I did previously have a Logitech Wave keyboard and a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0. The Wave was a lovely keyboard, but IntelliType shits all over SetPoint (IntelliType intergrates with the Windows Keyboard control panel, which means it’s got a normal interface whereas SetPoint was butt ugly and it’s own app, which sucked). It also didn’t play nice with Zune, especially with playing and pausing music: it would pause it for about half a second and the music would start again. Repeatedly. Eventually, I discovered that if you mashed the button repeatedly it would eventually pause the music. This annoyed me.

The Intellimouse Explorer was a lovely mouse, it was just getting old: had become shiny and smooth from overused and had some scratches from an unfortunate incident with my laptop’s powercord when they shared part of the bag one day.

So, after I uninstalled SetPoint and IntelliPoint 8.0, I installed the included IntelliPoint\IntelliType Pro 7.1 software, and tried to use the multimedia buttons to control Zune. Nothing.

I downloaded the newer versions for both (Version 8.01 for IntelliPoint, 8.0 for IntelliType), and tried to see if they’d work. Still nothing. Restarted and still nothing.

Some Googling revealed that IntelliType would only let the media controls control your default media player. So, first port of call: the Default Programs control panel.

Initially, I chose Set your default programs and let Zune have all it’s defaults (I think it had all but a couple which VLC and Media Player had). This worked to no avail, because the controls would still not work.

Next, I tried Set program access and computer defaults. Aha! This should work, I thought.

Selecting Zune as the default player and clicking OK, I thought this would solve that problem. Nope.

It just sat at that window for about ten minutes, doing nothing. So, I closed and thought, if Media Player is the default program… why not just disable it? So I did. Tada! The keyboard now controls Zune.

I assume that this would apply if you use WinAmp, that heathen program iTunes or some other program that won’t listen to the hotkeys, however I would suggest that before you disable WMP (because if you do disable it, it won’t be used for anything at all unless you explicitly open it from the Run dialog or navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\ and open wmplayer.exe, then open something with it) you attempt to make your preferred program the defaulty.

TL;DR, to make a non-Windows Media Player program work with a Microsoft Keyboard using IntelliType under Windows 7, go to Start –> Control Panel –> Large Icons –> Default Programs –> Set program access and computer defaults and set whatever your preferred media player is as the default under Custom. If you find that it hangs, simply disable Windows Media Player.

Image stolen from here.

I like Glee. I love Brittany. She says some weird crap, but most of it’s funny. Here’s some of my favourites.

• “Cross country skiier…a happy meal, no onions, and a chicken” – On what Tina’s new style of dress should be.
• “A male duck.” – On what a Ballad is.
• “I bet that duck’s in that hat.” – On The Hate Of Fate being introduced after her male duck line.
• “A blanket.” – On what a duet is.
• “Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?” – On Dolphins.
• “Does he mean like a burglar alarm?” – On Kurt’s Dad saying they should use protection.
• “People think I went on vacation, but actually I spent all summer lost in the sewers.” – On her summer vacation.
• “For a while I thought you were a robot.” – On Artie.
• “I’m Mike Chang.” – On trying to trick the Substitute Glee instructor.
• “Please don’t pull out all my teeth. When I smile, I’ll look like an adult baby but with boobs." – On having cavities in every tooth.
• “I’m going as a peanut allergy.” – On her Halloween costume.
• “I’ve totally done that.” – On throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
• “I thought it meant being stupid. Like being a dolt.” – On being confronted about alleged adultery.

Perhaps you like Brittany from Glee, too. What are your favourite one-liners of hers?

Also since then, some criterion of mine have changed, so they’ve been reflected below.

Scoring:

If we were to score this, each row would be worth 1 point, any number of ticks in a box is worth one point, a cross is worth no points, and a sort of is worth half a point, the results would be as follows…

• HTC Desire: 10/11
• iPhone 4: 1/11
• HTC Mozart: 6/11

Left: The Mother’s HTC Mozart, Right: My HTC Desire in its red jacket

Yesterday I went into the T-Life store to have a look around. I’d been wanting to get myself a HTC Desire for some time now, deciding that once I’d turned 18 (which I have now, yay!) I would sign onto a contract under my own name with a nice(r) phone. In the end, I settled on the HTC Desire, because it could quite possibly be one of the best Android handsets available in Australia today. That, and it was also arguably the best network for data speeds and coverage (not necessarily value for money though, but we’ll get to that later). At $49 a month, I decided that some time after my birthday I would go and get myself one.

