Because I’ve had my Raspberry Pi for about six months now, I feel it is time that I told you a bit about what I think of it. However, on some levels, I still don’t feel ready to review it. I haven’t used it that much yet, and I feel that I don’t fully grasp it’s power or purpose yet. Continue Reading
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So, all year, I’ve been dealing with Dell; their computers, their Pro Support, their technicians. And from my experience, I’ve learnt many things, so I’m going to share with you as many of the tips and tricks that I’ve picked up as I can.
So, a while back, an employee came into IT Support with two external hard drives because they needed help copying some data across. She started telling us that she wanted this and that “copied onto Betsy,” and she needed “Oscar reformatted to work with Mac”. After a few moments, we realised that she was referring to her hard drives by name, as if they were people. Mr Chief and the Professor both thought it was quite strange and funny, but I kind of thought it was totally reasonable. And this got me thinking about what people name their devices and why. Continue Reading
So, a few weeks ago I told you about the plight of Jo, an employee at the House (where I work), whose hard drive in her laptop died. Her data was unrecoverable, and she decided to go to a data recovery specialist. I told you as a lesson in the importance of backing up. But that wasn’t quite the end of her story. Here’s what happened next… Continue Reading
So, I’ve always wanted a Wacom tablet. For years now, I’ve wished I had one. Ever since I heard about it, I’ve thought it would be cool to be able to draw straight into the computer. I see myself as a bit of an artist, and I’m definitely a tech-head, so a Wacom tablet is a meeting of passions for me.
It’s for this reason that recently I’ve been seriously considering different models. I’ve been trying to weigh up the different features and types to find which one would be best for me. Some of the specs are easy to envision and understand, but some aren’t as easy.
One thing that’s deceivingly hard to wrap your head around is the side of these tablets. The size that actually matters is the size of the active area, which is the part of the tablet where the pen, or touch if the tablet supports it, will actually work. If you’re like me and have been looking at getting one of these tablets, you’ll have spent much wasted time hunting around the room with a ruler, looking for a book or piece of paper that just happens to be the same size as these dimensions. That’s why I’ve made some templates for you to print out, so you can get a better feel for them.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “What’s special about that? I could’ve easily cut a piece of paper to size. It’s called a pair of scissors.” Ah, but the difference with my templates is that they comprise of a rough diagram of where all the stuff in an image editing program would be on screen, and you print the diagram at the same size as the active area.
Why is this important? Because the active area on one of these tablets is mapped to match your screen layout. What I mean is that if you tap in the top left corner of the active area, your mouse will go to the top left corner of the screen. The same is true for all the other corners, as well as any point onscreen. So, the upshot of this is that while the active area might be massive, if your working area onscreen is less than the whole screen, then you won’t get to use the whole active area as that working area. That’s why I’ve created the diagram to roughly show you how much screen and active area space the toolbar, taskbar, and all the different tool windows take up. Continue Reading
So, we got through the hectic deployment of all the iPads, netbooks and notebooks. After all the hours of blood, sweat and tears, the unboxing and reboxing, the late nights and the phone calls, they’re all out. Now we just have to support them all. Continue Reading
Nitemice 