I am now on my second Lenovo machine and I have to say I love the physical build quality and capabilities of these products. However one thing bugs me and that is the bundled productivity software that comes with a new laptop, most notably on the Lenovo products is Think Suite. This is a set of tools that comes with a Lenovo (formerly IBM) computer and deals with things like the function keys, the on screen display of indications (such as display brightness and volume) and most significantly network connection management. It is worth noting that almost every Microsoft Windows laptop sold, from Samsung to HP, has some sort of detritus installed to increase your productivity. I think it was about 13 years ago a friend asked my family to help him buy a really top-notch PC, and the best thing on the market at that time seemed to be the IBM Aptiva Stealth and thus we facilitated the purchase. It was really impressive, in matt black with a separate monitor base/stand with a CD-Rom, a disk drive and a power switch all built-in matching the very good (and very black) monitor. After wrestling with the Windows 95 and it’s extensive IBM customisations they actually returned the unit and we custom built a “beige box” with twice the performance for the same price. Now we are in the era of Windows 7 and the problem is that the productivity tools seem to have grown more tentacles and seem to fight even more with the Windows native tools than ever before. Continue reading “Lenovo Think!”
Tag: update
I would like to publically thank (as much as I can here) the company "Learning with Linden ".
They have sorted me out with the brackets for a projection screen that was delivered in a poor state by the vendor. The vendor has been difficult to deal with on this problem, but looking over the delivered package I noticed a name on it that included a model number. By googling that name I found "Learning with Linden" and from there I was able to find the product.
I was able to call them, explain my situation and after they verified I had purchased the product they said they would send me the brackets tonight in the post! Wonderful, well, I will see and perhaps update you.
Edit:
To update you, it went up, it doesn’t look great, but then again you get what you pay for in life, and it didn’t cost much.
So…
It's been bugging me for some time that I have this application running in the background on my machine, "Install Shield Update Manager". It isn't as useful as it would like to be and I am unimpressed that I had to download a 2.2MB application just to remove it . I think about the waste, how periodically commercial software is updated and then realise that I don't need something in the background wasting my systems resources.
I've used their feedback to tell them as much and I've removed it, hopefully.
Grrr.
Update:
Now I am truely p*ssed off, I read on here and found that apparently the "uninstaller" doesn't do anything except hide the "Update Manager" even further. Inspecting my task list with Process Explorer I find it still there. Terminate with extreme violence!
Here is an explanation of how Freeview Playback works, pay attention, it may save your soul. It was not written by the site owner and does not represent the views of them or anyone paying their wages.
Q. Do I have to buy a new box for Freeview Playback?
Q. What are the functions of Freeview Playback?
Q. Does my product have Freeview Playback functions?
Q. How does “Pausing Live TV work”?
Q. What is One Touch Recording (OTR) and how can I use it?
Q. Are there any changes to the EPG and the way it works?
Q. Will it track any broadcaster changes in the times of programmes?
Q. If I try to set several programmes to record and there are conflicts, what will happen?
Q. What are Alternate Instances?
Q. Do all broadcasters on Freeview send the information for all of the functions to work?
Q. How do I update my software to get all of these new features?
Q. After I upgrade my software do I have to do anything for the features to work?
Q. With all of these changes, how will I know how to use them?
Q. What are the differences on the models?
Q. Will Freeview Playback mean I will get all of the programmes that I set to record?
Continue reading “Freeview Playback Explained….for Idiots who don’t understand”