Category: Computers

Another wet day – 2 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Another day when it never really stopped raining.

It wasn’t a day for doing much. I didn’t go out to take any photos, because it was raining and there seemed to be little point in getting wet when I didn’t have a subject in mind.

Instead, I took a tabletop shot. My subject today was a Sarracenia plant. It’s a carnivorous pitcher plant and quite a small one. It feeds on insects that fall into the liquid at the bottom of the funnel shaped ‘leaves’. I had a bigger variety last year that was happy to grow outside, even in winter. It survived temperatures down to -10ºc. Unfortunately the drought in June 2023 was too much for this bog plant. I’m being more careful with this slightly more delicate one.

As usual, the actual photos took about half an hour to take and a couple of hours to process. But I was fairly happy with the result.

Dinner tonight was Potato, Cabbage and Bacon. An old favourite with both of us, of course, Scamp doesn’t eat the bacon. We watched Sing 2 The second in what might become a series of comedy digital cartoons. Not much of a story line, really, but made up for it with the excellent dialogue. I laughed and so did Scamp, so it was a winner.

After dinner I struggled for a good two hours trying to get Word and Excel to speak to each other, but eventually gave up. I think I’ll cancel my free 30 day subscription before it runs out. Even worse, It looks like my old Toshiba laptop may be on its last legs. I got a message tonight ti say that there was a problem with the cooling system and to shut down immediately. Immediately is not a word the Tosh understands. Immediately usually means an arthritic ten minute wait. I’ll leave it to cool down gently tonight and see what can be done about it tomorrow.

No real plans for tomorrow. Scamp is booked for coffee in the morning with Isobel. I’ve got a visit to the nurse in the afternoon to see how my BP is doing now that I’ve reduced my meds a bit. I’ve a set of results ready to bamboozle her with my Excel skills!

Now that’s Dancin’! – 2 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A more successful day on the dance floor.

We spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard about Neil’s return to school and his new inhaler that makes a noise. A simple idea that sounds (no pun intended) like it will work! It was good to hear that they hadn’t suffered any damage from the gale force winds they’d had recently. Also good to know that Hazy and Simonne are willing to compare and contrast some holiday homes for next year. Hopefully they will find a good one!

Later I started the ‘new’ computer and after entering my password only about ten times, I think I’ve ticked all the required boxes at last. Touch wood, it seems to be settled down now, still the same operating system and version as it was before the crash, and it’s unlikely that I’ll try installing the update again. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because I’ve used the external SSDs to drive the computer that causes a conflict with the software the update is trying to inject into the system. If I want an update, I’ll have to do it the long way which takes about four hours. It’s not worth it. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

We drove to Glenburn Community Centre for today’s tea dance. Quite a small group to start with, then more and more folk joined in. We managed two tracks of Waltz Nioli and although they weren’t faultless, they were pretty good. We even did a couple of Joy’s Walz later in the afternoon and it was looking good too. Best of all, we managed two tracks of Quickstep! Something I’d never have thought I’d do. That was all down to a combination of Scamp’s and Kirsty’s teaching. Thank you both. These successes were won at the loss of the sequence dances. I just couldn’t get into the rhythm of them. Similarly, the Salsa we danced was pathetic. We used to be so much better than what we danced today. Still, progress was made on some hard stuff!

Back home I went for a walk, even although it was almost dark. I did get a couple of photos which were just presentable and no more. One heavily edited one made PoD. Along with it on Flickr are a couple of photos from Fannyside from last week. They’re much better.

Scamp and I are hoping to speak on the phone tomorrow to someone about the complaint we’ve made to the Ombudsman. It looks as if things are moving there.

Other than the above, not much planned for Friday. Scamp may find time in her busy schedule to meet June, Ian, Shona and Isobel for coffee after FitSteps.

 

What a fun day! – 1 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Yes, sarcasm again.

Today was dull, wet and occasionally windy. A good day to spend almost all the morning planning what I was going to do with the iMac and almost all of the afternoon finding the plan didn’t work. Macs big selling point has always been that they are really easy to work with and forgiving. Not mine. It simply refused to boot and came up with a friendly message telling me that it had restarted because of a problem and that I should press a key, any key to get it to do it again. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s made of aluminium, I think I’d have set it on fire. However, it wasn’t as if I was going anywhere with rain lashing the windows, so I had a plate of Scamp’s excellent Potato and Leek soup.

