Category: Computers

Super Moon, Ordinary Day – 14 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

eb142294-flickr

Not such a bad day today compared to yesterday. Thankfully, Scamp is feeling a lot better and I think a phone call this morning from Hazy helped too, that and looking forward to a visit from JIC and Sim has lifted her spirits. Still a bit cloudy with the occasional rain shower, but we had that in Lanzarote last week too. Having said that, the temperature differential is significant, nearly 20ºc .

Last night’s attempt to resurrect the damaged partition on the external hard disk ended in failure, as I expected it would. However PhotoRec which comes as part of the free TestDisk partition recovery suite managed to find all the photos in the damaged partition and, using it I also managed to download some of the photos to check that they were intact. It looks like most if not all of the photos are recoverable. The problem now is where to put them while I sort them back into their proper folders. Sorting them into the folders won’t be a big problem as the Hazel app on the Mac and File Juggler on the PC will manage that task with relative ease. The problem is that I now need (yet) another external hard drive to use as temporary storage while I do the filing. I might just bite the bullet and buy another external HDD and be done with it. Then I’ll format the old one and use both as a photo repository. It does make you think though, that a free program downloaded from the ‘net can search your hard disk and recover deleted photos even from a formatted drive. If a free prog can do that, what can dedicated forensic software used by police and other agencies do?

For the rest of the day, I went to the gym and then for a swim. Really quite enjoyed it. Salsa and Kizomba tonight was demanding, but also enjoyable.

Today’s photo is of the ‘Supermoon’. Did look slightly bigger than normal, but nothing to get excited about.

Looking for sunshine tomorrow. Always looking!

Dreicher – 13 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

eb132286-flickr

It’s a new word, dreicher.  It’s not in the dictionary yet, but with a few more days like today it will be. It suits the circumstances today.  It’s been dull and rainy all day.  I think we had the the house lights on all afternoon.

I was hardly out of the hose today.  Today’s shot of Mr Squirrel was taken through the kitchen window.  I spent most of the day trying to rebuild the partition table of an external hard drive that I broke a few weeks ago.  One of the old PCs is still struggling with the task as I write this.  I’ve not got a great deal of hope in it working, but it was my fault that broke it.  Luckily it was a drive that contained a backup of a backup of my photos.  It’s all about belts and braces.  I just checked today and it looks like I have about 15 years of photos in a variety of hard disks scattered around the house.  Maybe I should take the time to build just one more backup …  Or maybe not.

Scamp wasn’t feeling very well after lunch.  I think it’s down to too much light breakfasts.  What she needs is another week of fresh fruit followed by a fried breakfast …  Or maybe not!

Hoping for just a little light tomorrow with ISO speeds in three digits.

Autumn – 5 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Earlier in the week there was mist in the morning and today I noticed that the leaves were turning, but I stuck to my pledge not to photograph the sugar colours and I stuck to my self imposed ban. As you can see, it was flowers that took the brunt of my photography today. It was a nice bright day with good directional light in the afternoon.

Those photos accounted for an hour in the late afternoon the rest of the time was spent farting about on computers. There’s probably a perfectly good verb for wasting your precious time trying to get the electronics inside the CPU and its various siblings to to do your bidding, but ‘farting about’ is an adequate substitute in my opinion. The less said about the detail, the better.

<Rant1>
Drove through horrendous traffic in to Glasgow tonight to get to the STUC building in reasonable time. Nearly knocked a bloke off his bike.

  • Doesn’t he realise that I own the road?
  • Doesn’t he know that I’ve got right of way simply because I could knock him down and kill him with my tonne of pretty coloured steel?
  • Doesn’t he know that the person on the roundabout has right-of-way?
  • Does he want to have “But I’m a cyclist, give me room” chiseled on his tombstone?
    </Rant1>

 

<Rant2>

After losing my temper with the world, the cyclist and Scamp we made it in to the STUC building for salsa class in time, only to find almost the whole building was taken over by an LGBTI group. What the hell does the ‘I’ mean? Isnae sure? It looks like it’s like Countdown:
Consonant, consonant, consonant, consonant, oh, better have a vowel. Rearrange them into a well known phrase or saying. Failing that, decide on a use for the acronym.

</Rant2>

Now mentally knackered after navigating through the traffic and physically knackered after two hours of salsa I’m writing the blog at 11.15pm because the person who runs the salsa class decided undemocratically to make all the classes start half an hour later. Some people are great at business, but are just not people-people, if that makes sense. After you ask folk if a change is ok with them and they tell you that “No, it isn’t”, then that’s the time to have a rethink, not just carry on regardless. That was probably rant 3.

img_3426-flickrI did manage to get a quick sketch done for Inktober 2016. It was a bit of a crash at the last minute, but it was completed. A partly blind drawing, that is you don’t look at the paper when you’re drawing, you just concentrate on the subject. I did correct myself once or twice, but for the most part it was blind drawing. It probably looks like that, but Inktober is not about skill and ability, it’s about putting pen to paper, daily.

