Re: Just venting (totally OT)

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote in
news:1ibeams.zme1fg1wc8csuN%real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell)
wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]

`CVT' transmission means `automatic' rather than `manual gear
change' (continuously variable, so it doesn't change gears at all
as such, oh never mind the details - you just twist and go, and
it's dead dead smooth)

Sounds cool!

If you like that kind of thing. I don't - I'd rather have a proper
gearbox and clutch, because it's very very very hard to ride slowly
without a proper clutch.


I didn't know you had gearboxes on bikes?!?

If you've got a petrol or a diesel engine driving your wheels, you need
to be able to change gear. Lots of scooters have some sort of automatic
transmission but that's a problem from the point of view of good control
at low speed - you might notice that a lot of scooter riders keep their
feet down at low speed. That's not because their bad at riding, but
because unless you've got a conventional gearbox and clutch, it's
fearsomely difficult to control a bike going slowly.

Anyway, all `in production' big bikes have gearboxes and clutches very
similar to what you have a in car. The fine details are generally
different - most bikes use a clutch that runs in the engine oil, while
cars have `dry clutches' (mostly), and bikes gearboxes don't have
syncromesh so one must take precautions against crunching gears rather
more (but `no syncromesh' means a gearbox that's stronger for the
weight). And most bikes have at least 5 gears, usually 6.

Honda once made a big bike with an car type automatic gearbox, but it
was heavy and slow and unpopular.

But right back to the very early days of motorcycling, there have been
bikes with `continuously variable transmission' (CVT) as in modern
scooters - you do that with pullies that change size and a drive belt
between them. Modern scooters are arranged so the gear ratio changes
automatically, but the earliest examples needed manual operation but
still gave a smooth, continuous variation in ratio. What am I saying?
I mean one bike, the Rudge Multi:

<http://www.vintagebike.co.uk/Bike%20Directories/Rudge%20Bikes/pages/Rud
ge-Multi-1920s.htm>

<http://users.senet.com.au/~mitchell/bikes/rudge/html/multi.htm>

Yamaha makes a huge bike with a handlebar push-button gear change - but
it's got a normal gearchange foot pedal too. No clutch lever, I gather,
which makes it awkward to ride at low speed. It's a bit of a `okay,
this is an option, does anyone like it?' sort of thing - it's a proper
production bike, but they're experimenting with the market, you know?

(btw, I came across the citation for:

J. F. Rudge. Multi-Agent Linear-Quadratic-Guassian Systems with "Poor"
Observations. SIAM J. Control and Optimization, 16(5):832--846,
September 1978.

when looking for stuff on the Rudge Multi motorcycle...)

[snip]

There is no Mac version of PSP, so there's no point in asking
them. The best thing to do is ask on <news://uk.comp.sys.mac>
about what'd be a good graphics program for a Windoze PSP user
to look at on a Mac.

I'll ask when I get the Mac otherwise I'll forget what they said
:o(

That makes some sort of sense; but - oh, sod it, if you're looking
at things like that, what the hell. Dive in, why not?

Okey dokes! I'll ask them after I've sent this off :o) If I forget
can you remind me though please?

<grin> If you can remind me to remind you, I can probably figure out
what I should have been reminding you of.

Can't remember! lol

<grin> Ah, but I can remember what it is you want to do:

MS FrontPage
Poser
PSP

Still, in your position, I'd want to ask what's what beforehand
just to check that what I wanted was out there even if I did forget
the details. You can always ask again later, once you've got a Mac.
Or you could tell me and I could keep track of it all for you,
maybe (well, I've got buckets of disc space and a broadband
connection - I could just make a folder called `Mandy' and put all
the bits in it for `as and when')

If you could that would be brilliant! Thank you sooo much!

If we manage to get things together well enough to identify what you
might need, it'd be no trouble at all.

A laptop with enough hard drive space and memory for me to play with
Poser 7 atm

But you want something that'll do for `not just at the moment' - really.
It's daft thinking of buying a Mac now and then a more expensive one if
you like it - the Mac you get should do for whatever.

Anyway, you said that PSP pipes use a lot of disc space. How much disc
space for a typical pipe?

