Credit Crunch Hits Rappers Hard

Lily Allen Update

There's been a lot of confusion lately about where British cultural icon Lily Allen stands on 'stuff', so here's a brief rundown on what she currently considers alright and 'not alright':

Alright

• Drugs

  That's dealing them as well as taking them.

• Cricket

  It's the new getting drunk and swearing at Elton John, apparently.

• Peter Mandelson

  "He's actually not such a total cunt when you get to know him," she probably never said.

Not Alright

• Copyright infringement

  Unless it's done by her.

Thanks Lily Allen!

2 Down, 6,395,804 to Go

Further to my efforts to make this blog of at least some use to society, I thought I'd share the resolutions to a couple of problems I'd been grappling with after what seems like several lifetimes-worth of Googling/screen-punching frustration.

I'm talking about the kinds of problems that linger for so long you come to a point where you almost accept that you're just going to have to live with them, such is the apparent paucity of information or even recognition of the issue in the wider tech world.

The Not-So-Random CPU Spikes

Firstly, it was our old friend, random CPU spikes. Previously, the problems I'd had in this area had eventually - reluctantly - caused me to do a clean install in order to sort the swines - there really didn't seem to be any obvious cause or solution in that instance.

Best I could figure, it was some remnant from a virus that hadn't entirely been dealt with previously.

Those CPU spikes genuinely were random though - you'd never know when they were going to hit, making for watching any video file a haphazard experience at best.

The more recent issue though seemed much more regimented, and - whilst still hugely irritating - much less frequent. They would always occur at least once when watching anything, which, while less of an issue than what I'd experienced before, still had the effect of taking you out of the story or whatever, particularly when you knew it was going to occur at some point.

Process Explorer indicated that these spikes were caused by some aspect of explorer.exe or simply 'System', which was little help as there are any number of sub-processes under those umbrellas.

Eventually - without actually timing it - I worked out that they seemed to occur about once every half hour, but I still couldn't find any cause for it. If I had timed it, I would have discovered that they occurred exactly every half-hour, on the hour and half-hour - because it was my ruddy background wallpaper changing over that was doing it.

The only reason I know this, is because I happened to have Process Explorer open (and not maximized) at the exact moment the picture changed. If not for that particular combination of events, I'd probably still be putting up with it now, like some Tourette's suffer that's resigned to the fact that at some point he will shout, "Bollocks," in the supermarket.

You see, I'm using Windows 7, and I'd gotten sick of looking at that stupid fish on my desktop, so I decided I wanted a change. For some reason, I decided I'd quite like a dynamic wallpaper, i.e. a background that changes periodically. I didn't even know if such things existed, and a cursory web search suggested that they weren't too prevalent. Out of interest, I decided to see what Win 7 has in terms of alternatives, and what do you know? It only has some dynamic wallpapers pre-loaded.

I went for the views of Britain selection, being a patriotic sort... (not really, in fact the images were a bit too chocolate box-y for my liking to be honest), and every half-hour I was treated to another view from this fair isle.

If I'd known that each one would be accompanied by a ludicrous power draining changeover, they could keep it. In fact, as soon as I realised what was going on, that fish was immediately back swimming behind my desktop icons.

Anyway, that's the long and rather dull story of how I sorted some CPU spikes. Perhaps you've been tearing your hair out wondering what the chuff might be causing your computer-based viewing to be so rudely interrupted approximately twice an hour, every hour. Well, perhaps this post may have just enlightened you.

I don't know if any other dynamic backgrounds cause this, but I suspect they probably would, although I'm not really sure why it would provoke such a system fit just to change a flipping picture.

Giving Windows Search Index the Finger

My most recent success involves the curious case of the search index that wouldn't rebuild.

For reasons I can't even remember properly, having started this so long ago, I decided to rebuild the search index on my computer. I think I actually changed some of the indexing options, which caused it to rebuild the entire thing from scratch.

I'd heard it could take a while, but I was prepared to wait. I didn't quite expect to still be waiting for it to finish about two months later.

Initially it seemed fine, but whenever it got to a certain number of files indexed, approximately 16,000, my whole system seemed to seize up. On an on it went, chugging away, monopolizing my computer's poor CPU, managing to index about 1 file every hour - if it moved at all. Eventually I just turned it off altogether, because the constant whirring of my CPU fan threatened to drive me insane.

I occasionally let it work overnight to see if would get anywhere. It never did. SearchFilterHost.exe and its hogging of CPU cycles became a regular fixture in Task Manager.

After looking around the Web, I noticed some people with a similar issue found that if they uninstalled certain audio/video decoders, that seemed to do the trick. Indeed, Process Explorer seemed to indicate that these kind of files were in use when the indexing process ground to a halt, even when no media was being played.

I immediately uninstalled the K-Lite Codec Pack, and a conversion program called SUPER and restarted my computer. And guess what? Yes, it exploded. Not really, it of course started indexing normally (and, mercifully, silently) as it should.

So the upshot? Windows Search Indexing chokes on splitter files, in other words anything with an .ax extension. If you have any of these on your system, get rid of them, at least temporarily, if you want your indexing to go smoothly. Just prepare for a certain amount of chokage when you eventually put them back on.

Why Did You Get That Hat?

Not being a member of the indolent rich (much to my chagrin), I've never been overly interested in the various society engagements that seem to engender an unwarranted amount of coverage in the media, with the annual hat expo that is Ladies' Day at Ascot being a prime example.

This year however, the sheer levels of attention-seeking from attendees would appear to have reached epic proportions. Not content with simply wearing a hat at least four sizes too large in order to try and get themselves a couple of seconds on telly, or photographed for one of those quirky junk pieces in one of the more class obsessed tabloids, 2009 will surely mark the point at which Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot officially became some kind of Rag Week for posh people.

