Top 10 Internet Predictions of 2015 (Or 5 if you are being really picky and counting)

Well, 2014 was a bit shit.
Not entirely of course, we did have a decent summer and there was some good tv but you don’t need me to list the more despicable events of the year…and I’m not even including England’s performance at the World Cup.
Nevertheless, you’ve always got to be positive about the new year don’t you, although granted that’s made a bit easier if you’re a Chelsea fan like me. But for those unfortunates who support a team without an Eden Hazard, what is there to look forward to?
Not much as it turns out, especially as far as my internet based predictions are concerned.
Because regular visitors will know I confidently foresee at least 10 things to enjoy/dread in the coming year. Prognostications based upon extensive empirical research of all things web and my even greater understanding of the human mind.
However, this year as the whole Net turns murkier, I feel constrained to offer only 5 Internet certainties lest my more dire revelations spirals mankind into moral degradation even faster.
That’s what I’m saying anyway. The fact that I only started to think about them a few days ago has nothing to do with it.
So my friends, here then without further fanfare, or excuses, are my Top 10 5 Internet Predictions of 2015. Read on, it won’t take long.

• Google will find a commercial use for the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button on their search page. When you press it you get taken to their new online Gambling service.
• When it’s said he’s losing his touch, a jealous Kim Jon Un will order North Korea to cyber attack the new most repressive and corrupt governing body in the World. FIFA.
• Google will try to make up for not paying tax in the UK by promising to clean up inner city neighbourhoods. The new service will be called Google Mops.
• When a disproportionate amount of new iWatches are returned by men for being broken, Apple will realise their fundamental design flaw. Having something you can watch porn on, that’s worn on the wrist and isn’t sufficiently shake proof is just asking for trouble.
• Kim Kardashian’s bum will break the internet this year. She’ll sit on it.

Unfortunately, at least to my mind, I fear those last two predictions may be linked.

Top 10 Internet Predictions of 2014

Jeez, 2013 only seemed to start a year ago and now it’s gone.
And to tell you the truth, I’m very happy with that because it’s been an odd year and you know what that means, no World Cup, Euro’s or Olympics!
But 2014, all things being even, I think I’m going to like. For a start England will definitely win the World Cup and I’m also convinced that at least one my predictions will come true this time.
In fact I’m so confident I’ll even give you a bonus prediction for the very beginning of the year. On January 1st when the new series of ‘Sherlock’ starts I fully expect that the reason Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t die falling off that roof is because he nicked a teleporter from being in that Star Trek movie. Remember folks, you read it here first.
It’s as obvious as England winning the World Cup.
But enough, I’m just showing off now and so without another do being furthered, I present to you my latest list of internet based certainties. THE TOP 10 INTERNET PREDICTIONS OF 2014.

1. Attention spans on the internet will get shorter and shorter. Even Vine videos receive the complaint, “Well, that’s 6 seconds of my life I’ll never get back.”
2. With the Mini Ipad such a success, Apple look to minimize other products and unveil their Mini Mouse.
3. Amazon will roll out their new drone program to deliver packages. Unfortunately, tragic circumstances ensue when they choose the same manufacturer as the US military who spectacularly misunderstand the nature of the ‘package’ meant to be delivered.
4. Irony will abound for Monty Python fans who apply online for tickets to the Reunion gigs. All the confirmation emails get caught in the Spam filter.
5. Ebay decide to introduce a regional marketplace service. The first one will be in Yorkshire and be called Ebay Gum.
6. Tentative talks will be held by Confused.com and PaddyPower about a merger. Plans will be scrapped however when the name ConfusedPaddy.com doesn’t scan well with certain focus groups.
7. Facebook finally relent to pressure and unveil a new ‘Dislike’ button. People who don’t like the ‘dislike’ button have a field day.
8. The Government will be confronted over their claims that every family is at least £50 better off than they were before the last election. Turns out they’re counting the free bets from online gambling sites.
9. NSA whistleblower Edward Norton will drop a new bombshell. Or more likely, one will drop on him.
10. The 3rd most viewed selfie of 2014 will be of Miley Cyrus’s arse. The 2nd most viewed selfie will be of Miley Cyrus’s tongue. But the No. 1 most viewed selfie will be of Miley Cyrus’s tongue sticking out of Miley Cyrus’s arse. Most of the World however, fed up with Miley Cyrus’s tongue and Miley Cyrus’s arse will be dismayed it’s only Photoshop’d.

