Search and Ye Shall Find

…depending upon what you use to search.

Or so it would appear.

When I “upgraded” to Office 2007, Outlook “suggested’ I download and install Windows Desktop Search which they suggest is “Best in Class”.

Now I am already running Google Desktop and have been impressed with it.

Yesterday I tried out some Nero software (before removing it again as it didn’t do what I wanted) and that installed another search program that looked exactly like a re-badged version of Windows Desktop Search.

Anyway, I’d had ‘mixed’ results with Windows Desktop Search noting how the number of items searched would sometimes count down, or that the number of items to index would also count down without a corresponding increase in the number of items searched and indeed noting that it would continue to index my PC even when supposedly snoozing.

Couple all that with the way that it only seemed to want to know about the current Outlook post file and it began to take on the usefulness of a chocolate teapot; especially when you take into account the need to keep Outlook post files to an absolute minimum size in the latest version unless you want your system slowed down to less than crawling pace. Outlook 2007: bst avoided!

So the other day, I needed to find some access details I’d e-mailed a client a while back. I knew I wouldn’t find them in my current Outlook post file, so I opened the job-specific post file archive and asked it to search only to find that it hadn’t been indexed and none of the other search facilities in Outlook could help either. So I fired up Google Desktop and instantly found the details I needed…

I looked at the Windows Desktop Search preferences and manually added .pst files – curiously omitted by default – and made sure that the Archives folder was ticked to be searchable and after allowing Windows Desktop Search to catalogue everything unhindered – at the expense of it slowing down my system – I decided to run a little test.

I sent myself an e-mail from my Gmail account (excluded from my Google Desktop search items) with the name “Persephone Winterbottom” in the e-mail body. This came via a POP3 account into MailWasher Pro and thence into Outlook. I then opened an archive .pst file and dragged the new e-mail into it before closing it once more.

After both programs indicated they were up to date, I ran a search for “Persephone Winterbottom”. Now, you need to bear in mind that Google Desktop needs Outlook post files to be open to be searched whilst Windows Desktop Search shouldn’t if it follows the preferences.

And the results? Google Desktop returned a positive on the e-mail within the main Outlook post file. Not so good if you want to actually locate the e-mail in its archive but the program does return its contents within the browser window (which is good enough for me).

Windows Desktop Search still doesn’t seem to acknoweldge the e-mail’s existence whatsover, even days afterwards, so it’s been uninstalled here now.

NHS: Waiting Lists? What Waiting Lists?

My daughter has been referred to a consultant dermatologist by our family doctor. So far so good. We received a letter from the practice saying that our illustrious Government has introduced a system whereby patient choice is paramount: we can choose where she is seen and make appointments to suit ourselves.

Hurrah!

Despite being disappointed that somewhere exotic like the Maldives wasn’t included, we were given the choice of three hospitals: our local one (durr!) and two an hour or so each way away. So amazingly enough, we decided to book an appointment at our local hospital using the super-duper HealthSpace online booking system provided by NHS Connecting for Health:

“NHS Connecting for Health supports the NHS to deliver better, safer care to patients, via new computer systems and services, that link GPs and community services to hospitals.”

So we thought we’d have better care delivered to us and book online with the details we’d been sent. My wife started our Apple iMac, loaded Safari - the default browser for Macs - and went online only to be met with a message that that browser isn’t supported by HealthSpace. Oh dear…

Never mind, we’d use my PC instead. So I logged in, selected our local hospital from the three choices (actually I deselected the two hospitals that are nowhere near where we live) and entered a slightly later start date leaving the end date open.

Nothing. So I re-selected the other two hospitals and found three appointment slots in September - so much for choice. Back to our local one. I entered an end date for when my daughter is past her 100th birthday.

Nothing (see screenshot):
No Appointments Available - Ever!

So my wife rang the booking hotline - not our local hospital… - and after giving our details was told that he couldn’t make an appointment as he was locked out and we should call back in half an hour.

How pathetic is that?

“Yuku”: the Definition of the Word “Slow”…

Good grief! I happened to be visiting a couple of Yuku Blorums and wished I hadn’t. Even given ezboard’s history of making Yuku as slow as possible, they’ve now surpassed themselves.

It’s taking me longer than usual to write this post as every page on Yuku is taking an eternity to load.

After a week of apparently ignoring their Yuku users as usual (although reports of slowness had been around since mid-June), the “Yuku Team” finally acknowledged what everyone else was saying and made an announcement that yes, Yuku was slow and no, they hadn’t fixed it. The usual ezApologists were talking them up in the Support [sic] Blorum.

On 15th June, Yuku did say that:

“We currently have some network congestion causing slowness in our systems, we are working with our ISPs and network operators to fix it

Thanks for the report and patience”

They also said that:

 ”We’ve been able to determine this happens generally on monday mornings, we are currently investigating what’s causing the slowness. We appreciate your patience”

So users were reporting slowness generally, but Yuku staff were only noticing it on Monday mornings, presumably as they don’t work weekends… 

They also claimed it was those pesky search engines slowing things down:

“We have alot of crawlers on our site right now. We are trying to add a machine now.”

But isn’t one of the “benefits” of Yuku the “google friendly URLs and search engine optimized code”?

