The programmers at Microsoft must think that it’s really fun to torture their users.

If you even try to login to Windows Live service once (definitely including such original titles as Windows Live ID, Windows Live Messenger, but probably others too), they setup your computer to automatically prompt you to log back in the next time you reboot. Not only that but clicking on the Big Red X doesn’t make the program go away, it merely minimizes it (for your convenience they say) so that it’s at the ready for you the next time you want to use it. Not only that, but they don’t provide any obvious way to prevent it from prompting you for your password the next time it reboots. Not only that, but if you search for a way to uninstall said program, you won’t find anything called Windows Live Messenger or Windows Live ID. Their are other Windows Live components in the Installed Programs list, but nothing obviously related to these pieces of garbage.

Very nice Microsoft. Thanks. It’s no wonder people hate Microsoft so passionately!

If you really want to uninstall this garbage permanently, do the following:

1. Open the Start Menu and click on Control Panel
2. click on “Uninstall a Program”
3. Scroll all the way to the bottom and find “Windows Live Essentials”
4. Click Uninstall/Change
5. Select the radio button beside “Uninstall” and then click “Continue”
6. Tick the boxes beside for the Services you want to prevent from harrassing you. High on your list should be “Messenger”. Note that some of the Live services are actually useful and you may want to keep them.
7. Click “Continue” and the annoyances will go away.

It should be a lot easier for users to identify the programs that they want to remove and/or to prevent from harassing them. Microsoft, fix this.

Photographers love to go on and on about what gear they use, and why they made that choice. One topic that I hear covered ad nauseum is the size of their flash memory cards. Bigger is better, right? Not necessarily, it seems. Many photographers love to argue that using 1 really large flash card is just like putting all your eggs in one basket. That is, if a CF or SD card goes bad, you could potentially lose a lot more of your images than if you had used multiple smaller cards instead.

While that logic seems perfectly reasonable, I take another line of thought on this one.

I’ve made many thousands of images over the years, and I’ve never had a card go bad. Don’t get me wrong, I know that these things are a lot like hard disk drives and that statistically they WILL eventually fail. But that hasn’t happened to me yet. So while I am careful with my cards, and I am definitely concerned about one of them going bad and corrupting my files, I don’t think that it’s the most likely way that I will lose my images.

I have physically lost many pieces of photography gear over the years, including a couple of very expensive CompactFlash cards. So for me, the far more likely way that I would lose images would be to lose or misplace a full card after I changed it out for an empty one.

For me, this choice is easy. I use the biggest and fastest memory cards I can afford. Currently that means Lexar 8 GB 300x CompactFlash
cards, but I plan to upgrade to 16 GB cards soon. I also have some older SanDisk Ultra II cards and I’ve never had an issue with any of them or with any of my Lexar cards.

Am I putting all my eggs in one basket? Maybe, but for me that makes more sense than having a bunch of smaller cards that are difficult to manage and keep track of.

What about you? One big card, or several smaller cards?

I love my Popcorn Hour PCH-A110 media player and I use it all the time to watch TV Shows and Movies. This is just one of a class of devices known as a Networked Media Tank, or NMT. I can save my shows on a hard drive or USB device that I’ve installed in or connected to the player, or watch content from any of my other computers that are connected via my home network.

If you want to learn more about this kind of device, I’ve reviewed my PCH-A110 previously on this site.

This is an incredibly useful device, and recently I found a couple of tricks to make the user experience even better!

• MediatankController 1.0 for Adobe AIR – browse and control your NMT from your PC. This is a remote control application for your that runs on any PC desktop. This is actually a cross platform App (built using Adobe Air) that can be installed on almost any computer. It provides a fully functional remote control that sits on your computer. You can also browse the media files available to your Popcorn Hour from a slick window on the desktop. Better yet, the popcorn hour responds faster to the controls on your desktop than it does using the remote, and the app provides keyboard support as well, which is far better than trying to type using the numeric keypad on the remote. This is a must have tool for any NMT owner. Although the app was built and tested on the PCH-A110, it should work on any NMT device.
• MediatankController 1.0 for iPhone – browse and control your NMT from your phone (or your iPod Touch). I actually haven’t been able to get this one to work yet, but many other people have, so I’m sure I just didn’t configure it properly. It promises essentially the same functionality as the the similarly named PC desktop app, but built as web based app formatted for the iPhone. This app has also been tested on the iPod Touch and the Android phone, so any web enabled gadget or computer with a web browser should also work just as well.
• Pure Web Remote Control. This one is a little bit less functional than the others, and a whole lot less pretty. It is a web based app that provides some of the same functionality as the two apps above. The main difference is that its design goal was to provide access to content on the NMT, via a browser based remote control, so that the user could listen to audio with TV switched off. This app also works on any web enabled phone, computer, or other gadget, and I had no problem accessing it with my iPod Touch. I have to say that it’s really ugly, but it works very well. When you consider it within the context that it was designed, it’s actually a pretty cool little app.

