Windows Vista, DVD-R Destruction

When I take a disk recorded in my stand alone HDD/DVD recorder and try to play it in on my Windows Vista Ultimate PC, sometimes Vista destroys the DVD in such a way that it won't play afterwards in either the computer or on the DVD player.

• I have a Sanyo HDD/DVD Recorder which does an adquate job of recording some of my favourite Television. Occasionally, I archive recorded episodes to DVD.
• I have a Windows Vista Ulitmate PC with 2 LG DVD drives which I occationally use as a media centre.
  

There is no pattern to this behaviour, but having investigated the resultant corrupt disk using ISO buster it appears that Windows Vista is falsly recognising the inserted disk as a "empty" (or something) and writting a second "NULL" session to the disk (effectively erasing the disk). Oddly, when the disk is inserted into the HDD/DVD recorder afterwards it says : "No Disk". It also claims their is "No Disk" when inserting it into the PC (though ISO Buster, being an excellent tool, is able to see the original session).

The odd thing is, this doesn't seem to always happen? This always worries me because most commonly in my experience inconsistant issues are a result of user error? Though, I fail to see why any action of inserting a disk (without any specialised software running) should cause a recordable DVD to be effectively destroyed for normal use!

Fortunately, this issue does not unduely concern me as purchase all the movies I like and I haven't lost a recording I could not replace.

It seems Microsoft provide a very poor solution when it comes to built-in DVDR/CDR support in Vista. Microsoft do manage to present a simple interface to DVD/CD writing but this is entirely ruined by the fact that it can cause loss of data when using non-Microsoft software written DVD's.

Shame on them!

Knowledge is wasted?

When I was young, I had a thirst for knowledge that has diven me through my life (thus far). I wanted to know how and why about everything and had a belief (of sorts) that if we understand enough we can make a better world... I reached a point where I learned; People cannot know everything; Indeed it seems noone can know everything. So I then choose "something" to know everything about (reasoning if I can't know everything, I can know everything about something). I kept my topic small and useful to me thinking this was a wisdom. So I learned about computers, specialising in Microsoft systems and the PC...

I still want to know "all" the answers but having lived half my life asking questions i'm finding that knowledge alone is pointless (and the answers disapointing). The more you learn, the more there is to learn. On top of this, we are all generating new knowledge all the time. Each of us is creating something to be learned about. Even if we just took the output of two very casual individuals it can be a lifetime of learning.

So thats the first lesson... knowledge is infinite.

The second thing is, life does not reward people for knowledge. Society "appears" to reward knowledge and to some extent it indirectly does. The reality I find is that society rewards whatever rewards it (so, if a person lacking in knowledge can give more of a reward than one with knowledge.. well). So, knowledge itself is no reward, its the application of knowledge that brings reward over the lack of knowledge (since in applying knowledge over people who are not applying such knowledge we can offer more reward). I find that most of the people applying knowledge and profiting from its application are not the people who generated the knowledge and often have no real understanding of the knowledge they are applying.

These people have learned that knowledge of itself is a millstone. Where as, knowledge of people and of the system is a boon. So maybe one could say some knowledge is more valuable (though this has nothing to do with "value" as I would see it).

I've gone far with knowledge.. I've travelled the world. I've lived 22,000 miles from my home. I've created many ammazing things... but whats it all worth? its brought me very little joy.

Then, maybe i'm just a miserable person. Though I never felt I was. I'll keep you posted.

What is love...

Someone asked online for people to define love... I wrote this and thought, yes I want to blog that:

When you are really and truly in love, you know it (as they say) "balls to bone". Its really true! I often wondered in the past, "am I in love?, I feel so much for this person, more than anything i've felt before?".

What I learned is that if you wondering if you are in love, you really are not! It might be you aren't yet (I don't know) but you are not.

For me, I first fell truly in love at 32, when it happened to me, I knew it was right! I just knew it! Everything added up, there wasn't a doubt in my mind.

I was always annoyed when I was younger because older people would say stuff like "Ahh, when your in love you just know it!" and I was always really p*ssed off with that answer because it was so unhelpful (to my thinking). I thought "I might well be in love now then? but how do I know if I can't define it?" Well, older now, I hate that those people where actually right and that I have to pass on the same advice.