I did wander out into the garden for the few minutes it was dry in the afternoon and grabbed a few shots of leaves and the flowers that are still growing in the garden. When the rain restarted, (just like the computer) I came back in and rejoined the fight against technology. I reread my notes on how to boot an iMac using an SSD and then watched the video by Andrew Tsai again to find where I’d made my mistake. Found it and dealt with it with just enough time to drive up to the British Legion for tonight’s dance class which would include Tango and Quickstep with the possibility of a Waltz thrown in. We actually did quite well in the tango thanks in no small part to Scamp’s lesson in the late afternoon. So well, in fact that Kirsty, who runs the class, praised us in front of the whole class on the way we synchronised our kicks and flicks! Embarrassing, but in a good way. We managed the simple steps of the quickstep and also added in the optional fancy steps. We didn’t really get a chance to dance the waltz, but we did a couple of rounds of the floor when the rest of the folk were putting their jackets on.

Back home I followed most of Mr Tsai’s instructions to the letter and surprisingly it worked. It took about two hours to go from a black screen to a colourful screen showing Elgol in all its glory and most of the software back in place. Thank goodness. I was really starting to believe it was a goner this time.

PoD was one of the five photos I took today and it’s a leaf from a Gooseberry. Bush. No sketches, because Inktober is over for another year.

Tomorrow more rain is forecast but we may go for a drive somewhere in Paisley and with a bit of luck there will be tea and teabread!

Tinkering – 12 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today I started tinkering about with the innards of the iMac.  Not a clever thing to do.

<Technospeak>
There is a new version of Lightroom just out and I fancied installing it, but my operating system is too old.  I could have just wasted an hour of my time by installing it on the SSD that runs my system, but being a cautious individual where these things are concerned, I thought I’d install it on a backup instead.  It didn’t work because of the technique that was used to build it in the first place.  So, I found a way to use Carbon Copy Cloner to install the system from my working SSD into the backup disk.  That almost worked after an hour of watching a white line crawl across the screen.  I found a fix and that made everything work.  So at this point I had two SSDs, both running the same old system. Now I needed to install the new system, called Monterey for some reason, into the backup SSD (I did warn you.  I did put the <Technospeak> warning up).  After the same hour and a bit it got stuck and so am I.  I am thankful that I didn’t attempt to upgrade the working SSD. At least I have one working drive.  I’ll have another attempt tomorrow, because I think I have cunning plan.

To Be Continued …
<\Technospeak>

Scamp and I went shopping after that.  We both needed our meds from the chemist and Scamp was dropping off used clothes for the Salvation Army, then we went proper shopping on a small scale, just bread, milk and stuff for dinner, plus a bag of doughnuts for me and a packet of rasps for Scamp. Lunch was soup and it was very good.

Later in the afternoon I drove to B&Q to get a bulb for the fridge which thankfully is working fine now and we can even see inside it!  Then I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got a pretty good shot of the sun coming through the trees and that became PoD.  So, morning wasted on tech, but afternoon a better prospect.

Dinner was a hashed up, but perfectly satisfactory chicken and prawn paella. I had another half hearted attempt at fixing the mess I’d made of the SSD, but I was running out of time.

Prompt for today was Spicey (not how I’d have spelled it) and I sketched some of my fiery hot looking chillies for it.  Great chillies that came from Jan’s Vans in Portree, believe it or not!

We may be going dancing tomorrow … in a church of all places.  Only for oldies, none of those under 65 whippersnappers allowed in. My main worry is that we’ll be the youngest dancers there!

 

 

Out early to beat the rain – 20 September 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today Scamp convinced me it would be a good idea to go out early and grab some photos while the sun was shining. That sounded like a plan.

I wore my boots, because it was going to be mucky out there. It was a bit wet underfoot, but there were some interesting cloud shapes and also some blue sky  and some glorious sunshine. I took a quite a few photos with the A6500  and the Pentax 50mm while I walked round the pond.  It’s a new steep learning curve, taking photos without autofocus and without really being sure your aperture setting is what you think it is.  I don’t know how I managed before digital.  At the halfway point I found an empty can of Irn Bru sitting on the wooden seat that appeared a couple of years ago, probably more, actually.  I took a few shots with the Pentax and then swapped the combo to the A7 and my 16-35mm lens.  Sitting there I had a good view over the pond to the pines behind and that, not the Irn Bru can, made PoD.

As I was walking back the clouds got heavier, the blue skies less and the sunshine almost gone.  I’d got my photos and as I was walking home I could feel the first spits and spots of rain.