Oh well, that’s it for another year. Back to twerk I go.
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How to watch Hulu and US Television in the UK.

Ok, given that my most popular post ever concerns how to unblock the video on Comedy Central websites, I reckon I should turn it up a notch. What if I reveal how to watch the programming of nearly every channel in America!

Got your attention? Good, because what follows is gold Jerry gold!

Because Hulu is for American TV a kind of super BBC iPlayer, 4OD, Demand 5 and ITV Player all rolled into one. Hundreds of channels, a smorgasbord of US drama, a cornucopia of American comedy, and for that matter, a cesspit of crappy reality shows.

But that’s not the point, what you watch is up to you, the perennial problem is that from this side of the Atlantic all the precious content is ceremonially blocked once they realise that you’re not a damn yankee.

Not now though, now there’s a dandy way to doodle Hulu into thinking you are a yankee and it really could not be simpler.

All you need is to use Firefox or Chrome as your browser, download one single add-on called Media Hint freely available for each, and that’s it. No further instructions necessary, no extra fiddling, not another solitary thing to do except go to hulu.com and start wasting some more of your life.

Now then, apart from directing certain traffic through a US proxy I’m really not sure how Media Hint’s clever voodoo actually works, but work it definitely does. And you can download your own Media Hint for Firefox and Media Hint for Chrome by clicking these links to whichever flavour you prefer.

All I can confirm is that both versions work perfectly for me, access to the videos is fast with great quality and it doesn’t seem to affect other web browsing either. It is fairly new though and its origins are Latvian so if you’re the nervous type at all I suppose you can simply disable it when you aren’t using it.

The other bonus with Media Hint is that it doesn’t just fool Hulu’s geo-blocking, it’s the key that unlocks other previously stubborn network websites as well, like Fox.com and CBS.com. That’s right folks, finally a way to watch Letterman and Craig Ferguson! And it’ll let you into US Netflix (don’t get too excited, you would still have to pay) and Pandora the music radio site which is free and rather good.

In fact the only trouble with Media Hint is that it works so well, without the VPN hassle/expense usually required to crack Hulu and the networks, that the bastards will surely try and stop it soon.

So what are you waiting for, download Media Hint immediately. Make the most of this gloriously simple way to all the American TV we don’t get, the latest of what we do get and what we’ve already gotten but want to watch again, while you can.

But I’ll let ya know now, Dave Letterman’s wig still doesn’t look convincing.

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IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Alas it was too good to last.
Not that they’ve taken Media Hint away, but as of April 2014 if you download Media Hint now you have to sign up for an account with them and there’s a monthly fee of $3.95 a month.
Although for me, having downloaded it previously, the thing seems to work just as it did before but new folks are going to have to make a choice.
Sorry people, it was golden for over a year but some of Media Hint’s lustre has obviously rubbed off.
But all is not totally lost. To watch other select channels that are normally blocked unless you’re in America, like Comedy Central for The Daily Show and Colbert Report, there’s still my instructions for another free add-on called Modify Headers.
You can read the instructions here:
https://xtremisreaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/how-to-watch-the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-in-the-uk/

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Top 10 Internet Predictions for 2013

Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the…well, it was just about everything in 2012.

A Diamond Jubilee, a Champions League, a triumphant Olympic Games, a Tour de France, a tennis US Open, James Bond better than ever and ahem…One Direction.

It’s a shame they wouldn’t allow a Brit to be US President, we might have won that too. I bet Simon Cowell could have done it, he’s used to running things and getting people to vote. As it was, apparently a Kenyan won it again.

