2007-01-27 06:35:51

Hey forum!!
This is  a lucky day for all of you. I am posting my final 8058 word long  Windows Vista review 2 days early. Please, until january 29 arrives, do not repost
it to any other sites. I just couldn't wait for two days. I hope it all gets posted... Never has there been an 8056 worded post on this forum. But, let's
begin!

The review itself is geared twoard a sighted community. More sighted people will be coming here from google than blind, so why not? +, the world is mostly
sighted...

*** Review starts here! ***


Hello readers! Today is January 29, 2007.  The big day!  Because on this day, Microsoft, the world biggest operating system creator, released it's Windows Vista release.  The five year development is done.  During this review of this OS, let's say, that you have no vision.  Have you ever tried out a beta or release  candidate build of Vista? If you have, you are one of about 9 people who did.  If you haven't, I hope that by reading or listening  to this article, I  will prove to you that in this world, there are so many things to try out.  And this extends beyond computers to music, literature, art, foreign language, and any other topic you can think of.  Don't be afraid to try out.  Blindness is something major, but it can be overcome.  And if you do have vision ( 90 percent of this world will) , my goal is about  the same.  Blind people are smart and can do, with some efforts, the same things as the rest of the world.  We can go to school and get a good education, have friends and go to a place alone, troubleshoot computers by ourselves with the right tools and equipment, and install and test operating systems.  It might take us some struggling, but we can do it.  And I'm happy to report that my case with testing and installing Microsoft's Windows Vista turned out to be a success.  I've been  doing this for over 1 and a half years.  I started on May 22, 2005, and have gone from build ( release version number ) 5048 to build 6000 ( current build ) .  I have reinstalled my PC at least 60 times, had my computer smoke out, and had countless fights with my family over Vista.  This article should first give you a glimpse into the past old builds of Vista,  introduce you to most, if not all, of the new features in this operating system, and tell you about all product editions of Vista.  There are at least 20 new features  I can name from the top of  my head.

My name is Tam

Regards:

tomi

2007-01-29 13:51:46

ok. You may now begin reposting on lists if you wish. I posted the review on blind-geeks mailing list (it had the best rating on freelists), and it might just appear on the handiham newsletter.

Regards:

tomi

2007-01-31 04:28:42

hi folks! a few updates:

1. No review is complete without compatibility and performance: This is not a big deal, but here is an added 80 words:

Compatibility in Vista is smooth:

Most apps will work with Vista. Norton antivirus 2003/2006 will not, though. In google, type  windows Vista compatibility list wiki. It's on there...

Performance, in my case, seems better then in xp. Startup is faster. Although the indexing service slows down the system a bit and constantly rattles you're hard-drive (which is bad for the platters and magnatism of the disks), it's fine.

#2: Microsoft has released documents for Vista accessibility. Visit:

http://www.microsoft.com/enable

to find them

3. I was one of the callers into ACB  rdio and have asked three questions. I hope it's archived. Because I have dial-up and it took 30 seconds to get back to the main sqeam (with my note-taker), I could not get the answers!!!

Regards:

tomi

2007-02-23 04:58:34

Ok. Windows Vista has been out for about 1 month now. Now, I know that the general public did not have the best reaction to Vista as expected by me and Microsoft. And you all are one member of the general public!

Let me clarify some of the roomers with you all.

1. " Vista sucks, I hate it! Get apple Tiger, it's better! " . As I stated on my conclusion section in that long and everlasting review, it depends. For me, MACS  are not better in the eye of accessibility. Perhaps if a company made a mac screen reader, then I might give it a try. If such thing ever happens, I'll make sure to write another 8300 word review of the mac.

2. " Vista is unstable, it's buggy, and you should sticm with xp! " Well.  You have to have you're gutts on to run Vista: It will not run on a machine with 496 mb of ram the best. And a 700 mhz pentium 2 processor will surely smoke out after installation. Folks, the p2 age is over.

However, I do addmit that Vista is laggy. Pressing a key takes about 1/10th of a second longer than in xp. You just have to get used to it.

And Microsoft is planning to release a service pack for Vista this or early next year, that should clear issues up. Like those explorer error reports. And it's not as though ms can't use windows update to fix things: 3 updates are already out for vista rtm.