Back home it was lunch time and I tested out a packet of sausages I’d bought in Waitrose.  They were boggin’.  I could smell the preservative from them and the skins were thick and rubbery.  I survived them, but the remainder went in the food bin.  Now I know why they were half price! Then the rain that had threatened did appear and it was heavy for a while.

Decided I’d finish off the photos I’d started to process and then saw that there were no folders or files on the desktop.  Usually a quick restart fixes things like that, but not today.  I began to think that I’d been hacked.  The folders had gone.  They weren’t simple hidden.  Everything else was as normal and I couldn’t understand it.  Then I remembered I’d been messing about with Hazel, not you Hazy, but Hazel the app.  I checked and there was the culprit.  It had tried to backup the entire contents of the desktop to the NAS drive.  Thankfully I make an automatic backup every week to a removable drive and managed to get everything (and more) back from last week’s backup. We had a quick practise later in the afternoon and it was a shambles.  I seem to have forgotten everything overnight. Too much computer nonsense in my head.

By then I’d scoffed dinner and Scamp was ready to go dancin’. At the hall, I think I was still trying to process exactly what had gone wrong and wondering if some of the folders were recoverable from the NAS, so that’s my excuse for not being able to put a foot right all night.  With that said, in the few glances I had at the other couples, we were actually doing not too bad.  We did manage to finish the routine almost perfectly a couple of times.

Drove home and after reassuring myself that it was ‘Pilot Error’, we had another practise for the tea dance tomorrow.  This time I listened to Scamp, remembered what teacher Kirsty had said and concentrated on where my left foot and my right were going.  I think we might be ok for tomorrow.

Only plan for tomorrow is to go to the tea dance and introduce them to Kirsty’s Waltz. That’s the plan.  Whether it comes to fruition or not is a different matter.

The first day of the month – 1 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

This day is always busy.

However, I thought I’d be able to clear my feet today, because Scamp was going out to lunch with one of her friends … until the friend phoned to say that she’d been for a Chinese buffet a day or two ago and wasn’t feeling too well, so could she cancel. Bang goes the afternoon computer session clearing out the rubbish, putting stuff into the right folders and backing everything up. Instead we went shopping.

We drove to Waitrose and loaded a trolley with an amazing assortment of stuff, and not all of it was alcoholic either. Although I did see one man with a trolley full, and I do mean full on bottles of wine. That was going to be one interesting party!
It wasn’t a day for doing much else and as we really needed most of the stuff we bought, it wasn’t time, or money, wasted. We drove back under a leaden sky we thought we’d left behind at Cumbersheugh. I think it must have followed us to Stirling.

Back home Scamp started to defrost the freezer. It’s always a task we tend to avoid. It’s quite an old freezer now and difficult to get into the nooks and crannies that clog up with ice. I think we hit on what could be a possible solution today. Scamp filled up big stainless steel dishes with hot water, put them on a couple of shelves and with a basin and a towel to capture at least some of the water we closed the freezer door and let heat do its job. Of course there was still a bit of chipping away to do with an old screwdriver and a spatula, but it was easier this way, especially with both of us taking turns at the ice face.

<Technospeak>
Meanwhile I was doing the backups of July’s photos to external hard drive, then deleting all the rejected photos and finally moving the ‘keepers’ onto a new part of the SSD. It sounds complicated, only because it is, but it works for me and lets the iMac run a lot smoother for a while.
</Technospeak>

With that successfully completed I took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of Yellow Toadflax (where do they get these names from?) in St Mo’s, then walked down to the shops to get mushrooms for tonight’s Mushroom Risotto. After working away at the risotto for about 45 mins, it was an unappetising grey lumpy thing that came out of the pot. But looks aren’t everything. I must say it did taste good. Maybe a bit dry, but creamy and buttery! Crunchie ice lolly for dessert.

We’re waiting to see what the weather is going to bring tomorrow before we make any rash decisions about were to go, or indeed, if we go anywhere.

More driving, fewer photos – 26 April 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off today for lunch with the Witches. I was messing about with computers again.

She got picked up by Jeanette just before midday. That left me with a few hours to myself. Never a good thing. Usually I fritter those hours away doing ‘something on the computer’.

I have a 2TB (1TB=1000GB) external drive that was intended to hold just photos, but over the years, I’ve dumped other stuff in it too. I’ve a few 1TB external drives that could be cleared out to make room for the ’non-photos’ on the bigger drive. That would give me enough space to allow me to expand the photos on the 2TB to the most up to date version of Lightroom. It’s a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the long run. Today was the dummy run to see just how much ‘non-photo’ data was clogging the drive. I struggled with it for a while, but eventually decided I was wasting a good photography day, plus I’d another plan in my head.