Still if it can’t be that good for ol’ Blighty in 2013, what can we expect to happen this year? And specifically what’s next for us, and the wider World, on the series of tubes they call the internet.

Because regular readers of my blog (although I concede there hasn’t been much new stuff to read lately) will know that at this time of year I always try to predict the web based wonders of the next 12 months, even if I don’t really try too hard.

But why shouldn’t one of my predictions come true, I mean the law of averages must kick in eventually. Always the optimist me.

And so without further ado but with suitably overblown fanfare and fingers crossed I present to you my TOP 10 INTERNET PREDICTIONS FOR 2013.

1. Apple will launch a radical plan to justify all the glaring errors on their Apple Maps service. Their first step is to buy The Eiffel Tower and move it to a suburb in Lowestoft where they say it is.
2. After Piers Morgan’s rant about gun control sparked a US online petition to have him deported, and a UK one was launched not to have him back, a third poll is created to promote the obvious compromise. Millions vote to drop him somewhere in the middle.
3. A shocking decline in medical training at NHS Direct is highlighted after a member of staff suggests using Google Docs for a second opinion.
4. The Pope will soon regret opening his new Twitter account. One glass of Communion wine too many and he announces ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is his new second favorite book. #NaughtyPontiff.
5. A very ill-conceived new method of Viral Marketing goes horribly wrong for zombie movie ‘World War Z’. Within 28 days the World looks like a scene from The Walking Dead and box office takings are terrible.
6. As online gambling sites proliferate, 888.com cause outrage by inventing a new niche in the market. Based on very poor taste betting they launch a companion website called 666.com
7. A Monty Python fan makes a terrible error by setting up a Google Alert for ‘Spam’ instead of Spamalot’. The next time he opens his email account there are 7 Trillion messages in there.
8. Someone will hack into Wikipedia and edit Wikipedia’s own page about Wikipedia. Changing the text to say Wikipedia closed as soon as it started, the resulting space time paradox makes it disappear off the web and millions of students retroactively fail their exams.
9. After much criticism for not paying any UK corporation tax for years, Amazon and the government finally reach a settlement. Ministers will get first dibs on all the best deals on Black Friday.
10. Twitter will follow Facebook by floating on the stock market. Frustration sets in though when investors are restricted to a maximum of 140 shares at a time.

I actually had another one but it’s just too obvious really. That when Wills and Kate’s baby is born every celeb in the western World will be poised by a computer to be the first to say they are so happy for them. Well, maybe not Morrissey.

Top 10 Internet Predictions for 2012.

2012, oh er.

As if 2011 wasn’t bad enough, we have either a financial armageddon to look forward to in the coming year or a real one if the Mayans or Roland Emmerich are to be believed.

On the bright side though, if cataclysmic seismic shifts do begin to destroy our planet, someone is bound to create an app for that. At least it’ll be nice and easy to follow our spiral into oblivion.

I wouldn’t have to rack my brains for the 2013 version of these unlikely predictions either.

But without such a ready excuse for this year, here then…after great deliberation and viewing many hours of internet related programming, if ‘Rude Tube’ counts, are my Top 10 Internet Predictions for 2012.

And as in previous years they are presented in absolutely no order of accuracy or probability, so let history prove me right or wrong. If the Mayan prediction is right it won’t matter anyway will it.

