Ertblog

The blue screen of death returns: the frustrations of Windows Vista

I bought my first laptop last August: an HP Pavilion dv 9500. It came with Windows Vista, which appealed to the sense of the new. That said, I was reassured that Vista was reaching the computer equivalent of toddler-hood, which I assumed would have ensured that any glitches would have been sorted.

Not a bit of it. Three months ago, I'm still getting more crashes than under Windows XP. Tonight, copying 30 photos to CD, the system insisted it would take up to 41,000 days and 7 hours to achieve the task. The internet is available some days but not others. When will the IT industry achieve even pitiful standards of customer service? Or do they think they are immune from the need to meet the requirements of the Trade Descriptions Act?

Back to real photos: trying the Canon EOS 400D digital SLR camera

For years, I enjoyed taking photos with my trusty Minolta SLR (single lens reflex) camera. I may not have been the world's best photographer, but the quality of the camera combined with my reasonable eye for a good photo produced the goods.

Then the digital revolution arrived. I bought a digital compact camera and marvelled at the way images appeared instantly, without waiting for Boots or Bonus Print to produce prints. My Minolta gathered dust in the cupboard. I doubted whether I needed a big camera when a tiny one produced such wonderful photos.

And yet... Digital cameras seem to lose concentration at a crucial time. What you see isn't always what you get, especially when using flash. I dismissed this as a minor irritation for a while, then acknowledged this was a huge disadvantage. It was time to rediscover the SLR, 22 years after I bought my first, a Praktika, with money my parents gave me for passing my university final exams in 1985.

I chose a Canon, the EOS 400D, and expected to buy it during 2008. But my wife Karen had picked up a few hints I hadn't realised I'd dropped and presented a new camera to me on Christmas morning. What a wonderful surprise.

The results so far have delighted me. Instant results. No time lag. Great portraits. Here are a few examples: berries in a field on Boxing Day and our youngest niece Verity:

That said, the software that Canon provides with the 400D is dreadful. First, it's not designed for Windows Vista - despite the fact Microsoft's latest operating system is almost a year old. As a result, it didn't work on my new computer. I then took 100 minutes downloading the latest Canon EOS utilty software on a fast broadband connection. I needn't have bothered - the standard Vista software is far more user-friendly than Canon's program. It's a shame as the EOS and my Canon Pixma printer are excellent.

Save the planet? Too risky, says Virgin Trains

It boasts how green its trains are compared with driving or flying. But Virgin Trains must be wasting a vast number of paper bags on its trains judging by my experience travelling to Chester yesterday.

I was sitting in the coach that contains the cafe-shop. So when the assistant offered me a paper bag to carry my tea, I said no, given that I had to walk just a few yards to my seat. So I was amazed when he told me I had to have one, "It's health and safety!" I replied that I was more than capable of carrying a cup of tea a quarter of the way down that very coach. "Well, it's your own responsibility," he added with that infuriatingly supercilious tone that comes naturally to jobsworths. Just two strides into my journey back to my seat another jobsworth challenged me from his cubbyhole. I half expected him to arrest me for my desire not to waste a bag I either wanted or needed.

Memo to Richard Branson: please get your staff to treat your passengers like adults. And stop wasting paper bags.

Camden's cycling czar

I enjoy reading the weekly email newsletter from CTC - the UK's national cyclists' organisation. This week's edition told me that Camden council in London had appointed the UK's first cycling czar. (See Evening Standard article.

I smiled at the image of a bearded Romanov making his way across north London on a bike. I presume that in reality Paul Braithwaite will be the council's cycling coordinator. But at no point does the article say that. It assumes readers will understand what it means by describing Mr Braithwaite as a czar. And why czar? Why not kaiser, emperor or king? Yes, I know that the title is inevitably wheeled out (pardon the pun) whenever the media and governments want to give the impression of forceful leadership. But it's lazy journalism.

It's also tempting fate, given that the last czar of Russia, Nicholas II, was overthrown and then murdered...