[snip]

Ah right :o( I'll keep using PSP on this machine then! :o)

No, no! Ask on uk.comp.sys.mac for what you might use - *I* don't
know of anything, but I'm not really a person who does graphics. I
need an image converter, and something to crop and rotate pictures
(there's a scanner on the desk) and maybe do colour correction.
Graphic Converter's great for that, so that's what I use.

Okey dokes! I'll ask when I've sent this off to you but if you
haven't seen anything come through by tomorrow morning I will have
forgotten and need a poke in the ribs :o/

Okay-dokey.

Oops! Forgot to ask about that too! I'll try and remember when I've
sent this off :o)

And did you? (nudge, nudge).

[snip]

Now you're starting to confuzzle me... what are computer things doing
in cars??

Running everything. To take one example: there's a computer in a box
in most cars that runs the `engine management system' - deciding when
to spark the spark plugs, how much fuel to pump in each stroke with
the fuel injectors, and I don't know what else. It's run by a special
type of computer designed for such jobs. Apparently, there's one BMW
model with something like 30 PowerPC CPUs built into it, each of them
running something different. Don't ask me what - I dunno.

Blimey!

It might sound like a lot, but in some cases

[snip]

If your home computers are connected to a home network using
wires, the networking standard that they're using is Ethernet.
Unless Steve is completely insane, that is.

We've got wires going from all the computers into the router (or
whatever it's called) but other than that there aren't any wires
between our machines

Yeah, but they all plug in to the router, don't they? So they're
all connected to each other via that box of tricks, yes?

Maybe router was the wrong word then? The thing that gives all the
computers and the laptop internet access...

That's the router - but if you want to plug more than one thing into
it, there will usually be a `hub' or `switch' built into the `router'
box, so you can plug in multiple machines. And that means they have
the potential to talk to each other via that link - probably.

Oh right! You're starting to loose me now... sorry!

Right.

It's like this: if you want to connect `lots of different computers to
the internet via a router', you need to plug them all in to the router,
yes?

Right.

The way it works is that the router has *ONE* connection to `your
computers at home' and *ONE* connection to the internet. `computers'
plug in one side, `the internet' is on the other side.

But you can plug lots of computers into it, yes?

Right.

The way that works is that you have a special box of tricks (probably
built into the router box) that lets you plug in more than one computer.
This special gadget is also connected to the router - and any normal
gadget of that type lets everything it's plugged in to it talk to each
other. So a computer that's plugged in to it is connected to all the
other computers plugged in to it.

This box of tricks is either a switch (faster but more expensive) or a
hub (slower but cheaper). Either one permits lots of computers to plug
into a single box and for their signals to be zapped to the single
router connection. Thing is, a normal hub or switch doesn't just
`combine lots of computers and shoves the signal out down one wire', it
lets `anything plugged in to it talk to anything else plugged in to it'.

So unless your router is an odd one of a type I've never heard of
(there's a lot in the universe I don't know about), all your computers
that you have at home which connect to the router are physically
connected to a home computer network. They might not be set up to use
it for anything but internet access, but you've got a home computer
network (almost certainly)

[snip]

I told you I was no good with
technical stuff!! :o)

Pfft. You're better than you think. Most people are.

I need you to explain so much to me though!

<shrug> Well, yes - but think about it: you've never had access to
decent explanations, and your memory is rather out to lunch at the
moment. It's taken me decades to learn what I've learnt. Okay, I don't
have the really serious in-depth knowledge that some people have after
learning for decades - but I was playing around doing `hackery' things
with a BBC Micro when I was a kid at school.

Thing is, back in those days, you could get proper manuals for
computers. They don't write proper manuals any more, so it's horribly
difficult to learn the basic stuff about `how it all works' even if you
*are* technically minded (and I am). Don't blame yourself.

If I knew what I was doing
with computers then I wouldn't need you to! :o/

You've been taught enough to allow yourself to do some things you want
to do on a computer. The teaching you've had isn't very good because it
was just aimed at `teaching you how to use some software' rather than
`teaching you about computers'.