Then they went up to $79\month from $49\month on the Telstra website.

Fuck. There goes that idea. So I started looking at other Android phones, the only two which seemed to be in my price range were the Samsung Galaxy S, which I didn’t like because their TouchFlo interface is a bitch, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 which was shipped with Android 1.6 when 2.1 was common and is only now getting 2.1 when many phones are going up to 2.2. The Motorola Milestone 2 looked like it could be a winner, alas it was coming in December and was on some rather pricey plans, and the Desire HD, although huge, was also out of my price range. Drat and double drat.

Anyhow, back to the start, I went into T-Life and said to myself if they had it for $49\month I was getting one there and then. And they did. So I got one. Some questions, a signature and the purchase of a cover later, I was walking out rather quite happy.

My mother then proceeded to like my Desire very much, and decided that she too wanted a new phone, so we went to T-Life together this morning and I showed her the phones that were on the same plan as mine. There was a Blackberry Bold, which she had wanted initially but decided that it was not for her, the HTC Desire, which we inadvertently broke trying to make a call (I think the security pad was covering the proximity sensor which shut off the screen which wouldn’t come back on), the HTC HD2 (which is actually an extra $16\month on top of the $49, besides, it runs Windows Mobile 6.5 so there’s a dead-end there). The first one I showed her was the Mozart. She kept going back to it and she got one.

So, as the title and spiel suggests, I’m writing today about the HTC’s Mozart and Desire. We’ll start off with the Desire because I’ve had more of a chance to play with it.

The HTC Desire

Ever since I first played with the HTC Desire, I had loved it. HTC Sense works brilliantly and the whole Android system behaved in a manner I expected it to. And what didn’t is changeable, easily or otherwise. For example, the default keyboard had keys that were too narrow for my liking by default. So I changed it to a QW\ER\TY layout, where two letters share one key. And when it’s on its side, the regular QWERTY keyboard is perfectly sized for typing.

(I had hoped to have included some screen dumps of how it’s set up at the moment, but unfortunately, for some stupid reason, it is insanely difficult to take screen dumps in Android for some reason. Google, get on that, it’s one of the only things that makes me miss my E63 where it was a key combo away)

The seven home screens are useful: at the moment I’m using four fully and one sort of (it only has one widget on it). Depending on your tastes, you can have seven pages of icons or have some gadgets thrown in for some variety: for example on the main home screen I have a large clock which shows me the weather for my current location which is not always accurate as it only uses AGPS, a calendar widget showing me what I have coming up, and four icons I use the most: Messages, TweetDeck\Twitter, People and Internet. Swiping to the screen on the right shows a variety of programs: DoubleTwist for music, Opera Mobile for a different browser, Engadget for my tech news fix, a calculator, a calendar, Gmail, Facebook and Jawbreaker, which is addictive. You want that game if you get an Android phone. The next screen has my internet usage in a widget, which was an extra download: Telstra should have included this in the package along with their links to all their services, but they didn’t. Go figure.

To the left of the main screen, I have the DoubleTwist music control widget which lets me pause and skip songs as well as open DoubleTwist when needed, the power control widget for easy access to turning on and off Wi-Fi, GPS, syncing, Bluetooth and screen brightness as well as the Google Search widget. The very leftmost screen simply contains a clock and the same calendar widget on the main screen for when I just have it sitting somewhere.

