The AOC i-Menu software

I have two AOC monitors, both of which are really good.

The older one has front panel controls, the newer one does not. Instead you are supposed to use an application which you install and that controls the monitor settings.

In many respects a good idea but not if you don't have the software. Sadly I didn't have the driver CD for the monitor.

The AOC website has the monitor "driver" file which is really a settings file that Windows uses.

After a bit of support assistance I was directed to the glossary page on the AOC website.

http://aoc-europe.com/en/content/glossary

This includes the key section:

i-Menu

Adjust your display settings with i-Menu software. Fine-tune luminosity, image setup, color temperature and more with a few simple clicks.

The "i-Menu software" is in blue and is a clickable link to a zip file download.

That contains the AOC i-Menu software as an exe installer. Click that and off you go.


The linked file can currently be found at:

http://aoc-europe.com/download/%252F%252Faoc-pim.s3.amazonaws.com%252FPublic%252FAOC%252FDrivers_Software_Manuals%252FSoftware%252Fi-Menu%252Fi-Menu-AOC4.3.1-setup.zip

Hope that helps someone.

Improved link:

aoc-pim.s3.amazonaws.com/Public/AOC/Drivers_Software_Manuals/Software/i-Menu/i-Menu-AOC4.3.1-setup.zip

The EE Power Bar (part 3)

It is with regret that I have to announce that the EE Power Bar has been recalled to meet its maker.

I had a text announcing a product recall.

Yes it had been getting hot when charging but it seemed OK.

I took it back to the store and handed it over. I was expecting a replacement but there was none.

Just a "compensation voucher" to spend at the EE shop.

A vague promise of a Power Bar at some indeterminate time in the future.

All in all, a sad end to the power bar saga.

And another thing......

Not content with breaking the music library, Apple have surpassed themselves by removing the "genius" playlist feature of iOS 8.4.

Yes, it often failed

Yes, It couldn't identify lots of my songs

But, when it worked it was quite good

And now it is gone.

Apple - FAIL !

iOS 8.4 and the vanishing music library "I went back to the iPod and my music was gone"

I like my iPod touch. I liked it enough to buy an iPhone once and I may again but in the meanwhile I have a reasonably new 32GB iPod touch with a fair amount of music on it.

Perhaps foolishly I upgraded to iOS 8.4.

The music icon had changed appearance. When I selected it, to misquote The Pretenders, my music was gone. All was left was the handful of iTunes purchases.

The 700 other songs, either downloads from amazon or CD rips and their associated covers were all gone.

Google was my friend, a re-sync with my macbook with the music library on it did the job of restoring my music again fine.

Fortunately even the iTunes 11.4 I have on my ageing MacBook was good enough.  I had a nasty feeling I might need a newer version.

The EE Power Bar (part 2)

Yesterday I go a chance to go to my local EE shop shortly after they opened.

It was a Saturday morning about half an hour after they opened.

After a minor faff (due to me not knowing my T-Mobile SIM phone number and not giving call ID to numbers not in my address book [fantastic feature]) I got my power bar.

The man in the shop said I topped up by £10 a month (well actually it is £40 a year for 2 x 6 Month web deals but I had topped up by £10 in May to get some free calls in June) and I think that was supposed to lead into an "upgrade" to a contract discussion.

He was fairly sharp as he worked out that a contract for the new version of the phone I had (probably he would have offered a Lumia 930 or 830) would have been much more than £10 a month and saved his effort for a better cause !

I walked out with my power bar in a nice little tube and with an attaching lead.

OK for 35p and 2 visits to a phone shop.

The EE "Power Bar" - is it a bit of a scam ?

I tried to get an EE power bar today.

I texted when the offer resumed but first had time to visit an EE store this afternoon.

I find that the store (in a smaller high street in the London suburbs) gets a delivery of around 100 every day (possibly not Sundays when I visited) and when they are gone they are gone.

The promotion seems to be about driving footfall to their stores as I have to return each day until I find a store with one in stock.

I'm not sure how successful it will be as I'm going to be increasingly cross each time I go as I don't naturally visit a location with an EE shop in it.

What chance is there that I will buy something when at an EE shop ?

- Zero !

I've never bought anything in an operator phone shop and only buy phones unbranded and unlocked (preferably via a website to avoid the dreadful experience that is the mobile phone shop).

The power bar promotion makes me feel even less inclined to visit an EE shop.

OWN GOAL EE !

T Mobile 6 Month Web - Fair Use Policy

Probably the best value, relatively low use Pay As You Go mobile data deal in the UK is the T Mobile 6 Month Web offer.

You get this by texting "6MONTHWEB" to "441" with a T-Mobile PAYG SIM with at least £20 credit on it. It takes the £20 and gives you data for 6 months.

The data included seems to be a little ambiguous, you get 1GB but can use more subject to a "Fair Use Policy".

I don't have a problem with this but had difficulty in finding out what the Fair Use Policy is.

I've now found:

"This Booster comes with a fair use policy of 1GB a month. We'll monitor how much you send and receive each calendar month so that we can protect our network for all our customers"

I had a heavy month on the Internet use and had a text to say I was at 80% of the Fair Use Policy and another when I reached 100% and a link which didn't work due to the merging of the EE, Orange and T-Mobile websites. The Internet connection may have gone slower or stopped working at that point (but this is a little hard to tell as sometimes the T-Mobile internet does that anyway !).

I had used more than 1GB but since I was counting by the month based on buying the offer not the calendar I don't know how much.

I've now set the phone data counter to be calendar month so if I get towards the unpublished limit I can work out what it is.

Canon LiDE 25 scanner with Windows 7

I don't scan much, perhaps once a month and I have had a Canon Lide 25 colour flatbed scanner since the start of 2007. I have always used it with our Windows XP PC but I'm hoping to retire this shortly (none too soon you might say). One barrier to this retirement has been the scanner.

So...

I tried plugging it in to the Windows 7 PC and no driver found.

Somewhat annoying. A bit of a Google suggested trying drivers for other scanners but that got me nowhere. In a couple of places I saw suggestions of alternative drivers by Hamrick.

Their website is a bit "pushy" in that it tries to download the drivers as soon as you look around but forgiving them that I thought I would give them a try.

I downloaded the driver and installed it (using an admin account).

I plugged in the scanner and still no scanner was found.

I then ran the installer again, and it found the scanner (albeit called LiDE 30) and everything works.

After you scan for the first time it points out that scans are watermarked and will be until you pay up, but it will be $30 not $40 if you do so within the hour.

As it worked I thought I would go for the $30 option rather than buy a new scanner and landfill the old one.

Also, in my view, Hamrick were more deserving of $30 for supporting my hardware as against Canon who didn't and wanted to sell a new one.

In my view, the software is better than the old XP Canon version and scans to JPEG, PDF or TIFF.

The remaining annoyance is that having had $30, it still offers "advanced" features for more money.

All in all, it seems to have been worth the money so far.

www.hamrick.com