Steve Litchfield

And, while this blog's getting lots of wonderful (/kind/generous) AllAboutSymbian readers, can I ask anyone who knows me and wants to help this blog along, to add http://stevesrantsnraves.blogspot.com/ to your own blog roll or links pages? Every little bit of link love helps, you know? 8-)

Excuse the test nature of this entry, but I'm generating it as part of a tutorial on blogging from any email device, such as a smartphone. If you're interested, the tutorial's over on www.allaboutsymbian.com. Normal service on rants and raves will resume just as soon as I've worked out what is normal anyway.

I have to say that I think Microsoft have lost the plot with Windows Vista. I can see where they're coming from, in that they've got all these programmers hanging around and they're trying to make money etc., but honestly, isn't Windows XP complex enough? Isn't XP good enough? In many ways, Windows 98 and ME was quite sufficient for hosting the work of 99.9% of computer users. XP added benefit in that it rolled in the guts of Windows NT, with enterprise-quality innards, but surely there comes a point when enough is enough. I'd much rather Microsoft directed its programmers to squashing the remaining bugs in XP (as opposed to disclosing and fixing them in a drawn-out series of updates) than invested millions of man hours in yet another new operating system. Will Vista be better than XP? Probably. Will it need new hardware to run properly? Definitely. Does Vista offer any concrete benefits over XP? Not really. There is absolutely no way that most people/businesses...

Having borrowed a Nintendo DS a while back, I thought it was too large, too clunky, too plasticky, the battery life was too short and the screens were too dim. Perfect fodder for a rant. Except that Nintendo have listened to its users and are launching the Nintendo DS Lite this month in Europe!! It's smaller, brighter and generally better in every single way . So consider this a rave (a good one). Highly recommended.

Leaving aside the truly horrible way language is descending into SMS-speak ("c u l8r", and so on), I just hate, hate the way totally unknown people use over-friendly words. It's just about bearable when a more elderly lady calls you 'lovey', perhaps in a shop when she serves you, but when another man who I don't know and who most certainly isn't a friend calls me 'mate', I just want to shout 'I'm not your mate!' The dictionary says that a 'mate' is a friend or partner and I abhor the word being used for no reason at all.

So I'm in my forties. It's not that old, honest, and I can stride down the street looking fairly trim. But it's all pretense. You see, I have a smallish daughter (age 7) and when she does these simple tricks on the trampoline or zooms round corners on her Heelys (incredibly cool trainers with roller skate in the heel), I suddenly feel very old indeed. I've tried the trampoline tricks - every one has resulted in my falling 'a over t' and looking extremely silly. And I wish I had the courage to get myself some Heelys - but I just know that I'd again be flat on my back in very short order. Another example. Some kids on my block were kicking a ball around and it came in my direction. I joined in the kick around and was enjoying it for all of a minute when suddenly I slipped and landed awkwardly - and my 40-year old back put me in agony - this was last summer and it took 2 months for my back to feel normal again. In my head I feel 25. I'm sure I'm not alo...

Now don't get me wrong, I'm as patriotic as the next man and watch England's World Cup games with the same degree of nail biting as the rest of you. But what's with all the flags guys? The whole point of the flags and banners is usually to wave them around at games and generally inspire your team. But the TEAM'S IN GERMANY! So what's the point of every car, every house being bedecked in the Cross of St George flag? Noone in the team can see it. Even on TV, they're locked away training and getting ready for the next game. Who are the flags displayed for, then? It beats me. What a waste of money and patriotic effort. If you really want to do something for your country while waiting for the next game, do some work with youngsters or pick up litter or get involved in local politics or... well, anything constructive really.

I can understand sports in general. I even enjoy playing some of them. But all involve moving around to some degree and getting fit. I can understand hobbies, things you really, really enjoy. But what on earth is the point in fishing? I suppose you could be catching tonight's supper, but I gather that's mostly outlawed these days and it's a 'recreation' thing and you have to stick the fish back in the river. So let's get this straight. You hang around, freezing to death on a damp river bank, waiting for a fish to happen by and get duped by your bait. You then get it lodged on a vicious barb, through its mouth, haul it onto dry land for a while, causing immense stress to the fish. And then after all that you throw it back in, without even the cause of needing it to keep yourself alive. Writing this in the UK winter, I walk along the banks of the Thames and pity the poor souls sucked into this depressingly chilly and soul-destroying pastime.