On the note of the screen, it is stunning: it’s very crisp and clear, with the only way to start seeing individual pixels is to hold it about six inches away from your face, which isn’t an ideal distance to hold it anyway: it’s too close to be comfortable. I run mine on mid-brightness (as opposed to off or high brightness) and find this to be good for everyday use: having said that though there is an option to allow it to decide what level of brightness is best for the current situation, I have turned this off because I hate it when the brightness of any screen suddenly changes for a seemingly random reason. The screen is also very responsive, too: with a screen protector on I can glide my fingers across it to get it to do what I want to do: no excessive pressure is needed. Pinch to zoom and other related gestures also work too. (Protip: if you ever play with one, pinch your fingers together on one of the home screens. Trust me when I say it’s a nifty and clever feature)

It comes preinstalled with a variety of Telstra crapware, possibly the only useful piece being the My Account link, which opens your preferred browser and shows you the My Account page which lets you check your bill, data usage for the month so far and so on on your phone. Preinstalled HTC Software includes replacements for some of the default Android applications (notably the Calendar and Music programs), a fun little game called Teeter in which you angle the phone to move the ball into the appropriate hole, Peep, a Twitter client which I promptly replaced with three others (TweetDeck, Touiter and Twitter for Android, all of which have their quirks and I am still trying to figure out which one is better: so far, TweetDeck wins for handling Facebook along with Twitter in a partially competent manner, Touiter wins points for it’s cute chirping bird sound, and Twitter for Android has a pretty good interface: none of them seem to be able to approve followers though, if they can, do tell me how this is done).

My Desire had Facebook preinstalled however I’m not sure a) if this is standard or b) who was responsible for installing it regardless. It goes without saying, though, Facebook for Android is a bit silly: there’s seemingly no push notifications, meaning either you have to refresh it or get it to refresh itself every however long, the minimum being half an hour which is far too long: fifteen minutes would have been better. Having said that though, the updated version of the Facebook program is a far better version than the one it came with, which didn’t appear to have auto-update at all.

The People application (or Contacts as it’s called on just about every other mobile) partners up with HTC Sense and talks to Facebook. This is handy because if your friends have Facebook profiles it will download pictures and extra information to go with their contact details, but you must go through and add each one individually: it does suggest links that are appropriate but it won’t link them for you should it be wrong. When I went through to do it, one contact seemed to get “stuck” in a way in that every time I linked a contact after this one person, either their details would be added to his on my end or their name would change to his. The good news is, after a restart all the malformed contacts had disappeared, the bad news is that after the restart this person disappeared completely from the People program completely. I don’t know why.

There is an update to Android 2.2 (Froyo, short for Frozen Yoghurt, following the delicious treat naming convention of all previous and upcoming Android releases) available but I have yet to download it as it is of a ridiculous size. This is said to be a speed improvement and also allows for installation of apps to the SD card: something desperately needed in the Desire which has a limited amount of internal memory.

One last gripe of mine is how the Desire, and Android in general, handles multitasking: that is to say, badly. I’ve come from Symbian where Multitasking is ordered: you use applications, when you want to use another you hit the Home key and use that, and when you’re done you close them. With Android, applications are running until the OS decides that it needs to kill them (I don’t know what its criteria are for killing an app), however if there is quite a few running this is detrimental to battery life. There is no Close button in applications, so they run wild until someone says no, stop, you have to go now. I downloaded Advanced Task Killer to remedy this, and it was interesting to see what happened after a while: many seemingly random applications kept popping up: Messaging was a particular favourite, and Voice Search didn’t seem to want to bow out when I’d done with voice searching (which works well). Having said that, it’s a far cry better than Apple’s suspend the application and let it do only one of our selected services in the background system which is stupid, backwards and retarded: what I’ve come to expect from Apple, but there you go.

It only comes with a 2GB MicroSD card for some reason, however bigger ones can be found on eBay for reasonable prices (SanDisk cards from Australian Sellers are your best bet), as can cases, many of which are around $2-$5 with postage.

In any case, with my day and a bit so far with the Desire I’ve enjoyed it. Apart from the couple of quirks I’ve mentioned, it really is a good phone. I think I’m going to enjoy using it over the two years I’ll hopefully have it for.

The HTC Mozart

I was initially quite interested in Windows Phone 7 myself. I’d been reading about it before it came out, because come new phone time it would either be a choice between a WP7 phone and an Android phone.

Then I used one for a few minutes. I felt no “wow” factor there), and it just seemed a bit “meh” to me. However, this could be because I didn’t spend too long with it, only about five minutes.

