Category: Technology

A problem solved – 21 February 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Today, Scamp was off to FitSteps in the morning and I was determined to fix a problem that had been bugging me for almost two months.

The problem was that my .gmail accounts had managed the transition from Android to iPhone, but it felt like the Apple system was putting blocks in my way when I tried to put a couple of my own, home-grown accounts into the iPhone. Every time I tried, there was an error of some sort that prevented them being accepted. Today I solved it. I doubt if any of my readers are interested in the nitty gritty of the process, but after about six hours of work I finally found out how to do it.

The answer was there all the time in a combination of a Namecheap link and a Cpanel link. I needed both of these pieces of information to work the magic. I’ll store the work-through somewhere on the iMac, so I can come back to it when I’m sure it’s working. For now it’s a “back of a fag packet” solution. If you don’t understand that, then you’re too young! (Or I’m too old!!)

I started about 10.30am and finally had a working prototype by about 4pm with breaks in between for food and drink. It had been a terrible day with heavy rain showers and gale force winds. Scamp said she was nearly blown over getting from class to the car. Once in the car, driving was fine. That’s one of the benefits of having a car with a fairly low profile, it cuts through the wind well. I did go out into the back garden for a few minutes to recover a flower pot that our local grey squirrel had tipped over, but came back in when the rain got heavy. That’s when I found the PoD. It’s a view of the stained glass panel on the front door with raindrops on its outside face.

While I was still swearing at the computer, Scamp was making the dinner which was Carrot & Lentil Curry. Not a hot curry, just one that improves with resting and can have lots of additions to improve the general flavour. It’s an ancient recipe now carefully kept in a binder.

Tomorrow we may be dancing at Brookfield if there is enough interest to make a quorum. Some lucky folk are booked for a week’s dancing in Calpe, flying out on Sunday, but for a couple of reasons we won’t be with them.

A frustrating day – 14 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp gave me a lift to the station this morning.

I was hoping to get a solution to my problem of squeezing my Android data into the new iPhone. I headed straight to the Apple shop and got my first let down. I spoke to the ‘greeter’ at the shop and was told that they didn’t actually do transitions between Android and Apple. The reason she gave was that they weren’t allowed by law to work with third party equipment, or words to that effect.

I told her I wasn’t impressed much with Apple, since they proudly state that they made the software for the changeover, but weren’t willing to help with its use. She checked with her manager and he confirmed that. My hopes of an easy answer were gone.

I left and went to get my hair cut. A wee old man in a long white ankle length coat, like Muslim men wear, asked me for directions to the Bank of Scotland and I said I was going that way and told him I’d walk with him up to Sauchiehall Street. He looked as if he was very tired and walked quite slowly. Eventually we walked up to the top of West Nile Street and I pointed out the bank. He thanked me and crossed the road to it. That was my good turn for the day.

I got my hair cut and told my tale of woe to the barber who didn’t sympathise with me but told me that was just how business was done these days. I paid him and went for a spot of lunch and thought about what he’d said and was heading for the train when I spoke to Scamp and she agreed with the barber.

That made me think again and I went for a walk to clear my head, then phoned Scamp again and told her I would get a later train, then went back to the Apple shop and apologised to the manager for being a hot headed eejit and he explained what I was doing wrong with the attempted transfer of data.

I took him at his word, phoned Scamp and to get a lift back to civilisation and did what the bloke in the Apple shop had said. This time doing it by his method. The last time the transfer took about two minutes maximum. This time it took about 45 minutes, but almost everything transferred without a problem.

The only thing missing was the emails. They needed to be installed separately and individually. There were only four of them, but even after working at it for three or four hours, I’m no further forward. I may have to go to that Apple shop again to have it explained to me.

A frustrating day, I said. It certainly was, for me.

PoD was a photo taken in Queen Street Station. I liked the light in there.

Tomorrow, Scamp may be going out with the rest of the Witches. I might go back into Glasgow for another tutorial. I’m sure it’s something simple I’m missing.

The first day of a new year – 1 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

It’s always a pain in the backside for a variety of reasons.

You have to parcel up the previous years photos and catalogs and save them off somewhere safe before you build a new catalog and populate it with new photos. This year it was made even more difficult by Apple changing the rules again for third party apps. Which meant I wasn’t able to use my NTFS based storage drive to save the last month’s catalog and photos. I’ve got another way of doing it, but it takes up computer time and my patience. It’s half done, but that will have to be good enough for now.