OK, so I was up at midnight when the clocks ticked over from 1999 to 2000. And there were fireworks all around the world, and why not? It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. But ever since, we have to put up with hugely noisy fireworks going off in our streets at midnight every single New Year. Yeah, yeah, I'm only complaining because I'm getting old and have a young family, but on behalf of others with small children and who. with them, need sleep, I'd like to rant and say 'No problems with the staying awake and partying and so on - but please leave off the fireworks next year. Thank you'. Glad I got that off my chest!

What's with all these new Internet domains? It was bad enough having to register your name and company with .co.uk, .com, .net and .org. Now there are .eu, .org.uk, .me.uk and a hundred others. I really can't be bothered with keeping up with the rest of the pack on this one. It's just too costly and too much hassle. The agencies concerned are doing it to rake in more money and that's it. It's a cash-making exercise. As to finding a company on the web by guessing its URL - it's 10x faster these days just to type it into Google. My main site ( http://3lib.ukonline.co.uk ) has one URL and one URL only, and it's staying that way. If people want to find me, they will... (Actually, I've also got www.3lib.com , but only because a kind customer gave it to me)

Now look. The whole point of having multiple checkout operators in supermarkets is so that multiple queues of people can be served in 'parallel', i.e. all at once. If there's a problem with one queue, it shouldn't affect the others, otherwise the whole system breaks down. Which is why supermarket huddles are so frustrating. Mavis: "Alice! This customer has some vouchers (or whatever) I don't recognise!". Alice leans over, abandoning her own customers: "Hmm... I haven't see that before, either. Gladys?" Gladys peers over from aisle 3's checkout: "Yes, you just have to press D and then 56.... oh, hang on, I'll show you." We now have three people sorting out the one problem and noone's getting served. I've seen this syndrome in banks, post offices and many other establishments where there are more than one operator. And it drives me mad. Look, if there's a problem, call in a manager, or the cleaner, or 'phone a ...

It all comes down to sheer selfishness, I suppose. But I'm staggered at the way 80% of the population of this country seems happy to throw down their fag ends, sweet wrappers, crisp packets and so on, without a thought as to what'll happen to them. Imagine if there was no-one to pick it all up? The planet would soon be knee deep in rubbish - I wonder at what point people would notice and start being conscious of their own throw-away habits? In many areas, councils pay people to go around picking up litter, but if we didn't make a mess in the first place, the money could be reassigned to schools, hospitals and other worthy projects. Litter makes me mad...

Now, listen up. The whole point of advertising is to get the message of a patricular brand of something scross, whether it's Carlsberg beer or a Vauxhall car (spit) or the latest perfume. So why do my wife and I end up playing the "Guess what this is an advert for" game every night? What on earth's the point in a company spending an obscene amount of money creating and paying to show an advert that's so arty that the thing it's advertising is only shown in the last two seconds? And those last couple of seconds are so tenuously linked to the preceding twenty-eight that although people might remember the arty advert, there's no way they're going to remember the brand, completely foiling the point of doing the advert in the first place. What a waste of money and time.

Bah Humbug. Oh, how I hate this time of year. Not Christmas itself, I'm all up for the season of goodwill and remembering the Nativity, and so on. But the now inevitable torrent of houses lit up with garish Santas and gaudy reindeer, each animated and with strobe-like accompaniment from gardens full of beads of lights, is just all too much. And pray tell me what a Star Wars advent calendar, a Santa in a helicopter and a parachuting reindeer have got to do with the birth of a penniless and naked baby Jesus in a stable in Israel 2000 years ago? Not an awful lot. Christmas for most people round here seems to be about time off work to get plumped up and drunk a lot, present buying hassles, office parties and the aforementioned gaudy light shows.