The Ghost In My Machine

My wife told me that my computer has been turning itself on each day after I go to work. WtF? No scheduled tasks. No Bios timer set.

I've just been putting it to sleep rather than turning it off. Something I never did with XP, but Win7 seems pretty stable without restarting regularly.

Time to Google. Everyone keeps suggesting a scheduled task (why wouldn't people know they set up a scheduled task), or BIOS timer (again, why...). After a bunch of different searches, I finally see a suggestion that Media Centre may start up a PC for TV guide updates, and you could check this in the Event Viewer.

Couldn't see why it would do that, as during setup, Media Centre told me it couldn't get a TV Guide in my area. But the event viewer confirmed it. Somewhere about 8:30 or 9am each day, the System log showed the computer starting up, and the Media Centre log showed it looking for updates.

OK. Open Media Centre, go to settings, and turn off everything which might download updates.

Next evening, check the logs to see my PC didn't start itself up that morning. Hooray! Problem solved...

Woke up next morning at 4am to see a glow coming from the study. My computer was on!!!! Damn!

So today I looked at the logs again.

The system has resumed from sleep.

Sleep Time: ‎2010‎-‎03‎-‎26T12:27:04.657202500Z
Wake Time: ‎2010‎-‎03‎-‎26T17:04:08.967941900Z

Wake Source: Timer - Windows will execute '\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\mcupdate_scheduled' scheduled task that requested waking the computer.

Media #%%@# Centre!

The Media Centre logs tell the story. Looks like when I started it up to change settings, it appears to have taken the opportunity to load updates, and decided it didn't actually need to start up it's normal time yesterday, thus making me think I'd turned it off. No such luck.

Check settings again:

Automatic download options unchecked.

Just in case, scheduled optimisation disabled.

So why is it still starting up my machine?

It has to be possible to stop automatic wakeup from sleep, so I check the Power Settings:

• Power Settings\Advanced Settings\Sleep\Allow Wake Timers

Looks likely, so I set that to disabled.

It seems to have done the job, but it now means I can't schedule Media player to turn on and record a TV show. There has to be a better way.

Mircosoft! Wake up and listen. We don't want our machines doing unexpected things like waking up from Sleep to download crap we never wanted, especially when it uses non-standard means to do so! (Why doesn't it just set a scheduled task, then we'd know how to stop it.) Media Centre never told me it would do that. There doesn't seem to be a settig to stop it. Do you expect your TV or car to turn itself on in the middle of the night? (Gee, I'm sure I filled up the tank yesterday??) At least make it a visible setting for the Media Centre.

If anyone knows how to fix this properly, please leave a comment.

Windows 7 64-bit & Java

After trying out the Win7 beta for some months as a dual boot with WinXP, I recently decided to install Windows 7, 64-bit version, as my main operating system. The process mainly went pretty well, except for a few minor gotcha's, which I'll mention in this and some future posts.

One of these gotcha's involved the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

I downloaded and installed the latest JRE (Java 6) for Windows 64-bit operating systems from the Sun site. Simple installation like most applications I'd installed. I tried out some stand alone Java applications, like Project X (which I use for converting TV shows recorded on my PVR to video I can watch on a PC). No problems.

But when I tried to install Brettspielwelt (the client for an online boardgame portal), it said I neede to install Java first, and offered to install Java 4! It wouldn't let me skip the Java install and continue, so I had to investigate further.

A couple of other Java apps worked OK, so I tried the browser based version of Brettspielwelt. IE8 told me I didn't have Java installed!! "That's a lie", I cried. (Maybe not out loud.)

I went to the Sun site again to investigate, and this time, I ended up on a different page, which advised me I was using a 32-bit browser, and I would need to download the 32-bit version of the JRE to use with my browser.

Yes, it turns out the default IE8 browser in Windows 7 is the 32-bit version. And the 32-bit version needs a 32-bit JRE! You can start up the 64-bit IE8 if you go looking for it, but it's not guaranteed to work with a lot of plug-ins or add-ons, so it's not the default.

Installing the 32-bit version also fixed my Brettspielwelt installation.

If you're using Win7 64-bit version, do youself a favour and install both the 64 and 32-bit versions of JRE.

Apple fails to fix iPod safety issue!

I got an iPod a few years ago. At the time there wasn't a lot of choice, it was pretty much the only MP3 player with an 80GB disk. But I was pretty much happy with it. It was a nice player and worked well (once I replaced the earbuds), with lots of space so I could put everything I wanted on it and still have half the space to use as a USB drive.

But there were a few niggling issues, one of which I came to realise was a serious safety issue. So much so that I wonder how many people it has killed.

The iPod has no Play Queue! If it's currently playing x, you can't set it to play y when it finishes.

Instead, the iPod has its "On-the go Playlist". A fraction of the functionality of a proper Play Queue, and much more awkward to use.

This is how the On-the-go playlist works:

• Navigate to Podcast, Track, Album or Artist.
• Press and hold centre button until the screen flashes (tracks are added on to the playlist).
• Repeat as required.
• Now, to start playing the playlist, navigate to the playlist.
• Press play.

Not too tedious, I guess. But what do you do if you don't want to interrupt your current track or album? (You can probably tell I'm stuck in a past age, I listen mostly to albums, with tracks that can exceed 20 minutes, and rarely play single tracks or use shuffle.)

Say I'm listening to Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" (44 minutes, one track), when I realise I need to drive somewhere. I know the album will finish before I get there, so I'd like to queue up some more music. Well, damn! If I'd thought to put Thick as a Brick on a playlist, then I could add to that playlist. But who's going to do all those steps above, rather than just finding the album and pressing play. I can't change to playing via playlist without losing my place in the current track.

You can see where this is going.

So here's what I imagine most people will do. Drive off. When the album finishes, fumble with the iPod to select some more music and start it playing. (Hopefully at some traffic lights, if convenient). Now, I'm not going to own up to that in case my insurance company is reading, but seriously, that's going to be happening a lot. And this is probably worse than using a phone while driving. How many accidents has this caused?

The solution? Simple. Apple just needs to change the iPod to use a REAL Play Queue, or at least make it a configurable option. It shouldn't lose any functionality, and will make people like me a lot happier. (It really annoyed me when I found out after purchasing that the iPod didn't have a Play Queue!)

Here's how it should work:

• Navigate to podcast, track, album or artist (or album under coverview, another bug).
• Click the centre button to clear the Play Queue and start playing the selection immediately, or
• Press and hold centre button to add to the current Play Queue (and start it playing if the queue was empty).

Done! No navigating to find the Playlist (though you can if you want to save the Play Queue as a Playlist or edit the play queue). And you can always add to the queue.

Now why the hell can't Apple fix this, and Save Lives!