The actual day was a wild mixture of torrential rain driven by strong winds in the morning, sleet in the afternoon and now everything is calm for a while now, but the temperature is below zero and that means ice to contend with tomorrow. However, I did get some photos over at St Mo’s and PoD was what are sometimes called Cleavers (Sticky Willies in Scotland) and are really irritating little balls covered in tiny hooks that attach to your clothes, especially woollen clothes.

Dinner tonight was vegetarian “Mince and Tatties” for Scamp and Steak and Kidney stew for me followed by Sponge with a Salted Caramel Sauce and Brandy Cream. I’m beginning to regret it now and may have to break out the Gaviscon before I go to bed.

I’m hoping for a walk on a clear day tomorrow, with no ice nor snow nor rain, but the chances of getting away with it are very unlikely.

A day to recover – 28 December 2024

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We had earmarked today as a day to recover and that’s what we did.

The furthest we got on Saturday was a visit to Tesco for the messages. Nothing fancy, just restocking the fridge, freezer and the storage cabinets. It was a dull wet day and neither of us wanted to very much.

In the afternoon, we managed to organise Scamp’s photos into some semblance of order sorted by date. I hate PCs!

Scamp is still not fully recovered from the bug she picked up, but hopefully a day or two of Scottish air will sort her out.

PoD was a wee bluetit building up its fat reserves in the garden.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk if we’re up for it/

A day to relax – 16 December 2024

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Both of us used today as a recovery day after yesterday’s dramas. If that means nothing to you, read yesterday’s blog.

I noticed today that the sun hardly rose behind the houses facing us. In all the years we’ve lived in this house, this is the first time I’ve noticed it. Maybe it’s me who is shrinking. That’s the only logical way to explain it.

In the afternoon I went for a walk round St Mo’s, but by the time I’d completed one circuit, the light was visibly low in the sky and the camera had to be put away after taking just three shots!

I walked down to the shops to get some Basil because neither of us could find the full jar that’s somewhere in the house. Of course, I bought a lot more things as well. I bought a glass jar of dried basil in M&S for around £1.25 and then noticed a similar quantity of basil in a not so posh looking glass jar in Life for 65p. Almost half the price of M&S. Now, basil is basil. I don’t believe there is much difference in quality and no difference in quantity. It’s just something you sprinkle on pasta. I might need to put my Captain Clipboard hat on and query the price difference, doing blind taste tests and maybe even buy a microscope to compare samples. I might even know someone who has access to all that equipment. I might have to speak to him.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about their plans for next week. A walk along the sea shore sounds good on your day off. Glad he’s got his door finished and painted at last. Hope his Captain Clipboard approves of the correct shade of white!

The previous part of the blog was written hours before this next part.

Scamp had started to download the photos of her Manchester trip into OneDrive when it all went a bit tricky. Only a fraction of the photos made it from her phone to the computer. We both worked on it and eventually, after a couple of hours managed to tease out the knots in this problem. Just after midnight we had three different folders on a memory stick and they held most, if not all of the photos. It still amazes me how a simple slip of a finger can cause so much mayhem, but it all worked out in the end. That is the reason you didn’t have a blog to read this morning. Sorry. To think that I started writin this blog with “A day to relax”! Little did I know.

PoD was a drab looking photo of St Mo’s that mirrored a drab day. It’s Scotland, what did you expect.

Tomorrow we might go in to Glasgow.

 

White Rabbits (x3) – 1 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

The first day of August and it had been raining during the night.

We haven’t had much rain during the second half of July, so it was a relief to see raindrops on roses this morning. It meant we didn’t need to water the garden today, but the clouds were the textureless milky white that we see so often.

While I was making breakfast this morning I spotted a wee pale yellow bird in the garden picking off the aphids from some of the plants. I managed five photos of it before it flew off and it looks like it was a Willow Warbler, but I’m not sure. I think one or two of them visited the garden about this time last year. Must check.

Scamp was off in the morning to meet Isobel for coffee. I stayed home to filter out the rejected photos and once I was sure I had ONLY the rejections, delete them permanently. Next task was to save the remaining July photos to an external drive for safe keeping. Then pack up those July photos and move them to a storage folder on the computer, before building a new folder for the incoming August lot! Actually it sounds a lot but it’s fairly easily done as long as you stick to the routine.