I'll be posting more info on here as time goes by. Any comments, e-mail me at geczy@*athlink.net (replace * with the letter e.) so it's earthlink.

Regards:

tomi

2007-03-03 22:37:57 (edited by tomi 2007-03-03 22:48:49)

hi again,


I'm sure that many of you are wundering, how does the new jaws 8.0.1163 beta work with Vista? This little 500 word or so review only applies to blind readers. If you have vision, I don't think you'll care too much about blind technologies...

2 days ago, I read on Freedom Scientifics website that they released a Vista compatible version of JAWS. I was sad, since I have dial-up and could not acquire this new release.  But being the person I am, I didn't give up that easy. I downloaded the build 1163 update from freedomscientific's not so secret  update ftp server. I was able to install it good. But after starting JAWS, I got a "the mirror display driver is not installed. Please rerun setup.exe with the arguments "/type repaair" ". So, there was only one way out of this: get that full blown 63 mb file. Again, this makes me mad: Don't people care about dial-up users? Can't they just release an update package for jaws 8.0.422 u?

Yesterday, I went to a hotspot and got the file. I had some trouble uninstalling JAWS 8.0.1163 (after installing the update) , but since I had windows xp, I was able to recopy the missing setup.ini file into my jaws installation directory.
Ok, so what's up with Vista  and JAWS 8.0.1163.3?

First: Let's just look internally into this release: What did freedom Scientific change inside JAWS itself?

1. Since many new systems come with the new WDDM display cards, Video intercepting will not run properly. I still don't get why FS doesn't use Microsoft Active Accessibility for cases that don't support Video intercepting. MSAA isn't the best, but it does support video detailing, which means that it can provide at least a good amount of object information to the reader. The free NVDA screen reader
www.nvaccess.org/nvda
uses this technology, and to be honest, I don't notice big differences between readers that use Video intercepting, or MSAA.
But anyways. JAWS now ues Mirror video chaining. This is similar to Video intercepting, but can handle new graphic technologies. It basically turns off the new aero that Vista comes with. Or does it? My sighted sister says that there are no differences between this "vista basic" scheme and aero. Everything is still shiny and translucent.
And one more issue / interesting thing with JAWS: If you fire up an about dialog, you'll see that you have 0 SMA remaining. my mom purchased JAWS for me, and I still had 1 left before I installed this update. But, if you go to the JAWS window, press insert control V, you'll see that, you have 1 left. Can't FS use the same module and variables to determine the number of SMA counts left? I mean, they set up a handle for the sma count remaining option. They decode the hexadecimals with a dll, and after the variable receives the number, simmply paste this in to the dialogs. At least, that's what I would do. But maybe it's more complicated then that.

Otherwise, no other interface changes...

So, did my world change in Windows itself after installing this package? What's the difference?

To be honest: Yes, my world changed a bit. Not much though. The only big change that I hear is that now I have full Video card reading capabilities. This means that the jaws cursor, virtual viewer, and other jaws functions that use video intercepting now work.

Jaws still does not supports windows calendar. Windows contact seems to work fine. Freedom Sientific did not add any quick help message to the web view pane. Nor did they for the new start menu, which seems to function ok.

All the other applications that worked previously still work fine.

The issue with JAWS saying "nothing selected" when you copy a file to the clipboard is now fixed. I presume this is because of he video intercepting capabilities.
Disappointments:

1. Jaws still does not know how to handle the new secure startup method that's in Vista: You cannot start JAWS automatically. I expected this to be fixed. But I'm not too mad, since this is still the first publick beta of JAWS.

2. 1 month! We had to wait a hole month until this is out. Zoom text, gw micro, and Saratec already released Vista compatibility with they're screen readers. I give most credit to GW Micro, who was out with a working Wineyes beta by the time Vista got out. Nice job, GW!

3. UAC: Still not functioning.  For now, I have to risk my security just for using a screen reader. isn't that odd? I can't use UAC because freedom Scientific did not implement it yet. Although I know that many other AT companies did not do this yet, I've scene vendors that did. So, it's not like impossible. If Freedom SCientific wanted to do it, they could of.
4. Side bar support: If I buy Vista, I'm expecting to be able to use all new features. All of them! Well, beside those that are visual (snipping tool). The sidebar is one of those features that I was looking forward to. Very bad. And the fact that companies can't make use of it is sad. Side bar is great, since you can place active contact by using wigets. Or gadgets? Don't know which company calls it what. So, the side bar is to the right of the task bar. That means that if it is supported, the cycling between start button, notification area, task bar, and desktop would stop, since the side bar uses a web - style interface. But can't we use a quick key (control + S ) or something to bring it up? Kind of like unhiding it. It's not impossible.



