Thursday 29 November 2012

Playlist:
Billy Fury - I'd Never Find Another You
Spandau Ballet - Gold
Haddaway - What Is Love
Moody Blues - Go Now
Herman's Hermits - There's A Kind Of Hush
Sam Brown - Valentine Moon
Alexander Brothers - Rothesay Bay
Olivia Newton John & ELO - Xanadu
Tom Robinson - 2 4 6 8 Motorway
Albert Hammond - The Free Electric Band
Brotherhood Of Man - Save All Your Kisses For Me
Freda Payne - Band Of Gold

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Playlist:
Diana Ross & The Supremes - I Second That Emotion
Atomic Kitten - Eternal Flame
Steve Miller Band - Rock 'N' Me
David Bowie - Under Pressure
Goldie - Making Up Again
Kylie Minogue - Wouldn't Change A Thing
Beatles, The - Please Please Me
Randy Newman - Mama Told Me Not To Come
En Vogue - My Lovin'
EMF - Unbelievable
Supergrass - Alright
Beach Boys - The Little Girl I Once Knew
Abba - Mama Mia

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Playlist:
David Bowie - Starman
Foundations, The - Now That I've Found You
Proclaimers, The - Let's Get Married
David Bowie & Mick Jagger - Dancing In The Street
Rolling Stones - Get Off Of My Cloud
Aztec Camera - Somewhere In My Heart
Erasure - Drama!
Morecambe & Wise - Bring Me Sunshine
Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Legend Of Xanadu
Simple Minds - Alive & Kicking
Faith No More - I'm Easy
The Knack - My Sharona

Monday 26 November 2012

Playlist:
Strawbs - Part Of The Union
Pet Shop Boys - Where The Streets Have No Name
Mika - We Are Golden
Christina Aguilera - Candyman
Michael Jackson - Ben
Nolan Sisters - I'm In The Mood For Dancing
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Fleetwood Mac - Man Of The World
Natasha Bedingfield - These Words
Duane Eddy - Dance With The Guitar Man
Glen Campbell & Bobby Gentry - All I Have To Do Is Dream
The Band - The Weight

Saturday 24 November 2012

Playlist:
Eliza Carthy & The Ratcatchers - Scan Tester's Country Stepdance + Lemmy Brazil's No. 2
Dala - Best Day
Sarah McQuaid - Only An Emotion
Dala - Lennon & McCartney
Norma Munro - Westering Home
Ishbel MacAskill - Griogal Cridhe (Darling Gregor)
Judy Dunlop & John Scaife - Star O' The Bar
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)
Joan Mills - Wednesbury Town
Outside Track, The - False Knight On The Road
Bill Jones - The Haymakers
Tom Paxton - Whose Garden Was This
Malinky - Leaving Rum

Thursday 22 November 2012

Playlist:
Ronan Keating & Lulu - We've Got Tonight
Bananarama - Movin' On
Doris Day - Secret Love
Carly Simon - You're So Vain
Avril Lavigne - Sk8er Boi
Sam Brown - Valentine Moon
Wee Toon Tellers - Bay Of Storms
Kinks, The - Tired Of Waiting
Erasure - Stop!
McFly - Five Colours In Her Hair
Leif Garrett - I Was Made For Dancin'
Fleetwood Mac - Gypsy

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Playlist:
Judie Clay & William Bell - Private Number
Beach Boys, The - Wouldn't It Be Nice
Amen Corner - Half As Nice
Beyonce & Shakira - Beautiful Liar
Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen
Steve Winwood - Valerie
Jeffrey Osborne - On The Wings Of Love
Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn & Diane Keaton - You Don't Own Me
Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet
Blur - Country House
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - Egyptian Reggae
Sam Cooke - You Send Me
Lisa Stansfield - The Real Thing
Clout - Substitute

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Playlist:
Shirelles, The - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
Hot Chocolate - So You Win Again
Carole King - Like A Natural Woman
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - I Second That Emotion
Billy Joel - It's Still Rock N' Roll To Me
Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
Proclaimers, The - Letter From America
Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky
Mud - Tiger Feet
UB40 & Chrissie Hynde - I Got You Babe
Girls Aloud - No Good Advice
Smokie - I'll Meet You At Midnight

Monday 19 November 2012

Playlist:
Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air
Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
Waterboys, The - The Whole Of The Moon
Corrs, The - What Can I Do
Scouting For Girls - Elvis Ain't Dead
Pato Banton with Robin & Ali Campbell - Baby Come Back
Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff - Dizzy
Eddy Grant - I Don't Wanna Dance
Tears For Fears - Change
Kristian Leontiou - Fast Car
Rolling Stones - Mother's Little Helper

Saturday 17 November 2012

Playlist:
Spinners, The - The Foggy Dew
Emile Benoit - Noel Dinn + Pamela's Lonely Nights
Jeana Leslie & Siobhan Miller - Familiar Faces
Maeve MacKinnon - The Father's Song
Maeve MacKinnon - O'Phaill
Mike Donaghy - Peace Begins With Me
Mike Donaghy - Stand And Stare
David Francey - Long Brown Hair
David Francey - Borderlands
Saga - Ballad Of The Yarmouth Castle
Martin Byrne - All The Little Boats
Straight Furrow - Star Of The County Down
Jim Reynolds - Where Do We Go
Leo McCann - Just For Sean

On new-fangled operating systems

Forty seconds to boot from cold! That's all it takes for Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity interface. Even with my Grumpy socks on, I'm impressed.