Having said that though, what I liked was irrelevant, but my mother seemed to like it. My belief is that it is aimed at those who are new(er) to the Smartphone market, or those who are looking for something different: something that summed my Mother up pretty well. She played with it in the store and tried some basic things, like sending a message (or trying to, there was no SIM card in it for some reason), attempting to call someone and changing a few settings. She liked it over the Desire, which was complex for her in comparison, so she got one.

I’ve yet to use it that much myself, but what I can say is that the build quality is superb: it is made from a single block of aluminium a la the Legend, with rubber parts on it for antennae and battery covers. As a result it feels heavy, especially compared to the Desire which is soft touch plastics while still managing to feel sturdy, but also feels rather strong.

One thing though that has impressed me is the layout of the Marketplace: it takes advantage of the Hubs in Windows Phone 7 and has a stunning interface. Once I explained to my Mother how to download an application, she had set herself up a Windows Live account she had downloaded a few games and was happily playing them, and then downloaded the HTC Attentive Phone which enables settings such as flip when ringing to silent, ring louder in pockets\handbags and flip for loudspeaker during a call.

In any case, Once I’ve had a bit more of a chance to play with it I’ll either tweet about it or post about it here, so don’t fret, you’ll hear more about Windows Phone 7 soon.

Private schools. I hate them with a passion. Why, you ask? For starters, the students are snobby, “uppity” and irksome for the most part, as are, quite often, the parents. But the main reason is, plain and simple, they receive government funding when in reality, they should not.

Government schools work on the basis that they are run by the Government and offer education to Australian residents for free, although some schools charge fees to cover materials and related items. This is fair enough; their budgets are stretched as it is. Now that’s a nice deal, I think. At the end of it, you get a good education and you’re set for whatever you want to do: university, TAFE or whatever else it is that you want to do.

Private schools work on the basis that they are given money by the government and then proceed to charge the parents of their students ridiculous amounts of money for virtually the same product you get at a public school. You also get the same outcomes: university, TAFE, or whatever else it is that you want to do.

Many private schools charge upwards of $20,000 per child per year to educate a child. I fail to understand how this makes any sense to any sane and rational being, especially when the alternative costs far less and doesn’t mooch off the Government when it is clearly capable of standing on its own feet. Schooling for $20,000 per year, or the same product for $200 per year? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which is the better deal

“But Douglas”, you say to me, “The quality of education at a private school is so much better than that of public schools!”

Having never been to a private school, all I can say is the public schooling system would be a lot better if it had more funding. Say, the funding that was used in private schools.

In many cases, private schools will receive more funding than a public school. That makes no sense whatsoever: the government is funding private companies more over their own facilities. We have some public schools with facilities that are falling apart, we have some that are understaffed and are struggling to get by as they are with what little funds they have. But we have private schools which have double-dipped, asked for more and are getting by swimmingly, literally, using funds on such frivolous things such as swimming pools.

Sure, the Government may have handed out large amounts to schools for developments, but this doesn’t necessarily fix the infrastructure problems that many are having. For instance, in the school I attend, having SOSE classes in science classrooms and English classes in maths classrooms is considered normal and a fact of life. There are also often periods when it is impossible to get a class into a computer facility simply because they are all in use: there is, plain and simple, not enough of them.

This could all be remedied with more funding. As it stands, there is no more funding available simply because it is in use in other areas, many of which it would be unwise to cut funds in, such as healthcare. But by cutting private schools off and feeding that money into public schools, this would help improve facilities and making public schools a more pleasant place to be, for both staff and students.

Reading various articles on this matter on the internet has indicated to me that many teachers teach at private schools not because it is their first preference, but simply because the conditions are far better. Imagine what would happen if private school funding went into public schools: class sizes would be far smaller because there would be an abundance of teachers in the system, all because they would happier with the conditions in which they work in.

Isn’t this what governments want? I do believe Mike Rann, our Premier, was talking at the last state election how, if elected, which he was, he would increase the number of teachers in public school classrooms.

In my opinion, it is in the government’s best interest to cut funding to any private school and use that funding in the public school system. The private schools make enough money as it is from the parents of their students, and they certainly don’t need any more. And if they increase the fees at private schools, so be it.

After all, if the parents can’t afford to send their children to private schools if their fees increase, there’ll be a better public education system waiting for them.