Originally I’d thought I might go for a run to Milarrochy Bay on Loch Lomond, to photograph the famous tree that stands in the water, but the weather wasn’t looking great for that. Instead, I thought I’d go looking for Busy Lizzies to replace the ones that the frost got to a couple of nights ago and I drove over to Dobbies in Milngavie, but there were no Busy Lizzies, to be found, not even Lazy Lizzies. So I drove back almost to find somewhere photogenic.

My best guess for a decent spot was at The Stables which is a pub/restaurant on the banks of the Forth & Clyde canal. Parked at the restaurant and went for a walk west along the towpath and grabbed a few photos and watched the double decker Airbus A380 flying serenely overhead before banking into final to Glasgow Airport. I didn’t take any photos of it. Sometimes it’s better just to watch.
I wasn’t totally satisfied with the shots I had and walked east to see if there was any more interesting views. Bumped into a couple about our age on what looked like brand new Raleigh eBikes. The bloke was at pains to say that they weren’t total electric powered bikes, you had to pedal too, but the battery kicks in then and helps you. I could see how that would be a great benefit if you were climbing hills, but they were cycling on a flat tow path. Not much of a challenge. However, I wished them well on their travels and they did offer to pose for a photo, but I passed on that.

When I walked back to get the car, I saw my PoD. The Gipsy Princess was docked on the far side of the canal and it made my photo of the day. As I was taking the shot, I thought “GIPSY Princess? Is that PC?” Maybe not, but I’m not exactly PC either.

On the way home I stopped at Calders garden centre. It used to have a host of plants, but today it was looking a bit tired, even if the shop and the teashop were doing a roaring trade. No Busy Lizzies here either. I drove home.

It was a venison burger with potatoes and broccoli for dinner. Although she had already had lunch in the middle of the day, Scamp helped me to scoff the remainder of the veg.

One thing that annoys me about the Blue car is the overspeed warning beeps it screams when it feels justified in complaining that you are going too fast, even when the road signs don’t warrant it. In the two and a half years I’ve had the car, it’s been one of the biggest annoyances in it. Today I found out how to silence it. It’s not easy to find, but it is there, hidden under two layers of menu in the Settings part of the display. Silence is golden!

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet up with Alex to visit the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. Rain is predicted.

Recovery – 25 March 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A day to recover from yesterday’s excesses.

Yes, a day to recover from yesterday’s excesses, and also to recover from the morning’s dance class!

Drove through a fair bit of traffic this morning to get to Brookfield for today’s class. It started with a couple of easy sequence dances then it was into the Foxtrot. Suddenly my mind went blank. Thankfully Scamp was there to whisper the count and the next steps that were coming up. Stumbled through it without too much trouble, but I wouldn’t call it elegant. On Strictly it looks so smooth and classy. That’s all a con. It takes a lot of skill to get to that stage. Well, it takes me a long time to get to that stage.

Next another sequence dance to get our confidence back and to clear the Slow Foxtrot out of our heads, because next up was Jive. Scamp has been working at the jive steps and the different moves that make them up. She has this ability to remember sequences of moves and fit them together in the correct timing. I have difficulty remembering g the moves themselves. The jive we’re doing now seems to bear very little resemblance to what Michael taught. The footwork is different, the hand and arm choreography is also different. I made a mess of it and I know it. I can only apologise to Scamp because I feel I’m wasting her time. It will get better, I know that, but it doesn’t come easy to me.

Worse was yet to come, because next was Quickstep and I was ready for it … except this was a different quickstep routine. Not the one we’d worked on for months and had it almost perfect. This one had Fishtails in it. It took me months to master fishtails with Michael, but I must remember that Stewart & Jane are much better teachers that Michael & AnneMarie. We danced our almost perfect quickstep instead of the new one. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The drive home was a nightmare. Juggling with lane changes to find the best route through the traffic. In the end we weren’t all that much later than a normal Saturday, but it felt like we were.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon, taking the A7 with the LensBaby and an old Zenit lens, a Helios 44. The results were better than I anticipated. It’s weird working with a totally manual lens like the Helios. PoD was a shot taken with the LensBaby of a whin bush.

I finally went not the chat line for my internet provider and the person on the other end talked me through the installation of the SSL. Thankfully that should be me sorted until next year, all being well.