1. The fairy-tale Royal Marriage of William and Kate will come to a sad and acrimonious end once she discovers his Google history includes multiple searches for ‘Pippa Middleton’s arse’.
2. Following the film success of ‘The Social Network’, plans are made for a sequel. About how looters used Facebook to co-ordinate the London Riots, this one will be called ‘The Anti-Social Network’.
3. Beleaguered social network site Friends Reunited have a brilliant idea for a new advertising campaign. Unfortunately they can only afford Gunther for it and not Joey, Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler or Monica.
4. When the new iPad 3 is released, Microsoft will again demonstrate how far behind Apple they are by saying that once you put a mouse and mousepad on it you still can’t see the screen to use it.
5. It won’t matter who wins the Republican nomination for the US Presidential election, they are all so poor that after a YouTube only debate is broadcast, Keyboard Cat will play them out.
6. The term Googlewhack, known previously as a search request producing only one result, will become something far more sinister when Google unveil their new Assassination service.
7. Famous in the US, classified ads site Craigslist will recognise a chance for some free publicity in the UK. When the new Bond film is released it will change its name to DanielCraigsList for a week.
8. For those watching The Olympic 100m final on BBC iPlayer via broadband it will be over in less than 10 seconds. For those on dial up it will last 2 minutes and then freeze just at the end.
9. Britain will realize its obsession with celebrity has finally gone too far when someone tweets a rumour that Z-Lister Rik Waller has hemorrhoids, and even that starts trending.
10. Given that the Mayans have predicted the end of the World on December 21st 2012, Amazon are careful to include a disclaimer that this may effect Christmas delivery times.

So there you have them. And I really, really hope at least one of them does come true.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to my Twitter account. I’m sure that was Rik Waller in Superdrug buying Preperation H.

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Amazon – The funny reviews it’s worth shopping for.

Ah, the mighty Amazon, that all embracing river of commerce we all dip our retail oar in.

It’s the biggest, it’s the best and it’s the most authoritative when it comes to purchasers feedback.  A clutch of positive or negative reviews on there can make or break a product being sold.

But what happens when the whole purpose of a review is not to make or break that product, rather to make you laugh so hard that you break a rib. When a review is so funny that the only thing the buyer should beware is soiling themselves. When the, um, er…oh sod it, I’ve run out of shopping superlatives but you get the idea.

The thing is, there are certain products that are so familiar or so entirely unremarkable that reviews in the normal sense are superfluous anyway, y’know for stuff like Bic pens, T Shirts, milk, and Katie Price and Peter Andre’s album.

Take the humble Bic pen for instance, what could be more ubiquitous or its use so obvious. I mean nobody needs a review of a Bic pen do they.

Except when they’re this inspired…

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And those are just a few appetizers for the feast of funny you’ll find on the real Amazon page, there’s another 234 on there.

Actually you can make that 235 now…

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Well, if you take other peoples reviews, you gotta give one back of your own haven’t ya. And I do love my Bic.

So if you want to read more ribaldrous reviews and comedic critiques, and I really urge you that you should, go to this ready-made list of funny Amazon reviews on the Amazon site itself.

Be warned however, with all those aforementioned Bic reviews and similar hilarity for Paul Ross’s and Hitlers portrait (not together of course), a ‘Jesus – He’s my No. 1’ Mug and some total classics about the Original Three Wolf Moon T-Shirts, you will definitely fall into one of two categories.

Either you will have tears running down your trouser leg, or your colostomy bag will explode.

But you will piss yourself.

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AllMyApps – The App Store for PC owners.

If there is one word that sums up what people love about computers these days, that word has got to be apps.

Because apps are everywhere and for just about everything, apps for productivity, apps for the office, apps for games, apps for maps, and probably apps for laps, gaps, raps and naps.

But so far it is Apple who are synonymous with the rise of the planets of the apps and it was only a few weeks ago Apple triumphantly announced its 15th Billion app download.

Admittedly most of those have been for iPhones and iPads through the iTunes store, but Apple also launched a very successful dedicated App Store for its Mac computers too.

But if you don’t have a Mac and you ‘just’ own a PC with Microsoft Windows as your operating system, you may have been feeling a bit left out lately, where are all the apps for you?

Well I’ll tell you. They’re all collected on a website called AllMyApps, it’s the closest Windows equivalent of the Apple App Store there is and best of all…practically all of those apps are free.

