Why is Simple Hard to Find?

I would have liked to premiere my new Danish bank card this weekend in Odense but oh no: why should you be able to make a simple money transfer from a Swedish account to a Danish one within the same bank? Speaking to a gorgeous female clerk in the bank I became convinced that it was me who was the problem and if I wasn't the problem I should call customer support when using the net bank. But after getting several warnings and blank drop down lists in my net bank I suspect the problem has nothing to do with humans but with Danske Bank's programmers. After speaking with another nice gal from customer support the problem turned out to be 98% inferior programming/layout and 2% my fault (for not trying hard enough). Apparently there are two different ways to transfer money. One of them works and the other obviously does not.

Now I could have discussed program structures but I will choose not to embarrass myself trying to show off my non-existing programming skills. Instead I will make a Top 10 list of easy to use software:

1. Vista. Don't be surprised. A three year old could use it, and it is impossible to wreck.
   
2. Mozilla Firefox. Straight forward, fast and customizable. You won't need another browser (use the IE Tab to visit Internet Explorer specific pages)
   
3. SpeedFan. Keep computer temperatures and HDD S.M.A.R.T values in check.
   
4. ImgBurn. ISO images are still not natively supported in Vista. This is your saviour, and a straight forward CD/DVD burner.
   
5. Photomatix 3.0 Pro. Import images. Merge. Tone map. Export. And now you've made your first HDR photo. As easy as it gets.
   
6. GOM Player. Faster and more useful than Windows Media Player and better looking than VLC.
   
7. Paint.NET. Simple, fast and great layout. Some prefer GIMP but Paint.NET feels easier to use.
   
8. CCleaner. Get rid of junk files. Two clicks and the junk files are gone forever.
   
9. Foobar2000. Despite its ridiculous name this is the music player every Windows user should use. Why has no one else thought of tabs for playlists? Great.
   
10. Anything by Google. Google Search, Toolbar, Desktop, Gears, Gmail, Google Docs, Blogger, Picasa, Chrome, YouTube… Everything is simple, sleek and fast. Credits to the Google team for these amazing apps.
    

Congratulations to the software above, they make my day tolerable.

VAIO Photo Elite Contest

Readers who don't check out my twitter messages (to the right) will not know that I've entered the VAIO Photo Elite competition on Club VAIO's website. But now you know. The rules are simple: since VAIO is celebrating their 10th anniversary you should upload a picture that describes the recent ten years of your life. Feel free to upload as many photos you like. It should also contain the VAIO logo somehow. And, oh... don't forget that the photo(s) should have something to do with celebration. Right. And who decides who will win? I guess I’ll find that one out.

 Just to check out the competition I entered the gallery and looked at some of the "elite" photos already uploaded. Most of them were rubbish, futile attempts to paste a VAIO computer into sunsets, under the paws of puppies, in citrus trees… and so on. Most of the photos did not meet the above criteria so I decided to just upload some of my favourite photos.

 So why are there so many desperate attempts to win? Anyone know of Sony’s Alpha series? Two (very) lucky winners will win a Sony Alpha 900, a digital SLR camera with a whopping 24.6 Megapixels, a specially built CMOS sensor and it can take 5 pictures per second. Wow. And that’s why I have uploaded not less than 10 pictures so far. There are also 6 Sony DSC-H10, with 8.1 Megapixels and 10x optical zoom, which you can win.  

 But since most of the competitors are from Germany, there is a quite good chance that the winners will be able to take better pictures of sausages than before. But I won’t give up since 5 of my photos have been in the Hall of Fame (Top 30) and thrown out of there. Nevertheless, here are some of my photos, including the Tassi (cat) versus VAIO photo shot!

DIY Project: Cool Down Your Laptop

I like DIY (Do It Yourself) projects more than anything. Well, as long as it's simple. Since I had 3/4^th of Arctic Silver 5 (thermal paste) lying around and my laptop fan spun up everytime I wanted to watch a video, I decided to open up my laptop and clean the cooling system (copper heat sink and fan). I mean, how hard could it be?

