Now then, Cortana!

I was informed today that Cortana, the Windows 10 personal assistant, is available for me to use.  The grey search box that I use to find various programs and things on my PC now says "I'm Cortana. Ask me anything."

Now, many Windows 10 users will have to trying out Cortana for months now, but I've just received access to it, I think because I'm in the UK and we have a different language set to the US (no problem there, I have been and continue to be surprised by the differences between British English and American English).  I'm vaguely aware of Cortana being something that you can ask questions of, ask it to do things, all kinds of usefulness, a bit like Siri on the iPhone, I assume.




I will say that I came with a certain amount of scepticism as my past experience of speech recognition generally ends up with me yelling at the computer "DEAR - MISTER - SMITH.   NO, DELETE SCYTHE, I DON'T WANT TO WRITE SCYTHE. OH GOD, DELETE "I DON'T WANT TO WRITE SCYTHE OH GOD". SMITH. DELETE SMURF. WHY WOULD I WRITE A LETTER TO MISTER SMURF? STOP IT! CANCEL STOP ARGH" and so forth.  That said, I have been pleasantly surprised by the performance of speech recognition on my phone, and so held out greater hopes for Cortana.

It didn't go too well when, attempting to configure my headset, Windows informed me that the microphone on my headset wasn't good enough and although I could still try configuring it, hinted that really I've just not been buying good enough gear to speak to the high and mighty Cortana.

After that hiccup, however, I actually found Cortana quite good fun.

Here's some of the things I asked Cortana, and her responses.

"Hey Cortana, what do you look like?" - a seamless string of binary numbers.

"Hey Cortana, tell me a joke." - What has one horn and gives milk? A milk truck.

"Hey Cortana, do you like me?" - I do.

"Hey Cortana, will you marry me?" - I'm not one to throw a spanner in the works but as an AI I can't do that yet.

"Hey Cortana, do you like cheese?" - It really ties a pizza together.

"Hey Cortana, how are you?" I am tip top today.  How are you?

"Hey Cortana, do you believe in Santa?" - I do. I'll be keeping an eye out for him.

You can also play rock paper scissors with Cortana, she'll sing for you, and do "impressions" which for me was a Buzz Lightyear impression so bad it made me laugh. So far Cortana's pretty good fun.

Windows 10 struggles

I wasn't going to blog about this.  I blogged about Windows 10 and Google Chrome the other day, and today I was going to write about something else entirely.

And then I hit a snag.

You see, today I was going to edit a little video to go on my long-suffering and neglected YouTube channel.  But to do that, I would need to actually play videos on my computer.

And, presumably after installing updates yesterday, Windows 10 now does not play videos, and has also totally lost the ability to play sound.

I expect this to be fixed fairly quickly - I hope that it is, anyway - as there doesn't appear to be any obvious solutions from a search on the net.  I do use a reasonably fancy headset, and there is a possibility that using a different one might work.  Still, it's a bit annoying, and it's rare that I use the latest version of a Windows operating system, but because of Microsoft's free upgrade offer, I decided to take the leap (which I'm now regretting).

Good news is that the latest version of Google Chrome Canary (a "bleeding-edge" version of Google Chrome) is working okay on my computer so at least I'm using a web browser that I'm comfortable with.

Oh - and go watch my new video, DRINKYBANG.  It's not quite MEATYBANG or even VEGGIEBANG, but I do get to pass out with a Russian doll.

Windows 10 vs Google Chrome

(Please enjoy this blog post, I fell down the stairs earlier - an event surely deserving of beer and a lack of achievement - yet I still went back upstairs to the PC to write it!  However, I am knelt on the floor as sitting in a chair is a little uncomfortable.)

I'm struggling at the moment.  You see, I've got Windows 10.  By and large, I'm very happy with it - I can't particularly say that it's better than 8 (or even 7, for that matter), but it seems fine.

However, ever since I got it, Google Chrome keeps falling over, and I love Google Chrome.  I use a lot of the Google websites and services available (including, obviously, its Blogger facility), Chrome is fast, and does everything I want well.

So having to try Microsoft Edge, which seems sluggish in comparison (and isn't automatically logged in to all my Google stuff) isn't great.

Chrome seems to work as long as I don't open too many tabs at the same time, so I'm having to audit my tab usage constantly, as I am one of these people that has tens of different internet windows open all at the same time.  I've tried looking for solutions but I've not found one that works yet.  I may be forced to employ the services of Colin to help me out.

And he hasn't even got his Microsoft certification.

Anyway, must dash - Downton Abbey starts in 20 minutes!