1. Go to touch the screen, but hold your finger a couple of millimetres away from the screen surface.
   Has a touch been registered? Excellent! It’s infrared and you can stop here.
   
2. Touch the screen gently. Does it feel solid, or like you are touching a piece of thin plastic over something?
   If it’s solid, it’s most likely capacitive. If it feels like it’s a piece of thin plastic over something, it is resistive.
   
3. Still don’t know?
   Touch it with the bottom of a plastic pen. Is a touch registered? Then it is most likely a resistive screen.
   

Simple, no? If you look back at my Touchscreens! posts from earlier on (part one more so and part two to a lesser extent) you can see why and how these methods work. Enjoy!

• Cookies. OMNOMNOM.
  
• My Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0. Seriously, nothing beats this thing. It’s comfy, the buttons on the side rule, and it’s shiny.
  
• MasterCard Debit Cards. Visa can take their “No signature after April 2013″ policy and shove it where the sun don’t shine. Besides, MasterCard just sounds so much more imposing the Visa.
  
• Zune Software. It’s a sexy program. It plays video, it plays music, it does all that media stuff. Now all it needs to do is play nice with non-Zune media players and it will be perfect.
  
• Sleeping in. Seriously, a good sleep in is what everyone needs. Like, daily.
  
• Symbian. Laugh if you will, but Symbian is a pretty darn good OS for tweaking. It’s got enough settings to keep any nerd amused. Oh, and it can multitask.
  
• GMail. I fail to understand how people cope without it and settle for inferior options like Yahoo and Windows Live Mail. Granted, I’m mainly an Outlook boy, but as far as web based email goes, I could not cope without GMail.
  
• Microsoft Outlook. It ensures that my life has a semblance of organization. And it handles all my emails and RSS feeds.
  
• Windows 7. It’s awesome. And that is all.
  
• My ThinkPad. Even though it’s a low end one, I now want another one. I’m thinking either T400s or X201t for my next one. Catch is, both are expensive.
  
• Star Trek. It’s just good to watch, no matter how many times I’ve seen the episodes.
  
• Stargate. Yeah, I’m a nerd. Atlantis appealed to me more for some reason, but SG1 is a classic that cannot be beaten.
  
• The Sims 3. Sit down and play it if you can. It’s awesome. Although the clothing range for males is significantly lacking, I must confess.
  
• Reading. I like curling up in bed of an evening and reading a couple of chapters of a nice book. At the moment, I’m reading Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde. An excellent read, I must say so.
  
• Uniball Signo GelStick 0.7mm Pens. I bought one at a newsagency once because I needed a pen desperately and it was the cheapest there (at $1.75). I now swear by these things: I go back to a Bic Cristal or some such and my arm tires of the pressure I must apply to get them to work.
  
• HTC’s Website. Go there and have a look around. It’s awesome. Then continue reading. Ah, welcome back! Now, have a guess as to what country HTC started. It’s Taiwan. It just goes to show what a nice design and hiring some competent staff fluent in English can do. Oh, and their devices are good, too.
  
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Awesome movie. If you love musicals and have nothing against transvestites, heterosexual sex and homosexual sex and musicals, this movie is sure to please you!
  
• Apples (the fruit). They’re really yummy. I might have one after I’ve finished this post.
  
• Tom Lehrer. His songs are witty and awesome. Look up Masochism Tango, The Elements, Poisoning Pigeons In The Park with his name slapped on the end on YouTube. You will enjoy yourself.f
  
• The New Holden Cruze. It looks sexy.
  
• The Holden Coloardo. I saw one sitting out the front of the local Holden Dealer in the same Red I lust for in the Cruze. I fell in love.
  
• Shiny red things. I swear, manufacturers can make anything red and I’m bound to lust for it or buy it.
  
• Google Android. It’s epic, even though the most playtime I’ve had with it is on an HTC Sense’d device in the Tlife store.
  
• Hugs. I like a nice hug. They’re awesome.
  
