After more reports of personal data being lost, I’ve been left confused.

Where I work, only those who need laptops get them. And when they do, they don’t keep data ON the laptop, but on a remote server. When away from the office you have to sign in with a secure password, etc, to access any data, etc. If the laptop is stolen, you get nothing.

Most laptops these days come with built-in hardware security including finger-print readers, TPM chips and, if you have Windows Vista, technology such as BitLocker.

Additionally, you can prevent PC’s (whether desktop or laptop) from accepting USB devices, floppy-drives, writeable CD’s, to ensure that data doesn’t go wandering.

Now, I’m not a security expert (I leave that to friends) but why (and this isn’t just aimed at government who are not the only people losing personal data) is this happening?

I believe in the US they come down hard on companies who lose personal data such as this and we should do the same here. And that includes government departments. There really isn’t an excuse.

XP SP3 is due to pop-up on Automatic Updates very soon.

In the meantime you can download it directly from Microsoft. This is the final, release version of the SP.

As well as rolling up past fixes, this adds new features ported from Vista and early reviewers suggest that it increases performance by up to 10%.

Me? I’m installing this as soon as possible. Who needs Vista?

Having heard that the Windows Transforation Pack has been updated, I was keen to investigate WinFlip, which is part of it.

WinFlip provides the Flip3D facilities that you find in Vista. And… it’s very, very good.

There are other improvements in the Transformation Pack, such as windows transparency, but, to be honest, I’m interested in improving my XP, not just making it look like a Vista copy (and probably bogging it down as well).

I also came across a Start Menu replacement, but wasn’t keen on that either.

Oh, and I’m Beta testing Windows Live Messenger 9 at the mo. It adds Vista style minimise/maximise/close buttons, as WMP 11 does as well. Anybody aware of some simple software that will change this on all windows (and just the buttons)?

Here’s something that get Matt Fry salivating… my definitive guide to making Windows XP look cool. Or like Vista (depending how you see it). And it’s all free.

Here are my recommendations for what you need to download…

Zune theme
I mentioned in a previous post – it’s a black and orange colour theme for Windows.

Vista cursor
Read the supplied read me file for installation instructions.

Vista Wallpapers
Lots of official and un-official Vista wallpapers. I use WallMaster to cycle through mine.

Vista Sounds
Hmm, I have them installed on my PC but can’t find where I got them from… will upload them and put a link on my Blog when they’re ready.

Sidebar
After looking at various sidebars, the Google version ended up as my favourite, mainly due to the large number of gadgets available for it.

Alt/Tab Replacement
Microsoft provide a great Alt/Tab replacement as a PowerToy, although it’s not as good as Vistas Flip 3D. Oh well, you can’t have everything.

But, if you want to flip your windows about in 3D, try Madotate – personally I didn’t get on with it. Anyway, there’s no installer with it, so after unzipping it, run install.reg (this will add a registry entry) and then run madotate.exe to kick it off. A system tray icon will appear – from here you can change settings, etc. You will also notice that your current focused window has a new button at the top – click on this to make the window go all-3D.

And that’s it for now – if you can suggest anything further, please let me know.

A while ago my Hiper Power Supply failed. It was well within its warranty so I contacted Hiper, who arranged for a replacement. Naturally I had to return it to them and cover the cost myself. On top of that they didn’t reply to my emails and the person I spoke to on the phone was rude.

So as well as returning my PSU, I sent them a letter of complaint.

And I’ll them their due, they apologised. And to make things up they’d send me one of their lovely alloy keyboards.

Anyway, the other day my replacement PSU turned up. I carefully put it in my PC and switched it on. BANG.

After getting my house electric back on, I removed the Hiper PSU and put in my “temporary one” (that I’d bought whilst I was awaiting this replacement from Hiper). Luckily, and miraculously, my PC still worked.

But I’ve sent Hiper another strongly worded mail, this time asking for my money back. So far they’ve responded by asking if they can pick it up from me so they can examine it. I suspect that will involve me sitting at home and awaiting a courier so I’ve been less than keen.

And here’s where insult gets added to injury… I thought I’d try the keyboard out tonight. Except there was something odd about it. Maybe it was the strange words on some of the keys. Or maybe it was the symbols being on different keys than I’m used to. Yes…. drum roll….. they’d sent me a French one.

God bless.

I’ll never… ever… buy from Hiper again.

Meantime, I await a response from Hiper – I’ll give them a few days. Unfortunately my computer continues to play up (not related to the explosive PSU). It’s new trick is for the LAN connection not to work when booted up. A quick reboot and it works again. Never-the-less it’s one more annoyance that’s making the whole computer experience more and more annoying.

My long term plan? Ditch the thing and buy one from a big company, with a big warranty period on it. Mesh are looking good right now, but I’m trying to see if I can have XP installed instead of Vista (mainly due to the fact that my Harmony Remote and Siemens phone won’t connect to Vista).