Looking for a relaxing day tomorrow. May let the train take the strain. Hoping for even more late sunshine.

El Kaput – 2 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

2-oct

Short blog entry today.  Found that El Capitan wouldn’t access my storage area on the NAS drive.  Apparently it’s a known bug in El Cap, but nobody seems to want to fix it.  Apple don’t care and neither do Western Digital.  Each blames the other, but they keep taking the money from the punters.  Anyway, I decided to use my Carbon Copier and downgrade to Mountain Lion.  Back to safe ground again.  It worked – nearly.  Needed a bit of tweaking, but it did work in the main.  Some things didn’t work, the worst being Hazel. The app worked, but the rules wouldn’t load.  More work needed.  For once Apple hardware and software just didn’t want to work together.  You get kind of used to Apple products “Just Working”.  It comes as a shock when they don’t.  I’m back in business.  NAS drive works, but it’s like moving back a century.  Everything looks so much brighter in the future, in El Cap.

On a brighter note, I did get another sketch done for Inktober and tonight we went to salsa in the Garage and although we were late with the above problem solving, it was great fun.

Kizomba tomorrow

The Day After – 25 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

25-sept
I’d planned on having a lazy day with little or no driving and that’s exactly what I got. It was a sunny morning then the rain came and went off and came on again and went off and so it continued all day, so at least I didn’t drive.

I frittered away most of the day on trying to install an upgrade to Windows 10 on the Linx. It was never meant to go on these little tablet computers, but I’ve never let that stop me in the past. The problem is that the main ‘drive’ only has 32GB bare, so once windows is in, there’s about 20GB left. The installer needs 16GB and there’s no way on this earth that I can get that amount of free space on the drive. It just wasn’t meant to be, but to quote Mr R, it’s now become a ‘wee challenge’. After spending most of the afternoon on it, I think I may be nearing a solution, but just in case, I’ve made a backup of the working system. I’ll probably make another backup tomorrow with a different backup prog. Belts and braces, that’s me. It felt good to go through all these hoops, something of a reality check. You get so blasé about installing upgrades without a second thought on a Mac. It’s nice to know that with all it’s bells and whistles, Windows 10 is still a piece of Microsoft junk. Nothing ever works on it. All these whingers who write copious bleating complaints about a Mac OS that slows down their computer want to have tried installing Windows on a home-built PC. Then they would know about grief. Windows 10, puts you back in the driving seat. Just the seat mind you, there’s no engine and they forgot to put in the fuel tank. The wheels are available as an optional extra. Steering wheel? You mean you were thinking about controlling it? No way!

I did go out into the open air in the afternoon and shot a few birds, photographically speaking. Mr Grey was over at St Mo’s so I had to go over and annoy him, then there was this little robin who looked so solemn and downtrodden, maybe he was taking time out from updating his laptop too. Then there were some jaggy things. Thorny branches. Maybe it’s just the way I’m feeling, but they seemed to sum up my mood today.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go swimming in the morning and then I’ve got the physio in the afternoon. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll return to backing up and updating my PC with Windows 10 Anniversary edition. It’ll be crap like the rest, but I’ve got to give it a chance. Then I’ll go back to the Mac to get some real work done.

No Mr Bond, I expect you to die – 9 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

img_3385-flickr-253-1Went to the physio this morning to have my usual bashing and needling, but he had another torture in store. “I think I’ll give that wee ligament a shot with the laser” He said. Immediately I thought of Goldfinger with Bond on the table and a laser cutting through a steel slab on its way towards him. Thankfully he wasn’t Goldfinger and he didn’t strap me to the table and slice me in two with a gigantic laser. The laser was applied from a small pen sized device and controlled from something that looked a bit like an old-style Mac. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Away back, years ago when I was at school, I recall memorising that acronym. I never did understand what it meant, but it sounded really clever. Once the laser had done its work, it was aided and abetted by another set of needles. Whatever he did, it worked. Shoulder feels a lot looser and I get an extra week’s reprieve before my next ‘manipulation’. Progress is being made.