This is just one more way to make my life faster and easier. If you know of any other great improvements to make your Popcorn Hour media player (or any other NMT for that matter) even better, please drop me a comment and let me know about it!

I’ve recently rolled out some official sounding policies for this website, most recently my Disclosure Policy. Although I am not based in the USA, most of my readers are, and this policy is designed to comply with the requirements set out in the recent FTC ruling with regards to bloggers that get paid to write about stuff. Although my policy is not an exact copy of John Chow’s disclosure policy, I will certainly admit that it is essentially a rip-off of some of his thoughts on this matter.

In summary:

• Almost all of my pages and articles include advertisements that I get paid for.
• Almost all of my links are encoded with affiliate marketing codes so that I get paid if you click on them.
• I will happily take products for free in order to review them. Having said that everything I’ve reviewed on my site so far have been items that I purchased myself for my own use. That will eventually change.
• Just because I’m getting paid for advertisements, links, or if I get a free product for review purposes doesn’t mean that my reviews will be positive or slanted in favor of that product or advertiser. Having said that, I generally only use products or services that I like, and most of my reviews will be about those products or services. Therefore they are probably going to be positive reviews more often than not.

All of this applies equally to my posts on Facebook and Twitter, and on many other social media sites and services.

The full text of my disclosure policy can be found on my Policies page. Note that this policy is closely linked to our Advertising Policy, which can also be found on the Policies page.

That is all.

Apple’s iTunes media player makes it very easy to sync your media content from your computer to your iPod or your Apple TV. It also allows you access to the iTunes online store to access additional content that you can buy or download for free, including TV Shows, Movies, Music, and iPod Apps. The software isn’t perfect, but it works pretty well most of the time and it is a very convenient way to manage your media library between your various devices.

Apple has instituted some pretty unfortunate policies with iTunes (it only works with Apple Devices for one) including a requirement that you “Authorize” each computer you use the software with if you want to access or play content purchased from the iTunes Store using your Apple Account. This is a form of DRM (Digital Rights Management) and it is required even if you access only free content.

One potential issue users face with this policy is that Apple will only allow you to authorize up to 5 computers at any given time. If your computer dies, you sell it, or you make major changes to it, then you would have to use up an additional 1 of your 5 allowable authorizations on a new or upgraded computer.

You can “Deauthorize” an individual computer, or once in any 12 month time period you can “Deauthorize All” of your computers at once. You must be able to access iTunes from one of your previously authorized computers, so be sure to do this prior making any major changes to it, having it serviced, or before you sell it or give it away.

To Deauthorize iTunes from ONE of your computers:

1. Open iTunes.
2. Choose Store > Deauthorize Computer (In earlier versions of iTunes, access this option from the Advanced menu).
3. Select “Deauthorize Computer for Apple Account” and enter your Apple ID and password and Click OK.
4. A message should appear saying that “This computer has been successfully deauthorized.”

Note that in some cases one computer may be taking up more than one of your Authorizations. If you suspect this to be the case, simply repeat the above steps until you see a message saying that “This computer was not authorized. To authorize this computer, play a song or video you have purchased using this account.”

To Deauthorize iTunes from ALL of your computers:

1. Open iTunes.
2. Click iTunes Store in the menu on the left side of iTunes.
3. If you’re not signed in to the store, click the Account button, then enter your account name and password.
4. Click the Account button again (your ID appears on the button), enter your password, and then click View Account.
5. In the Account Information window, click Deauthorize All.

You are now free to Authorize additional computers to work with the iTunes Store!

Remember that you can only “Deauthorize All” once in any 12 month period, so use this feature carefully. You would be better to Deauthorize individual computers rather than blowing away them all at once.