• IBM Keyboards. Type on an IBM ANPOS keyboard and you never want to go back. Pity they cost $500+ each… and then a $50 cable…
  
• My Stupid History Calendar. My sister bought it for me for Christmas. It is highly amusing and presents me with a new fact every day that makes me giggle, usually as I’ve just put on my underwear (because that’s when I tend to notice it)
  
• Musicals. I love the theatre. I would very much like to see as many musicals as possible before I depart this world, and I intend to make good on that. Hell, if I ever amass a fortune large enough, I’d love to produce a musical.
• The Big Bang Theory. I love it. It’s witty, well-executed and Sheldon is awesome.
• Intelligence. I like intelligent people.

So, yeah. That’s stuff I like. I may have a Things I Hate post… so, enjoy!

As you may or may not know, I recently asked your Australian counterparts regarding the availability of Office 2010 Professional Academic via Twitter:

You then responded thusly:

Question One: WTH is the INC offer? I didn’t bother to ask as it took five days to respond to my initial tweet (which is mediocre if you ask me), and question two: why not release it in Australia initially?

Australia, if you’re not aware, isn’t a backwards country where we ride kangaroos around, all live on farms and are all Crocodile Dundee. Far from it, in fact. We love our technology. We love it a lot. Yet you and many other technology companies a) neglect us completely or b) price gouge and make a tidy profit (Ohaithar, Adobe!).

Now, I’ve been using the Office 2010 Beta for a few months now. I like it. In fact, I love it (although it irks me how Publisher always seems to be a generation or two behind feature wise, you should look into that), and had you have released the Professional AE here initially, I may have considered snogging you and would most certainly have let you have my money unquestioningly. Especially if you sold it here for AUD$99, or even AUD$150. I’d buy that.

But, alas, you’ve determined that Australia is not worthy of this wonderful offer “to begin with”. Which then inspires the next question: why?

I can tell you right now that many university students would be queuing up for this. Hell, a lot of High School students would be as well, especially in senior years when they tend to get their own laptops. Instead, though, you’re offering the Home and Student to us, though. Sure, it may have three licenses, but it’s missing out on a couple of the programs I use regularly, one on a daily basis: Outlook and Publisher.

So, please release it in Australia. And soon. And don’t do an Adobe, and be nice to us and charge a reasonable price (i.e. AUD$99-150). Otherwise you will find students turning to either a) Staying on 2007 (which is sucky in comparison), b) Pirating it (which hurts you) or c) Importing it from overseas (which hurts local retailers, which is something I am against unless strictly necessary).

And before you say shipping costs increase the price, my boxed copy of Office 2007 came from Singapore. If anything, US prices should be higher than Australian ones, as Singapore à US > Singapore à Australia distance-wise.

Much love,

Douglas.

First Steps for Windows XP

1. Click Start à Run.
2. Type C:\Documents And Settings\ then click OK
3. Click Tools à Folder Options
4. Choose the View tab.
5. Click Show Hidden Files and Folders so that there is a checkmark in the box next to it.
6. Click Hide extensions for known file types (recommended) so that there isn’t a checkmark in the box next to it.
7. Click OK.
8. Open the folder with your username on it.
9. Open the Application Data folder.
10. Open the Microsoft folder.
11. Open the Messenger folder.
12. Open the folder with your Windows Live ID on it.
13. Open the folder called ObjectStore
14. Open the folder called CustomEmoticons.

First Steps for Windows Vista/7

1. Click Start à All Programs à Accessories à Run
2. Type C:\Users\ then click OK
3. Click Organize à Folder and Search Options]
4. Choose the View Tab
5. Click Show Hidden Files and Folders so that there is a checkmark in the box next to it.
6. Click Hide extensions for known file types (recommended) so that there isn’t a checkmark in the box next to it.
7. Click OK.
8. Open the folder with your username on it.
9. Open the AppData folder.
10. Open the Local Folder.
11. Open the Microsoft folder.
12. Open the Messenger folder.
13. Open the folder with your Windows Live ID on it.
14. Open the folder called ObjectStore
15. Open the folder called CustomEmoticons.