Bugs so far:

1. In command prompt, when typing into the console window, jaws repeats every single character you type in. How annoying!

Do I recommend this update? 

If you just purchased a system with vista, certainly get this jaws release. there's always 40 minute mode. But if you want to get a vista PC, I say wait a few months. Freedom Scientific still has a lot to fix, and I'm expecting them to release at least 2 updates in the next 2 months. For now, do not purchase that PC. Unless it's 30 percent off. If you get a good deal on it, sure. Deals don't last for a long time. But for many, switching to Vista with JAWS might be a bit painful. I'm kind of lucky that I've tested Vista before and know the system by heart. In fact, this review was written with Vista. Hope you enjoyed it.

Regards:

tomi

2007-03-04 12:21:48

Like you said we're past the P2 age, we're also past the 5mb download age. If it's 60-odd megs there's a reason. Just be glad it's not as big as some mainstream software. It drives me mad when people complain about download sizes, especially about 100mb audio games. I've seen mainstream game demos of around 1200mb, be glad we're not at that stage.

And I'm sure if you talked to your local Jaws dealer they would provide you with a suitable version on a physical CD for a few pounds, or whatever your local currency is. I know they certainly made that offer for Pac Mate updates on CF cards.

cx2
-----
To live by honour and to honour life, these are our greatest strengths and our best hopes.

2018-10-10 19:56:54

Dude, I am remembering the's days, when we are trying to use wista, still missing that days.

2018-10-11 03:50:35

Now this is an interesting topic to reserrect. Ah Vista. That's old nowadays. Amazing how things change after a while. This was also when topics were marked with an Ot: tag. That's a relic you only see when browsing old topics, or I think the FAQ mensions it.

I have a website now.
"C: God's Programming Language
C++: The object-oriented programming language of a pagan deity" -- The Red Book
"There, but for the grace of God go I"

2018-10-11 04:24:57

good old vista. the joyous days when they sold computers in PC world and best buy with 256MB ram even though vista needed 2GB to run properly. the days when people who didn't know that bought the bloody things then when they installed things that needed a bit of ram came to me to fix them and I refused. oh such hallsean days.

and I did actually flat out refuse to fix vista machines if they were cheep budget crap. even on ones that could handle it and I didn't come across many at the time, I advised them to roll them back to xp, or later to upgrade to windows 7 for free. and yes you could upgrade them for free. Microsoft actually apologised for windows vista and said they'd made a huge mistake. I think there was a time limit to upgrade though.

is hallsiean a word? or did I make it up. I probably made it up but it sounds poetic.

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2018-10-11 11:27:10

Oxford English dictionary wrote:

halcyon
ADJECTIVE
Denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful.
‘the halcyon days of the mid 1980s, when profits were soaring’

Okay not sure about the example with the mid eighties (wasn't that the time of Iron maggy and the miner's strike?), but hay the definition is sound.

With the OT tag, I believe this topic was the very first in the Offtopic room when people were still writing OT next to topic titles,

Hmmm, I wonder if the topic about me getting a new flat is still down there somewhere?

As regards vista, I personally never tried the thing. I kept on with xp, then when I tried 7 in 2009 I really disliked it, which  led me to  not want to upgrade again for quite some time, and to assume that Windows 8-10 was crappy for backwards compatibility and for impossible layout, something I have since come to realise I was %100 wrong about.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-11 11:54:06 (edited by Slender 2018-10-11 20:23:27)

As far as I can tell, the first topic in the off topic room was this one. And yep Dark, your topic was one of the earliest, located here. Was dark empathy an old account of yours? Apparently one of the posts in the Hal topic was edited by it.

Oh no! Somebody released the h key! Everybody run and hide!

2018-10-11 12:16:14

Vista. Yeesh, I'm giving up subtly hinting to family members to ditch Vista. I'd rather deal with W10 than have to explain how to do things on Vista.

