The Angry Mango Project

January 13, 2010

Global Warmists Are The Ones In Denial (and they know it)

Filed under: Other — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Sam Jackson @ 4:12 am

As I begin to write this, it is heavily snowing outside, at least 3 inches overnight I am sure. The cars are unable to get up the drive and the trains are not running. This would appear to most people as an unfortunate situation. However, there is one positive aspect, a very big one indeed, it means another nail in the coffin for global warming advocates. Now all you Guardian reading latte sipping liberals can get of your high horses, I am aware that “Weather” and “Climate” are different. But regardless of the snow, there has been no warming since 1998 and leading scientists have already predicted a new mini ice age may be on the way. You see, the scientific facts tell us that the “man made global warming caused by co2” is not happening. But this does not stop the religion of global warming lead by pastor Al Gore from spreading propaganda and fear across our newspapers, magazines, and televisions.

The ignorant and childish editors at The Guardian have clung onto the back of the Global Warming bandwagon and would sooner commit journalistic suicide than let go. Nearly every article since “climategate” has been nothing more than a smear campaign against the so called “deniers”. Now I want to make one thing very clear, we are not the ones in denial, THEY ARE. Don’t believe me?, look at this article posted on the Guardian’s website only 2 days ago and the comments after it, and come to your own conclusion.

August 4, 2009

The problem with Apple and their products

Filed under: Technology — Sam Jackson @ 1:30 pm

I spent the last 48 hours attempting to fix a broken Mac Mini. The system would freeze up soon after the desktop had loaded. So far I have tried: reinstalling the OS, formatting the hard drive (zero fill), changing the RAM and changing the hard drive.

When Apple designed this product, user serviceability was obviously not one of their main priorities. I had to wedge two knives in either side of the case and push up just to open it. Apple do not provide any information on how to fix problems with their products. For example, during an installation of Mac OS X I was presented with the message “There were errors installing the software.” What does that mean, no error code was provided, just the option of restarting and attempting the installation process again.

If there were two words to describe Apple it would be “Maximum Profits.” For example, it is virtually impossible to replace the battery in an iPod without taking it to an authorised Apple service provider or retail store. Likewise, The case of my Mac Mini was clearly not designed to be opened (tampered with) by the customer. In fact, I am sure that I have inadvertently voided my warranty(though it has now expired) by doing just this. Even the extension cable for my Apple keyboard has a tiny ridge in the USB connector, to prevent it from being used with non Apple devices.

Aside from their hardware, what about their Software. The Mac OS 10.4 Tiger operating system has a nice polished interface, application icons are prominently displayed at the bottom of the screen in the dock, and the system is relatively stable. However, when it comes to “real” computing, the weaknesses become apparent. For example, installing an application in Ubuntu can be done is less than 10 seconds, on Mac OS X, the old fashioned method of downloading files to the desktop, extracting them, and going through a long a tedious setup wizard is still being used.

With most operating systems, the user tells the computer to perform a certain task and the computer then performs this task. On Mac OS X, it feels more like the computer tells the user which task it wants to perform, the user agrees that the computer can perform the task, then the task is performed by the computer.

Anyway, back to my Mac Mini. With an out of warranty piece of Apple hardware, what am I to do. Luckily for me, I am experienced enough with computers to know the possible causes of the problem. I have ruled out it being the RAM and the hard drive, leaving the probability of the logic board being the cause. This will cost an estimated price of £300 ex VAT to replace, only £150 less than I paid for the original product.

There is very little point in me getting this fixed. For around £200 inc VAT, I can get a PC of similar specification, similar physical size, and a choice of a free and configurable operating system such as Ubuntu Linux to install on it.

July 16, 2009

Let The Browser Wars Begin

Filed under: Technology — Sam Jackson @ 1:30 pm

Yesterday Amazon started pre orders of the new Windows 7 operating system. It seems that users inside Europe will receive a different edition from that sold elsewhere. Windows 7 E will ship without Internet Explorer Installed. This is the result of the anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft by the company that makes the Opera Browser. Now I am no fan of Internet Explorer, I use Firefox 3 at the moment, however I feel that if a browser is significantly better than the one installed, the user will switch to it.

Much to my surprise, Opera are still not satisfied, they want their browser to be included on the installation of Windows. You cannot expect a company to include their rivals product. Where would this end, would Microsoft be required to bundle together every current browser on the market, just so the user has an equal choice.

If the Opera browser truly is better than Internet Explorer, is it really too much to ask for the user to go to their website, download it, and finally install it. On another note, would Apple be forced to remove their Safari browser from OS X.

Imagine less technically minded people who expect their computer to work out of the box, pre configured and ready to use. Having to explain to old people that they need to download a file on their current computer, copy it to a USB, extract it etc. What about for those who do not currently have a computer, how will they obtain a browser. I hope Opera or Microsoft have the answers to these questions, otherwise they will have a lot of disgruntled customers to answer to.

May 12, 2009

The end of the internet as we know it

Filed under: News, Technology — Sam Jackson @ 8:36 am

There was an article on the the guardian’s website that came to my attention. It seems that the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has announced he wants the internet to be regulated and maybe even a fee based service. In a speech to American editors in Washington, he described the internet as “a fast developing reality we should grasp.” He also said that consumers wanted “control over the media, instead of being controlled by it.” This seems to be in relation to the fact that newspaper sales have plummeted in recent years due to web based media such as blogs and online newspapers.

The idea of regulating the internet goes against everything it currently stands for. Before the web was invented, there was no way of voicing your opinion to others or to view the opinions of others. This is obviously a great threat to those in the media business and they will try anything to control it. The internet is possibly the most common news medium for young people, as the majority of them do not buy weekly papers like those of Murdoch’s generation and before. He clearly realises this as he described young people’s attitudes towards newspapers as “especially alarming” and that “Only 9% describe us as trustworthy, a scant 8% find us useful, and only 4% of respondents think we’re entertaining.”

I have nothing against print based news such as newspapers but I also think the internet is a valuable tool for those of us with a different opinion of that reported in the mainstream press. What particularly worries me is a quote from the end of the article in which he says “The challenge for us… is to create an internet presence that is compelling enough for users to make us their home page. Just as people traditionally started their day with coffee and the newspaper, in the future, our hope should be that for those who start their day online, it will be with coffee and our website.” This indicates to me that he wants to eradicate personal blogs and replace them with corporate media in the same format. He seems to be under the impression that it’s the platform in which news is delivered as the problem, but in reality it is mainly the content.

February 24, 2009

Linux - Call it what it is

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Sam Jackson @ 3:21 pm

I myself first discovered Linux in 2003. I was only 12 at time and was under the impression that windows was the only operating system that could be run on a PC. I really wanted to try Linux but we only had dial up at the time. A 4gb DVD ISO would take days to download. I have been using Linux on and off for the past few years. I usually ended up reverting back to windows after realizing that none of my games were playable, office documents were incompatible and drivers were so poorly written for it to be used as a viable alternative.

There is one thing that really bothers be by the way people refer to this operating system as “Linux”.  I am aware that Linus Torvalds was the original designer of the Linux Kernel but there is more to an operating system than just that. Richard Stallman began working on a project in the early 80s. He called it GNU. Which stood for “GNU is not UNIX”. The GNU Project was eventually combined with the Linux Kernel. Anyway, Richard Stallman and the rest of the GNU team argue that the correct terminology to use when referring to this operating system would be “GNU/Linux”. Thus giving credit to all those involved in the making of the OS.  Some would argue that “GNU/Linux” is too longer word. I for one would agree. But I think we should make the extra effort to give those developers the credit they so rightly deserve.

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