Just to make sure you're awake...

The 1950s weren't called 'The Fabulous Fifties' for nothing, as this 1959 movie starring Debra Paget amply proves...

 

Windows 8 Plus: Peeking behind the curtain, or maybe not...

Technology gurus are becoming a dime a dozen, and everyone has his own take on what's happening. ZD Net's Simon Bisson is no exception, and he looks at the tea leaves and then offers an opinion which I think is off the mark. His take on all that is that Microsoft is following a continuing long-term plan here to make the evolution of software development and its matching services an ongoing continual development process. Maybe he's right, or maybe he's full of it right up to his untrimmed and ample hair.

For a while recently, Microsoft seemed to be under the spell of a corporate mogul who might not always have been right, but was damned well never wrong, or at least so he said. He ramrodded Windows 8 through the system hell bent on forcing everyone to buy and use the goddamned thing whether we had the hardware for it or not, and whether we had any desire or need for that hardware at any time in the foreseeable future. Type 'A' personalities are like that. Brilliant, but often out of synch with the rest of us, or just plain full of shit. Windows 8 was supposed to grab market share from Apple's dominant position in the mobiles market - but it came a couple of years too late, and without enough bang for the buck - so the hotshot who shoved it down our throats had to go. And now Microsoft is left with the considerable task of picking up the pieces and trying to save a little face after allowing itself to be bamboozled by bullshit instead of being baffled by brains.

Windows 8 fills a need we don't have for an operating system we haven't got the right hardware to run smoothly, and which most of us don't really need anyway.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with Windows 7, and less than 20% of us are using mobile hardware that could conceivably make the most of Windows 8, so it naturally fell flat on its ass in the marketplace, which is still dominated by the desktop market. The vast majority of us use desktops, either by choice at home or by request at work, and Windows 8 is not a desktop system. It can never become as good on a desktop as a system like Windows 7 which has been designed from the ground up for use in a desktop environment, and which is still your best bet for that application. And desktops aren't going away any time soon, because the enterprise community can't afford to simply write off that size of an investment just for the hell of it. They understandably want to get their money's worth from it first. And many of them believe that if it works, let's not fix it. And all the bullshit in the world isn't going to change that. 

What's coming in Windows 8.1 - and when....

If you'd like the latest on that, here's the poop from one of our pooper-scoopers.

I'm glad Mighty Microsoft is responsive to us whining users out here, but as for the "new" features, I have to tell you - I've got most of them already installed in my existing Windows 8, and you could too, if you get the right third-party programs that put back the Windows 7 style Start Button and Start Menu, and the one that restores the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets - and there's more of those gadgets in this freebie program than the original Windows ever had.

So it probably wasn't too difficult for Microsoft to jazz up Windows 8 with those requested missing features. If I can do it, I'm sure they can. And this could all have been avoided if they'd just kept that little "Feedback" icon in the beta of Win-8 like we had in Windows 7 in the beginning. We could have told them what
we wanted and why, and saved all this uproar. Like I keep trying to tell them - we don't know how to write code, but we sure as hell know what we like, and what we want, and what we're willing to pay for in an operating system. And if you want to sell something, it helps if it's something the unwashed masses want to actually buy. Telling us what we ought to like doesn't usually work, as this latest exercise in futility with Windows 8 proves.

And I hasten to add here that I'm not trying to trash Windows 8 - it's a good solid system, and I've been using it since Day One. It is based on the proven ingredients in Windows 7, and all it really needs is easier access for those who can't figure out how to get into it easily at the moment. Most of those lack some ingenuity. It's easy to make shortcuts for Shutdown and Restart if you don't want to go onto the tiles window and activate Settings in the right edge of it. And when all else fails, read the directions! Too few of us do, by the way.

Windows 8 only has one major problem: 

As you can see, as of a month or so ago, the vast majority of us are using desktops, not mobiles, and Windows 8 was designed to appeal to those who have touch-enabled mobile devices. That's it's one big problem. Otherwise, it's
a hell of a nice operating system, and it works just fine.

And better late than never, a PDF User's Manual for Windows 8 in case you haven't already fumbled your way through it. As the young lady says, it should come with the program, not later or optionally for those who ask for it.

My 'Lounge Lizard' era....