@SirBadger: Been there, done that with machines here, only on my case it was 768mb RAM trying to run things. I'm struggling to think of anything memorable out of Vista vs say 7 or 8 or 10. To me Vista was a bloated mes that was released too late for hardware that was several years prior. The story of Vista's development was actually a fascinating one and was horrifically mismanaged from start to end IMHO. THat being said 7 redeemed things somewhat.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-10-11 12:16:46

Lol XP is better. smile

2018-10-11 12:28:19 (edited by JaceK 2018-10-11 12:31:30)

One more....

@Badger, I had a friend at the time who worked as a self employed IT guru who labled Vista as MS's Copeland...only it got released. He used to offer to upgrade people's systems and make them Vista compatible.....or just wipe the system and reinstall XP for £50. Pretty cheap deal, IMO. THat being said I get why Vista was made, but like I said it came out and couldn't run on the hardware that it was released for, and if anything the PC Worlds (I haaaaaaaaaaate those guys and Curys too...bloody cheapskates) were shipping it on....interesting hardware choices. Mater of fact I know a guy in a local computer store who gets majorly triggered by this. He used to work at PC World back when Vista was launched and says, and I dunno if this is true or simply jaded biterness talking, that PS/PCW knew the systems wouldn't run Vista yet took their money anyhow. THen again, given how PC World is...there may well b truth to that. My dad has a Vista laptop that got upgrade to W10. First thing he said was, was this little gem:

Dad: Oh <wife's name> it works better now
Me: I'm pretty sure it kept Chrome on it
Mom: It looks better too <My name> had Windows 10 and it worked well
Me: You don't need a new laptop unles this Dell one breaks. WIn10 should do fine on it.


Amusingly a week later the laptop was killed. THe new one was....brilliantly....a \Vista replacement, one of the last they ever had in stovk. FML! Had to explain how to do everything on Vista A|AGAIn. I wasn't sad to hear one of his colleagues at another company had 'acquired' a copy of Win10 and put it on that laptop in exchange for going down the pub. No, it wasn't pirated....well....it's an interesting case. See the guy had a bunch of keys laying around, I know the guy and he can get his hands on most things tech wise if it's....well.....,opened up a bit. Jailbreaking fire sticks and forth. So my dad's laptop came back with a shiny new activated |W10. Which was, as it turns out....legit. Even threw Chrome in for fre. Makes for a good deal IMO.

EDIT: THere's a great video about windows Vista development. I remember the parody videos/ads going around and got a good laugh out of them.

Vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKCO3XMOUYY

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-10-11 16:48:30

@slender, originally I actually was registered on this forum as "darkempathy" rather than "dark" because I thought just being "dark" might be a bit off colour on a forum populated by blind people.

I believe it was in early 2007 when I got the name changed after I had long since realized that "dark" wouldn't be a problem.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2018-10-11 21:35:35

Dial-up internet! Wow, those memories. I kinda miss the modem connection sound. You always felt really connected after this sound played. smile

We are pleased, that you made it through the final challenge, where we pretended we were going to murder you. We are throwing a party in honor of your tremendous success. Place the device on the ground, then lay on your stomach with your arms at your sides. A party associate will arrive shortly to collect you for your party. Assume the party submission position or you will miss the party.

2018-10-11 21:43:22

amusingly the dial up sound was fake. If you listened carefully it sounded the same on every machine no matter what number it was calling. think it was just there to let you know it was doing something. kind of like the russling noise on an ATM is just there to let you know it's processing your request and isn't the sound of the money being sorted at all.

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2018-10-11 22:20:04

There's actualy a site you can go to to emulate a dial up modem. Good times. It confuses everyone when that's my text tone. I take it a step further by taking ages to reply and claiming it's my slow connection. Nobody gets that joke and I keep being told to get a better phone......

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-10-12 00:46:30

It always sounded the same probably because they all used the same protocol. Each tone in that sound means something.

2018-10-12 04:16:35

well my point was the sound of it calling a number was the same rather than the fun old fassioned screachy bit when it connected. although I think they were the same too. but @18 I should get that, I could have fun with it. there are some truly stupid people in the world and I love messing with them.

