Microsoft released a free software called “Mouse Without Borders” which allows you running multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse like Synergy. But the “Mouse Without Borders” brings a lot of cool features and an easy setup.
I recently, like many purchased an iPhone 4S (kinda sad that there wasnt a 5, but i can deal with that). But iv been a little dissapointed with the battery performance my new new £499.00 phone. Given i had the iPhone 4 before, and was comfortably getting over a days ‘angry’ usage out of the device before going hunting for my docking station, the 4S seems to run out of steam pretty dam quick.
Well, this solution doesnt quite resolve the issue 100%, but does help a little. Go check out your settings, Location Services, System Services and see what your phone is saying about things like “Setting Time Zone”, Location based iAds and Traffic.
If like mine, you have a little purple compass next to them, this kinda indicates that these services are searching constantly looking for GPS positions to help them out. Well, personally i dont care about iAds, nor helping Googles traffic service, and on the rare occasion i do leave the country, im sure i can figure out how to change the time…
So, do yourself a favour and knock these off. I did it and am now getting a few more hours out of my faithful friend.
Also, do yourself another favour, and stop asking SIRI to remind you of things when you get to places, you will notice that when you do this, the compass symbol doesn’t disappear until you reach your desired alert location. The reminders app is constantly polling your position to make sure it hasn’t missed an opportunity to remind you to “charge your phone when you get home”. If you do insist on using the reminders, try doing what im doing, make a good conservative guess when you think your going to be there, and set a time based reminder. e.g. I know I finish work at 5:30PM, it takes me roughly 25 mins to get home, so try this “Siri, remind me at 6PM to clean the house before my wife comes home and beats me up for not cleaning the house”, it works just as well and iv only been beat up once !
Okay, if like one of my clients your working in an environment where the IT department has decided to use Microsoft’s HyperV instead of shelling out the cash for VMware ESX, then you might be stuck in a position where you are stuck between a rock and equally tough place in terms of USB License Dongles. To date, Microsoft has yet to incorporate USB support into their flagship hypervisor platform, and this presents a problem.
Well, one which is now easily solved. A simple little app created by KernelPro, makes it possible to mount USB devices over a network from a designated host. Simply nominate a physical box in your environment to be a license server, insert all of your USB dongles into this system and use the management console to share out each one as a unique instance. A client agent which sits within the VM can then be configured to mount the shared USB device to its own operating system.
Iv had a quick play with this and am very impressed by the simplicity and reliability of this software. I was up and running with a shared USB memory key in less than 10 minutes, and a license dongle in about the same.
With a fully packed feature list, this software is well worth an investment from any organisation in need of a suitable USB Solution;
One of the better features is the “Deny sharing or connection of specific USB devices” allowing filtering of IP addresses which can connect to each device, serving as a brilliant additional method to control licensing of software. For example, say you have a HyperV High Avaliability scenario whereby one host must stay alive, with a piece of software connected to a shared USB dongle. Simply add the IP address of this host to the kernelpro configuration, it wont matter where in the organisation the VM is moved to, it will always be capable of reconnecting.
Check out more at http://www.kernelpro.com/usb-over-ethernet.html
Howdo, for those who are close to me, you may well be aware that i have recently fell off the “in a relationship” status page and into the “engaged” category. Well, this was in part thanks to our friends at H Samuel, who sold me an amazing and truly spectacular engagement ring which was ‘alas’ the wrong size (but i new this, but wanted to propose and couldn’t wait for the real size to be ordered).
Anyways, swiftly moving on, proposal done and she said “YES” :)
Well, this is where the story gets a little more complex, after realising that online H Samuels had the ring size she needed in stock, we soon placed an order, with the intention of getting the one online (instead of the one which had been worn by god knows how many women in the shop) and returning the afore-mentioned ‘demo’ ring to the store in EXETER !
Well, a day after placing the order on H Samuels website i got an email from them saying they needed to talk to me about my order and could i contact them, which i then did. Only to be told that my order was on hold, pending a security check (you’d think the credit card company doing that, and visa verification would be enough, apparently not). Well, we cleared that up and i was informed that the ring i had ordered was extremely limited stock and there were only a few left in the warehouse. Well, thanks for letting me know, but now the order is confirmed, i assume one of those will be reserved for me, NOPE !
A day later, i get a call saying they have cancelled my order and nothing can be done, nice ! So, i figure ill call them and see if i can get the order changed to one of the sizes they do still have in stock and have it adjusted before shipped, so i get a nice new one, in the right size, happy days ! NOPE !
