The revenge of Arial

To think, if I actually followed the advice of the Microsoft expert, I would still have a non-functioning Internet Explorer 9 that displayed blank pages. Rule no. 1: when it comes to computing, never follow the advice of a self-righteous expert. An everyday user who found out things the hard way, sure. An expert who […]

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Microsoft: if IE9 displays blank pages, it’s your own fault, so format your hard drive

You’ve got to hand it to some folks for discovering words in their “word-a-day” calendars and they feel compelled to use it.    If you go to Microsoft Answers, there are dozens of people wondering why their Internet Explorer 9s don’t display anything. So, I decided to report the bug I have had since March, […]

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Thoughts from a thoroughly modern machine

After I got back from India, my desktop computer went into meltdown. This was Nigel Dunn’s old machine, which I took over after he went to Australia, and it gave me excellent service for over two years.    I wasn’t prepared to go and buy a brand-new machine, but having made the plunge, I’m glad […]

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Internet Explorer 9 can’t even display Microsoft’s own page

After this issue with Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, I went to the McAfee forums to record it so others knew.    The McAfee volunteers and tech support guys have, in the last while, been fantastic. There’s one volunteer there, Peter, who’s always been right. So I would be foolish to ignore their advice.    You […]

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The epic fail called IE9 has consequences for other programs

I was prepared to put up with the epic fail of IE9, since I hardly use the program. In the years I’ve had IE8, I’ve only opened it accidentally (e.g. when certain programs are removed, they load IE for the ‘Why did you remove it?’ customer screen).    But I forgot one thing: some programs […]

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Microsoft Internet Explorer 9: the worst browser on the scene

Microsoft has released its Internet Explorer 9 to much fanfare at SXSW. I’m really not sure what the fuss is, because it appears, as usual, the browser hasn’t been tested.    Here it is on my Asus laptop, running Vista. That’s apparently my company’s home page. Looks slightly different to how Firefox, Chrome and Opera […]

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Where do the Mac evangelists hide when Apples go, ‘Boom’?

Once again, I posted a Tweet (which went on to my Facebook) about Apple messing up (this time, about Mail with disappearing attachments). There were no replies.    Interestingly, whenever I post about a Windows bug, the Mac evangelists all swarm on to it, usually with the sentiment, ‘Get a Mac.’    They all disappear […]

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Chrome’s dramas continue as it hits version 8

It looks like Chrome has updated by itself, and as with all improvements to software, more bugs have been introduced.    You can blame our programming skills, but here is how the home page of Lucire now looks (and it had looked like this on Chromium a couple of months ago, too): Below is how […]

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How do you take a screen shot when Alt-Print Screen stops working?

This is an error that happens to me at least twice a week for years, and no one seems to have a solution. I’ve read some of the help pages on this in web searches, and none of them help.    As far as I can tell, only one case of this has been reported, […]

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Testing the search engines

I hadn’t heard of Blekko, a search engine, till last week, so armed with a new entrant, I wanted to see how they all compared.    Blekko’s very pretty, and I’ve told Gabriel Weinberg, the man behind Duck Duck Go, just what it is that makes it attractive. Most of it is the modernist design […]

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