Shopper goes to Ethiopia

Today (Saturday 28th February 2009) Computer Shopper is going to Ethiopia. We're supporting a project that sees an Ethiopian school receive a suite of 20 PCs. These will give around 1,000 children the IT skills they will need to find work, get higher education or start a business.

We'll be keeping you updated with the project while we're out there.

Vista updates: I am more important than you

Windows Update is, theoretically, a brilliant idea. Without having to put any effort into keeping your PC up to date, it will automatically download the latest patches for your computer, keeping track of the ones that you’ve already download. In theory it should mean that your computer is never out of date and safer than it was from internet threats.

Sadly, Windows Update suffers from at least three major drawbacks: it thinks whatever it’s doing is more important than what you’re doing; it updates way too often (how wrong can Windows be to need this many patches?); and it often doesn’t work quite the way that you expected it to.

These problems are particularly true with the Vista version of the service. For the most part if Vista downloads and installs an update it will pop up an irritating message asking if you’d like the computer to automatically reboot itself in 10minutes or, if you ask nicely, any interval up to four hours. There’s no option to say “I’ll reboot when I’m damn well ready”. So, the little process hides away in the corner of your computer waiting until you turn your back for a few minutes before dashing out to reboot your computer.

That’s when Vista wants to play nicely. At other times it can’t even be bothered with this option and the first you know about its little trick is when the application you’re using flashes up a message asking “Do you want to save this Document?” for about a billionth of a millisecond, before the application quits. As the rest of your Windows self implode and your computer begins to shut down, you can’t help but feel like your computer’s been taken over by TV-show hackers, rather than because it’s just finished installing updates.

It seems a ridiculous decision to let Vista have this level of control, no matter how important the update was. Imagine, if you will, that films used realistic computers and we’re reaching the climax of the action.

The good guy kneels in front of the nuclear bomb, and gently takes an access panel off with a screwdriver to reveal a screen that is counting down from one minute. He gingerly fingers the coloured wires, tracing where they come from and go to.

He speaks into his headset to the bomb disposal expert back at HQ, who’s flicking through nuclear bomb schematics using a Windows Vista PC. The expert says, “Cut the red wire.”

Sweat pours from our hero’s head, as he slips the pliers round the red wire and begins to cut. The outer plastic sheath is cut, and the wire’s about to go. The music reaches its peak; there’s only 20 seconds left on the clock. Suddenly, the expert at HQ bursts over the radio, “Don’t cut the red wire. That would diffuse the BGM-109 Tomahawk, but you’re kneeling in front of a BGM-110.”

“What wire do I cut,” yells our hero.

“I’m looking now; you need to...” the expert stops talking as the sound of Windows shutting down plays over our expert’s headset. “What the hell...”

Our hero grasps his hands into tight fists and stares up towards heaven and screams, “Damn you Windows Vista!”

A mushroom cloud erupts. The terrorists win. Maybe it’s a little far fetched, but the point is there are more important things than Vista finishing installing its updates.

Bringing order to chaos

Melvil Dewey was an incredibly clever bloke. With his Dewey Decimal system he single-handedly managed to bring order to libraries around the world. His system was to assign numbers to books, based on dividing all books into 10 sections, each section into 10 main classes, 100 divisions and 1,000 sections. By using decimal numbers to do this it meant that his system was purely numerical and infinitely hierarchical. It also made it a hell of a lot easier for librarians to file books, as they just had to put them back on the shelves in numerical order.

It’s a system that’s still in use in libraries across the world today. However, the system has its flaws, particularly that books can only exist in a single category. Imagine walking up to Mr. Dewey and asking him to show you all books on the subject of WWII. He could easily point you to that entire section, but he couldn’t also pull out every other book in the library that contains a fleeting reference to this subject.

It’s here that computers really triumph, with the ability to ditch a flat filing system and organise the same set of data in hundreds of different ways on the fly. To do this files are typically tagged with metadata, which is extra descriptive information. It sounds a trifle dull, but makes the whole world a lot easier.

You probably even use a system like this on a daily basis with your MP3 player. All MP3 files can have an associated ID3 tag, which stores, amongst other things, the name of the track, the album it belongs to, the artist it’s by and genre of music it belongs to. It’s this data that means your MP3 player can show you tracks organised by artist, album, genre and more. This invention totally changed the way that we deal with music and means that the boring flat file system, where MP3 files are stored in Folders on a hard disk, has no relation to the way that we access music.
A similar story can be told with image files. If you took a photo with your digital camera the image will already contain some handy information, such as the date the picture was taken on and the camera settings used to take it. You can go one step further by using software like Google’s Picasa. This free utility lets you tag images with keywords of your choice, so you can sort and find photos more easily. For example, you could tag every photo of your dog with its name; selecting that tag will show every single picture of your do no matter when or where it was taken. Again, it’s goodbye boring, flat file system and hello dynamic organisation.

This revolution isn’t just limited to the desktop and free-flow organisation is starting to appear in every product we use. I saw a company called Macrovision recently. Aside from producing the copy-protection system that makes your TV show a blue screen if you try and pirate a VHS video, the company is also a massive provider of information to third-party companies.

