Shinkansen: High Speed Rail in Japan

I’ve always been fascinated with trains even when I was growing up and when I learnt back in school about the high speed rail services that operate in Japan I thought about how neat it would be just to hop on for a ride. Luckily, my wife and I are going on a holiday to …

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Beware of Facebook Offering to Switch Out of HTTPS

Facebook HTTP Fallback Message

Here’s a quick article for this evening. If you enabled the setting in Facebook to use HTTPS wherever possible you might find that when you attempt to use certain Facebook applications such as Networked Blogs (which I use to publish the blog to Facebook) it will come up with this screen: What people may not realise …

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Microsoft Wants to Say Goodbye to Internet Explorer 6

It might be hard to believe but Internet Explorer 6 is still alive and kicking ten years after it was released. Whilst IE has come a long way in terms of speed and standards compliance particularly in IE9 previous version left a lot to be desired. Needless to say, hanging on to decrepit software and forcing websites …

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Quickly Swap Screen Configurations Under Windows 7

Windows 7 Display Toggle

If you chop and change between external screens and data projectors you might be frustrated with having to go into the display properties in Windows and setting up the new device as a secondary screen and working some magic to get it all working. Generally, laptops have the ability to swap between several display outputs …

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Sometimes Unconventional Means Don’t Work But Don’t Be Discouraged

A few posts back I was looking into reviving a hard drive using unconventional means (in this case putting it in the freezer) based upon anecdotal evidence on the web that supported this method. Sometimes in technical support positions you have to think outside the square and when conventional methods don’t work there may be …

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Why I Won’t be Buying iPad 2

Today, a lot of people asked me whether or not I would be eagerly waiting to purchase an iPad 2 when it is eventually launched in Australia perhaps some time later this month (although last year’s delays for countries apart from the USA did cause some angst amongst customers). I was expecting to be asked …

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Is the Banning of Mortal Kombat Really a Victory?

The game Mortal Kombat has never been shy of a bit of publicity thanks to the level of gore contained within the game and ignited fierce debate with the release of its first instalment back in 1992. Sega was happy to release the game with the full gore and fatalities of the original arcade game …

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Reviving Dead Hard Drives Through Unconventional Methods

Many of us have had a situation where the hard drive in our computer just dies unexpectedly. It’s a pain and an inconvenience which can be exacerbated by the absence of backups. Sometimes, hard drives just require a minor file system scan to get things working again or, in more severe cases, the controller board …

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Change the Default Document Format to Office 2003 in Office 2007 & 2010

Change the default document format in Office 2010

More people are making the switch to Office 2007 and Office 2010 however there are still those clinging on to older versions who are unable to open the newer Office 2007 formats (such as .docx and .xlsx which are differentiated from older versions with the extra “x” on the end of the file extension). I …

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Panasonic 3D Blu-ray Home Theatre Sound System (SC-BTT755) Review

With a day to spare, I have completed the review video for the Panasonic SC-BTT75 3D Blu-ray Home Theatre Sound System. I received this system back in December last year and have put it through its paces across a range of activities including: CD audio playback, DVD videos, Blu-ray videos (3D and standard videos), regular …

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