Now of course as an independent website it isn’t quite as slick as iTunes or the Apple App Store but it’s all set out by category, name and icon and just by hovering over an icon a handy little dialog box pops up to tell you all about that App, along with its star rating. Actually that’s a better feature than what the Apple App Store gives you.

And also conveniently it places the most popular apps in any particular category first and foremost, an endorsement from all those before you that those are the Apps you really ought to consider downloading.

Apps like CCLeaner for instance, in the Utilities category, a brilliant way to regularly clean out the crappy unused files on your PC and generally speed it up.

And in Security, there’s the most popular free anti-virus program around in the form of AVG Anti-Virus. If you don’t have Nortons, Kaspersky, Mcafee or the like on your PC, hurry, download it while you still have a computer to use.

In fact whatever the app, if it’s made for Windows this is the perfect one-stop shop to find it, whether you looking for a specific app like Skype or just browsing for a particular task you need fulfilling and you want to see all the options in one place.

To top it off, AllMyApps is also its own app, which automatically collates all your other Apps or Program on your PC, whether downloaded from AllMyApps or not, will alert you whenever they’re updated, and install that update for you.

For yet more features of everything AllMyApps can do they’ve even created a video about it.

So I urge you, do have a look at AllMyApps and you can use the following link, Allmyapps App Store to take you there. It’s worth it just to see all the free goodies that are available for your PC, you don’t necessarily have to download anything now.

Because if this is the age of the app, this is one place you’re bound to enjoy many appy returns to.
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Angry Birds – Now you can play it in a browser.

Y’know, it used to be that the only Angry Birds I ever knew was when I’d tread on their handbag dancing down Ritzy’s on a Saturday night. Although I’ll be honest, they were never that friendly even when I wasn’t stamping on their fake designer bag and I just tried talking to them.

But these days Angry Birds also equates to something else. Because with 300 million downloads on iPads, iPhones and other clever devices, there are a lot of people very familiar with an entirely different kind of Angry Birds, the game.

Me, I’m certainly well acquainted with it, because I’ve got an iPod Touch and for the 59p that I spent to download Angry Birds it is simultaneously the best value of anything I’ve ever purchased and positively the most costly, time robbing, counter-productive thing I ever, ever did.

The hours I’ve enjoyed/wasted catapulting little birds at green pigs, wooden planks, glass panels and stone slabs I wouldn’t like to calculate but it is the epitome of a ‘one more go game’. Only usually I’m saying those words to myself over and over again and still been bloody playing.

In fact I’ve deliberately allowed my iPod battery to drain down to nothing so I couldn’t have one more go.

Only now I can’t even rely on that fail-safe because they’ve only gone and made a version for the browser as well. And viciously they’ve even made it totally free, the bastards.

That’s right, now anyone has access to Angry Birds, although for this new browser based version they’d like you to think it’s available in only one particular browser, that being Google Chrome. Actually it plays exactly the same in Firefox 4 and above, Safari and IE 9, it just has the Chrome branding all over it still.

Where the Chrome exclusivity does kick however is that you can download it as an Chrome app (the fancy name for add-on these days) and then you can play it offline as well.

You have to hand it to Google, if a multi-million pound promotional campaign isn’t enough for people to adopt Chrome, hooking them in with the gaming equivalent of Crack is a credible Plan B.

Not that they really need it, already embraced by 20% of computer users in the UK, Chrome is an excellent browser, secure, stable, with thousands of cool add-ons but most crucially, it is very fast.

If you don’t have it yet, perhaps you should, you can download Google Chrome here.

But what of Angry Birds itself, and its hours of fun/frustration. Well to play it directly in Google Chrome, or the other browsers I mentioned, all you need to do is to click this link – Angry Birds for Chrome.

You’ll soon get the hang of the controls, zoom in and out with your mouse scroll wheel, or the up and down arrows of your keyboard, and use your cursor to pull back on the catapult. Don’t worry it will all make sense when you’re there.

Oh and look out for the Chrome logo in later levels to aim at and unlock some extra Chrome inspired levels (you can still play them on any browser though). To download the offline app for Chrome, you’ll see the link featured prominently anyway.

