Category Archives: Software

Category containing all information relating to software.

TomTom Sat Nav Software now available on the iTunes Store!

If you have a iPhone 3G or 3GS you’ll probably be pleased to know that TomTom has launched it’s own app for satellite navigation!

As you can probably guess, the software uses the GPS navigator to run the software.

The software doesn’t come cheap but TomTom is a very well-known provider of sat-nav facilities so I suspect it will do well.

The software is currently available in 6 packages each relating to a different part of the world:

UK & Ireland (costs £59.99)
Australia (costs £44.99)
New Zealand (costs £54.99)
U.S. and Canada (costs £59.99)
Western Europe (costs £79.99)

An exciting idea that may prove a success to the company, but this certainly isn’t the first piece of sat-nav software available for the iPhone. There have also been a few complaints that the software has its problems – one of them being that the software apparently pauses when a call is received which would be a pain if you are driving. I guess only time will tell if the product sells.

I never realised Google Picasa was so good!

A couple of days ago I was just trundling through my day-to-day tasks on my computer, and then I noticed that I ought to organise and backup my photos on my computer. I do actually have rather a lot of photos – believe it or not, I do manage to get outside and have some great times that need to be captured and saved for later.

So, thinking that this could take a while manually using Windows Explorer, I decided to download Picasa. And when I installed, I was gobsmacked at what this free software was capable of.

Immediately when Picasa starts it will ask to search for any pictures on your hard drive, which I told it to do. Picasa very quickly scans your drive for any photos and then archives them in date order.

After about 5 minutes I had a whole archive of photos ready to sort out. Within Picasa I could easily delete photos I didn’t want, and create my own photo albums for pictures I do want.

The brilliant thing is I can get Picasa to back up all my photos to my Network Drive right away, and if I want to share my photos with friends and family it is even easier! I can upload my photos to Picasa Web Albums in minutes and I can either choose whether I want my photos public or just open to specific friends.

It works so seamlessly and effectively, I love it. I would probably pay for it if I had to, but it is even better that Picasa is free – as with most Google software.

Spotify on iPhone/iPod Touch will be awesome!

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I was reading through the Spotify blog today being a big user of Spotify, and I noticed that Spotify had uploaded a video to Youtube explaining what Spotify will do. It looks very good…

Looks like it’ll only be available for premium users but that is not big deal – premium is well worth it.

Ah well, I guess we’ll have to wait and see if Apple accepts the app. My predictions are that they wont accept it because, as far as I know, it doesn’t even link tracks to iTunes. But we’ll see.

How much Vista User Account Control annoys me!

Yes, I know, it’s a bit late for me to be going on about problems in Vista since Windows 7 will be publicly available in a matter of months, but I’ve just been reflecting on how annoying it really is.

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine set up a user account for their Vista PC. On my laptop, I am (of course) an administrator and always have UAC off. But on my friends computer I am a standard user, and he has UAC on. Fair do’s – it’s his choice whether he wants it on :).

Anyway, it really starts to bug me after a while. I have to have password confirmation from an admin to delete a bloody desktop shortcut on my own user. What the hell?

It’s simple things like running some programs, updating virus databases, and adjusting user-specific settings. Why can’t I do that without administrator confirmation? It really bugs me.

OK – if it was installing software or deleting Windows files that’s understandable. But the fact that I can’t choose my own desktop shortcuts without administrator approval – I mean, doesn’t that annoy anyone or am I just being silly? Probably the latter.

[FIX] WordPress Automatic Upgrade woes – “Installation Failed”

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WordPress is brilliant, undoubtedly, but there are some things that really drive me insane.

Ever since WordPress 2.8.1 was released, I haven’t been able to use the automatic upgrade feature in WordPress because it simply does not work. This problem has been identified by many other WordPress users, but I know that not everyone has the problem.

Here’s what I mean – every time I try to upgrade WordPress the following problem arises:

It is as simple as that. No error messages, no PHP warnings, just “Installation Failed”.

I’ve been searching everywhere for a fix but I can’t find one anywhere. It’s beginning to really annoy me now. I’ve just ignored it for a while and upgraded WordPress manually – but it really drives me mad having to take down GEEK! and then put it back up.

Has anyone found a fix for this problem?

Update 13.9.09: A big thanks to “lujcas”, who has posted a comment with a fix to this problem. I’ve tested it and it seemed to work for me. To make it easier for everyone, I’ve uploaded the file he added to the GEEK! download server, so you can download a copy here. You just need to unzip the file and place it in the wp-includes directory on your WordPress install and overwrite any previous file.

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