[snip]

I didn't install SP2 on my old machine 'cos I heard so many
negative things about it!

<gulp> That was not a good idea. I don't know a lot about
Windoze, but I do know that Service Pack 2 for Windoze XP is one
that *EVERYONE* running Windoze XP should have installed as soon
as possible. Honest.

That's pretty much what Steve said but I'd heard from too many
people that it screwed their computer up so I didn't install it

Do you still have Windoze XP in the house? Seriously, seriously,
seriously pay attention to your Steve. Windoze XP without SP2 is a
major security problem for one thing.

There's definitely one with Windows XP without SP2 on, I'm not sure
if Steve's got XP or Vista on his machines

You really need to install SP2. Really.

I just don't want it to screw up the machine though!

*NOT* installing SP2 is causing you to run a huge risk of having your
machine screwed up by attacks from the internet.

It fixes all sorts of very serious security problems and turns
Windoze from a wide-open death trap into something that's
actually not badly protected at all (and improves all sorts of
things in other ways). In short, it's the first half-decent
version of MS Windoze ever from my point of view - if you've got
Windoze XP in the house, it's a really good idea to apply SP2.

I think Steve's got his 2 computers with SP2 but I've steered well
clear of it for both of mine!

You're putting yourself at huge risk. For sure any major OS update
can cause problems, but - oh please please pay attention to what
your Steve told you. He's right to put SP2 on his machines - and
it worked for him, didn't it? And he's there in your house to help
you if any problesm arise, isn't he? Please Mandy, please put SP2
on your XP machines. It'll be good for them.

Steve doesn't use the same programmes that I use though and it's
those programmes (PSP and Poser) that had most of the problems IIRC

<stunned> Well, I'd be astonished if the current versions of any
Windoze software had any trouble with XP SP2. You don't fancy
checking again, do you? I seriously strongly urge you to install SP2
if you find you can do so without messing up your applications.

So many people had trouble with it and didn't know how to sort it out
though so I'd prefer not to install it. Sorry!

Mandy, I'm telling you to install SP2 to save you trouble - to spare you
suffering nasty attacks from nasty people on the internet. SP2 makes
Win XP secure. Without SP2, Win XP is horribly insecure. I might be a
Mac user, but I did pay attention when it came out: SP2 is when WinXP
turned into a pretty okay operating system.

Don't say `sorry' - I'm telling you that you need SP2 for the health of
your computer. Do you think I'm going to be harmed if you don't install
SP2? Of course not! Am I going to get money or other gain from you
installing SP2? Of course not!

It's so vitally important to install SP2 on any WinXP machine that
connects to the internet. Okay, people have had trouble with it - of
course. But you're exposing yourself to a risk of much worse trouble
without it. The thing to do is find out how to get round the trouble
and I'm *CERTAIN* that someone has come up with workarounds for your
problems - they always do with this sort of thing.

The thing to do in any case is `Find out how to deal with the problems
that are expected, make a full backup of the hard disc, apply the
update, and if you *DO* have trouble, just restore everything from the
backup and go back to the start.

[snip]

For sure there might well be specific problems - well, there
will be fixes for all of them by now, I would imagine, and it'll
be possible to find out about them via the Web. Honest, get a
Mac or not as you see fit, but if you've got XP give it SP2 no
matter what.

I don't use the machine with XP on it anymore, just this one with
Vista and Vista doesn't ask you about installing updates, it just
does it!

Quite - a big problem, that one. MS controls your computer: if an
update causes problems, you don't get any choice but to suffer the
problems.

*nodding* This is the reason I'm not installing SP2!

Yeah, but not installing SP2 causes problems. Find out what the
current state of play is - seriously, and if there are workarounds,
use 'em.

There aren't any that I've heard of so I won't install it... sorry

Mandy, you're a fool to yourself. Really. Look for the workarounds -
if your WinXP computer(s) can see the internet, you *NEED* SP2 to
protect them from hackers. It's for the health of your computer.

Macs don't do that. Yes, there's automatic finding of software
updates, but I'm pretty sure you can't set it to `full auto'.
Software Update can run regular checks and tell you what's waiting
for you - and then you say `Oh go on just do it' or `Just download
the update and I'll apply it manually' or `Sod off I'm not
interested'.

