We all like a little something on our desktop to brighten up the day. I came across this great post on lifehacker about some gaming desktop wallpaper.

Knowing Windows 7 has a great desktop wallpaper feature where you can have a stack of wallpaper and change them at will I set off downloading them to my machine.

Then right Click on your desktop and select Personalise.

Open the pictures folder and the Personalisation tab side by side

Now, right click any picture and select “Set as desktop background”.

A new “Unsaved theme” will appear.

Select the “Desktop background” option highlighted here in red.

Windows 7 at this point, having a complete degree from the University of Smartarse, will have the folder open where you originally selected the first image.

Select the pictures you want in the slideshow , choose Fill as the Picture position and pick a time you want the pictures to change. i have highlighted the sections below.

You can also drag other files from other folders in there as well, drag and drop applies.

Click “Save changes”.

A new theme will appear, right click on it and pick the option you want.

Save the theme for yourself, or make a theme out of pic’s of embarrassing nights out and send it to your friends.

Here is the theme I created.

Here is what my desktop looks like

high res version

As part of my job , I every so often get sent out in a hurry to check some stuff out , and in my latest excursion I went to PC World to pick up a laptop in an emergency. Needed it ASAP so there was no faffing around on the interweb to get a great deal.

And so , myself and a colleague pre-ambled to the World of PC’s, and lo and behold I was greeted with the usual laziness and incompetence I am accustomed to in what can be best described as a public purchaseorium. Or a flea market, I don’t know which is a more apt description.

After looking at a list of well priced, but terrible lacklustre machines I settled on a Dell, very nice machine , with the specs to match the needs of the buyer. My Colleague then had to actually go and find a sales rep. In an empty store. At 11:00 in the morning. When the rep, who looked terribly inconvenienced at the fact that we might want to actually want to buy something arrived, he then proceeded to read the label and price tag to us. The laptop was rated at “up to 2 hours battery life” , when I asked what size battery was in it , he said “2 hours”. “Sorry” , I said, I mean how many cells in the battery. “9”, he exclaimed.

I then proceeded to explain to him that I had a HP with a  4 cell battery which I upgraded to a 8 cell and a netbook with a 3 cell that I upgraded to 6 in order to get over the battery life problem, and that, indeed if there was a 9 cell battery in this machine, which I doubted there was as it was an extra on the same dell ordered from the internet , that the battery life should be in the order of 5 hours for the same spec machine. I then asked was he sure that it was a 9 cell battery. He then picked up the machine, turned it over to peek into the empty battery bay and proceeded to count the pins on the connector.

Yep, you heard me right, the sign of a fuckin bluffer if I ever seen one. A person who would lie through his teeth and tell the customer it was a HD ready home entertainment device with XBOX integration if it would get the sale, and then deny he said it on returns. A complete shit eating bollix. Apathy as well is another way of extorting the general public.

We then asked him about another model at around the same price and was informed that it was a warehouse thing with no battery or power supply. I mean, WTF ? He even went so far as to say it was ok and an attractive offer.

So I went next door to Currys to see what was there. The same load of machines except each one was mis-labelled , some said XP Home when they were running Vista Premium, some said Vista Premium when they were home , 2GB when they were 1 etc. Some had no specs. A lady apologised as they were under staffed when there was 1 person in the store. I finally got another lad who was a lot more up front and polite, and showed me a few great deals fair play to him, but PC world was still the better price.

Back to PC world, decision made the dell. So yet again , in an empty store , we had to go back to the top, inconvenience a chap in the middle of what looked like a great conversation with a co-worker. He sodded off for a bit trying to find a box after the statement “I will see if it is in stock” , like there was a ROARING TRADE going on this morning. And finally got back with a box. He then took my details and forgot to add in the half price internet security as we discovered at the checkout, and the checkout girl had to go sort it out. 

So times are hard eh, people need jobs, well I know secondary school students that could do this job better. No wonder the general non tech public fear computers, when the computer stores are staffed by the Muppet show. How can anyone in these places see themselves as trusted advisors on technology to the general public. Another few years ago in PC World in Galway I watched sales man selling a Celeron laptop with integrated graphics as a platform you can play F.E.A.R on , a state of the art game at the time, as he wandered of for the price list I explained exactly was was happening to her, showed her the model that could and watched her leave the store. Got some dirty look off that prick that day I can tell you.

I cant sell a bathroom, or a car, not unless I was qualified, I would feel like a complete c**t if I was doing that with no understanding of what the customer wants. I do technology stuff, and I ask friends to come to me before going into a technology shop here, I have helped people out of bad experiences over the years that technology experts in stores only exacerbated. I don’t sell , I deal in zeroes and ones, and let other people fill in the rest of the numbers.

Oh well, got my laptop, anyone else have a funny experience , or should be band together to form an advisory group to make sure that stores are staffed with courteous and knowledgeable people ?

Yea, there you have it. It seems that we cannot use this word now either, might have to put in some complaints to RTE News …. again.

So, a few years ago an over excited Steve Ballmer, now grand master and Ruler of Microsoft ranted “Developers, Developers, Developers” to an amused and bewildered audience of code monkeys, I want to start a new rant, “Education, Education, Education”

Education in monumentally important to the future of this country, I cannot stress it enough. Every so often we heard thinks like “the Irish are some of the best educated in world”, or “Innovation Economy” etc. But there are a few worrying trends I am noticing becoming prevalent in today’s Ireland.

1. Introduction of fees

This is downright stupid and really puts in a new light what we already know of the current administration of the country. A waste of space. Firstly, lots more people will flock back to education now that we are in the R word, and flock they should , as the minds moulded in the colleges might be the minds we need to tear us out of this shite. So the answer is that they need to pay for education now. Has it come back to this, only the rich deserve an education?

I cannot stress how completely ignorant the government are on this one. Lets rip apart the last foundation of Ireland, free education. Nice. …. Gobshites. I work with colleges, they don’t have a lot of money. Fees mean less people in education and banks getting fat on loans again. Its hard enough be a student. I know , I was there twice, and both times the “Grant” was not enough to even have me meet rent. Education is expensive, I needed books, computers, food , internet etc. If I had to also pay for my tuition I would be now in terrible debt, or worse of all, would not have bothered.

There is also the question of value, how do you know you are getting value for money? As I have been a student for a very long time I know the value of education, but I have had good and bad tuition. If I was paying for my college tuition I would probably show up more to lectures, maybe. But then I was in lectures where professors pored over wordy PowerPoint slides that were copied verbatim from textbooks , I did not show up, I got the material , read it and re-gurgitated it. Where was the value? If I was paying for that from my pocket I would work to have people like that fired. So there are people in academic institution who should fear the fees as well, as it somewhat changes the game plan.

2. Why are courses getting “coolified”?

What is wrong with a degree in computing now. Is it that boring? I have a degree in Video Games Development, which is really a 4 year degree in real time simulation, I work in an I.T Related role and so some coding on the side for small projects. Nothing wrong with that, my degree gave me the flexibility to put my hand to anything. However I now hear that there are colleges that have to Publicise modules or courses in iPhone development to attract students ? Believe me, you do not want to run the type of course that attracts iPhone users. Bloody lunacy, and worth a post in itself sometime soon.

I don’t have a degree in XBOX or PlayStation, or a diploma in Wii, or a certificate in Nokia, we should stand up right away against such complete nonsense.

So what do you think? Please leave comments below and get a conversation started on this , I would love to hear what people think about this topic.