Bob James is one of my favorites from my lounge lizard days of smoky bars and nicely canned music.....

And let's not forget Tim Weisberg and his fantastic flute....

The grandfather of modern music....

A little wake-up music.....

Who visits my blog? - The stats...

As you may or may not have noticed lately, the little digital counter is now gone from the right sidebar of the blog. For starters, it wasn't keeping the same count as Google itself does, and for seconds, I suspect it was doing something else in addition to just counting visitors. My CPU isn't acting quite as weird since removing that little item. So anyway, I just thought you might like a look at the visitor situation for yourself, so you can see where everyone is from, and the other details on them. Google does a detailed report, as you see... and with this available all the time, who needs a counter in the sidebar?

Before pianos, we had......

And now, Here's Maggie doing a complete piece....

 

Non-stop Dancing 1600

Let me copy some of the jacket's notes from Non-stop Dancing 1600 for you:-

a) "Keep your head and body erect and appear self-possessed."

b) "Spit and blow your nose sparingly, or if needs must, turn your head away   
      and use a fair white handkerchief."

c) "Be suitably and neatly dressed, your hose well secured, and shoes clean."

"All in all, you have in your hands a pleasure to be experienced. For believers in reincarnation, here is the chance to revert to a former self; for the jaded foot-pusher, it is time to don the wings of Mercury; finally, like all good dance music (and no matter what you do to it), it makes eminently good listening."

And you thought this was going to be about James Last and his Orchestra, huh? 

Update on drawing table

I went shopping this morning for a lamp that would clamp onto the edge of the board, and discovered there isn't any. Back home, I realized that if I removed the base weight from an old desk lamp, a 3/8-inch bolt would hold that in place.
So I went shopping in the rain for nothing, but I solved the problem. Proving once again that necessity is the mother of invention. Old drawing board is once more alive and well and back in action.

Chopin's Grande Valse...

If this doesn't grab you, then you just haven't got a cultured bone in your body. I'd love to hear Valentina do some honest-to-God boogie woogie on there...

More Piano: Cecile Ousset: Faure Impromptu No. 2, Op. 31

This is the opening selection on Side One of a studio recording made in 1982 on EMI - Angel Digital titled 'Cecile Ousset plays French Piano Music' and it is lovely. I hope you enjoy it.

For piano lovers - Ivan Davis - Fantasie Impromptu Opus 66

 Sometimes, I wish I'd kept up the piano lessons...

 This is absolutely fantastic!

The Ventures - 45th Anniversary Live - Part One

This was during a tour of Japan, and is the first of several parts available on YouTube of that performance.

This freebie doesn't go into the computer.... but I like it.

I'm continually surprised by the things others throw out around here, like this nice drawing table today, for example. A little tightening of some hardware and it's as good as ever again - and I now have a drawing table again. I built one about twice this size once, but haven't got room for that in here, so this one will do very nicely. And my thanks to whoever threw it out.

Another Classic

A little fiddle music.....

Windows Memory Optimizer

You can never have too much RAM, the experts tell us, so what if you had a free program that got Windows API looking for more RAM for you when your programs start hogging it? And this doesn't just shift memory usage into the page file on the hard drive where your system gets slowed down. It just makes Windows make better use of the available RAM. You can find it here.

You can also read more about it here, where I discovered it.

Did I mention? It works in Windows 8 as well as Windows 7 and previous.
 

A little more Werner Muller....

This has a few scratches, because Phase 4 Stereo was a long time ago, but it's still worth a listen, for sure...

Dancing On Strings......

And now, another version....

 A little more Tango....

Gays battle straights in Moscow....

Putin doesn't like unauthorized assembly and they claim western liberalism and gay rights activists are contributing to the unpopularity of Putin's leadership.

That's not it at all, tovarishch - Putin is a former KGB and an asshole, and that's why he's not very popular among the people. He's also a warmonger who is trying to bring back the bad old days of the Cold War, by creeping around to China and India seeking support for an anti-American campaign and a military alliance among these Asian nations. He's not happy without an enemy to fight.

He'd like to be another Stalin but his balls aren't quite big enough yet. Someone should tell him those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. And Einstein was right: the commonest element in the known universe isn't hydrogen, it's stupidity. The proof is everywhere!

Jonah returns....