*nodding* That's what I did on my XP machine - told it to sod off!

Seriously, reconsider that decision. Take a look at the current state
of play regarding PSP and Poser. I bet the current versions are
perfectly happy with XP SP2 - and if so, install SP2! Really!

From what I can remember they had to uninstall PSP and Poser then put SP2
on then reinstall PSP and Poser and they lost a lot of stuff doing it
like that so I'd prefer not to.

If you connect your WinXP machine to the internet without SP2, you're
likely to suffer much worse.

Find out how to do the workarounds which exist and do it - if you don't
want to suffer from cybercrime.

Getting a Mac is an optional thing - I seriously strongly suggest that
installing SP2 isn't optional.

Okey dokes

I don't think you've quite got it. Not installing SP2 on a WinXP box
connected to the internet is like drunk driving without a seatbelt and
without your glasses - wilful stupidity almost certain to end in
disaster.

That is not just an opinion.

FWIW, one should never install any software update straight away,
on anything, ever. Wait until some other mugginses have tried it,
and find out if they had any problems. This applies to any
software update on any computer platform. And it *seriously*
applies to Macs as I have found out. Apple is usually very good,
but sometimes it just cocks up really really badly. So you need to
wait to see if this update is `one of the normal ones which is
fine' or `one of the few dodgy ones which isn't.

*nodding* SP2 was a dodgy one!

Generally speaking, it's the most important and useful Windoze update
ever released. Ever.


Maybe for lots of people, but the people who I've seen and read wished
they hadn't installed it!

Find out how to get round the problems. There are workarounds. Any
WinXP computer connected to the internet must have SP2 installed or it's
basically wide open to hackers. That isn't opinion: anyone who knows
about WinXP will tell you it's a fact.

For sure your router provides useful protection - but if the `bad guys'
can work past that (oh, this is where it gets horribly complicated,
don't ask), you're dropped straight in the *** without SP2.

One obvious way to get past router protection is to have a dodgy Web
page. Plenty of Web pages contain programs that your computer downloads
automatically without asking you about it at all. Dodgy Web pages
contain /malicious/ programs that take over your computer and make it do
things you don't know about but are all bad for you.

Unless you install SP2 on a WinXP box, you're wide open to that sort of
thing. SP2 provides protection that makes it hard for any such
malicious program to do bad stuff.

It's entirely not dodgy. But!

The changes to the OS were so radical it was as big a step forward as
a new major OS release. That's bound to break some software, but
there's nothing remotely /dodgy/ about SP2, I promise you. It's the
exact opposite of dodgy and one of the best things MS has ever done.
Win XP should have been dead good from the word go - it wasn't,
because MS had compromised the `goodness' in all sorts of ways to meet
its various conflicting ideas about what it wanted. SP2 was when
sanity began to prevail.

In some peoples opinions, yes, but that's not what I've heard!

It's not a matter of opinion. For sure operating system updates often
cause problems. But WinXP is wide open to hackers without SP2. It's
not opinion: it's unquestioned fact that no-one in the know argues
about.

The people who have had trouble that they can't deal with are almost
certainly as clueless as you about computers in general. No shame in
that, but they're not the people to ask about the advisability of
installing an OS update.

You need to get in touch with some people who know what they're doing,
find out how to avoid the problems that occur, and install SP2 to
protect your WinXP computer(s) from hacker attack.

Never mind any problems it might cause - it's the rock solid update
that all XP users really *NEED*, so if you do find out about problems,
you should find out how to get round them and install SP2. So
investigate! Find out about the current state of play with Poser and
PSP - I bet the current versions work perfectly happily with XP SP2.

The bods who all had trouble were all using the same versions as me and
I'd rather not risk it

If your WinXP machine is connected to the internet, it is wide open to
hackers and all the cybercriminal attacks you can think of unless it has
SP2 installed - not an opinion, a fact. Find out how to get round the
problems and get SP2 installed - if you don't want to have hackers doing
bad things to your computer.

[snip]


Rowland.

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