Whatever method you choose, if you’ve been curious to play Angry Birds but not had the right gadget before, this is your chance. At least it’s something different to playing Solitaire when you should be working.

But if you do start playing it, may I just say two things.

Enjoy it and I’m very, very sorry.

The 107 best websites on the web…apart from this one.

Now you know I like to keep up to date with all the latest and greatest new web apps and web sites don’t you.

But finding them and then finding the time to tell you about them are two different things. These days you see I can barely find the time to scratch my arse if it itches…and unfortunately I can’t find the volunteers for that either.

Nevertheless I remain as committed as ever to bringing these great websites to you, even if I can’t always tell you about them in my own inimitable fashion. Namely long-windedly and with a few bad jokes.

And so it is with pleasure that I present a ready formed run-down of some of the websites that I’ve been wanting to to tell you about, plus a few extra for gravy, in a new list from MakeUseOf called The 107 Best Websites on the Web.

Now why they chose the 107 best websites on the web when it’s such an arbitrary number I cannot say. Or indeed how they can claim it’s a definitive list of the best websites when [spoiler alert] this one isn’t on it.

But that obvious quibble aside, it is a list to include many other great websites broken down into 20 bite-size categories like Entertainment, Productivity, Software Downloads and Security/Privacy so there’s bound to be something of interest to everybody, whatever you’re looking for.

Although I think the best discoveries from lists like this are the ones you didn’t know you were looking for.

There is one which should appeal to everybody however and that’s Groupon in the Local Category. Which given it’s a discount shopping portal may make it a strange candidate for a Local section. But it’s a discount site with a twist because the deals come to you, they are all for your local town and when they’re usually at least 60% off, it doesn’t matter where they put it, you should look at it and sign up for it. Their link takes you to the American site though, use this one for Groupon UK.

So there we are, that’s the 107 best websites on the web according to MakeUseOf. Funnily enough they include themselves on their own list but I don’t blame them because it really is a great resource for everything web related. They certainly have plenty of free how-to guides on subjects like Facebook and Twitter and all sorts of other computer stuff which are available here.

I can’t say that ALL the other websites would be on my list though, I mean Wikileaks is on there. Wikileaks! Surely the best websites are the ones that are the most useful to the most amount of people. How is that Wikileaks?

Its readership has gone down by at least one in Pakistan recently as well.

Prostopleer – What’s the Russian for free music downloads?

You know what a sure sign of success on the net is, it’s when your name isn’t just a name anymore, it becomes a verb.

And we’ve certainly had that with Spotify when it comes to listening and building up a collection of free streaming music via the web.

It’s been great and still is. But once they realised that building our music libraries while they lost millions every month was not the best business model, things changed a bit. Because now with their free accounts limited to just 10 hours a month, the Spotify music gravytrain may not have come of the rails completely but we’ve definitely lost a carriage or two over the side.

So in that case, what else can we hitch our musical caboose to?

Well, there’s always We7. Not the service it used to be with its unlimited free requests for artists and songs (although you can still have 50 specific requests a month after you register), We7 has changed to an exclusively ‘Radio’ based format. And while I think it’s probably the best at that type of service, it does spoil the goodwill rather with just a few too many adverts.

And then there’s Grooveshark, the biggest free streaming music player available from the States. All request based I’m pleased to say with lots tracks and features although unfortunately there’s still no getting away from the ads. However once you get past a big advert on the front page, for something American it’s not too bad ad wise.

But if you prefer your free music players to be just about playing the free music without the big intrusive images, I have another option for you.

It’s called Prostopleer, it’s Russian and apart from Roman Abramovich’s millions if you’re a Chelsea fan like me, it might just be the best Russian export since Vodka.

Because what you get is a very cool, very minimal but very slick streaming music service that makes it a doddle to search for your favorite songs. And should you take the few seconds necessary to register with Prostopleer you can then drag and drop them into any number of playlists you create. The quality of the music is great and while not everything is on there, I’ve found plenty of tracks that Spotify and We7 don’t have.