Not long after I got back, the rain came on and forgot to stop. Since Scamp was off galavanting with her sister and Nancy, I had the afternoon to fill and it didn’t look as if I was going cycling, or even for a walk. El Capitan, OSX 10.11.6 was sitting there looking at me and I couldn’t not install it. It was a little hand grenade waiting to be thrown. I used to have a friend in Oz who use to refer to things like this as hand grenades. “What will happen if I pull this little pin out?” Well, the pin is out and there has been a bang or two, but nothing spectacular. I won’t say there has been no swearing, but there’s been less than I expected. The only thing I can’t get to work is the email for my old account. It’s amazing how the settings worked fine on Mountain Lion, but resolutely refuse to work in El Cap. Same settings, same mail app, different result. I’ll leave it until tomorrow.

Today’s photo is the apple pie Scamp made from the rest of yesterday’s pic.

Dinner out tonight at the Dead Deer. Just like old times, in our previous lives when we worked for a living.

Dry tomorrow apparently.

Looking for the Capitan – 31 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

31 July

<Technospeak>
The Capitan in question was operating system OSX 10.11 for the Mac. Apparently, it will be the last Mac operating system named OSX. The next one will be ‘macOS’. For me it lacks a little something. I presume it will be operating system eleven and OSXI didn’t look as good as OSX. Even worse, the next operating system, codename Sierra will not work in my 2009 Mac Book Pro. My old HP netbook of 2004 vintage will (un)happily run Windows 10, the latest Mickysoft offering. It works on it, very slowly granted, but it does work. Apple are far too sneaky to allow that on their ‘puters and phones. I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea or not. Certainly it exemplifies all that’s bad in Built-In Obsolescence, but what’s the point of installing an OS that will be up to date, but will make your computer run like a slug. Also, at least Apple allow you to download and install each new OS free of charge until you reach the limit of your hardware, something that Mickysoft has only just cottoned on to.

Sooo, last week I downloaded the latest OS for my 2009 MBP, El Capitan. For those without an interest in geography, El Capitan is a mountain in Yosemite National Park. Yosemite was also a recent Mac OS. Sierra, the next OS probably refers to the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Are we sensing the thread of a theme here? The names may sound tacky, but don’t they sound much more interesting than Windows 8.1 (codename “Lemon”) or Windows 10 (codename “A slight improvement”). But I digress.
Like I said earlier, last week I downloaded my installer for OSX10.11 and today after struggling with bootable USB drives, re-partitioned external hard drives and a whole lot of other jargon, about four hours later, I had a working, easily removable installation of the eponymous El Capitan. It was OK. That’s about it. No great flaws, no great improvements over the OSX10.8 I’ve been running for the last couple of years. I’ve tried it now. If the time comes when I have to run it, I’ll not be too fussed about installing it properly, but for now 10.8 does everything I need, and more. The best thing about it is that I know a lot of tweaks and ‘John Wayne Dance Steps‘ to quote Tom Paxton. I have no need to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Thanks for the free upgrade Apple, but not for me at the present time.
</Technospeak>

Didn’t do much else today, well, four hours of the day had gone and I hadn’t even been past the door. I did go for a walk round St Mo’s to get some beastie photos – that may sound rude and a bit dodgy, but basically they are photos of insects, macros, close-ups. Like the wasp in the mosaic above (click it to link to the photos in Flickr). While I was walking I was watching the light glancing off the Campsie Fells. That little spot of light really lit up the hills that can look great one minute and quite foreboding the next.

Dinner for me tonight was a home made burger, made from scratch. Minced the beef myself and made the burger from that. It wasn’t the best. It needs some tweaking. More chillies and more egg to bind it. A pinch more salt and maybe, just maybe, a drop or two of Trinny Pepper Sauce. That will give it a bite. It’s a work in progress, but the basics are there.

No plans for tomorrow. If it’s sunny I’ll maybe cycle. If it’s not, I’ll maybe paint.

Dug wi’ a burst ba’ – 24 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt was raining when we got up and it never stopped. Last week it was too much sun, this week it’s too little.

We sat and watched a boring Hungarian F1 GP. Most of the race was yawn-friendly, only becoming interesting in the closing stages. Best part was the after-race comment by Jenson Button about his team being ‘unfriendly’ towards him. I can’t blame him for this throw away comment after the ridiculous rule change that prevents the teams telling drivers about safety issues. F1 is becoming more regulated than the EU. Maybe Britain should opt out of it too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon ‘fiddling’ with a neat little program called Elementary OS. As the name implies, it’s not so much a program, more an Operating System. It’s based on Linux and like most Linux programs it’s free. Unlike most Linux operating systems it looks very neat an clean and almost Mac-like. After a few unsuccessful attempts to install it on my ancient HP netbook, I found that the laptop wouldn’t boot back into Windows. After dinner, I spent the rest of the evening trying to coax it back into life, unsuccessfully. It seemed like the hard disk was empty!! Oh dear.

