Bad language in Comments

Recently I wrote about a problem that exists between Microsoft and Google in relation to embedding YouTube videos into PowerPoint that has resulted in Microsoft withdrawing support for using YouTube's embed code - they simply removed the option to embed.

Image source: Genius Outside the Bottle.

This situation has led to many comments on my YouTube channel about the features I describe not working, and in many cases viewers get confused and make a comment on the video. Usually these comments are polite, and are written seeking help. I get an email any time a viewer comments on the channel, and I do my best to respond to each comment - usually pointing the viewer to a work-around video that does work. Today I have put a large message on front of each video warning the user that some features might not work.

Recently some of this frustration has boiled over into an increased use of bad language. In the past week I have been called an "a**hole", "c**k sucker", "mother f**ker", "bitch", as well as "dumb", and "stupid". Charming! This is a tiny percentage of the total number of comments, and I must credit one viewer who apologized for calling me "dumb" when I pointed him to the work-around video.

Bad language has been with us forever, and will not go away. I use bad language - I think my use is low and restricted to "f**", "sh*", and "boll**ks" - I don't use it on the Internet and try to keep it to a minimum in conversation. I do not judge people who use bad language, but there is something different about using it on the Internet such as in writing a comment. Seeing it in written form seems to make it worse, why do people want to leave this trail of bad language behind them? Perhaps to regret later? It's already possible to trawl through Internet comments to analyse for sentiment, maybe the day is not far away when employers could run a scan of a job applicant's on-line behaviour before deciding if they want to employ that person.

"Bing Video Search, YouTube, and From a Video Embed Code" still missing from Microsoft @Office365

The now long running problem with embedding YouTube videos into Microsoft PowerPoint presentations seems to have no resolution in sight. On Microsoft's support page article "You can't embed an online video in a PowerPoint 2013 presentation", at least Microsoft acknowledge that there is a problem and point the finger at Google: 

"Due to changes in the YouTube service, PowerPoint 2013 is currently unable to support Youtube videos. Microsoft is currently investigating potential fixes to this feature".

Image source: Interactive.

This update is dated 20th November 2013. This problem first started to occur in the early summer this year and I can't believe that Microsoft's programmers can't sort this out within a few minutes. In the statement above I smell a legal issue ("changes in the YouTube service"), but this does not make sense as you can easily work around this by using PowerPoint's Developer Tools (see my video how to do this here). This work around uses a modified URL, but the method referred to above uses embed code. Maybe it's legal to use one, but not the other? 

In any event, I wish this could get sorted. Tom Warren, writing in The Verge last May, replicates a "cease and desist" letter (see below) from Google to Microsoft in a row over the YouTube App on the Windows phone. While these two kids fight over this, the rest of us are kept waiting. Grrrr!

Microsoft Community Video Tips Channel (@MSVideoTips)

Microsoft as part of their MVP Inititative have set up a Community Video Tips YouTube Channel to help new users learn about how to use new and updated Microsoft technologies. They have completed one programme and are now on the second series.

Image source: Pocketables.com.

Anyone can submit videos up until December 16th next, I have submitted several of my own to hopefully contribute to this community.

Check out the Community Video Tips channel - there is lots of great stuff there and not just in the English language. Microsoft have their own videos, for example in their Office on-line Help, but is is also great to see them acknowledge the many teachers/trainers/instructors that are out there showing learners how to use Microsoft products. It is a great Community idea as there are so many people sharing their videos on YouTube. 

Office 2013 - First Thoughts

I have just heard about Microsoft Office 2013 (I think this is the same as Office 365?) and checked out the video below to find out some more about the next generation of office tools. I use Office 2010 at work and Office 2007 at home - so I'd like to upgrade to 2013 if I can. The general theme seems to be to make "things" easier to do. I like that idea, because sometimes easy things are made difficult when there is no need to do so. I'll keep an eye on this and hope to get Office 2013 soonest.

The Blue Screen of Death #BSOD

Several times this week my home computer suffered from the Blue Screen of Death - the message each time was:

A device driver attempting to corrupt the system has been caught. The faulty driver currently on the kernel stack must be replaced.

Image source: Sound On Sound.

So that's easy to fix - just update the faulty driver, right? It started to take a long time to check out drivers - especially for items recently installed. So I purchased Driver Genius to do the job for me. It scanned my PC and found that it has 193 drivers! I'm sure many are redundant, but I was still amazed that there were so many. The first scan revealed that 32 drivers needed to be updated - Driver Genius downloads and installs these for you, and then can continue to monitor for updates. So hopefully there will be no more BSODs due to driver failure - none so far.

Ever since I started to use PCs running Microsoft Windows in about 1988 - General Failure Errors and BSODs have never been far away. Nearly 30 years later no one has figured out an easy way for Windows to tell the user what exactly went wrong and how it can be fixed. These things don't happen by themselves - there is a reasons for everything. How tough can it be to capture the information as it happens, dump it to a text file, and when Windows starts again it reads the file and tells us what to do "Windows has detected that you need to update your Web Cam driver....".

The BSOD is not confined to older computers - (mine is just over three years old). My brand new laptop at work encountered a BSOD on the second day I had it!

First look at Windows 8

Today at a Conference in the College where Microsoft have an Exhibitors stand I had my first view of Windows 8. The new version is not as radical as I thought it would be - many applications work in the same way as before - but the whole concept of what Windows is has changed dramatically.

My demo was on a Dell touch-screen laptop - it reminded me very much of my iPad when it is attached to its keyboard. The new Metro style App screen works well for me now that I am used to the iPad and iPhone. Everything works very smoothly, and as I have discovered with the iPad and keyboard - it is very easy to get used to switching from touch the screen to typing on the keyboard. I wonder will this be the end of the mouse?

Every new version of Windows always reminds me of the first version I worked with - v3.0. This would have been back in 1990 when it was released. I had been familiar with the use of windows on the Apple Mac Classic, but when I joined CBT Systems in 1989 the OS we used was MS-DOS. Windows 3.0 seemed like a world apart, and soooooo like copying the Mac. At the time I recall showing a colleague - "Look, you can have two applications open at the same time!". The reaction was "who would ever want to do that?". So for us old-timers, see what you can remember from the screen-shot of Windows 3.0 below:

Windows 3.0 - a long way from Windows 8.
Image link to Wikipedia.

Confess - how many hours did you spend playing Reversi?