It turns out not very. I know that when the Top Gear team uses the term "How hard can it be" it most certainly ends up with a big crash, lots of smoke and a bill with a very large number on it. So here is my bill (average prices):

1. Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste – €10.5, £7.5
   
2. Screw Driver Set – €13.3, £9.6
   
3. Anti-static Wristband - €4.3, £3.1
   
4. 99.5% Ethanol – smuggled from a reliable source
   
5. Microfiber Cloth - €2.1, £1.5
   
6. Finehaired Brush – €3.2, £2.3
   
7. A stiff card of some sort. A credit card is perfect.
   

Tweezers are not on the list and they will really speed up the work, at least if you drop screws all over the place, like me. Another thing that will speed up the final assembly is putting screws in small containers (I used five: heat sink, hard drive bay, screen, CD/DVD, and chassis). And one other thing before you start: set aside at least two hours for this project. I did it in 1 hour 10 minutes but I am fairly experienced.

1. Put on your Anti-static Wristband and connect it to any metal surface that has ground contact. Remove the laptop battery and AC cord (we don't want any current in the components when we are fiddling around.
2. Remove all screws and panels from the main chassis. If the HDD bay comes loose, or the DVD-burner, gently remove them (pull straight out of socket, don't wriggle it around) and put them somewhere safe.
3. Depending on your computer make you should be able to remove the chassis, uncovering the motherboard. Don't be afraid to use some force, but if it gets stuck watch for additional screws before proceeding. I had one extra screw under the HDD bay, and two more where my RAM is installed.
   
4. Remove the heat sink and the fan. Be careful not to loosen any connections on the motherboard. As you can see from the pictures further below it looks like a baby monkey put on the thermal paste. It is way to much, which overflows and traps heat in the CPU and chipset.
   
5. Use the brush to get the dust of the fan. If you want you could open it up even more, or remove it. Just remember to reconnect it to the motherboard if you do.
6. Clean the contact areas of the CPU, chipset and heat sink by dropping small amounts of Ethanol on the microfiber cloth and rub the cloth in circles over the contact areas.
7. Repeat step 6 until you can see your own face in the contact areas. It should be clinically clean.
   
8. Apply very little thermal paste to the CPU and chipset. Use the card to smear it out evenly over the CPU and chipset. Don't get thermal grease outside the contact area, this will trap heat (the heat sink has no contact with it and therefore the heat cannot escape).
9. After you are done put back the heat sink and fan (there should be contact). Screw back the screws, put back the chassis, hard drive and DVD-burner. Put the battery back in and fire up your computer. If you happen to have a CD in the drive you might get a slight shock.
   

Final note: The temperature decrease will not appear to be noticeable at first (the thermal paste needs about 200 hours to settle) but you will notice it. My computer has an idle temperature of 33°C which is 4°C cooler than it used to be.

When You Cannot Sleep

Sometimes I go to bed without falling asleep and spend the time thinking for one or two hours. Not only is it frustrating but the thoughts I have are as irritating as the question "What is the meaning of life?" So I've decided to post a list of things I think about when I cannot sleep:

• If there is no spoon, in the movie Matrix, why are there buildings, pavement, and stairs in the way? Shouldn't Neo be able to realize that these material things do not exist in the Matrix? If Neo could see that there is no spoon, he should be able to travel through the floors like the twins in Matrix Reloaded.
  
• First the ratio between the width and the height of a TV screen was 4:3 now it is 16:9 (4²:3²). Will future TV sets have the dimensions 64:27 (4³:3³)?
• Steven Wright once said that "Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire". Does that mean that dancers are better in bed? Or do they just want it more than others?
  
• Would I sleep better if I untangled myself from this bubble wrap and put my pajama back on?
  

(I bet you cannot sleep now, huh?)

In the Supermarket

Today I decided to do my shopping in Mästerlivs. It is a supermarket but it has range of unusual provisions which you are not likely to find in any other supermarket. Unfortunately they apparently lack some common provisions, like raisins. This is a translated conversation between me and one of their employees (obviously not of the month):

• Excuse me, where do you have the raisins?
  
• They are on the shelf to the right of you, waist high.
  
• That's dried plumes.
  
• That's the only kind of raisins we have.
  
• Ok (interested and a little scared). Do you have… dried grapes?
  
• We have dried fruit over there (pointing to the fruit section).
  
• Ok. Thank you. (I paid for the rest and got the hell out of there)
  

Tomorrow I will hand in my CV to Mästerlivs with an added ability: "Can distinguish between raisins and dried prunes."

Stephen Colbert Says It All

While I am struggling with my writers block (also called laziness) I turn you over to Stephen Colbert. Oh, I wish he was running for president!