Check out some more pictures here:

http://www.express.co.uk/galleries/thumbs/559

As an addendum, just in case at some point in the future that link stops working or they've changed it since, it's worth noting that at the time of writing the Daily Express's tagline is 'The World's Greatest Newspaper'.

A bold claim, but I should point out that I recently visited a page from Fox News which bore the strapline 'Fair and Balanced', which only goes to prove that there's clearly no legislation when it comes to slogans.

Shit Involved in Self-Writing Incident

I know haven't 'blogged' properly for ages (I'm currently seeing a specialist), but I just had to impart this:

Frank Skinner's show on Absolute Radio (née Virgin) is sponsored by Wine Rack and Threshers.

Yes, that's Frank Skinner, one of Britain's most famous recovering alcoholics.

How to Stop Firefox Becoming an Uncontrollable Memory Fiend

Seeing as this blog was just sat here gathering dust, I thought I might as well put it to some use, rather than have it act as some kind of archive for my petty grievances with the rest of the world.

Recently, I've being having something of a 'mare with Firefox.

Namely, it's been taking a dog's age to start up and even longer to quit, while in between its consumption of my computer's memory has been something akin to a fat man at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

A fat man who quickly finishes all the food, and starts chomping on the fixtures and fittings.

In fact, more often than not I'm forced to shut it down manually from Task Manager, rather than experience the life force slowly ebb out of me waiting for it to end.

It's made my favourite browser almost unusable, and at the time of typing, I can't honestly say that it's entirely sorted, but I have discovered some extremely useful tricks that I thought I should share.

Check Your Add-ons

Boring, I know, and every guide I've read to try and solve my problem (I've read a lot) mentions this, but it's worth doing.

1. Firstly, check for updates to Firefox (Help -> Check for Updates). In the event that this does not magically solve the problem, close down Firefox in start it in Safe Mode (select it from the Programs menu), making sure to select the option that disables all extensions.
2. Use it for a bit and have a look in Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Delete) under the 'Processes' tab to see if you're still getting excessive memory usage, and whether Firefox is still taking an unusually long time to completely close.
3. If you're still getting problems in this state, you might possibly be better off completely reinstalling Firefox altogether, but make a backup of your Firefox profile first, as you may be able to save things like bookmarks, history and other preferences etc.

   It's usually stored in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

   In truth, performance problems are usually caused by some kind of conflict with extensions, so you should find you don't have many problems using Firefox in Safe Mode.

4. In Firefox, go to Tools > Add-ons and look under 'Extensions'. Click the 'Find Updates' button, install any new versions if found, then restart Firefox.
5. Go here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions and see if any of the add-ons you use are in the list. If they are, follow the suggestions for each one, usually involving replacing them with a similar one or uninstalling them altogether.

   Frankly, no matter how useful an add-on may be, if it's compromising the overall performance of your browser to the point of near-unusability, you're better off without it.

Pimp Your Preferences

Here's a fantastic tip which is so good, I can't believe it isn't incorporated into Firefox by default.

1. Go to Firefox's address bar at the top and type in about:config, then press Enter.
2. Click the 'I'll be careful, I promise!' button and then right click on the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the pop-up, enter config.trim_on_minimize and press Enter.
4. Select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

Now, whenever you minimize Firefox, its memory usage sort of 'resets', and while it does build up again, usually it should top off at a much more manageable level.

Major 'props' to the techgurls blog for that one.

Greedy Google Toolbar

Google Toolbar can be very useful indeed, what with all the customisable buttons and that, but recently it seems to have developed something of a memory habit akin to a junkie needing a regular fix.

It's time for an intervention.

Navigate to your Firefox profile folder, (usually C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles) and look for a file named places.sqlite.

If this file seems ridiculously large (mine was about 180 MB; even for a heavy user of Firefox it really should be a fraction of that), then Google Toolbar may be to blame.

You see, it rather over-zealously makes a thumbnail of every page you visit, just in case that page becomes one of your most frequently visited pages, and it needs to have an image of it for use in the 'new tab' page.

You may never have even seen this page, but regardless I would say this feature is certainly less than essential. If it's crippling your browser though, then it really needs to be turned off.

1. Click on the little spanner (wrench for our American friends) logo at the right of Google Toolbar, or simply right click in the toolbar and select 'Google Toolbar Options'.
2. Under the 'Search' heading, uncheck the option that says 'Enable the Google new tab page' then click the 'Save' button. Close down Firefox.
3. Make a copy of your Firefox profile folder and save it somewhere like the Desktop. Y'know, just in case.
4. Download SQLite Database Browser and extract the contents.
5. Start the application inside the folder, and in the window click on the yellow folder icon at the top left. Navigate to places.sqlite in your Firefox profile folder and open it.
6. Click on the tab labelled 'Browse Data', then click the drop-down box beneath and select 'moz-anno_attributes'. Make a note of the id number for google-toolbar/thumbnail and google-toolbar/thumbnail-score. (For me it was 10 and 11 respectively).
7. Click the Execute SQL tab and in the SQL string box paste:

   delete from moz_annos where anno_attribute_id = 10; // 10 = 'google-toolbar/thumbnail' vacuum;

   Of course, if the id number is different for you change it accordingly.

8. Click the 'Execute query' button.
9. Repeat this for the other attribute:

   delete from moz_annos where anno_attribute_id = 11; // 11 = 'google-toolbar/thumbnail-score' vacuum;

10. Click File -> Compact Database.

Now, have a look and see how big places.sqlite is in your Firefox profile folder. If this has worked anything like it did for me, it should be at least a tenth of the size.

Thanks to the peeps on this thread for the technical nerdery on this one.

Right, if your Firefox browser doesn't work better after all of that, I will personally send you $1,000 dollars.*

*No money will be sent.