So, if you have any doubt, your really not in love, your mearly either falling in love, comming to love or experiencing an emotional love for a person (not true love). I made a key mistake by thinking like I used to think. I got together with my ex girl friend based on the fact I cared for her so deeply I thought it must have been love. It wasn't (at least not true love). I knew it wasn't at the start really, but I rationalised that I was just scared or that I needed to grow up (which to be fair in some ways I still do) but when I met my someone, I knew, I knew I would love her forever. Right from the moment I fell for her.

Now it could happen differently for you. You might meet someone, grow to love them, then come to truly love them. I don't know how it happens or what makes one person different from the next. I just know the feeling of being totally sure your in love and with whom and that it will last a lifetime (of course, I'm undergoing stress tests on this as we speak.. but not from her. That's part of the point. Everything with her is easy, even the hard stuff... its not simple, but its easy). Also, just because you know its true love for you doesn't mean it will necesarily pan out the way you want it to... all you know is that you will love them forever (and always in the same way, you just are certain of this at every level).

So, I can't actually define love! This kinda makes sense because when I was younger and really tired although I came up with some good traits of love, it would never add up to the whole of what love is. Love cannot be defined because it is much more than the sum of its parts.

I can only say what it is and what it isn't in fact:

It is:

• Being truely, deeply and completely certain of your feelings,
• Being happy to sacrifice for the person but not having to because of them,
• Being completely understood (though this does not prevent misunderstanding, it just a sense you get from them),
• Finding you comletely understand them, and that the understanding comes easy (though maybe the second part is unique to me and my love),
• Always caring for them, no matter what (though, in love, this should not be tested nor should things happen to test it often)

It isn't:

• Controlling (excepting in that you both compromise for one another to meet eachothers needs and make each other happy),
• Without problems (excepting in love all problems have a solution),
• About passion (though there is passion in love, love is not defined by passion),
• About sex (you make love when your in love. If your just "having sex" your not in love),
• Free (Love is about mutual captivity, but always feeling free in a sense.. its a lovely contradiction because love binds two people together, but its always by mutual choice so your captive because you can never part, but your always choosing each other at every moment so are both free in a sense)

Think I did that justice!

Advice on Marriage

When you meet the right person, you just know you MUST marry them (I learned this at 32).

When I met my someone (speaking only for my side of things) I just knew it was right and would work. Before I meet her I was wondering if I should marry my ex girlfriend thinking prehaps I was a commitment phobic person.

You should be just friends with partners for a good time so you have a chance to find what you want in your life and how they see you as a person and outside of their sexual attraction to you.

So my advice. Make lots of long term friendships, hug the friends you care for the most, hold hands and kiss with the friends your attracted to. If you find one friend is more special than all the rest and you start worrying about someone else "snagging" him from you, have him as a boyfriend and spend time together as a couple (but keep seeing / being friends with your other friends and them with their friends, but put each other first).

At some point, lighting with strike you too with your current partner or with someone completely new and unexpected and you will know what you have to do.

Maybe for some they will just settle into their long term relationship.

People forget that Marriage is special and unique. Some people think its something that "just happens" to people, but not necesarily everyone should marry, its something special that happens to lucky people and tends to happen alot, but its not a guarenteed part of life like birth or death but a miracle in your life, like having a healthy child or finding a long lost relative.

Google Chrome... Invasive?

I downloaded the latest version of Google Chrome today. Mainly I wanted to check out the cross-browser compatibility of my latest peice of JavaScript, but I guess also partly I was looking forward to checking out this browser offering.

On the surface, Google Chrome is everything anyone would want from a browser. Looks slick, works fast and has a "new take" on browsing. Yes, its nothing new really, just rather like launching IE in lots of seperate processes (perfectly possibly), but its well done and transparent to the user and the pre-compiled JavaEngine is great!

