New Computer HP 15

Finding IE11 browser to be much better than the rest. Very fast. One exception, when using blogger (this blog) signing in is difficult with IE11, keep getting an error code issued by blogger. Some sort of incompatibility? Same error happened when changing the html in this site's template. I'm prompted to quote an error code but won't bother reporting the issue, if blogger and Google can't keep up that's their problem, no? So I'm using the slower Opera browser to complete that task and this post.

I'm hopping between browsers, using IE11 for its speed and Opera when I have to do something without a problem. Trouble with Opera though is it appears to have a glitch and slows down as the cache fills up, while IE11 breezes along nicely.

HP 15 and Windows 8.1

Bought a new computer over the weekend, but before I retired the old one I tried a few things on it to see what they were like. Here are are my impressions of both experiences...

Browsers

On the old machine I tried a few browsers to see how they worked and also what the download experience was like. The result was a mixed bag:-

Internet Explorer - comes installed so left this alone
Chrome - had this installed already so uninstalled and went to the website and downloaded again - went through fine. The thing with Chrome though, is it isn't that good. Much overrated.
Opera - uninstalled and installed again, went through fine, Opera is better than the above two in my opinion - with reservations (more about that later).
Avant - tried the lite version which runs on the trident engine ( IE ), the damn thing imported all my bookmarks from IE and installed itself as the default browser. OK, so promptly uninstall that nonsense.
Then tried rekonq. Oh dear, got badly infected by this, took several hours of Malwarebytes, AdwCleaner and Hitman Pro to get rid of nasties like Search Protect.

Conclusions: when buying a new computer ignore Avant and rekonq, stick with the mainstream. Didn't have time to try Maxthon and others - was this your plan rekonq ? hmmmm?

Went to Noel Leeming, bought the Hp 15 G205AU 4 Gig RAM $499

Out of the box it starts OK.

First impressions after set up, what's all this shit preloaded? An endless list of things I can spend money on? At least I didn't notice Office 2013 with this shit ( bought at the same time ). At some point I'll be getting rid of all this advertising. IE11 for instance comes with booking,com and trip advisor displayed on a toolbar at the top. Then other stuff on the start screen.

Note to equipment manufacturers and software companies - I just forked out cash, I'm not interesting in your offerings.

Installed, Chrome and Opera. Actually I sorta installed Chrome as it was bundled with Avast, Note to self, uninstall Avast and replace with AVG which doesn't do shit like that.

Critical performance issue - how do Flash videos play with this new machine? Result IE11 is the clear winner, clarity and frame rate are excellent with a broadband connection. Chrome is so-so. Opera better but a little jerky. Fiddled around with settings and no real improvement.

Setting up computer to go straight through to desktop wasn't that hard, plenty of links describing how to do this, such as....

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043243/how-to-boot-to-desktop-mode-in-windows-8-1.html

In windows 8.1 you can set some interesting themes:-

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-NZ/windows/themes

McAfee pre-installed and acts a bit like a virus, will uninstall when the trial period runs out. Uninstall avast which behaves a bit like a virus and I think caused the computer to crash while writing this!! Seems things run slow with McAfee in the way.

Office 2013 Word - Calibri font changed to default Times New Roman 12pt and I removed spacing between paragraphs.

Is Windows 8.1 better? A bit faster but also harder to find things, while other things easier, for instance to disable items at startup, right click task bar and go to task manager, no need to msconfig any longer.

DNS server addresses may have to be manually inserted, I had to from where I live, obtaining that DNS address automatically can be challenging, how to do it in 8.1....

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/fl/change-dns-servers-windows-8.htm

The HP15 keyboard is taking a bit of getting used to, not as good as the old HP. The screen is wider and maybe pages display better, nothing in it compared to the old HP.

New Zealand Flag Debate

Is this the right time to be considering a new flag ? Labour are probably right, it's just a John Key vanity project. But if we do change the flag then for my money the only flag worth considering is the Hundertwasser Koru flag. It is beautiful, well designed, and encapsulates our country nicely. Here it is....

New Zealand eBooks

Check my new blog profiling New Zealand ebooks, great reads there and you can easily purchase any one of them...

http://nzbookshowcase.blogspot.co.nz

You can also buy my novel Basketball Obsession

Fun times !!!

The Last Time Oil Price Collapsed

That's right, the last time we found ourselves in this position was late 2008 and the start of the Global Financial Crisis. Michael Snyder provides the following analysis, read it and weep;

Guess What Happened The Last Time The Price Of Oil Crashed Like This

Now let's be careful, I'm NOT saying the oil price drop is causing anything, what I'm saying is it's indicative, a symptom of a wider malaise, a general lack of demand for anything. Why do people need more stuff ? We've got enough already.