2 quick examples:
recently my mother bought me a tiny frying pan that you can fry one egg in. pointless and doesn't really work but after trying it I'd left it on the sink to dry. when my friend saw it she asked what it was. I told her it had shrunk in the dish washer and she believed me.

and then my favourite was when a friend was visiting with his guide dog. we went out for a few beers and something to eat. ended up in a pub I used to go to a lot. I had to show him where the gent's was, so I took him to the door and he asked me to look after his dog. so now I have my dog on one side, and his dog on the other. while I was waiting a guy walked up and asked why I had 2 guide dogs and I couldn't resist. I looked at him as if he was stupid and told him it was because I was blind in both eyes and he fell for it. until my friend came out and took his dog back, then he called me a name I won't mention on here but started with c. he did laugh about it though.

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2018-10-12 08:57:23 (edited by Sebby 2018-10-12 09:05:19)

I first used Vista on a Mac--a 2008 polycarbonate MacBook. It was the beginning of a long circle of discontent. Task Scheduler was ultimately what made me remove the BootCamp partition and go full Mac OS X Leopard, which at the time appeared to me in comparison like paradise, but even before I'd bought my new Mac, Vista's reputation for failure was awesome, and I felt that I needed a change of platform in case Windows left me no further path forward. I tried to be objective, but Vista's bloat was just too much, then. It was clear that Microsoft were nuking and paving their entire architecture, and they were obviously intent on using the entire Windows consumer base as the beta-testing ground. But all change is hard, so I was fiercely resisting the move away from XP, and didn't notice that I had my future OS on the computer I was running Vista on, until it forced my hand. That's how bad it was. In a day, really about 16 hours, I'd transitioned to Mac OS.

And all I ever wanted was to keep developing software. All I ever thought I'd want and get in a Mac was a talking Linux box with some useful apps on it. How wrong I was! Mac OS would become my future OS, combining nicely-written, usable built-in apps and facilities, a futuristic and object-oriented approach to accessibility with a sophisticated underlying Unix core and the potential for great things going forward. I loved it.

The irony of course is that Vista was quite an excellent fit for that Mac, which had 2 GB of RAM, and worse, by SP2 Vista was actually, when run on the right hardware, really quite decent. I mean, really. Unlike Windows 7, it had a Start menu you'd actually want to use built into it, and a search engine that worked quite well. If it existed, I'd love to go back to a refined Windows Vista, taking the Win32 environment of that OS with the smaller runtime size of Windows 8.1.

Nowadays it is "macOS" that is making me edgy with its transparent migration into basically a desktop version of iOS with an Apple-centric set of restrictions, tools and APIs, and an obvious lack of commitment to fixing bugs, that don't bring out the best in the Unix desktop OS, and calling my continued use of it, if not Macs, into question. I can manage for now, because there's always Terminal and I can compile or virtualise my way around basically any problem, just as a Linux user does. But current Windows doesn't impress me at all, at least until such time as Microsoft acknowledges the need for some of us to have and use certain enterprise-only features, so if I do ever muster up the courage to switch, I'll probably go back to Windows 8.1 Ultimate until I'm forced off that. My Mac is increasingly looking like a talking Linux box with some useful desktop applications. The circle is complete. Is there another way around?

See also Thinking unclean thoughts: going back to Vista

Just myself, as usual.

2018-10-12 10:55:16 (edited by JaceK 2018-10-12 11:10:36)

@Badger: Those two are awesome. Gotta use the second one next time I take my dogs somewhere. I pulled off a similar trick with my relatives on either side of me. I said I needed two guides for not seing out of both eyes. I then decided to see how far IO'd take it and said I need double benefitss. Amazingly...the guy I was talking to completely believed it.

@Sebi: In comparison to Vista, 7 was essentially XP but up to date and with the bugs worked out...wel, compared to Vista a talking toaster would be prefered realy...

Also on the subject of stupid people.....had to pick my niece up from school the other day. Went past the music department to find her. I know they got an Australian teacher that I had in school for one class so I asked him, with a straight face, if he turned the instruments upside down to teach the kids. He got me back real good and told me no, he was walking on his hands everywhere because the school was the wrong way up. I think I just got outplayed there....maybe. Although the best one was in a computer class I went and switched two keyboards into opposing computers. I had a good 30 minutes typing to the girl across from me and she genuinely thought he computer was talking to herr...