It’s this extended set of data that’s making it possible for some incredible products to come out. I saw a CD server product, which rips CDs to an internal hard disk. Rather than use basic MP3 information, Macrovision provides the manufacturers with access to a massive database of music information. This includes things like category (down to the ridiculous level, such as electro-jazz funk), the mood of the song, what the song is about (marriage, divorce, love, hate and so on), a review of the disc and a list of every musician that had anything to do with it. With this level of information, you can not only move around your music collection in infinite varied ways, but you can also find new music in an incredible way.

So, if you love the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street you can find out who played it (sadly, it’s not Bob Holness as legend has it, but Raphael Ravenscroft) and find out everything else he ever played on and even if he has any solo albums.

Similar intelligence is now being built into Macrovision’s EPG product that it sells to third-party manufacturers, such as Sony, for use in their TVs and hard disk recorders. Instead of a flat view of what’s on TV, you’ll soon be able to find out who’s in a show, their biography, what else they’ve been in and, more importantly, what else they’re on that week. This is incredible and shows just what computers are capable of when they’re played to their strengths.

The real question is, why can’t we do this with everything? How amazing would it be to be able to tag your office documents, so that you can quickly sort and organise them by subject, and jump directly to the one you’re after? Let’s hope Microsoft is listening and the old folder structure can be mostly set aside while we get at our data in any way we see fit.

Take the Gadget Quiz

We've teamed up with our sister magazine iGizmo to bring you this gadget quiz.

Click here to take the quiz

The aim is simple: identify ten zoomed-in pics in as short a time as possible. But be warned, it’s horribly addictive.

Please sit quietly

I am often told I'm an innocent to the brutish ways of the world. I often have what I believe to be keen, cutting-edge insights into the way people use technology. In my mind, they are revelations akin to Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus or Archimedes discovering some arcane principle of physics while taking a bath. Instead, my earth shattering discoveries are so commonly known that I must have been living in a cave without WiFi to have missed out on it in the first place.

I therefore apologise in advance if the following observation is so painfully obvious as to be embarrassing.

Some people have no sense of decorum when using mobile phones in public.

The depletion of my iPod's battery prompted this gem of an observation. I usually block out the endless cacophony of central London and its gridlocked public transport system with some soothing tunes from my iPod.

I love my iPod since it reduces my stress levels more than any other gadget. Both its controls and the way it works with my computer via iTunes is much less frustrating than other MP3 players. Perhaps more importantly, it effortlessly blocks out those everyday sounds of calamity that would otherwise threaten my tenuous grip on reality.

Naturally, there are some days when I've forgotten to charge my iPod's battery, leaving myself without any sort of aural buffer between myself and the rest of the world. Finding myself stranded in a train carriage or on a bus without any other form of distraction, it's often impossible to avoid overhearing other people's mobile phone conversations.

It turns out that a surprisingly large number of people think nothing of airing their dirty laundry in public by describing some painful personal tragedy to another person over their mobile in minute, soul- destroying detail at the highest possible volume. Vindictive instances of infidelity by their life partner. A friend's rampant promiscuity leading to multiple unplanned pregnancies. Acrimony between a parent and child brought about by one of the two becoming financially insolvent. Wince-inducing medical conditions, many of which sound like medieval torture methods. In short, personal matters that should really be discussed in private.

Naturally, I blame television for this deplorable state of candidness. I blame reality TV shows for encouraging people to think that everyone else cares about the gory details of their private lives. Overhearing these phone conversations is like being forced to watch an omnibus edition of all the EastEnders Christmas specials, except they've all been written by an especially mean-spirited and drunken Marquis de Sade.

Perhaps, I'm oversubscribed to fusty, old-fashioned British ideas of public behaviour but I really wish people would take more care when using their mobiles in public. It's probably unlikely to improve any time soon though. If my iPod's battery ever runs out again when I'm confined in a public place, I'll just have to resort to sticking my fingers in my ears and whispering sweet nothings to myself. Quietly.

Alan Lu

Adverts are on the move

As a rail commuter, I see more than my fair share of advertising hoardings each day. My journey involves both overland and underground trains, and there are countless adverts at every station and on every train.

The clever marketing bods have started to use technology to their advantage, with LCD screens replacing posters in a bid to get their message to you as you ride on an escalator or walk towards your platform.

However, I couldn’t help but do a double-take at the huge ‘TV’ screen at Charing Cross station last week. This usually broadcasts a silent mix of Sky news and weather along with the adverts you’d expect. However, as I waited for inevitably late train, I noticed an advert on the screen which read as follows:

‘You can now have adverts sent free of charge to your mobile. Just enable Bluetooth on your handset.’

Wow, thanks! It’s so generous of you to offer it for free. I understand that adverts are a part of life when you’re using public transport, and I get the concept of advertising-supported media, which means I get something – usually content on a website – for free, but why on earth would I want to allow adverts to be beamed to my phone?

The marketing bods have clearly failed on this one. The technology may be clever, but the majority of adverts are of no interest to me, so I hardly want to view ads on my tiny mobile phone screen.

The really clever adverts – and the only ones I don’t particularly mind – are the context-sensitive ads that appear on websites such as Amazon. These are usually similar items to those you’ve already purchased, and are much more likely to be of interest. Google ads, too, can be relevant, and I often click on a Google ad if it’s directly related to the terms I was searching for.

However, there’s no way to do this via Bluetooth – the best I could hope to receive is a more generic half-price offer on a bacon sandwich and coffee as I walk through the station concourse. In fact, I might just turn my phone’s Bluetooth on to check…