However, under the covers it appears a sinister spider lurks reporting on ones every action. Type something wrong in the address bar and sends it to google (of course Microsoft have done this, but at least in IE turning it off is straight forward) . Infact, whatever you seem to do with Chrome (even ordinary browsing), it seems to stay in constant touch with Google (or at least it talks to IP addresses completely unrelated to ones immidiate activities). This kind of behaviour frankly pisses me right off, whatever its doing, its not asked me if its ok. I've blocked Chrome to everything but the localhost whilst I check my scripts work alright in its environment (before I did that it was contacting Google [or some IP unknown internet IP] even working exclusively with offline (Intranet) content! Shameful (i'm actually a little worried whether its actually submitted my "private" and "copyright" scripts to Google when I tried out the developer tools).

I guess Microsoft have kind of been doing similar stuff with their "Microsoft Live" suite, but at least its quite clear from that title it is likely to be happening. Google seem to be moving markedly away from their roots these days and are being tarred by some of the same failings of the crowd (which is a real shame because Google's strength has been in its "honesty" and genuine service). Still, Google has not completely gone over to the dark side and its still my favourite and chosen search engine. I just hope they don't get sucked into the corporate money trap.

Did Microsoft Deliberately Bug Notepad?

Ever tried editing web-pages using notepad? If your like me notepad is a tool which is better for doing less rather than providing more. There is nothing more annoying for an expert web coder than a web-editor "gainsaying" well constructed code with some **it it feels is "equivilent" (and sometimes which it is just adding to promote itself).

So, in this situation, Notepad comes (came) to the rescue.. or so it used to be....

There is a bug? in the current version of Microsoft Notepad, that is either an incredibly stupid mistake or an incredibly sneaky attempt to discourage its use as a web editing, script editing or file editing tool.

Right, now, to the point... Every so often, when using Notepad (in this case in Windows vista) it will silently insert a line return [chr$(13)] character which will appear (and I use that phrase losely) as a space. I have found no definitive pattern to the cause of this behaviour.

This character only of course becomes a problem when your editing scripts (such as ASP scripts) using Notepad, so, when your neetly type your command of strTemp = 50 it instead becomes instead strTemp [cr] = 50 which is of course invalid ASP syntax.

Now, this bug is just "too" convinient for me to easily believe that its accidental. Microsoft don't want you using Notepad to edit your web files! Oh no, they want you to buy their (a) web tool.

Would they deliberately sabatage Notepad? They have been known to do such things. Its now imfamous that Microsoft had put a "check" in Windows 3.11 to prevent it running correcly on DR-DOS (Digital Researches excellent DOS product).

This is a particularly evil "bug" as it only happens randomly anf when it happens you don't "see" the CR in the ASP debugging output and you will have a job locating the "extra" line return in notepad. Unless you really understand whats happening you would just give up and buy a web-editor.

Another reason its hard to believe its a "bug" is that Notepad has been around for years and hasn't hardly been changed since its inception (excepting being re-compiled for newer systems).

Sadly, there is absolutely no way to know what the truth is. All we have is the following fact:

The current version of Notepad (e.g Windows Vista Notepad) randomly inserts hex 0x0D characters as you type with no observable/repeatable pattern at this time. Therefore, its becomes a danger to use (because it the extra character is missed... you may not find out until a client calls up venting a spleen about the web-site being down).

Funny thing is, I do quite like Microsoft on the whole. Maybe it is a bug... maybe.

Design Annoyances

I've been updating my web-site reciently and I am now taking a break from the task to be-moan a really annoying discovery about a design choice in Internet Explorer which wasn't readily apparent to me until just receintly.

Internet explorer uses the F5 key to refresh the page (seems ok), in newer versions it used the key sequence CTRL-F5 to force the page to be refreshed from souce (bypassing any checks made on the client side as to wether the page needs refreshing) also good.

However, when using IE on any regular basis its not long before you begin to realise how annoyingly close the shortcut to quit the browser is the shortcut to refresh the page!! Yes, you can see where this is going... I go to perform a CTRL-F5 and I am 1cm short and instead hit CTRL F4 and there goes the browser window.

This is now added to the another annoyance of IE which is the CTRL-W close window shortcut. Its so easy to accidently press this sequnce whilst typing in a web page and when the window closes, how hard is it to get what you typed back? Answer: Near impossible (probably actually impossible, I only say near impossible because if your a real clever hacker you just might be able to extract it from the page file).

Well, thats my "moan for the day". I am thinking of re-titling my blog... "General Complaining" because its all I seem to do in it lol.