                             

Support the Rainforest

I first heard of this stuff back in the 1960s, while working for a small private power company in Northern Ontario. One of our operators who like most of us was addicted to coffee came back from town with some of it one day, to use as a substitute for coffee, because it contains caffeine but not as much as coffee.

It comes from the rainforests on the Atlantic side of South America in countries like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and is harvested by the local farmers.

So how does it taste, you ask. It's quite mild and pleasant, with a slightly minty flavor. I like it with sugar but without milk, and my old pal Lloyd of long ago was right - it is a nice substitute for coffee, if you need to cut down on that. You can drink three cups of this for every cup of coffee without getting too buzzed... so if coffee is a problem for you, then you should try this.

 

The Afterlife.....(comedy)

Dominus Vobiscum, Baby!

The morning snow report

Back in 1960, this was all over the radio

Hormonally speaking....

And back around the same time....

 

Attention Non-believers! This is Climate Change...

It's May 23rd, and I shouldn't be seeing fresh snow on the local peaks. The temperature ought to be more than 45 F outside too. Draw your own conclusions.... while looking for your snuggies.

Dear Google:

You need a better illustrator, and I hasten to add that I'm not after the job. I'm merely pointing out that the above isn't a very good drawing of one of our Mounties. It looks a hell of a lot more like a Boy Scout playing Mr. Dressup in a hat that is several sizes too big - perhaps even made for his horse. And while we're on the subject of Mounties, I can tell you why they took away their horses and put them into cars instead. We don't allow two arseholes on the same horse. One is all they can have.... the SPCA insists! Any questions? 

This is what they actually looked like, back in the good old days, when men were men, and none of us took a knife to a gunfight, get the picture?

Probably the black Al Hirt....

And then, there was .....

Smoldering Smooches, Batman !!

 

That Ol' Black Magic Has Me In Its Spell....

You just can't get there from here!

Jonah Jones..... revisited

Musical break......

For those who may be wondering, before there was James Last, there was Lester Lanin, and he was quite famous...

                             

Windows 8 and Windows 7 and us...

When Windows 8 was still being tested by all of us volunteers, and Microsoft wanted to ensure a favorable reception for it, they left in the Windows Sidebar and Gadgets so popular in Windows 7. But before they slapped together their final version for flight into the wild blue yonder of the consumers' market, some semi-brilliant corporate mandarin, God only knows why, decided to remove those Gadgets and the Sidebar from the public versions of Windows 8. To which, I can only say "Nice Move, Exlax!"

Those Gadgets, aside from being cute and a novelty, are also very useful. And for those who wonder, they're still available for Windows 8 if you go to a website which hosts a program that restores them to your gadgetless Windows 8, along with a better selection of the actual gadgets than Windows 7 ever had as its own factory equipment. Here's the website for those of you wanting your familiar gadgets back. And fear not - they still work like a charm, as usual.

Why this rant? Because: for a few days lately, for some unknown reason, in my Windows 8 Pro, the CPU has been showing a graph that's up and down like a toilet seat or a prostitute's pants on payday - from next-to-nothing all the way up to nearly full scale and back down again, in regular and closely-spaced intervals. And if you've ever observed the actions in your services and processes parts of the system, you know how impossible it is to discover exactly which process is triggering the action under that blanket called "svchost" - and there can be several many of the little buggers. 

The Good News: There's a Gadget for that. It's called "Top 5 - Processor" and it shows you the top five users of your CPU's resources in order of magnitude in percentages. You, I hope, can take it from there. And one of the main offenders on that list is "WmiPrvSE.exe", and here's some reading material about it 
in case you too are having problems. And my sincere thanks to 8GadgetPack for supplying the program that helped me track this down. Today's "Question Everything" has to be "Why couldn't Mighty Microsoft do this?" and its corollary would naturally be: "What the hell do you think we're paying you for?"  

Above shows my gadgets, including the "Top 5 - Processor" as mentioned. That "Google Mail" one is handy too. It sounds a chime when there's new mail.

No wonder America is 16 trillions in debt.....

Not only does Apple make pricey hardware requiring system-specific third-party add-ins, it also makes a great and consistent profit, apparently because it's also very good at screwing Uncle Sam out of his taxes by employing artful and devious tax shelters in offshore havens whose scruples are slim to none.