Less demand, lower production, less employment, lower incomes; recession.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/last-time-oil-price-collapsed-ken-horlor?trk=prof-post

Basketball Efficiency Rating and Analysis

I'm a keen Basketball player and in the past have coached quite a bit. All coaches want to know how their team is performing, as individuals and as a team, so they can address training in those areas which need attention. There are any number of readily available formulas out there which may be of help, the one I like the most being either a linear weighted....

Player Efficiency Rating ( PER )

or a basketball version of VORP ( Value Over Replacement Player ):-

Here is a simple VORP = (pts+0.75*orb+0.25*drb+0.5*ast+stl+0.33*blk)/(1.5*(fga+(.44*fta)+tov + ((0.75*orb+0.25*drb+0.5*ast+stl+0.33*blk)/2)+(mp/4))).

Most people will be familiar with PER, though it can be more easily dealt with if you take each playing element and give it a weighting, then calculate your total. I do it that way, here is someone who has done it also, though his weightings you may like to change as they appear incorrect ( at least at my examination ):-

The link to explain this methodology

[ FGM x 85.910+ Steals x 53.897+ 3PTM x 51.757+ FTM x 46.845+ Blocks x 39.190+ Offensive_Rebx 39.190+ Assists x 34.677+ Defensive_Reb x 14.707- Foul x 17.174- FT_Miss x 20.091- FG_Miss x 39.190- TO x 53.897 ] x (1 / Minutes).

These calculations are worked from readily available game statistics. But they don't tell the whole story as they tend to be offensively biased and don't accurately measure defensive specialists, who we'll all agree are pretty important. Thinking about this I've come up with my own system and weightings for each factor. I generally work it as a ratio not a raw number, but this is the way I look at the game:-

Top Best-selling Music Artists

Who is the World's best-selling music artist? Interesting to know, is it Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Michael Jackson or Garth Brooks?

According to the RIAA ( Recording Industry Association of America ) website the answer is...

1. The Beatles ( 177 million certified units )
2. Elvis Presley ( 134.5m )
3. Garth Brooks ( 134m )
4. Led Zeppelin ( 111.5m )
5. Eagles ( 100m )
6. Billy Joel ( 81.5m )
7. Michael Jackson ( 75.5m )
8. Pink Floyd ( 74.5m )
9. Elton John ( 73m )
10. AC/DC ( 71.5m )

( Barbra Streisand comes in at 11th as the first woman with 71.5 million certified units ).

Is Wikipedia Being Racist ?

Is Wikipedia Being Racist ?

I became interested a little while ago in the recording industry and who has sold what number of records. This came about largely due to my children asking, who has sold the largest number of records? I like to tumble numbers so Google being my friend, I searched for a list of the best-selling artists of all time, and got a Wikipedia list as the first link on the page. Here it is...

Nigel Latta on Education

Nigel Latta on Education

I really enjoyed Nigel Latta's TV documentary on the gap between rich and poor so I was looking forward to his piece on NCEA ( TVNZ series 1 episode 2 Nigel Latta ). Oh dear, not so good. I have written him a letter outlining my concerns. The text you can read below...

New Trucks for NZ Army

OK, some minimal Defense spending from the NZ Government...

NZ go for Rheinmetall MAN


Now how about an Air Force and Navy with some real capability !?

Manufacturing New Zealand

Good news this time, Skellerup are building a new factory making milking machine rubber parts, replacing the factory damaged in the earthquakes. Looks like this part of their business is too valuable and they know if they moved it to China, the IP would just get stolen ( the gumboots are made in China....jicydk)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/10172109/New-Skellerup-plant-in-Wigram

Reform of NZ Education

What went wrong?

We incentivized Teaching the wrong way, and what we incentivized we got. It's as simple as that. Forget national standards, and the expert teacher status upgrade and all that nonsense, none of it makes a difference. All that these so-called reforms do is entrench the drop. It doesn't even arrest the decline in standards.

The main problem as I see it is - as teachers become better they do less teaching. The more promotion, the more administration, and the less classroom time. In the end, all that are left in the classroom are teachers unable to get promotion, or younger ones with less experience.

NCEA

I've got three daughters, the eldest has been through High School and is now finishing up her BCom on the way to being an accountant, then the middle child is doing NCEA level 1 this year, the youngest being still at Primary School.

Observation - the NZ secondary education system is broken. I'm talking about State schools here, as I have knowledge of them as a parent of children attending State schools.

Basically, NCEA is flawed. Several problems as I see it:-

A contributor to Fortune has 12 reasons why the NZ bubble will burst:-

12 Reasons Why New Zealand's Economic Bubble Will End In Disaster

I'll give you the first three reasons...

1. Ultra-low interest rates
2. Property prices have doubled since 2004
3. NZ the World's most overvalued property market

Please read the rest.