The machine in question is a low-budget Samsung Series 3 laptop (6GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, Quad core AMD CPU - how do they do it?). It came with Windows 8 pre-loaded. Intrigued by the obviously tablet-oriented interface, I gave that a whirl. Notably, it has the more conventional task-bar style screen as an option too.

Perhaps I should explain at this point that my job is to support computer users. Being "in the trade" I am often asked for advice, which I give, trying to tailor responses to perceived requirements pitched at the right level of detail.

Now, the big question about operating systems for me is "how usable is it?". Very subjective. After the success of Windows XP, Vista was a huge disppointment to many. Windows 7 was the cure for Vista woes, but Microsoft killed its development after belatedly noticing how far behind it was in the tablet/palmtop/laptop/desktop interoperability stakes. Windows 8 is the big catch-up as far as that company is concerned.

In common with most people, I like operating systems to be intuitive, giving usable functionality without constantly going for the manual or help pages. Some offerings leave me struggling, some are a breeze, but even in the latter group I can miss the obvious. Windows 8 lasted 2 hours before I was scrabbling around for the Ubuntu installation disc.

For many years, GNU/Linux, in one distribution or another, has been my operating system of choice, and I now use the Ubuntu distribution with the latest Unity interface. But it often comes down to "horses for courses". At Argyll FM, where I am a radio presenter, we use Windows XP because the excellent OTSAVDJ playout system runs on that. In my day job, most users also use Windows XP as our employer historically insisted on it. For mobile use, I tend to favour Apple products, even with knowledge of the excellent Android tablets and smart-phones currently available. Apple iOS and the applications (Apps) available for it are amazing. For home use, it is hard to beat an Apple Mac running OS-X. Audio, video and many other professionals tend to use Macs too, in both desktop or laptop incarnations. The quality and style of the Apple hardware is second to none. But I still prefer Ubuntu running on budget hardware.

I am a proponent of open source software, free as in "speech" but not as in "lunch", and I don't have shares in any computer company, but I will not hesitate to recommend proprietary products that produce great user experiences. Take a look at some application choices: for office productivity, I say Open Office; for web browsing, Google's Chrome or Mozilla Firefox; for DJ-ing, use OTSAVDJ; for music production, try Ableton and Audacity; for graphics, it's got to be GIMP. And so on.

Operating systems are the rock upon which applications rest, and hardware underlies both. In choosing operating systems, as with hardware and applications, reliability and usability are key. Unix provided the groundwork here, using small, highly configurable and exhaustively-tested software building blocks. Google's Android, Apple's OS-X and all GNU/Linux flavours draw on a common Unix heritage.

So, what to choose? For me, having made sure my intended applications are available on the platform, I choose from GNU/Linux, Apple OS-X and Apple iOS, in turn dependent on hardware choice. If my intended applicaton is only available on Windows, I'll grudgingly use it. Sigh. I've lost count of the times I've used the words "not", "reliable" and "system" in the same sentence.

20th. Century Unix was so reliable. Thank goodness for its Linux, Android and OS-X descendants,

Trevor Oxborrow
(A systems analyst with a hardware engineering background)

Thursday 15 November 2012

Playlist:
Bonnie Tyler - It's A Heartache
Mud - Dyna-mite
Britney Spears - Oops I Did It Again
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love
Johnny Kidd & The Pirates - I'll Never Get Over You
Glen Campbell - Rhinestone Cowboy
Kim Wilde - Kids In America
Korgis - If I Had You
Lindisfarne - Run For Home
Sam Brown - Valentine Moon
Deacon Blue - Real Gone Kid
Mary Hopkin - Those Were The Days

Wednesday 14 November 2012

Playlist:
David Bowie - Sound And Vision
Johnny Burnette - You're Sixteen
Maisonettes, The - Heartache Avenue
Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
Jackie Wilson - Reet Petite
Patsy Cline - Love Letters In The Sand
Gallagher And Lyle - Heart On My Sleeve
Bon Jovi - Always
Steps - Tragedy
Ronan Keating - She Believes In Me
Robbie Williams - Tripping
Patsy Gallant - From New York To L A

