Mark Tennent

laissez-faire wee-fee

Mark Tennent — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:33:19 +0000

We are just back from staying in an idyllic 13th century manor house in Le Mesnil Jourdain, Normandy. So much gite for so little money, Ikea meets antiques. And it even included “wee-fee if we could log onto the Negeer”, said the nice French lady. (more…)

iPhoney insurance

Mark Tennent — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:18:24 +0000

Everyone knows cellphone insurance is a rip-off, or is it? (more…)

Earl Grey, computing’s future?

Mark Tennent — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:38:03 +0000

May Bank Holiday was spent mostly supporting an elderly relative whose mind slips between one reality and the next. Meanwhile their partner and main carer was admitted to hospital. The nights were passed in a banana shape, making my 6-foot frame fit a 4-foot sofa. When we got home, abstinence slipped from our minds as one or two glasses of wine were followed by a third. Do we really want to live until we can’t remember where we live? (more…)

What a waste

Mark Tennent — Sun, 23 May 2010 16:23:48 +0000

In the last seven years we have been through: six new desktop Macs, three laptops, two scanners, four printers, eight operating system upgrades, twenty hard disks and seven cellphones. All of which, when shared between two of us, is at least fifteen grand each. (more…)

Stuffed, Compacted and Doubled

Mark Tennent — Wed, 19 May 2010 09:11:43 +0000

Who’d have thought it? Most of the time it just sits there doing very little. Type ‘top’ into Terminal to see it, feet up and half asleep, waiting for us to titillate its silicone synapses. Even doing heavy Photoshopping or similar graphics stuff, the CPU’s use less than 1%. (more…)

Streaming abdabs

Mark Tennent — Sun, 09 May 2010 10:56:32 +0000

People are funny where Apple is concerned. For example: Martin our ISP, is so vehemently anti anything Apple he refuses to let iPhones send mail from their owner’s accounts on his servers. iPhones can receive mail but not reply to it unless they have an account elsewhere whose smtp server let’s iPhone mail through – which is probably nearly all of them. Martin has no problem with other smartphones, just Apple’s. It seems the most rabid stances taken in any discussion about Apple comes from those against rather than the so-called fanboys. (more…)

Apple refuses to program for Adobe

Mark Tennent — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:57:05 +0000

It says in big friendly letters ‘Open Immediately’. I did. Slit into the envelope, had a quick look at the contents and put them back inside. After all, the prospective candidates hadn’t bothered to send me any pre-election crud so how do I know who to vote for? (more…)

‘Something’ in the way we work

Mark Tennent — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:36:16 +0000

Week thirty-three of hell for a Mac user working in XP purgatory. The last seven days have been mainly trojan time, along with forgetting the Windows password on a seldom-used but important PC. (more…)

Subnet full of zeros

Mark Tennent — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:37:58 +0000

In France recently, we wished prices would go back in time. The best Muscadet we’ve ever had was from a cafe in Honfleur, one of the many tourist traps but serving a better meal than we can get at home. Their house wine was delicious at a reasonable 10 Euros a half-litre. But then, the wine invariably is good everywhere you go in France. Even in the smallest back-street café frequented by students, to the grottiest tabac where the owner still has a Gauloise glued to his bottom lip, albeit unlit but still with an inch of ash that seems to defy gravity. (more…)

Rouen Bound

Mark Tennent — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 11:37:04 +0000

We had been sitting in a ferry station, with a ticket for a French location. All around us we could see, French truckers talking loudly. Our holiday was neatly planned with CoPliot Live and Garmin to hand. (more…)