They aren't alone, though - Google and Starbucks and other multinationals are also in there like a dirty shirt, screwing Uncle Sam and biting the hands that feed them. So America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, is also home to a crafty bunch of artful dodgers giving it the old corporate shaft with vigor and audacity. Why? Because - It's The American Way! In God We Trust - Everybody else pays cash. Apparently to Apple and Google and Starbucks, but not to Uncle Sam if they can help it - and they have been "helping it" every chance they got.

Li'l Abner - He shoulda - coulda - oughta done it...

Cherry Pink.....with a dash of grenadine

                            

And it gets better....

Toldja...
 

Speaking of Bob Fosse, here he is dancing.....

A little piano music....

Before 'Chicago' was a hit movie.......

It was a hit play on Broadway, and Bob Fosse was alive and well. 

And before that, there was ....

 But let Shirley explain...

A little more 'Cugie'......

Remember ? Xavier Cugat

This so good I can hardly stop....
 

Dear Mighty Microsoft, you semi-sweet thing you...

May I show you a screenshot, not obtained using Internet Explorer 10 ?

 
Are you still wondering why I said above "not obtained using I.E. 10"? A while ago, I was trying to grab a few images off a website, for my files, and future use, and using I.E. 10 - or trying to - it kept crashing with every image-filing attempt.

Mighty Microsoft has been in the software flogging trade for some time now - long enough to have figured out how to assemble code for a correctly-functioning program like Internet Explorer. Older versions of it worked very well, so tell me what the hell went wrong with version ten? Were the guys who built the good ones of yesteryear all turfed out with that abrasive VIP who thought he was God's gift to computer users everywhere, but forgot who he was working for?

Please try to fix this goddamned thing before I give up entirely and switch to PC-BSD 9.0 - which, incidently, is a hell of a good-looking program that just works - no ass-kissing required. I like that. Millions of others might too. And it comes with all the additional add-on programs that anyone could ask for, without us having to shop the web for third-party stuff from questionable suppliers. Am I trying to tell you something? Goddamned right I am! And if you're smarter than my Pet Rock, you'll sit up and pay attention, before the competition kicks the shit out of you. And some of that is spelled Firefox....
Get the picture?

"Daddy, what does automation look like?"

Seeing is believing!

If that doesn't get your toes tapping, nothing will...

Jerome Kern

Ah ! Hollywood ! What's not to like?

Yet another classic of yesteryear.....

And then there was....

 

So, get up and dance!

Another message....

And something very different, and with a message

Now, for something a little different....

Remember The Ink Spots ? And no, it's not a computer program...

Sunset and Moonglow....

I like the moonlight on that cloudbank on the horizon, above Vancouver Island.
This didn't turn out too badly for a freehand shot... With the excuse the expression 'naked' eye, there wasn't any halo around the moon, but the camera discovered it, probably because the air's quite moist here on the 'wet coast', and this zoom lens finds everything. I can count the branches on trees four miles away with it, which just goes to show you how much fun retirement can be. Maybe work is the curse of the drinking classes, but it's a lot more interesting.

Speaking of 'Moonglow' ..............

And here's the vocal arrangement, sung by Miss Doris Day....

 

The Flaming Forties...and The Andrews Sisters

And we can't forget Miss Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers......

And here's a little more Boogie like it used to be......

Our Classical Music selection for today -

This second one is a good demonstration of our record-changing players from back in the good old days before we learned how to spell "CD" or "DVD". If you washed the records with mild soap and warm water, and rinsed them well and dried them off with a lint-free towel, and kept a good quality needle pickup on the tone arm, these things lasted quite a long time. I've got LPs here that are now 50 years old, and are still quite playable. Those old 78-RPM disks though were much more fragile because they were very brittle. The newer vinyl ones are much more durable. Experts even tell me that the music recorded on a good quality 12-inch LP often sounds richer and fuller than music recorded on DVDs.

That's because the 12-inch discs have bigger grooves and stronger sound.

And there's more....... check out this one.... 

This was a Number One Hit, would you believe, back in 1945, the year I began high school. Nothing was quite the same then - not school and certainly not the music. Anyone remember sock hops and jitterbug and actually holding onto your partner during the slow ones? You must be as old as I am....