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Playlist:
Joe Fagin - That's Livin' Alright
Kinks, The - Apeman
Whitesnake - Here I Go Again (1987 Remix)
Westlife & Mariah Carey - Against All Odds
Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner's DaughterMartine McCutcheon - Perfect Moment
Monkees, The - Hey Hey We're The Monkees
Pato Banton with Robin & Ali Campbell - Baby Come Back
Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff - Dizzy
Eddy Grant - I Don't Wanna Dance
Kylie Minogue - Slow
Proclaimers, The - Life With You
Trashcan Sinatras - Wild Mountainside

Monday 12 November 2012

Playlist:
Nolans, The - I'm In The Mood For Dancing
Huey Lewis & The News - The Power Of Love
Bob Marley - Jamming
Judy Collins - My Father
Beach Boys, The - Help Me Rhonda
Take That - Rule The World
Mika - Grace Kelly
Brian Hyland - Sealed With A Kiss
Neil Young - Heart Of Gold
Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
Bay City Rollers - Bye Bye Baby
Tina Turner - I Can't Stand The Rain
Who, The - Substitute

Saturday 10 November 2012

Playlist:
Battlefield Band - The Lily & The Rose
Jeana Leslie & Siobhan Miller - Time Wears Awa'
Anna Massie - Trip To Windsor
Fairport Convention - Portmeirion
Chloe Hall - Nothing Really Matters
Julie Fowlis - Ged A Sheol Mi Air M' Aineol
Hilary James - Two Sisters
Pipedown - Reels
Sarah McQuaid - Can She Excuse My Wrongs
Vatersay Boys - Sonny [Song]
Blueflint - Skippin' Skattin'

Thursday 08 November 2012

Playlist:
Tina Turner - Steamy Windows
Aretha Franklin - Until You Come Back To Me
Johnnie Ray - Just Walkin' In The Rain
Chairman Of The Board - Give Me Just A Little More Time
Peters & Lee - Welcome Home
Gloria Gaynor - I Will Survive
Four Tops - Walk Away Renee
Carpenters - Only Yesterday
Andy Stewart - The Road And The Miles To Dundee
Sam Brown - Valentine Moon
Deborah Harry - I Want That Man
Hollies, The - Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress
Clive Dunn - Grandad
Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Murder On The Dancefloor
Kinks, The - Stop Your Sobbing

Wednesday 07 November 2012

Playlist:
Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself
Tina Turner - It Takes Two
Bobby Gentry - I'll Never Fall In Love Again
Wilson Phillips - Monday Monday
Nicole Kidman & Ewan McGregor
Cilla Black - Step Inside Love
Long John Baldry - Let The Heartaches Begin
Jellybean feat. Elisa Fiorillo - Who Found Who
Texas - I Don't Want A Lover
Hothouse Flowers - Don't Go
Spandau Ballet - Only When You leave
Sly & The Family Stone - Family Affair

Tuesday 06 November 2012

Playlist:
Jackie Wilson - Higher And Higher
Deep Blue Something - Breakfast At Tiffany's
Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene Part 2
Look, The - I Am The Beat
Backstreet Boys - As Long As You Love Me
Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth
Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin - It's My Party
Glenn Frey - The Heat Is On
Eagles, The - Hotel California
Who, The - Who Are You
Beach Boys - Good Vibrations
Kris Kristofferson - Help Me Make It Through The Night

Monday 05 November 2012

Playlist:
Pet Shop Boys - Go West
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
Anita Ward - Ring My Bell
Carpenters - Jambalaya
Tiffany - I Think We're Alone Now
Chimes, The - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Ike & Tina Turner - Baby Get It On
Simon & Garfunkel - The 59th. Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy)(Live)
Steve Miller Band - The Joker
Herman's Hermits - I'm Into Something Good
Steps - Stomp
Bette Midler - Sisters
Madonna - La Isla Bonita

Saturday 03 November 2012

Playlist:
Sarah McQuaid - In The Pines
The Morris On Band - Sulgrave Air + Shepherd's Hey
Bill Jones - Diddling Set
McCalman's - Let's Recycle
Spinners, The - Any Complaints
Jennifer & Hazel Wrigley - Swelkie + The Teran
Outside Track, The - Cancro Cru
Malinky - The Rovin' Ploughboy
Unthanks, The - Nobody Knew She Was There
Dala - Face In The Morning
Owen Hand - Bogie's Bonny Belle
Eamon Friel with Mary Dillon - The Kingdom Of Love
Vatersay Boys - Song For The Small Pipes

Thursday 01 November 2012

Playlist:
Odyssey - Use It Up And Wear It Out
Tanya Tucker - Delta Dawn
Jeff Beck - Hi Lo Silver Lining
Vapors - Turning Japanese
Dexy's Midnight Runners - Geno
Gloria Estefan - Here We Are
Ricky Martin & Meja - Private Emotion
Freda Payne - Band Of Gold
Beatles - The Fool On The Hill
Sam Brown - Valentine Moon
Fleetwood Mac - You Make Lovin Fun
Kylie Minogue - Hand On Your Heart
Katie Melua - I Think It's Going To Rain Today
Doobie Brothers - Long Train Runnin'