matthewkenny.com » Rants

IE8 “feature comparison”

Matthew Kenny — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:16:23 +0000

I’ll admit straight up that I haven’t really used IE8. I’ll also happily concede that IE8 is probably a good deal better at rendering standards-compliant things than IE6 and IE7. I’m also happy that with the release of IE8, the death of IE6 is that little bit closer (something that will make any web developer happy, I believe). I have to say, though, that I was highly disappointed by Microsoft when they released this article. I feel it’s sad that whoever wrote the article felt that IE8 could not stand on its own merits and so had to do some, ah, creative spinning of the truth to promote it instead.

Dell build quality

Matthew Kenny — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 13:48:37 +0000

I’ve always been a bit of a Dell proponent, but recently I’ve been given several reasons to be dubious of the build quality of Dell systems. During my time at LFRS, I received a great deal of kit from Dell; all of which had to be tested before being recorded in the inventory system. I must have tested at least one hundred PCs during my various stints there, and never once did I find a fault with a new PC. There was one incident where a user plugged in a 95W charger (instead of the usual 65W one), and damaged the laptop, we had a technician arrive at the IT office the very next day to repair it.

In 2006, one of my friends bought a Dell laptop (an inspiron 630m), and when I saw the offer, I decided to buy one for myself too. The sales people were helpful, and I was happy with it when it arrived. I elected not to buy the optional 3-year extended warranty, as it was far too expensive for my student tastes. In March 2007, the charger broke (yes, the actual charger unit), fortunately, my lappy was still under warranty, so I got a new one. Kudos. Around a month later, my friend’s laptop developed a problem: the spring underneath the left mouse button broke — the button itself was still usable, but no longer had any sort of haptic response. Unfortunately, that was about a month outside of his warranty (as he bought his about a month before I did). Almost exactly another month later, the exact same problem happened to me. Dell has refused to repair this for free, even though it is obviously a build issue. Liam’s laptop has gone on to develop issues with the display, which I’m thankful to say that mine hasn’t (yet).

More recently, though, is the order that arrived at work on Thursday: bit10 had ordered brand spanking new PCs for the Dev team (yay!). The task of setting them up fell to the bit10 sysadmin (Les), Ross, and myself. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly until we lifted one computer out of a box… we set it right way up to remove the packing foam, and heard an ominous *clunk* from inside the box. Les and I removed the side from the case only to find that Dell had neglected to screw the CPU heatsink onto the motherboard! Surprisingly, the PC booted, but reverting to on-board graphics processing; the heatsink must have damaged the graphics card during transit (I’m just amazed it didn’t knacker anything else [as far as we can tell]). Writing it off as a freak incident, we reached for the next box. Inside this one, we heard more of a rattle than a clunk. Opening this one up, we saw that one of the PCI blanking plates was knocking about inside the case — fortunately, this one appeared to have done no damage.

It is my opinion, that Dell values its smaller customers less: LFRS will, in an average month, probably place around two or three orders with Dell. To my knowledge, this was the first order with Dell from bit10, and it was certainly my first order. I would like to be able to get onto my high horse and say that I won’t be using them in the future, but frankly, Dell does have very good prices, and it’s not feasible to build a laptop from scratch. I shall certainly be keeping my eyes open for alternative vendors, though.

Science GCSE dilution

Matthew Kenny — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 22:42:34 +0000

It seems that fewer and fewer people are taking separate science GCSEs [link], and so the reaction of the JCQ is to make the papers easier.

To me, it seems that they have missed the problem a little. Presently (as far as I am aware), it is required that KS4 pupils take some kind of science-based GCSE qualification. It also seems that taking a single “science” GCSE (or sometimes double award), is more popular than taking three individual science papers (biology, chemistry, and physics for the arts students out there ). My younger brother has just selected his GCSE options for the coming two years, and I was appalled that his school didn’t even bother to offer the option of separate sciences (in addition to a stupidly constructed option system that was clearly designed with ease of timetabling in mind, rather than the proper education of students).

So, assuming that we ignore that the problem lies with the schools’ reticence to have properly flexible option systems, making already easy exams easier truly is not the answer. I’ll grant, that they’ll probably see an increase in people taking it, but that will only be because they see it as an easy pass; not because they actually have an interest in the subject. The JCQ is only shooting itself in the foot, as this sort of attitude will see already poor A-Level figures plummet (imho), when the students interested in an easy pass will take their mediocre grades and ignore doing the A-Level in favour of a soft, insipid subject like Media Studies.

Personally, I believe that the correct course of action would be to make the syllabi more bloody interesting in the first place. Recalling from Chemistry, I had to suffer through the geology material on no fewer than three occasions (and once more in A-Level). Teach the little nippers (I finally consider myself old enough to use that term – one of the perks of being old) something interesting: the rudiments of organic chemistry, perhaps, with all the nice smells and explosions; complex chemistry, with the pretty colours and really funky goop (I’m still not sure how I managed to make that); anything but rocks!

I’ll step off my soapbox now.

Snow!!!

Matthew Kenny — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:47:44 +0000

I woke up today, around 07:30, and was greeted by the sight of lots of nice, white, pristine snow. Put me in a good mood right a way; quite a feat considering that I’m in no way, shape or form a morning person. However, all good things must come to an end, and my morning was marred by the prospect of slogging to lectures in this weather. So, I continued my morning routine, ignoring the conditions outside.

Fortunately, this morning I was getting a lift in from my boyfriend, Rob, so I didn’t have to hurry too much. The second we left the house, though, we noticed a slight problem: the roads had not been gritted overnight. Traffic was moving at 20mph at the very most, and conditions weren’t great with all the snow and slush. It took us about half an hour to make a 15 minute drive.

It’s odd that given the recent frosty weather, the roads have been nicely gritted every day this week, but the one day that it’s most required is the day that the gritters stay at home by the fire. Bah humbug.