Will H of Google Fame is the latest to succomb to a cracking meme-wheeze that will really swell your comments, wrinkle out your readers, and waste whole days of work time.

You fire up iTunes, turn on Party Shuffle, and post the first lines of the top twenty-five songs.

I almost did it right here, right now, but it would have taken an awful lot of time, and my copy of iTunes here in the office only has a tiny fraction of my CDs in it, so it would have been a little distorted.

Most annoyingly, iTunes on my laptop inherited the library information from my previous laptop when I transferred the files across.  The major reason for upgrading was always that I was running out of hard drive space on a daily basis, so I had deleted all my MP3s (including my Lib Dem sanctioned “New Beginning”). iTunes never understood, and is still trying is trying to play songs that weren’t there on the last laptop and still aren’t there on this one.

I don’t know why things get quite so complicated when I’m involved.

I’ve just been trying to get a new printer to work.  I often get called in when other people have tried and not quite got there, so I try and pick up the pieces.  The set up is: one of those fancy new laptops with no parallel port; a USB adsl-modem and the new printer.  So, what seems to be the problem I ask? and they wave the printer cable at me.  It’s a network cable.  Ah.  The PC does have a network port, but you can’t plug a network printer directly in via a network port, it needs to go via a hub or router (I assume, anyway, am I wrong about this?).  Which they don’t have because it’s a USB modem not a sensible one.  The printer also has a parallel port, but the laptop doesn’t. So, I get on the phone to the support people who supplied all the kit over a period of several years and ask them the best way of making it work together.  Lots of humming and hawing.  They put me on hold.  I double check the back of the printer… and see there’s also a USB port on it.  Bah.  Problem over, I explain when helpdesk come back on the line.  All I need to do is buy a USB hub and a USB cable.

So *then* I head over to PC World to pick up the bits, but I’m so disgusted with the prices (cheapest USB cable in PCW – 14.99.  Cheapest USB hub, 12.99, with some priced over 30 quid!) that I walk out.

Still, the printer does not work.

Bah.

Am now using ebuyer to find a cheaper USB hub – rather like the copy on this one:

While you install a bluetooth doongle on your PC, sometimes the immobile port may cause a limitation to receive. BluetoothMate USB Hub is not only a 4-port USB hub, but also a functional tool dedicates to bluetooth dongle use with its special design in a rotatable port. The 180o rotatable port allows your bluetooth or RF dongles to receive better signal at a better angel, so that you can create a smooth wireless working situation. Meanwhile, it is also suitable for some big-size dongles that are difficult to be installed side by side.

“Big size dongles that are difficult to be installed side by side” ?  Oh, honey, I know just what you’re trying to say.