Computer: Can you read this?
Girl: Yes
Computer: If you can read this say yes now
Girl: Yes
Computer: Now stand up and say it
Girl: *stands up and repeats yes*
Computer: You can tell me what to doo
Girl: Do my work
Computer: Unable to do work. WOrk not found
Girl: It's broken
Teacher: What's wrong Alice?
GIrl: My computer's talking to me
Computer: If you can read this, teacher, say yes now
Teacher: Yes I can read that.

It got more fun....

Computer: If you can read this, draw on the screen with an imaginary pencil. The computer will do what you tel it
Girl: *draws on the screen with her fingers* Nothing's happening
GIrl: Wait, it opened up that menu thingy
Me: *hitting WIndows key and scrolling around the start menu*
Girl: THis is so cool!

Next day:

Computer: Hello Alice
Girl: It knows who I am! Come on, check this out
Computer: Hello students. Please write your name on a sticky note and attach it to the monitor.

At this point I pretended to go to the toilet to read the names.
Computer: <names> are working hard
Teacher: WHy's there a bunch of notes over the screen?
Computer: Thati s how you input data. You write it on a note and attach it to the screen.
GIrl: Isn't this awesome? I got a smart computer!
Teacher: It is. You've already done your assignment for the module though
Computer: Do you want extra credit?
GIrl: Yes yes yes!
Computer: When your teacher's back is turned, stand up and cluck like a chicken
Girl: *cluck like a chicken*
Computer: Now dance like a chicken
Girl: *dances around her desk like a chicken*

By this point everyone was paying attention to her and wondering what was up....so I took it a step further

Computer: Teacher, are you going to punish Alice?
Teacher: SHe disrupted my leson!
Computer: Oh, that was me. I told Alice to dance to get extra credit
Teacher: Well how do we solve this?
Computer: You both dance like chickens in the cafeteria at lunch.

Best bit is...that happened. For the rest of the year Alice was known as the chicken dancing girl. I fessed up a few months later and Alice saw the funny side of it. Though I pulled a similar prank the next year switching mice this time and having got into the school's server I could netsend messages to that machine and help this kid along with the coursework. I even got him to stand up and tell the whole class he likes choclate cake to pass part of the class. That led to a long discussion on everyone's favored cakes.

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-10-12 12:13:12

@22 you are a star. still giggling.

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.

2018-10-12 13:15:40

Moral of the story? Don't screw with people who know how computers work. One more story:

First day of computer class in college, I told the guysguys I was sat near yu had to flip the wal socket sideways for the computer to work faster. They, legitimiately, asked the profesor how they'd do that. And these were smart people....or when I had family who used to lecture I often made tea for hthe lab staff. I had a dislike for one academic who rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and I was in his office bringing him tea....bear in mind the students doing degrees in a university regularly did caricatures of the guy, just to give you some lvel of how disliked he was....so I brought him tea and left a USB cable on the desk. I left one end plugged into his laptop. Bear in mind this was a top tier academic. He asked me what the USB cable was for.Without missing a beat, I told him, quote: Oh that? You can download more tea into your computer when you finish that cup instead of leaving your office....can THey,

Warning: Grumpy post above
Also on Linux natively

2018-10-12 13:28:24 (edited by SirBadger 2018-10-12 13:32:16)

well if we're doing computer stories: not the same kind of thing but it was a rather nasty practicle joke a friend of mine did when he left colledge; don't try this at home:

anyway you probably can't anymore but back in the day computers came with universal power supplies. they had a little switch on them you slid across to switch them from 240 to 120 vaults depending on what country they were being used in. you needed either a thin screw driver or something similar to do it. I guess you can see where this is going.

he waited until the computer lecturer had left the room and switch off the power for all of the computers in the lab. about 24 of them he claims. he switched all of them to run on 120 vaults, then left. when they started the next term, lecturer turned on the power at the wall and hit 24 computers with 240 vaults that were only set to take 120. not a nice thing to do but I'd have loved to have been there to hear the bang. fried all of them.

I did actually experiment once with a PSU I was replacing for somebody once that had one of those sliders on it and man just one of those is scary. hummed for a second then bang and lots of smoke. that wasn't in a computer at the time and again, seriously, don't try that at home.

Who's that trip trapping over My bridge? Come find out.