Online H Samuels have informed me that this ring is not capable of being altered! HMM, this sounds bad, because now iv proposed to my girlfriend with a ring which the in store staff at H Samuels EXETER say can be altered, but online are saying NOPE it can’t ! Sounds like bad news for me… Long and short of it, order online cancelled and that’s the end of it !
Well, not quite, my ‘now’ fiancée is down in Plymouth one evening and comes across a H Samuels store, and decides to have a quick look inside, low and behold there is the ring she now has which does not fit. And even more to her surprise it’s in her size ! Online not too keen on checking their stores stock levels it seems, oh well, not everyone can invest in modern technology which has been around since the early 90′s (Ya Know, excel would prob do the job :)…
Well, with a correct size in hand, she buys it on my credit card ! Job Done, we now have two rings. One wrong size and one the correct size, no problem, just take the one back to EXETER when we get home and that’s the end of it, NOPE !
Apparently, when i purchased the original ring i was given a £25 gift voucher off any other purchase, which was stapled to the receipt, well this is now missing. So when i appear in EXETER H SAMUELS with my pristine and unworn engagement ring, and a receipt i am told “NOPE, No voucher, no refund”. Right, that’s bad news ! Now I’m in possession of two very expensive rings and my credit card is starting to get scared.
Okay, H Samuels… What’s the policy if someone has lost their voucher or it’s been damaged or destroyed…? Ummm, Dunno was the helpful answer i got :/ well, okay can i see the back of my receipt for the returns policy, hmm nothing there at all, just some rubbish about passing my personal details to third parties (thanks for that violation of my private data, would be nice to be asked). But no refund policy, okay no problem, ask the helpful sales assistant, who then tells me, right to my face “oh, we don’t keep that in store”, umm what ! so your telling me that there is no refund policy anywhere, “umm, let me take a look” after which she visits some internal website and prints off a 7 bullet point page detailing the H Samuels extensive refund policy, nowhere in which does it mention anything about vouchers.
So, by this point I’m not too happy, sales assistant is useless, and won’t answer anything without manager being there, manager not working this day (21/07/2011) so me, the customer, screwed apparently. What if i can’t find this magic voucher for £25 (wow, that’s going to break the bank aint it, on an industry which adds 100% mark-up to every product in the window). Apparently the answer to that is a blank expression and an excuse that she can’t do anything for fear of losing her job, which i can somewhat understand in these harsh economic times. But it would of been nice if she had at least come up with a suggestion, something like “wait a min, i call another store and check with their manager” or even better “hold on, I’ll call head office and see if we can sort this out” or, i dunno, something outrageous like “it’s okay, each transaction has a unique code which is linked to your transaction, so by doing a refund it will invalidate the code” (i know the last one is a long shot, given they can’t even count stock apparently, but it’s worth a go)… But none of these, just tells me to (essentially) sod off and come back tomorrow when manager can tell me the same thing (most likely)…
Well, i come home and hunt like mad, and what do i find hiding amongst the other 1000 pieces of paper on my desk, a £25 voucher for H SAMUELS… So, the day is saved it seems, i can now go back tomorrow and REFUND TO MY HEARTS CONTENT :)
Just outta interest though, i checked the voucher, the code is UNIQUE, so any modern system could have linked this to the transaction, the code is in plain view, so I’m not sure what’s stopping me from just writing it down and using it after iv returned this ring. And finally, there is absolutely no sign of any terms and conditions on the voucher saying it must be returned with the item if a refund is issues, it does not even say that its invalid if the transaction is cancelled. So, end of the story is…
H SAMUEL DESPERATLY NEED TO WORK ON THE FOLLOWING
: Customer service, online and in store (rude and somewhat dismissive of their customers, even the ones who spend thousands in their store on (ladies, please forgive me), overpriced shiny things
: IT Infrastructure, common you useless people, i did one module of database stuff at uni and even i could come up with a POS which has better functionality than whatever you have.
: I think also they might need to find a way to link their online store with the street stores a lot better, what they have now is two companies who don’t talk to each other and both tell different stories to their customers (leaving me feeling like one of them has been lying to me, and personally i think it’s both lol).
Right, so thanks for reading, and please take one thing away from this article, when you propose make sure you checked out every other store before committing to the H SAMUEL brand, it is in desperate need of some polish (least the company, the rings are well-pretty ;)
Not sure if this is an actual Easter Egg or not, or just my iPhone doing strange things on this day of bad luck, but when i woke up this morning, the lock screen on my phone repoted the date as Friday 13th May, yet for all my trying I couldnt get the calendar icon to actually update to the correct date.
Seems there might be a good chance of some supersticious code developers working within Apples walls :)
Welcome to Fluxbox, im afraid we have no affiliation with the Linux window manager, so if your looking for that, turn around now.