After lunch and when Scamp returned, she got down on her kneeling stool and finished off the weeding in between the bricks that edge the front grass. I grabbed the A7 and the new Tamron lens and went for a walk round St Mo’s then extended my walk to go to M&S for Thursday Things – flowers was the request today. We had been going to have paella for dinner, but instead Scamp opted for Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti. Much easier and quicker. Maybe paella tomorrow.

It was another warm, bright day after the milky white clouds had been chased away, but it doesn’t look set to last. Rain is on the way according to the weather fairies. Well, the gardens need it.

PoD was a very bright red Common Darter dragonfly taken in St Mo’s.

Scamp has FitSteps booked in for tomorrow morning and I’m trying to work out why the A7 doesn’t do the latest tricks that the A6500 can do. They are almost the same vintage and actually the A7 has significantly more bells and whistle that the A6500. I’m sure it’s a switch somewhere that’s set and shouldn’t be, but which one?

Finding space – 18 July 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It started in the morning when Scamp said that the blog wasn’t loading. An hour and a few quid later it was fixed.

<Technospeak>
Long story short, the problem with the blog appeared to be a lack of storage space on the Namecheap server. When I tried last night to install a WordPress update. It stalled and glitched upgrade, but more than that, it appeared to damage something. After an hour on a help-chat line I upgraded my 20GB of storage to 50GB. That should keep the wheels turning for a while.
That took care of the morning, but of course, I was now on a different server with a different address and I had to change the host name in all my email addresses. Not an onerous task.
</Technospeak>

Once I was back in again and the emails were working, Scamp suggested a walk to the shops would be good, so that’s what we did. As has almost been traditional after a walk to the shops, I carried the bag halfway home and Scamp carried it the rest while I went for a walk around St Mo’s. After about four years using the Sony A7 camera series I’d found another tweak that while not exactly guaranteeing a sharp, in focus shot every time, at least gives you a fighting chance. No need to explain it to you, but let’s just say it works. That’s what I was using today to get the PoD of a Crane Fly or a Jenny Long Legs to give it its proper Scottish name!

Back home Scamp made a prawn stir fry and it was really delicious. Meanwhile I bagged the stew and let it rest in the fridge.

It wasn’t the brightest of days. Still clammy but with a bit of a breeze, which made it more pleasant.  Maybe a couple of notches down from the unpleasant heat we’ve been having recently.

After the blog problem from the morning, I’ve been feeling washed out today and I’m hoping to get to bed before midnight. I expect you understood most of that jargon Hazy and I’m equally sure you passed it by Jamie.

Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps tomorrow while I stay home and do some tidying up.

 

The morning after – 27 May 2024

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I don’t think either of us slept much last night.

However, today was a new day and we packed the laptop up after breakfast and drove in to Glasgow with it. We explained the problem to the girl in John Lewis. We’d bought it on-line from JL on Thursday, but that didn’t seem to matter, we’d bought it from JL and it wasn’t working. She checked and they had one in stock, so did we want a refund or a replacement. I think we were both shocked that it was as simple as that. After a bit of a problem at the till, we walked away with another laptop exactly the same as the one we’d left on the JL counter.

Still shocked, we went for a coffee and then a walk down Buchanan Street. Me for watercolour paint and shower gel and Scamp for shower gel because it was a special offer that closed today. Rain and sun all day, but we weren’t caring. Drove home via Tesco for basics. Milk and eggs and a bottle of rum.

We started the machine and it began to fill up One Drive right away, then complained that there was no space, but we had a solution, thanks to Jamie. I logged into a free trial of Microsoft 365 I’d had in December last year and paid for a year’s family membership. That meant I had Word, Excel and an assortment of other goodies, plus 1TB of One Drive that I probably won’t fill. More importantly, Scamp had Word, Excel and even more goodies plus another 1TB of One Drive and that 1TB stopped OD complaining about no space!

Scamp has been happily filling up her computer and its cloud storage with photos today. I’ve been the on-line help.

PoD turned out to be a photo I took in Glasgow just outside the GOMA in Exchange Square of a bloke wearing a tabard which declared that he was a Tour Guide. There were a few of these people in and around Glasgow last year, but there seems to be a lot more this year. Last year the tours were free with the hope that some folk would contribute a few pounds. I listened to this bloke for a few minutes today and he was quite interesting, talking about the Tobacco Barons of old. I also noted that he had a fairly decent crowd round him. Maybe Alex and I will join one of the talks some day.

