WMP takes a long time to start - SOLVED

Like many people, I had a problem with Windows Media Player taking too long to start playing music or videos. I would load a cd or a converted mp3 track, and WMP would take up to two minutes to start playing.

The software loaded with no problem, it just would not start playing straight away. I found this irritating, and looked everywhere for a solution. I tried many suggestions.

I removed my codecs pack, uninstalled VLC (to see if it was causing a problem - it wasn't), scanned the registry, and fixed some corrupt entries.

Nothing fixed the problem, so I trawled through all my downloaded media player files that I had collected over the years. In there, something called ffdshow caught my eye. I knew it to be a faithful addition to my software and for many years had done its job without a murmur. I realised that I had never bothered to update it, so I checked online to see what the latest version was.

To my surprise, my installed version dated back to 2004 and, even more surprising, this was still the latest version! I was about to give up, when I noticed that, although ffdshow updates had stopped, there was now a free spin-off version, called 'ffdshow tryouts'. It seemed like an odd name, but I thought I would give it a 'tryout' anyway. I downloaded it from http://ffdshow-tryout.sourceforge.net/download.php and installed it straight away. It automatically uninstalled the previous version for me, so everything happened automatically.

The results were immediately noticeable. My Windows Media Player now loads songs immediately, and behaves exactly as it should!

If, like me, you are also having issues with WMP taking too long to load and play songs, try installing the latest version of 'ffdshow tryouts'. With any luck, you this will be the solution to your mp3 problems!

My system: Windows Vista with WMP 11

Talkhk: China: Ready to give Hong Kong what it wants?

Talkhk: China: Ready to give Hong Kong what it wants?: The election for a new Chief Executive, due in March 2012, will show the world how strict or obliging the Beijing government intends to be....

A Product Named iPAD

Will the real iPad please stand up?

You might have heard the story about several shops in China hurrying to pull Apple iPADs off their shelves. It seems there is some dispute over who owns the name iPAD, and what the owner is allowed to do with it. 

An article in China Daily is running the headline 'Proview says it will sue Apple'. It states there is a dispute over the iPAD trademark, and Proview would like to sue Apple for as much as two billion US dollars.

Both Apple and Proview need to get their stories straight, because it looks like the Apple version is the fourth iteration of a product named iPAD while Proview is the second.

The first, as far as I know, was an item developed to run on BeOS, as reported way back in 1999 by Scot Hacker on his birdhouse.org website.

The second version was produced by Proview International Holdings and launched in 2000. It was described in a press release on the AMD website as 'iPAD, a simple and intuitive means of accessing the Internet without the cost and complexity often associated with personal computers'.

Next came the Fujitsu iPAD, a small handheld device introduced in 2002. Interestingly, Apple acknowledged the existence of this version, buying the trademark rights from Fujitsu for an estimated four million US dollars in 2010 - the same year the fourth version, the Apple iPad, was launched.

 

Image Attribution: Be Inc.Proview International Holdings Limited, Fujitsu Limited, Apple Inc. Phil Hawkins-ijargon

 So, those are the four iPADs, of which the second and the fourth are fighting over trademark rights. That makes sense.

Google Policies and Principles - Simple yet Effective

I have been reading through the new Google Policies and Principles which come into effect on 1 March 2012.

Compared with other Privacy Polices and Terms of Service, these are surprisingly easy to read and digest. From what I can gather, after a first reading, it seems the whole thing boils down to a few bullet points:

• Information supplied by you to Google will be used for enhancing your Google experience. For example, if you search for flights to New York, Google might serve you additional news about New York Hotels, where to buy travel luggage, and so on. Not much new there, then.
• All your private details will remain private, and known only by you and Google. That is as it should be, of course. I am sure a government could force Google to give up certain crucial personal data, but I think that scenario is not exclusive to Google, and will never change.
• Any details you make public might be used by Google to enhance their business globally, and increase their availability to more internet users. Fair enough; if you publish your details online for everyone to see, you do not mind other people knowing all about you. Just like Facebook, I guess.
• Google will try to figure out all the services each person has subscribed to, so they can tailor the account feed for each user. If you have a Gmail account, a blog, use Picasa, and any of the other services associated with Google, all your information will in future be bundled into one area for easy access by you.

That's about it, as far as I can tell. Nothing earth-shattering or show-stopping about that. Just business as usual.

Honey, I Shrunk the Chameleon

An interesting discovery has been made in northern Madagascar. 

Scientists have identified four new species of miniature lizards. Miniature is the operative word, as these creatures range in sizes down to a few millimetres. The smallest, a chameleon with the scientific name Brookesia micra, reaches only 26mm in adulthood.

Photo attribution: Author: Frank Glaw, Jörn Köhler, Ted M. Townsend, Miguel Vence

 

That is one tiny package!

Microsoft Security Essentials - Keep On Running

I uninstalled AVG Anti-Virus from my computer today because it was not playing nicely with some of my other installed software. For example, it thought the Comodo Dragon browser automatic update was malware, and decided to block the installation!

I looked around for other free Anti-Virus software and discovered Microsoft Security Essentials has a good reputation at the moment. I installed that, and noticed many users remarked the normal procedure should be a 'Quick Scan'. If you perform a 'Full Scan', they said, let it run overnight.

Overnight? I thought that was a bit excessive, but now I know they are right. For my first scan with MSE, I opted for a 'Full Scan'. This would ensure it inspects every single file on my computer, and tests each one for malware. EIGHT HOURS and 3.8 MILLION files later, the scan is STILL RUNNING!

It seems this Full Scan is thorough, and needs running only once a week or every fortnight. The Quick Scan, which should take 45 minutes to one hour, is scheduled to run every day.

I have to say, though, as long as it is doing its job properly, I am happy to let Microsoft Security Essentials run. And run. And run...

President Obama's Budget Request Speech at NOVA

I happened to catch the live TV broadcast of President Obama's Budget Request speech at the Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale.

There are three things I managed to get from that speech.

1. President Obama is a phenomenal orator. He held the audience captive for the whole 30 minute session with his address.
2. The guy has plenty of common sense and is not afraid to use it, no matter what his detractors might say about his comments.
3. If the stuff he was talking about falls into place as planned, America is going to be on the up again, and very soon.

I am not American and have no political affiliation with that country, so I am observing as an outsider. I wish Obama and the USA good luck; I hope the nation and its people will be able to see what they could achieve if they put their minds to it.