! Unfortunately most of it was spent frantically trying to find my Olympus WS-320M that sold on eBay last night. I knew what the box looked like, so it should have been easy enough to find. After all, it's only a house I live in, not a factory! Finally after 5 hours I chanced looking in a random cardboard box, and there it was. Why I put the perfectly well boxed thing in yet another, plain, looking like a hundred other cardboard boxes box I'll never know. For one horrifying moment I actually thought I'd already sold it which would have been an embarrassment to say the least. Anyway, it was finally packaged up and sent, along with my old Asus Striker Extreme motherboard and a NEC DVD+/-RW combo drive that also sold.

The other frustration was my finding out that my Uni funding is anything but sorted. Apparently what I've 'won' is not a scholarship at all, but a nomination for one. So, I have to fill out yet another blasted form to 'apply' to SAAS to actually get the funding. I also need to send some proof of nomination, but I've no idea what this entails so am waiting on the course leader getting back to me on that. Luckily, I studied under her two years ago so maybe that might count for something, not that I'm looking to jump queues or anything but a little bit of an expedited response wouldn't be frowned upon, no ma'am!

My friend crashed her car yesterday, but luckily she walked away from it OK. Yesterday was Thursday. Is this a prelude to the curse of the dreaded Thursdays rearing its ugly head again? Incidentally, there was no shooting yesterday either, Ali never made contact, so I didn't have any news to go on. And as his mother's brother's second cousin's father (or something like that - hey I don't understand all this complicated relationship stuff!) is in hospital, I didn't want to intrude, damn nobility complex again.

Now to the one thing that is causing some excitement around here. I, (with some gratefully accepted help from mum) managed to get the water cooling system on the new computer functioning, although I had to empty nearly the entire bottle of coolant into the ever-guzzling pump to do it (didn't know that much liquid could fit in there!). Well, at least I think it's working as it's been running for nearly 3 hours straight and the connectors on the waterblock are actually cold. This in comparison to yesterday when I practically burnt my fingers on them. I was trying to judge the performance by sound, but it took a while for me to realise that bubbles in the pipes cause noise, so the lack of noise, coupled with the cold connectors must mean there are no bubbles and that the system's working, so in this case silence is golden. I've installed Vista and will sort out the graphics drivers tomorrow, as without them Supernova is being odd, or at least what I can't read of it makes me think it is.

I've upgraded the firmware on my Nokia N95 8GB to version 30.0.018. Mum asked me why I did, and honestly I don't know why as there's nothing really that interesting in the new release to shout about. I suppose the only thing I am hoping for is to get some more battery life out of the phone between charges. Also, I don't suppose the quicker camera startup time will hurt any. But really, if you have the phone and are happy with it, my advice would be to leave things be. It's a lot of effort to re-configure everything to the way it was before, even more so for me as I have to re-hack the firmware, re-hack the totally stupid and downright absurd certificate management features and go through this crazily longwinded process of getting all the applications re-installed and tailored to my liking. Plus, the tricks I implemented for my standby screen customizations, for one, are gone and are a royal pain to set up again. I heard rumours a while back that this newest update would not destroy existing user data on the phone, a feat which is more than technically possible seeing as a computer is used as the transfer medium, but clearly this was not the case. Hopefully it's something which Nokia will consider implementing, particularly if users start screaming for it. As phones' internal storage capacities grow, and their features and capabilities advance, users are going to want to install more programs, store more data, and generally make the device even more integrated into their daily lives. If we can update our computers without returning to ground zero each time, why not our phones? So yes, anyway, if it ain't broke, don't do a Patwa and fix it, until there's actually something worth fixing!

For any V.I guys or gals that read this, I have a box of some tactile mathematics odds and ends that's looking for a good home. It's not worth much, but if you're interested let me know and I'll get it shipped to you. Throw in a fiver or something if you really want. Incidentally, does anyone know if the CECOGRAMME free postage service for the blind works for sending mail to the EU (including the Skengen zone) and the US & Canada? I hardly ever use it, but for big packages I probably would and it's handy to know.

OK, that's about all I have for today. I'm feeling rather odd, sort of melancholy and a bit teary-eyed, I don't know why. I'm actually posting this on Friday, but my laptop's still stuck on Norwegian time, hence any confusion. I'll go and get some painkillers and a soda now, I think, so catch you soon.