Windows Everyday Windows annoyances: The mercurial context menu Sometimes you right-click and get what you want. And, sometimes you don’t. (Yes, some context menu items don’t show on the first right-click, for no obvious reason.)
travel A trip to Japan I recently went on holiday to Japan. It was my second time going – the first time I went was a fairly rushed trip in 2017. I (accidentally) booked during Golden Week – a week or so when there are a number of national holidays, and
broadband I’ve finally got fibre to the premises I recently posted about how Community Fibre were installing their kit in my area. Well, things have changed since then – Community Fibre abandoned their roll-out on my road (and in other areas), and Openreach pulled their finger out and installed their kit ahead of
Windows Everyday Windows annoyances: The new file menu When you right-click on the desktop or in a folder, one of the things you can do using the context menu is create new files, folders and shortcuts. Here’s what this part of the context menu looks like on a fully up-to-date installation
Google The adverts on my Pixel 8 I used to have a Pixel 5. It was getting old – battery life was poor, it was getting slower and little of its 128GB storage remained free. But worse than those was the fact that guaranteed Android updates ended in October 2023, making the
broadband Full fibre is (almost) in my area It’s 2024 and full fibre still isn’t available in my area. But, just before Christmas, these black boxes appeared on all the telegraph poles in my area: Being on the telegraph pole, I first assumed that they belonged to Openreach (the part
hardware Unwanted PC problems: fixing a Core i9-14900K freezing during gaming I recently upgraded my CPU to a Core i9-14900K. However, it came with an unwanted problem: freezes during gaming. These freezes occurred only when XMP was enabled. They were complete lock-ups, requiring the power button to be held down to turn off the computer.
government The regularly irritating message from HMRC Twice a year, I receive an email from HM Revenue & Customs stating the following: You’ve got a new message from HMRC Dear Customer You have a new message from HMRC about Self Assessment. To view it, sign in to your HMRC online
software Intel Application Optimization: not very interesting I decided to try out Intel’s new Intel Application Optimization tool for 14th generation Intel processors. Getting it working required enabling an option called Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology in my motherboard’s BIOS settings (which was curiously in a menu named ‘Thermal Configuration’
hardware I upgraded my Intel Core i9-13900 to an i9-14900K There was a good deal on a 14900K during Black Friday weekend, so I decided to buy one as a fairly low-cost upgrade from my non-K 13900. Did I get a good one? Asus motherboards give these CPUs a silicon prediction (SP) score, and
hardware Be careful buying an Intel BE200 M.2 card Here’s a picture of an Intel AX210 card: And here’s a picture of an Intel BE200 card: If you’re observant, you may have noticed that the connector is slightly different. The AX210 is both A and E keyed, while the BE200
photography Jupiter and Saturn with my Canon camera I recently bought a Canon RF 800mm F11 IS STM lens for my Canon EOS R camera. While the lens is light for an 800mm lens, it’s still too large and heavy to take out and about on a whim (for me, at
Windows The bugs in File Explorer The latest version of Windows 11 includes an updated version of File Explorer, built using the Windows App SDK. Some parts of File Explorer haven’t actually changed – the main part of the UI containing the left pane and the file list is still
photography I made a website for my photos Photography is a small hobby of mine, and I used to post some of my photos on photography websites like 500px. But, apart from blurry photos, on that site you get people liking your photos just because you liked theirs, and people following you
photography A super blue moon Taking photos of the moon is always fun. Here’s one I took last night, from London: (It’s not quite up there with the one on the Wikipedia page for the moon, sadly, but where’s the fun in downloading a photo from
Windows A Win32 tree view scrolling oddity It turns out the Win32 tree view control has a novel way of selecting items. If you hold down Shift and scroll your mouse wheel up (but not down!) it will select the item underneath the pointer. This even works in the Windows 10
web The case of the misplaced GitHub username Recently, when using GitHub’s global code search, I noticed something amiss with one of the results: The file path of the result was somewhat confused. Taking the path literally, there seemed to be a directory named ‘ui_extension.cpp’, as if it were
hardware A new PC build I had been using an Intel Core i7-8700K since October 2017, patiently waiting for a good opportunity to upgrade. Fed up of waiting, I ordered some new parts: The exact parts (along with the prices I paid, inclusive of 20% UK VAT) are: * Intel
Google The 404 errors in the Google Pixel Discover feed My Google Pixel 5 Android phone has a feature called a ‘Discover’ feed, which I often look at. The feed contains articles that Google thinks I’d be interested in (based on things like my search history). I ignore and scroll past many of
Windows The pervasiveness of caret browsing in Windows 10 When I’m using Visual Studio, I often press the F7 key to start a build. But, a few days ago, I accidentally tried to do that when a taskbar item context menu was focused. What happened was this: ‘That doesn’t look like
Ubuntu Week bits: A turbulent day with Ubuntu I’m trying something different for this post – it's spoken (a short podcast, if you like). Week bits 19/02/2023: A turbulent day with Ubuntu0:00/5:031× Transcript This is my first ‘week bits’, where I talk about something (hopefully
privacy ‘Your business contact information is processed by Lusha Systems Inc.’ A few days ago, I received this text message: The sender was simply a mysterious ‘Privacy’. Was this a genuine notification about some company having my data, was it plain spam, or was it even phishing? The URL in the text redirects to https:
software An unexpected DPI-scaling failure Recently, I printed this colour chart using X-Rite’s i1Profiler calibration software: I was creating some calibrated ICC profiles for my printer for the first time using an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer. But something looked odd with the chart: the text was overlapping things
web The oddness of the BBC Weather scroll bar I often would find myself confused by the scroll bar underneath the days in the forecast on the BBC Weather website. Sometimes it would look like the days were scrolled all the way to the right, when in fact they were scrolled all the
canon Print Rewards: Unscrupulous behaviour by Canon Canon Europe has (or had) a printer rewards scheme called Print Rewards, where you earn points for printing and replacing ink cartridges. Those points can then be exchanged for things like photo paper. This morning I received this email from Canon: At least Canon
