Oh for crying out loud… You had me hoping, Microsoft.
Well, at least it’s just the start menu search results. I never use these when they’re outgoing, after all I have a browser for somthing. But I guess it shows that MS hasn’t quite given up on Bing yet.
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Ah well. Earlier on in this thread, I grudgingly praised Microsoft, because Windows 11 didn’t stop me from using Firefox the way Windows 10 did. But I downloaded my copy of Firefox direct from the Firefox site.
It seems my praise was premature. Same old Microsoft.
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Looks like we’re all getting the blue pill, like it or not.
Ignorance is bliss, eh.
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The monitor has died. Kaput.
It’s irriitating, but in a way it’s a relief. Things have been going too smoothly. At least the monitor can just be returned and exchanged or replaced - it doesn’t seem to have damaged anything else.
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The Saga of The Monitor - Part 2
Yesterday I said my monitor had died. It had. It became completely unresponsive. I got out my trusty multimeter, and checked the fuse in the plug was OK. I checked there was 240 volts arriving at the monitor socket, and that was OK too. But it wouldn’t turn on, and it wouldn’t light up. Even the fairy lights didn’t work. The monitor is brand new, so I wasn’t going to dismantle it any further, and risk invalidating the warranty. It was clearly a case of faulty goods, so today I took it back to the supplier.
Well he set it up on his bench, plugged it in, turned it on, and it worked just fine. He checked for loose connections. He picked it up and shook it. He waited 15 minutes for it to get good and warm, and then he shook it again. Through all of this, it carried on working perfectly. He gave me a funny look.
I said “What can I say? - It wasn’t working yesterday”. I felt pretty stupid. We agreed I would take it back, and try it again.
To cut another long story short, it turned out the problem was an itermittent bad contact in my power strip. Internally, the socket was only just making contact. With just the power lead connected, there was enough of a contact for the multimeter to see voltage - but as soon as it tried to draw current, the contact failed.
£10 for a new power strip, and the problem seems to be solved. We’re running again.
I hope it’s a long time before I have to use that dealer again. I would rather he forgot about me.
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I’m pretty sure he’s seen people make much worse mistakes.
I once left a restaurant and tried to open my car but the lock had been damaged with a screwdriver. I couldn’t open it so I got a friend to drop off some tools. He had to be somewhere else so he dropped them off and left. The police sidled up about 10 minutes later.
So I’m stood there with a bag of tools trying to get into what I then discovered was someone else’s car, identical to mine. The police hauled me off to the station and I explained I thought it was my car.
When I got back to the car park my car was about 10 spaces further away.
That day I felt pretty stupid 
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What we call a “great moment of solitude” when realize it.
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It’s moments like this that, at the time, you feel like a complete idiot. But later on you realise they’re character building experiences that you can laugh at and tell other people about.
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The Fate of the Old Computer…
The new computer replaces an ageing i7 with GTX 1080, which is starting to struggle with modern requirements, and isn’t Windows 11 compatible.
My original intention was to turn the old machine into a Linux box. I did consider dual boot, but I’ve tried that in the past (albeit a long time ago), and had a lot of trouble with it. Then I discovered SATA switches.
So now the plan is to install a second boot drive in the old computer, and install drive switches in one of the unused drive bays. That way, at the press of a button, I can have my old Windows 10 system, or a new Linux installation - and they’ll be completely independent of each other, with no possibility of interference, or file corruption.
That’s the plan, anyway.
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SATA switch…nice. I too have had problems with dual booting win and linux. It seems windows does not like to think you have the option of booting up anything else. I left the side of my case loose so I could manually unplug the win drive. 
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The only problem I ever had with dual boot is that I have a fat windows partition taking up a lot of space while almost never getting used…
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In case you need to know
Ars Technica: Users revolt as Microsoft bolts a short-term financing app onto Edge.
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WTF? That would be wildly irresponsible…
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Gizmodo: Seriously, What Is Going On With Microsoft Edge?.
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Funny to see people complaining about MS and using Google’s browser, or falling from charybdis to scylla…
If you’re concerned about your privacy and datas of course.
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Complaining is what people seem to do these days.
I just don’t like pop up notifications. Especially when they are pushy
However, the complaints worked
The Verge: Microsoft backtracks on Windows 11’s controversial default browser changes.
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It’s not just Windows 11. From the time I first installed Windows 10 Pro, I found it all but impossible to install Firefox as my default browser. It could just about be done, by manually editing the registry, but it wasn’t simple. There were numerous registry keys involved, with all the risk that involves. In any case, Microsoft’s frequent updates would often reset the registry back to the non-Firefox defaults.
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I never had such trouble with my FF on W10 pro when installed. Downloaded directly from Mozilla site and installed with admin acount ?
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Since I recently bought an RTX 3080, I’ve just been sent an advert for a new RTX 3090.
They want £3,000.00 for it.
Obviously, at that price, I bought ten of them.
Not.
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