Dinner tonight was roast chicken and roast veg. Very nice indeed. I really enjoyed it.

We have no plans for tomorrow yet.

Frogs are back – 16 March 2023

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A fairly early rise for breakfast and see Jackie safely on her way back to Skye.

We got a bit edgy waiting for the taxi and the blue car was ready to drive her to Glasgow if it was needed, but just at 9.15am the car arrived and with her cases in the boot, off she went. It was really good to see you, Jackie even if it was only for a few days.

Once we’d had breakfast, Scamp phoned June to give her a share of our beautiful cake and to just have a good blether. While she was off drinking coffee and talking, I’d intended to do some painting, watercolour painting that is, not “two coats of Crown gloss”. No, I’m not into that at all! As it turned out I didn’t manage to get brush to paper, because instead I rebuilt my old Mac Book Pro. I had planned to cannibalise the SSD drive that was in it, but now I think it would be better keeping it as it is. That took me ages more than I thought it would, because the screws that are used to fix the SSD into the MBP are not normal cross-heads, but three slot screws and that meant I had to search for the three bladed screwdriver. With the drive back in place I needed a tiny cross-head screwdriver to fit those. The poor MBP has been disassembled and reassembled so many times since 2009 that more than half of the screws are now lost.

When Scamp came home, we had a late lunch. After that I drove to Tesco to buy some extra ‘messages’. I came home via St Mo’s and parked there for what is maybe the second time since we landed in Cumbersheugh. As I was walking across the boardwalk in the rain, I spotted a ripple in the water, and then another and yes, it was frogs. I only counted four of them, but they had been busy. Great rafts of frogspawn stretched across the pond. After the council dug up and cleared part of the smaller pond, I though the frogs might not return to lay their egg, but they have, or at least four of them have. It’s a start.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the best lens on for photographing frogs, but it was ideal for wide angle views of the burn and waterways that had been created by the rain that’s been heavy and continuous for most of the week. One of those burns had made a tiny little waterfall by the side of the path and that became PoD.

We watched The Apprentice tonight when five became two. I didn’t totally agree with the two who were chosen, but I am beginning to lose faith with this show. How can anyone who has gone through what must be a rigorous pre-show selection process produce a business plan riddled with the number of holes that those five had. It makes me wonder how many of the participants are actually business people and how many are actors.

So, Jackie sent a text to say that she had got home safely and had enjoyed spending all that money all that time with us. I hope you remembered the address to let you read the blog JG! Tomorrow Scamp is intending going to FitSteps and I might just start that painting.

Beautiful morning, dull afternoon – 16 November 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We woke to sunshine today. Sunshine and an outside temperature of just over 3ºc, so quite cool.

The sun didn’t tempt me out to take photos, although I wish now it had. We sat around soaking up the sun shining in the window and laughing as our wee Chinese lucky cat waved its hand in the air when the sun hit its the solar cell that powers it. When the sun went behind one of the slats of the blinds, the waving stopped until it cleared the blind again.

Scamp gathered together the ironing and powered up her magic steam iron. I started the long process of turning my new SSD into the heart of the iMac. It’s a fairly easy procedure if you follow the instructions to the letter. Most of the time is taken with downloading and installing the new Big Sur operating system, but as it’s an almost automatic operation, there’s nothing much for me to do.

After lunch when the ironing had been done and the shirts and jeans put away I started phase two which is to transfer, or ‘migrate’ the apps and data from a working installation into the new bigger SSD. Again, once the data is sourced and checked, the new SSD gets to work and does the transfer itself. Some tidying up afterwards and it’s all good. It seems to be working fine (always a dangerous thing to say) because I’m typing this blog post on the new system.

By this time it was early afternoon and the sunshine of the morning had been replaced by cloud. However, I guessed there would be enough light to get some photos in St Mo’s. I walked through a different area of the woods this time and found a straggly bramble bush with bright green, orange and red leaves … and a bramble flower. A very hopeful flower. I’m not sure there will be many insects flying around to pollinate it. Still, it shone out on a dull day.

That was PoD. There wasn’t much more to photograph because the good sunlight never came back. But on the way back I heard the Whump, Whump of a couple of geese flying in to St Mo’s pond.  Then the whumps disappeared to be replaced with honks as they glided in to land on the pond.  The honks got quicker in succession as they got closer to the water.  Almost as if they were counting down to the landing.  I only managed one shot with the wrong lens on, but I saw the whole thing.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing and the weather doesn’t look very good at all.