I've got the Lumia 920 and have been pleasantly surprised by Windows Phone 8. The people hub is one of the least marketed apps that comes built in, but it is excellent as handling all your contact information and bringing together everything from contact details to all the messaging history for each contact. If you get a Windows Phone that comes with Office, it looks like you can link it up to Office 365 as well (I haven't tried, but the setup seems to be there). Having never used Android I can't compare, but compared to the iPhones I was provided for work at a previous job, personally I find Windows Phone easier to use plus less laggy than the iPhone.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Whatever size partition you use, it couldn't be bigger than 2GB, as that was the patition size limit built into FAT16 in DOS. Given how much smaller it was than Windows of today, you could probably get away with 100MB! Win95 and Win98 aren't available because of the Java settlement with Sun. I believe that part of the terms of the settlement agreement were Microsoft would stop distributing them.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

I was lucky enough to only grow the one all up... although it did have to be removed after breaking apart due to no tooth underneath for support. For me the worst part wasn't so much any pain, it was more the creepy "feeling" of hearing it coming away from whatever was holding it in there... like a cracking sound and not being able to feel a thing.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Stuart Dootson wrote:

I've used Virtual Clone Drive[^] for that on 32 and 64 bit Weven

I second Virtual CloneDrive. I started using it when the Weven beta came out since Daemon Tools didn't really want to work with the beta, where Virtual CloneDrive did. I also like the fact it doesn't want to reboot when I install it, like Daemon Tools does.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me... I couldn't really remember too many of the exact details!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

You might want to do some searching around on this, but I think I remember that there were a number of Dell laptop models impacted by a design issue with the GPU, but I can't remember which models or GPU. I think someone from Dell even blogged about it. I think came down to the manufacturer of the GPU used a die that didn't cut the mustard which caused it to overheat and the GPU then wouldn't work at all. If it is an impacted model, you should be able to force their hand to repair it for you given it is a known manufacture defect.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

That's still a couple of weeks away if I remember the blog post correctly.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

January 16th. It's a busy day for me though, since my dad was born the same day (just a different year of course!), and a friend from school who has the same birth date, from the same year as me.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

That scene is one of my favourite scenes from the short lived series. The Constable's greeting to the 3 headed Martian was really good too! Unfortunately it is true that they don't make comedy like that any more.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Judah Himango wrote:

It's a well known hoax, Gates didn't really say that.

At least now I know it's a hoax! I'd say upgrade if you can afford it though, should be worth every dollar!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Judah Himango wrote:

Is 12 gigs of RAM overkill?

Of course, since "640K of RAM ought to be enough for anyone" (I've never confirmed though if that was really said). However, I just got a machine with 12GB DDR3 RAM in it, and it runs real nice. Vista and the Win7 RC don't even think about anything, they just do. Makes my work laptop with a "measly" 4GB of RAM feel pretty slow now! The motherboard on the new system can take up to 24GB of RAM, so it's going to get an upgrade when I can get my hands on 6 of those 4GB sticks. The main reason behind wanting so much RAM is for virtualization and some of the newer Microsoft operating systems... SBS 2008 runs through the Windows install just fine, but once the SBS component installation is started, you're screwed unless you have at least 4GB of RAM in the system as it halts the installation at that point. So if you want/need to play with Small Business or Essentials Business Server 2008 without having to buy 2 or 4 computers, virtualization is the next best thing, and you're going to need the RAM for virutal machines, let alone the host operating system.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

I've got a computerised one at home, but I'd be more inclined to trust my doctor's reading over it. From my understanding, the mecury based ones are more accurate than the mechanical ones. However, if your computerised one is accurate, you'd probably want to be more concerned about hypotension (I think that's what it is called), where the blood pressure is too low!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

That would have been weird this time around... although I wonder if I would have woken up, since I've been known to sleep through some really loug thunderstorms!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Those of us in Melbourne, Australia have just had an interesting time about an hour ago, with an earthquake measured at 4.7 passing through. Given it's the first one I've felt, it was really weird! The USGS has the details on it's website here.[^]

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

My most frustrating was at uni... locating the cause of an intermittent problem in a C program... which turned out to be something along the lines of: if (x = 5) I can't remember how long it took me to track down that missing second = sign in the equality test, but it had me wondering how I'd go at development in the real world!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

Indeed, I wouldn't have minded a more gradual 'introduction' to it all to be honest. But too right, I've taken my general immune system for granted a bit (I haven't had a sick day off work since August 2006), but it's starting to catch up with me in other ways I think.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

I know what you mean being a little down about this. In the last 12 months I have had: - My mother in hospital to remove a cancerous spot on her leg. This was successful with only sugery, and she's not quite as old as your parents either. - My partner in hospital for a (now nearly 4 years old) sinus infection (and I'm not sure there's been much progress since). - My dad in for something or other (I can't remember what this one is). - A personal friend for back surgery for pain due to a coughing fit (kinda makes the flu sound bad). - Another personal friend in for some sort of bowel related thing that caused a pinhole in the intestine (and this was successfully dealt with). - The matriarch of family friends for a hip fracture (unfortnately, she passed away not long after due to complications). And to top that off, I've had enlarged lymph nodes, stress attacks and blood pressure entering the second level of hypertension this year (roll on 2009!!). With your father, their generation spent a lot more time outside as children without the UV protection there is today. And you mother's heart problem could have been there her whole life too, just never picked up or causing problems. I would recommend finding a top heart specialist though, especially if your mother needs surgery to correct the problem - it's one of those things you really don't want accidents with. Good luck getting through it all, hopefully both of them won't be anything more than minor problems that can be dealt with quickly and easily without complications.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

I went through a couple at my previous place of employment. This company boomed when Australia introduced the GST, and as a result, went crazy hiring new people, as they were needed at the time. Within 12 months of the GST coming in, a restructure was required to cut (mainly labour) costs as I don't think they hired many people on a contract basis. Needless to say, many people were made redundant in this period. Then five years later, due to a change in a number of things that were impacting revenues, another restructure was initiated as well, and while I feel that I didn't think some of the changes were good, they seem to have come out of it pretty well. Looking back at the second restructure during my time there, I have come to believe that at least all larger companies must go through a periodical restructure, not just to control costs and increase revenue, but to help them change and improve their offerings to customers. Small business however, is a lot more dynamic in responding to customers and keep a much closer eye on the finances, so restructures aren't such an issue for them.

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

I don't get that. I've had one before (it ended up in root canal) and it was completely painless... I had a lump appear in the gum which disappeared in a week. Although it did take 4 different dentists to pick which tooth to work on... My mother once had one on 4 teeth once and had no idea about it either... On the other hand, braces on your teeth are excruciating when they're first put on. I tried a number of painkillers and not one of them made a difference. Even drinking felt painful. Trying to play a piccolo with braces on your front teeth is a whole different experience though!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------

On the morning after a rather loud thunderstorm during the night, I have been known to say "What thunderstorm?" to my mother when she asked me about it... I guess I'll never quite get the same feeling about them as you do!

------------------------ Luke Lovegrove ------------------------