Today’s prompt asked for A Feather. I decided I’d just draw for a change with such a fragile subject. It looks a bit rough as if it’s been pulled through a hedge backwards. Maybe it has been.

Tomorrow Scamp is going to the celebration of the life of a long time member of the choir.  I’m dropping her off and then driving into Glasgow. Our car has a recall to get the mounting of the front seats checked.

Computers! – 26 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

The morning was all about putting more things in the new laptop.

Later we realised that One Drive was clogged solid and was wanting more space to put the data from the old PC. There seemed to be no way to unclog it and by lunchtime it was obvious that the data wasn’t going into the space we’d allocated for it on the C: drive. This surely wasn’t right. It got to a stage where the only sensible thing to do was to restore the machine to the way it was in the morning, when everything was working.

It took it a while to do that, but by the time dinner time came around, it had restarted and with a few omissions it was running just the way it had in the morning. We set it aside and had dinner after a few arguments.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard how he runs his PC in conjunction with One Drive. It sounded a lot easier than the way we were doing things. Maybe that is the way to go.
Good to hear that his Bee Orchids, whose flowers actually look like bees, were looking good. He even sent us a short video to prove it. By the time he hung up, and we’d watched the end of the Monaco GP, we had an outline plan of what to do to get this laptop show on the road.

Except it didn’t work out like that. When we turned the laptop on, we were met with a BSOD. The dreaded Blue Screen Of Death. The death of the laptop. It wouldn’t boot. From about 8pm until just after midnight, Scamp and I tried every possible combination of the multitude of problem solving hints and tips that were appearing on the blue screen. Nothing worked. Eventually Scamp made the corporate decision to go to bed and suggested we take the broken laptop back to JL in the morning. When she had gone I tried another alternative solution, using old fashioned DOS, but got nowhere. It’s now a quarter to one and I’m going to bed too. Hopefully the Techs at JL will come up with a solution.

PoD was an Aquilegia taken in the rain, just to be a place marker.

The prompt asked for a bitten apple. This one has definitely had a little nibble taken out of it.

Tomorrow, realistically later today, will surely be a better day than Sunday.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting – 24 May 2024

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For the DPD man to call.

Scamp’s new laptop was due to arrive today, but eventually we got the message that it would arrive just after 1pm and as usual with DPD, it was right on time.

I’d forgotten how many times you have to sign your life away when you’re setting up a PC. Macs seem to be much easier and lighter on the crap that comes with the computer and nobody really wants. Eventually it did its inevitable updates and restarted four or five times, then we finally got to play with it, well, Scamp did. I was Tech Support today. The lady in the shop where we didn’t buy the laptop told it was easy to get the files and data from the old computer and on to the new one, but then she told us that anti-virus software was desperately important and that McAfee wouldn’t slow the system. I just shook my head and smiled. I knew she was lying, because her lips were moving. The in-store sales team will tell you anything to get your money and get you out of the store. We had gone by the short cut and ordered online from JL. No lies to listen to, just pay the money and wait for it to arrive.

Setting up the machine was fairly easy, but getting it to load the data and files from the old one took a good 2 – 3 hours. First it wanted to load all that data on to One Drive, got stuck and told us that we’d need a bigger One Drive. That’s when I got hot under the collar and removed One Drive, then put the data back old style by copying it from the backup I’d made in the morning. Now, only about 8 hours after we started it’s beginning to look like a real computer. It’s actually got a nice clear screen and the sound from the B&O speakers impressed Scamp’s musical ear. We’ll see how easy it is to work with after a few days.

I did manage a quick walk in the afternoon after waiting for a downpour to clear. Just a few minutes of really good light, but it cheered me up from the struggle with Mickysoft. PoD was a low level shot of dandelions with their bad hair day look after that rain.

Dinner was Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti (from a tin). Just what I needed.

Today’s prompt was A Tree. This is a tree across the corner from me. Like many of the trees this year, it had no leaves until the beginning of May, then tree and leaf growth went into overdrive. I think it was the warm weather coming after a decidedly wet and dull spell of weather. All the trees around seemed eager to be out in leaf. The lightly sketched car is intended to give an idea of scale.

I’ve just discovered what a good, comfortable chair the Poang from Ikea is. I’d a sore back after all that peering over the laptop keyboard. An hour with Angry Birds on the Poang relieved the pain.

The teachers are back from their latest voyage and I think we may go to dance class tomorrow to demonstrate all the things we’ve forgotten!