Mind you, that might have something to do with the way Prostopleer gets its music, since it allows its users to upload new tracks to it and for that matter download those songs as well….for free.

Now whether you do that is up to you, I’m just saying that it’s a feature over and above its entirely safe music streaming. But I did my due diligence before writing this, ok I Googled for half an hour, and I found no bad reviews for it at all, reviews I could read in English anyway. Look, I’m just trying to cover my arse here.

I will categorically tell you though that I’m using Prostopleer a lot. If you’ve previously focused on Spotify it’s a great unlimited music alternative. And don’t be put off if it displays in its native Russian when first loaded, down the bottom of the page there’s an option to quickly toggle the user friendly English version.

I still don’t know though what Prostopleer itself means, to me it sounds more like a cure for male prostate problems. What I do know is that you should definitely dip your finger in.

Go on, perform your own examination now at the Prostopleer website.

Fences – It’s time to love your Desktop again.

Right then, are you a tidy sort or a messy sort?

Not in life, if you’re the messy sort in real life there’s not much I can do to help, you filthy degenerate. No, I mean your computer life, are you the tidy or messy sort on the Desktop of your PC!

Because if you have let your Desktop get out of control, if it does look like someone picked up your monitor, shook it like a Flatscreen Maraca and now all of your assorted crap is scattered in no discernible order whatsoever, I have just the little application for you.

It’s called Fences and it’s the perfect way to stop being at least a Desktop filthy degenerate.

For just by downloading this ever so useful little utility it can organise your Desktop into nicely styled little boxed areas of folders, of programs, files, and shortcuts and correctly label them as well, automatically!

(And you needn’t worry if this new found order only confuses you. Because before doing anything Fences will take a snapshot of your Desktop in its original messed up state so with a click of a button you can watch as it reverts every icon back to its previous place in your organised chaos.)

You have manual control too, you can hold right-click to ‘draw’ your own Fences, move them around, change their colour, change their label, resize them, drag icons in and out of them, just about everything you’d want to keep pleasingly customisable order on your desktop.

And for the ultimate cleanaway, with a double-click Fences will also hide every icon on your desktop. So you’ll now be able to view your desktop wallpaper of the Windows logo, abstract lines, sand dunes, poppy fields or even Justin Bieber in all its unobscured glory before another double-click on the desktop brings everything back again.

I won’t pretend Fences is a life changer, it doesn’t pretend that itself. But it is something that serves a very useful purpose in a very efficient manner and it’s a wonder Microsoft don’t build the same sort of thing into Windows from the start.

Because even from just a normal couple of columns of icons on your Desktop, Fences will still arrange things more tidily, make icons easier to find and in a way that will prompt you to keep it like that.

I know, because I am a reformed Desktop filthy degenerate.

And I haven’t mentioned yet that you can get it absolutely FREE, you can download Fences here. (There is a paid version available as well)

So then, to sum up this great little organsiser in one fittingly succinct sentence.

Fences, it’s neat.

How to watch ‘The Daily Show with Trevor Noah’ in the UK.

READ THIS – LATEST VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE 2nd Dec 2015 Well I suppose it to happen eventually. Comedy Central got wise to, or more likely finally got around to stopping, the ingenious little video unblocking workaround that I detail in the post below. And lo there was much lamentation and speaking of naughty words. But just when all seemed lost there came a man, and it wasn’t me this time, who informed of a new easy way of watching The Daily Show. His name is Archbishop Shaggy and he posted a comment down below on the 2nd December 2015, with a follow-up from this humble scribe explaining in just a little bit more detail, on how you might once more resume your TDS viewing. So read my post if you wish (I just have and boy it seems dated now but it was written in 2011) but really the way to go now I believe is detailed in the comments below on 2nd December.

