All parents think their kids are great, of course. And I certainly think my boys have inherited my dashing good looks, startling bright mind and natural charm (ahem… Julie seems to put it differently for some reason).
But even I wouldn’t say Alastair, at four years old, would be a match for the combined brains of Microsoft. At least, I wouldn’t until now…
But first, Good News if you use Google Chrome:
Chrome shiny again…
Last time, I mentioned a problem you might have had with Google’s Chrome web browser… and that there wasn’t a proper fix yet.
Well, Google have sorted it out, so if you (like me) have been using another browser in the meantime, you can go back to Chrome if you like now.
There’s an automatic update that fixes it, so all you should need to do is start up Chrome and wait a minute or so… but if you want to be able to tell when it’s done, here’s what to do:
(NB you only need to do this is you’ve been having problems – not all versions of Windows were affected, so if it’s working fine anyway, you can skip this!)
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Start up Chrome and click on the button near the top right hand corner of the screen
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Click on “About Google Chrome”
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It should tell you what version you have – you want one beginning with 38. If you have an earlier version it should automatically start updating.
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Wait for it to finish (it might take a few minutes) – and that’s it done!
Then you should fine Chrome is back to normal – I must admit, I found it a big relief.
Microsoft vs Alastair – Alastair wins…
For all I sometimes poke fun at Microsoft, they must have some pretty clever folk. Surely. But sometimes, I wonder…
They’ve recently announced the new version of Windows.
The last full version was Windows 8. (Then they tweaked that to get version 8.1, but that wasn’t a full new version.)
Before that was version 7. So what’s the next version going to be called?
Well, Windows 9 would make sense, don’t you think? Then again Microsoft sometimes name versions things like Vista or XP, rather than using numbers.
But this time, they’re sticking to numbers. Only it’s going to be Windows 10.
Now, even Alastair can tell me that 9 is what comes after 8. So what’s going on?
Well, the only official explanation I’ve seen is that it’s such a big step on from Windows 8 that they skipped a number because it’s like it’s two versions better. I’m not sure even the PR chap saying it really believed it.
My bet’s on something different – apparently 9 is an unlucky number in Japan, which is a big market for Microsoft. So I suspect they skipped 9 in the same way as lots of hotels don’t have a room number 13 (which, funnily enough, confused Alastair recently when we stayed in a Premier Inn and he was counting the door numbers as we walked past them).
I wouldn’t mind, if only they’d said that’s what they were doing!
Anyway, Windows 10 will be out (they say) sometime next year – certainly not before April. It’ll look a bit similar to Windows 8, but with some of the things people have complained about fixed.
At first glance, I’m fairly impressed with what they’ve done – I think it’ll genuinely be an improvement over Windows 8.
I’ll do a more in depth review nearer the time (once they’ve had time to fix the niggles… or mess it up entirely…)
Later today…
As I mentioned the other day, the Inner Circle will open to new members later today – if you’re not already a member, watch out for an email at Midday.
If you are already a member, you might notice some new members around shortly!