Why on earth are people still flogging a dead horse with Yuku? It can only be because it’s presently free but people are noticing board members leaving, etc. Maybe ezboard’s decision to have Yuku boards unlimited by size is a decision they’re beginning to regret (that is, unless it was a decision forced upon them by the feature set not supporting post culls? That’s just speculation as I don’t know if they can do this with Yuku as it stands).

Oh and still no news on the apparent disappearance of our money from ezboard

Showing Signs of Improvement

I was most amused by this story on the BBC news web site: a woman won second prize in a cake-baking contest despite being the only contestant. Judges decided that indentations from the cooling wire rack meant it should be marked-down. But how could they make it second? Second to whom? Typical sort of Middle-England mentality going on there, all full of their own importance, whereas the proper course should have been to forget about judging and just award the first prize!

Still, second prize is an improvement for her:

“About 11 years ago I entered a show with some fruit scones. I was the only entrant but I came third.”

ezboard, Inc. – Where’s Our Money?

If you’ve ever read this, you’ll know that one of the main issues I had with ezboard, Inc. was that despite us paying for a Gold Community that promised that “weekly backups and free restores protect your board” they never did protect our board, so that all the money in our Community Chest had been effectively paying just to have the adverts removed. Of course, given that many of us had paid for ezSupporter to keep the Gold renewal costs down, this was a moot point.

At the time when ezboard, Inc. lost a year’s data from our ezboard, we had around $566 in our Community Chest. If I recall correctly, one member of our board managed to have their small donation credited to a different board after we made the decision that ezboard losing our data was the final straw in terms of staying there, so we launched our own self-hosted vBulletin board in June 2005.

Despite ezboard having failed to live up to their side of the bargain, they refused to refund the unspent Community Chest balance to us, so we decided that we would just close all the discussion threads and simply renew its Gold Community status every October until all the Community Chest balance had been spent, rather than letting it lapse and have them display adverts that might gain them new revenue. With the ezboard discussion threads closed and with our self-hosted board going from strength to strength, the number of page views fell to the extent that our annual renewals have been the minimum $54 and we renewed in October 2005 and October 2006.

Now, you do the maths: I reckon that c.$566 - (2x $54) = ~$450, so that’s what we should have left in our Community Chest balance.

According to ezboard, Inc., however, the remaining balance we have is zero!

So not only does ezboard, Inc. refuse to refund us the money, but they now tell us there’s no money to spend anyway!

The ‘owner’ or “ezOp” of the board has opened a support ticket with ezboard two days ago as ezboard prefer keeping their activities and mistakes out of public view, saying:

“Where is my ezboard money?

I had over $500 after the last renewal was done, the balance now shows £0

Has someone stolen the money?

Please reply as soon as possible!”

We’ll see…

ITV – What a Load of PC Bollocks!

So last night, I am channel surfing and decide to catch a bit of Die Hard 2 on ITV1.

For any of you who may not have seen this, the plot outline (from IMDB) is:

“John McClane is forced to battle mercenaries who seize control of an airport's communications and threaten to cause plane crashes if their demands are not met.”

Oh noes! Airport! Explosions! {wring hands} Think of the children! OMG!1!1111!1!1!!1

So those stupid, politically-correct, touchy-feely fecktards at ITV pulled it, replacing it with Cliffhanger instead. But wait! Doesn't that film end with the baddie dying when his helicopter crashes? And don't various characters die whilst in the mountains? How could ITV be so insensitive?

No doubt ITV will now pull tonight's episode of its drama series Blue Murder tonight because in tonight's episode:

“a young and well-respected Mullah dies when an arsonist firebombs his home”

Oh noes! Muslims! Fire! {wring hands} Think of the children! OMG!1!1111!1!1!!1

Oh and I'd like to thank ITV in advance for pulling all episodes of any shows featuring doctors as well just in case, given that some of the latest bombers appear to be doctors or have links to hospitals.

Or alternatively, they might just simply come to the conclusion that we're adults and know the difference between real life and make believe…

So Farewell Then, Mr BLiar

Gormless Brown – he of the goldfish mouth when speaking – is our new Prime Minister.

Now they love reminding us that “you voted for that” whenever a particular policy is introduced. So why then does having a new Prime Minister mean a “new government with new priorities”? Surely we didn’t vote for that? Does that mean the last ten years are accepted as being a complete failure?

And from the “You Couldn’t Make It Up” department comes news that BLiar has been appointed Middle East envoy working on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU. Ah, the irony. Invades Iraq illegally. Appears to certain factions as being pro-Israel and was certainly Bush’s bitch.

It’s a bit like putting an arsonist in charge of a fireworks factory…

Racing & Ball Sports Hospitality Ltd

What a bunch of cunts, eh?

I get a load of Spam more or less every day from them, from Paul Bentley at RBSH (with a superbly vile web site that was broken for the last couple of days).

They use a firm of Spammers to send out the shite as cheaply as possible and RBSH claims to have quite a blue chip clientèle.

Me? I wouldn’t trust them further than I could whack one out.

If you too get this shite from them, you could complain to sales@rbsh.co.uk and/or admin@rbsh.co.uk not that it’ll do you much good.