Update Oct 2015: Ok, so obviously things have changed since I first wrote this post back in 2011, namely the host of The Daily Show, hence a name swap in the title. But the method still works exactly the same and so read on, follow the simple instructions and enjoy the show still.
Although I fear just not quite as much as you would with the old host.

Ok folks this one is not like other posts, it’s very personal, is aimed very specifically at a particular group of people and if you don’t even know what a ‘Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ is then frankly you need not read any further, this one will not concern you.

For those it does however, this may be the most important post I will ever write.

Because this one is written in the fond hope you found me by Googling something like the title above. This one is because I desperately did the very same thing and eventually found the priceless information I’m going to share. And this one is because like me you love watching ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ and can’t anymore because More4 have f***ing cancelled it!

(*I wrote this in Jan 2011 when it had just happened remember, obviously we have Comedy Central UK to thank for returning Jon back to us since) (And they’re not showing it either now!)

God knows it was bad enough when FX canceled ‘The Colbert Report’, but this, this was like getting shot in the face by Dick Cheney.

Of course it wouldn’t matter so much if you could just watch them on Comedy Central’s own websites. Trouble is, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered, that none of the lovely videos play once they realise that you’re not visiting from the U.S.

Well, they don’t…unless you make ’em think you are visiting from the U.S.

And it turns out that you don’t need expensive kit or some dodgy download, you just need to use Firefox as your browser (and you ought to anyway, it’s waaaay better than Internet Explorer, click here to get it), install a single legitimate Firefox add-on and follow these simple instructions that probably even most ‘Fox News’ presenters could manage.

(Breaking news – 18/6/12. It used to be that you had to use Firefox for this type of workaround but now there’s a very similar method for Google Chrome. So if you are an ardent Chrome user, still scan the instructions here to get the gist, but then look down to my comment dated June 18 2012.)

1. So assuming you already have Firefox and have it open, go to http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/967 and install an add-on called Modify Headers.
2. Firefox will now ask to restart, let it and once it has, look to the top menu bar and go to Tools -> Web Developer -> Modify Headers.(OR, if you’re on a PC and running the newer Firefox that doesn’t show the menu bar by default, go to the orange Firefox tab on the top left -> Web Developer -> Modify Headers)
3. Either way, a separate smaller window will open and you’ll see towards the upper left a ‘Select Action’ dropdown box, click it and choose ‘Add’.
4. You’ll also see 3 input boxes, in the first after ‘Add’ enter “X-Forwarded-For” without the quotation marks.
5. In the second box enter “12.13.14.15” without the quotation marks. No spaces and no full stop after the 15.
6. Leave the third box empty and click the other button with ‘Add’ to the right of it.
7. Ok, so now you have created the clever little filter you need, confirmed in the space below along with a green circle, all that’s left is to click that funny looking smiley face in the top left that says ‘Start’.
8. And that’s it, you’re all done, give yourself an Emmy.
9. Next for the best bit, head directly to The Daily Show or ColbertNation websites, giggle with happiness and emit shouts of whooooooo like you’re in the audience when the videos come on.

How the magic works I don’t fully know and I don’t really care. I know that it hides your IP address behind a proxy one so that your real geographical location is disguised, and even if it does sometimes interfere with video on other sites, I also know that all I have to do is go back to the Modify Headers interface and disable it temporarily. No, bugger all that, all I actually care about is that I can watch Jon Stewart AND Stephen Colbert again. Hallowed be their names.

So if this works for you, and it really should, you’ll now share my overwhelming sense of relief, but it can’t end there.

Nation, we have to rally to restore the sanity for every hero. Go forth and spread the word about this on Facebook, Twitter, forum websites or on toilet walls even. Or perhaps leave a simple grateful comment on here confirming that it works.

And let it be a moment of zen to those assholes at More4 who made us do this.

.

(I really have to give a tip of my hat to someone called Saiftk on Reddit Canada. His is the original information I’ve adapted and while those details are a bit out of date now, it was the means that has made me and hopefully many others very happy.)