Eventually I gave up and went out to get a PoD of raindrops on the nasturtiums at the front of the house. I did a bit of focus stacking to get the front and the back beads in focus and with the aid of Photoshop, it all came together as a whole.

After we went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was still worrying away at the netbook problem, like a “dug wi’ a burst ba’” (That’s a Scottish way of saying “a dog with a bone“). After another hour’s work using the excellent, free and dubiously sourced Hiren’s Boot Disk 15, I managed to get it going again with no loss of data. Now I could go back to sleep.

Looking for some dry weather (sun would be nice, but dry would do) tomorrow.

Homeward Bound part 2 – 21 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

E7211012- flickr--203After yesterday’s journey into the epicurean dungeon that is Lancashire services I decided that we wouldn’t risk salmonella, dysentery or norovirus and would leave earlier than planned hoping to find a cleaner service station.

I woke around 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep, but I lay until almost 7am when Scamp, having been woken by me asked if I wanted to just have a cuppa and head off. I agreed with her suggestion and by 8am we were washed, dressed and on our way north again. As I expected, the traffic was much lighter today and we made good time. We stopped at Southwaite services. What a difference. Light, clean and with people who wanted to serve you. Apparently their dishwasher was working because they had proper cups, not made of cardboard. I don’t know what it is about cardboard cups I don’t like. I think it’s something to do with the feel of the cardboard against my lips. Picky? Not me. Anyway, having had a proper breakfast and a proper coffee, or peppermint tea in Scamp’s case, we journeyed on. Weather was much more Scottish as we crossed the border and we even manages a little bit of rain.  Not a lot, just enough to welcome us home.  It was much cooler too, around 19ºc most of the way.  We turned into our street just after 11am. Last week we were just getting on the road at that time.

The rest of the day was spent lazing around, backing up computer stuff, posting photos and generally winding down. I got ready to take my bike out later in the afternoon, that was when the rain came on, so I did nothing instead. A bit of a waste, that’s the way it is.

Tomorrow, the bus will take the strain.

PS
I mentioned yesterday about the poor WiFi in the Travel Lodge.  I didn’t manage to get the blog posted using it.  I imagine there were too many words for it to handle 😉
What I finally did was use my iPhone which was connecting with four bars of 3G.  I created a personal hotspot and used that to finally upload the blog post.  Isn’t technology wonderful when it works.

 

Another Wet One – 4 July 2016

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4 julyWet from start to finish today, but stuck to my guns and went out in the rain to capture something of the essence of the day. There were quite a lot of people about given the weather conditions. I felt sorry for the poor wee man sitting fishing under his umbrella. I hope he caught something – not the cold though! My cold has lifted thank goodness. Scamp is still coughing, but I think she is on the mend now.

It would be nice to say that these were all as they came out of the camera, but as usual, some ‘shopping’ was necessary.
The man with the dog for example:
When I got the base photo, the dog was off investigating an interesting scent in the woods, so I had to wait until it surfaced again, but then the man was facing me and had lost his hunched shoulders pose that really summed up the rainy day. No problem, I cut out the dog and added it to the original base photo, then blended it in with a vector mask. Although I knew it was raining heavily at the time, the photo didn’t show it, so I added some rain as a layer and changed the layer type to Lighten and it looked so much better. If you can’t see those carefully crafted raindrops, check out the version on Flickr 😉  EDIT!  Well, you will when Flickr remembers how to upload files.  What’s the point of having all these bells and whistles when the basic system doesn’t work.  For Flickr read Fuckr.

Had coffee with Val in the middle of the day and enjoyed the chat. It’s always good to see old friends you haven’t met with for a long time. Had a long discussion about computers and programs. Picked up a few tips on new apps to try, both on the PC and on the Mac.

Dinner was a bit rushed as I decided at the last minute to go to salsa after all and with Scamp’s blessing. I knew that Jamie Gal wouldn’t be hosting tonight’s session, and was hoping it wasn’t Colin but dreading it might be Shannon although there is one worse than that. Surely she wouldn’t inflict him on an advanced class. Keep him for the beginners. It turned out to be Will who taught a good class very clear instruction and a great deal of humour. Total enjoyment for the full hour, 9/10 Will.

Driving home, I thought I might attempt Charing Cross Mansions as a sketching objective some time. One of the prettier architectural frontages of Glasgow. I would need a dry day for that, and the weather forecast doesn’t seem to include one of those for the foreseeable future.