Category: Technology

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

A day in “The Toon” – 30 September 2016

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30-sept

It’s been a while since we just went for a wander round Glasgow, a flânerie, just stravaigin, so today we remedied that.

Up (fairly) early and out into the rain to get the bus to Glasgow.  Planned the day in Cafe Nero and then headed down Bucky Street.  Did a wee detour into the recently reconditioned Apple shop to see what this new OS Sierra looked like.  Decide it was alright, but nothing much to write home about.  Maybe you need to get down to the nitti-gritti of it to appreciate just what wonders it offers, but there’s not much chance of that any time soon, so we left.

By the time we got down to St Enoch’s square the sun was coming out and lighting up the new entrances to the underground.  Needless to say I managed to get some shots there.  After that, it was a bit of shopping for both of us separately for once.  All the shopping was making us hungry and I’d just the place. We went to a fairly new pizza place, Paseano Pizza.  It was judged a success by both of us.  The pizzas were good, if a little soft underneath, and the alleged 175ml of wine was generously poured.  That in itself helped us say “We’ll be back.”

Wandered up to Sausage Roll Street and I visited Waterstones while Scamp risked the tortuous labyrinth that is Watt Bros.  We’d considered having another wee drink to seal the day, but then decided that we should just head for home.

Overall, a very satisfying and relaxing day in “The Toon.”  Ye cannie beat it, honest, ye jist cannie.  It was a lovely day.  Heavy showers but lots of sunshine to make you forget the wet bits.  Good company as always.

As always, the photos look much better and larger on Flickr.  Click on the mosaic or here to be transported there.

Oh yes, I’ve removed the August gallery and replaced it with the much more interesting Skye September gallery.  Do go and have a wee look.

Tomorrow we may do the same in another town, and then again we might not.  That’s us, rebels without a clue!

The Day After – 25 September 2016

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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.

Too much time on my hands – 13 September 2016

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combo-cameras2It was a wet morning and it didn’t clear up until about 5pm, for an hour, then the dry spell was over and the rain came back. That’s my excuse for making it an indoor day today.

For a long time I’ve been following the exploits of one of my Flickr contacts, Jiffy Cat, presumably not their real name. For years now, Jiffy Cat has been experimenting with pinhole camera photography, and has recently been producing some interesting images. I believe the method JC uses is analog, ie. film, paper, developer and fixer with all the smelly mess that accompanies this process. I’ve had my time doing developing and fixing and I don’t want to go back to the mess or the stained fingers which made me look like a 20-a-day smoker. No, technology has moved on. I decided to make use of one of my older M43 cameras and make a real body cap lens for it. I cannibalised an equally old body cap, drilled an 1/8” hole in the centre, covered the hole with thick aluminium foil and punched a hole in it with a needle. That was it as far as the construction went. The only difficulty was estimating an exposure. It was all trial and error, but at least I could see immediately how successful or otherwise each shot had been and make corrections accordingly. The best shot I got was with ISO 100 and ‘shutter speed’ of 60 seconds. The top one took the bottom picture and vice versa.

While this was going on, I made a live backup of El Cap on to an external HDD using the excellent Carbon Copier. It took a little over 4 hours to complete the copy which is a long time, but that was both of the internal HDDs and the hidden recovery sectors too. Hopefully this will allow me to boot from the external HDD and reinstall El Cap if the need arises. I’ve used this method before when I added the SSD to the Mac and it was faultless, so I’m fairly confident about using it again. