Yet more trouble with windows update - I switched my machine on last night and was presented with a screen similar to the startup screen telling me not to touch anything until the windows update had completed. The update process was on step 1 of 3. I left the machine for 5 minutes and nothing had happened.

So, impatiently, I reset the machine and booted to my desktop where I checked for any security updates. There were 3 updates to install. I installed them from the desktop and they all installed within a minute.

So what was different between the updates? Well this is what I think:

One of the updates was the GDI+ dectection tool. When this particular update is installs it pops up a EULA and another message box. I think that what happened is that this update tried to popup the EULA and message box when installing in the startup screen, with no desktop for the message box to display on I obviously couldn't click or read the EULA and so the application hung.

This used to be an issue when COM servers were young - sometimes a server process would hang unexpectedly and it turns out that a debug message was being displayed via a message box. Again the message box wouldn't have a desktop to display on and thus the process would hang.

I experienced my first taste of Japanese food on the weekend. What an experience it was! I was a little wary of trying out everything, being unsure of eating raw fish. But I conquering my fears and ordered a Tenkaichi Bento.

This was basically a tray containing tasters of the most popular choices off the menu:

• Tuna - which was gorgeous, I don't think it'll ever taste as good cooked.
• Salmon - this was lovely, but not the same intense flavour as the tuna
• Belly pork - accompanied with a dip was lovely
• Teriaki chicken - as you'd expect was just like chicken

They were the main parts of the bento. In addition there were a few peices of sushi, and some green paste which had a kick like mule that had been marinated in mustard. Needless to say the meal was absolutely fantastic.

I love these online trading games - I've been playing celebdaq for years, and I've just found Polidex.co.uk. Celebdaq is celebrity based, whereas polidex allows you to buy and sell MPs.

It seems that the price of an MP varies depending on the share purchasing activity of that MP, naturally at the moment the leaders are the big prices, I've sunk my initial cash into Hilary Benn.

Yesterday I noticed that the left hand navigation on my gmail account had a link to an ATOM feed. It seems that the feed gives you some information about the number of unread emails in my account.

Today, it's gone!

Two weekends ago we visited the Abergavenny food festival which was absolutely fantastic we tried some great cheeses, drank some really good beer, had a chat with a man about fly agaric mushrooms, Watched a victorian picnic where I was told why I love toasted cheese.

Eventually we walked away with a bag of garlic, a jar of honey, a feeling of wellbeing, and a tonne of apples. We could have brought away much more but for lack of hands and money.

We saw Hero last night which was as the tagline said a beautiful film. The filmatography was astounding. I was a little disappointed that Bonnie Tyler didn't make an appearence in the film credits though

In addition to all that we've also completed the first room in our house. We now have some carpet to walk on!

I've just found this great bookmarklet which gives you a easy way to see how deeply nested a webpage is. The darker the page the better.

We were lucky enough to go out for a meal at Le Gallois last night.

The meal was the best I've had on Bristish soil. It compared very well with La Table d'O. The food, as expected, was fantastic but what made it a great meal was the service, and the little tasters that we were given.

The 3 course menu was actually 5 courses - we started with a tiny bowl of mushroom soup which was so tasty that the amount given was perfect. Following that I had the sea trout, and then the saddle of Lamb. After the main courses we were given a little glass of grapefuit ice (I think it was called granite) to clean the palette before desert which was the thyme roasted peach.

Well it did for me!

I installed Document Examiner and found that it no longer worked. Also all the XML files I open in IE failed to work.

It seems that this is due to a new setting in the IE security model: "Allow active contact to run in files on My Computer" the default is for this to be switched off. By turning this on I've fixed the problem I had with document examiner and XML files. You can find the setting under Tools -> Internet Option -> Advanced, then under the security tab.

Disclaimer: I'm not recommending you switch this on because I have no idea what files you have on your local machine.

I've also switched off Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer). I have no idea what the "Other" option does though, maybe this relates to scripts running under cscript.exe?

There's nothing new in this package but it's all just a little neater and easier to install.

With my new PC I had to re-install all the IE menu extensions. The old registry files were a bit outdated and so I thought I may aswell bundle the whole lot together and make a .inf installer for them.

Anyway here's a link to them: Download IE menu extension bundle

• Immediate Window - This creates a window in the page which you can use to issue javascript commands to that page.
• Open Frame in New Window - this will allow you to open an embedded IFrame or Frame into a new window, for heavily framed sites it's invaluable.
• View Full Source - this allows you to view the source that IE is using rather than that downloaded - so for example if you have a DHTML application then this will show you the client side created elements.
• Show Form - this sets the border on a form so you can see what controls appear where in a form. Used in conjuction with the Hidden input bookmarklet it's very useful.
• Show Parent Tag - is used to find out what element is under the cursor and the attributes of that element for example: what script runs on the onclick event
• Toggle Border - is the Richard Birkby inspired extension the difference is that the styles applied are slightly different.
• Toggle Image Border - the same as above only sets the border up on the image, useful for finding those annoying little spacer gifs.
• Document Examiner - Useful for analysing the structure and properties on elements.

K seems to be a little down beat about the future of the internet. What he has to say makes interesting reading. I've never used iTunes but I have always seen the advantage of using the internet as a data transport mechanism of a desktop application, be that Win32, Mac, KDE, etc…

Desktop applications are great, just think of Word, Excel, Photoshop. These applications allow normal users to do remarkable things very easily, just think how hard it would be to create a spreadsheet application in a web browser. I know they can be done. But they don't give you the same experience.

If well written there are positive aspects of a desktop application:

• Powerful - you don't have to wait 10 seconds to perform a spell check a document
• Familiar - they share the same look and feel as other applications so that the user very quickly becomes familiar with the application.
• Predictable - the application should run the same on all machines.

However desktop application are often :

• Difficult to write - you generally need to be well versed in the underlying technology of the target operating system.
• Difficult to update - you must rely on the user to perform the update. Updates can often be massive to fix a few bytes of code.
• Reliant largely on technology out of your control - libraries that you use can be updated often breaking compatibility.

Just like desktop applications there are pros and cons to internet application. The pros include:

• Easy to create.
• Secure - a website can be secure the client may not be.
• Portable - a website can be written that is accessible to all types of users.
• Easy to update - there is one copy of the website - change that and everyone will see the effects instantly.
• Data rich - it's very easy to extract data from.

And the cons.

• Slow and "clunky" - Not sure if clunky is a proper word - but we all know what it means, unresposive.
• Reliant on technology out of your control - if your telephone line gets cut then you've had it.

Sadly, poorly written applications blight us whether they are internet websites or desktop applications.

These aren't eshaustive lists by any means, and this isn't meant to be the start of those endless discussions of what's better than something else:

• VB.Net is a better language than C#
• Windows is better than the Mac
• Britney is better than Christina
• Halogen is better than Argon

Who cares, you're not comparing like for like. There's nothing wrong with a balance between the two, when you need the power of a desktop applicatin write one - when you need the flexibility a website will give you write one. And when you need power and flexibility then there's a happy medium.