Steps for Windows XP, Vista and 7

1. Right-click an empty space and choose Sort By à Type
2. Click on the first DT2 file (which should be the first icon in the folder)
3. Press and hold Shift.
4. Click on the last DT2 file.
5. Right click on any one, and choose Copy.
6. Open your (My) Documents folder.
7. Create a new folder. Call it Emoticons (do not call it anything else or later steps will fall flat on their face and die) and open it.
8. Right click anywhere in the folder, and click Paste.
9. You will now have a folder filled with assorted files. Keep it open.
10. Bring up the Run dialog box as specified in step 1 for your version of Windows (up top)
11. Type cmd and press OK.
12. All going well, you should have something that looks like this:
    
13. Follow the steps appropriate for your OS:
    1. In Windows XP, type cd My Documents\Emoticons then press Enter.
    2. In Windows Vista, type cd Documents\Emoticons then press Enter.
    3. Under Windows 7, you may choose to follow Step A or Step B above.
14. Type ren *.dt2 *.gif then press Enter.
15. If you are presented with a new prompt, you’re good. Any errors, you ballsed up and I don’t want to help you, so find yourself a nerd to help you.
16. Download and install IrfanView (from hither) if you’ve not got it already.
    1. Don’t let it install any toolbars. Browser toolbars are the scourge of the known universe.
    2. Don’t let it associate itself with anything. You’re probably quite happy with whatever you’ve got right now for your images, etc.
17. When it’s installed, it will open. Close it.
18. Go back to your Emoticons folder.
19. Right click the first one, and choose Open With, and select IrfanView
20. Press the Spacebar key repeatedly.
21. If an error message like this comes up, click OK, or continue mashing the Spacebar key.
    

Now, that was a bit longer than the original post, but you now have all your emoticons in an appropriate format for use elsewhere. Enjoy!

Quick! Identify this object!

Image found at WAtoday.com.au

If you answered with EFTPOS terminal, you would be correct. If you answered with Ingenico PX328 EFTPOS terminal, you would be even more correct for that is what it is.

Why are the model number and manufacturer relevant, I hear you ask? Well, it’s relevant because this is a decade old model of EFTPOS terminal. It is easily tampered with: as it has no tamper proofing, anyone can open it up and put something nasty in there that will skim your card and nobody’s the wiser.

These terminals can be seen mainly at McDonalds and Australia Post. The local GoLo store uses an early model of these (as in, from the mid to late 90′s).

Rule of thumb: if you see this model of EFTPOS terminal, be careful. I’m not saying that every PX328 is booby trapped, but don’t assume that it can’t happen.

Newer EFTPOS terminals have all sorts of things that can prove if it’s been tampered with (they can throw up errors and all sorts).

Other miscellany card security tips

Simple points to remember:

• If there is something on an ATM that asks you to swipe or insert your card into something else before putting it into the ATM, don’t. This is a skimming device and only a fool would swipe\insert\whatever it.
• If someone is offering you help at an ATM, shoo them away, they aren’t.
• Using your less dominant hand (i.e. left hand if you’re a right handed person), cover your dominant hand as you enter your PIN on any ATM or EFTPOS terminal (on EFTPOS terminals, if you can hold it, it can be more comfortable and therefore feel less awkward). This prevents people from seeing it.
• Identify this object:
  
  Image from BNZ
  It is an ATM green sleeve. There are a couple of variants, a common one being round instead of rectangular like this one. What this does is ensure that skimming devices are nigh on impossible to install on an ATM equipped with this. If you can see the happy padlock as a moving hologram it’s the real thing. If you have a choice between an ATM with a green sleeve and one without, choose the one with the green sleeve. Newer ANZ and Westpac ATMs tend to have these.
• If the ATM\EFTPOS terminal looks like it’s been tampered with, don’t use it. In fact, some will go so far as to say, I may have been tampered with and am out of order.
• Don’t tell your PIN to anyone.
• Where possible, always use your chip on your credit card (it’s far more secure). Most EFTPOS terminals will insist that you insert a chipped card if you attempt to swipe it, usually accompanied by an angry beep.
• Unless you absolutely must (i.e. some weird countries), sign for a credit transaction as opposed to using a PIN. Far more secure in my books: four digits vs. an almost unique doodle… which is more secure. Hohum.
• If you do notice some irregularities, call your bank and let them know immediately. The quicker you do something about it the quicker they can put a stop to it, investigate it and refund you your money.

So, now that we’ve been educated in commonsense, I hereby send you out into the world to spend, spend, spend!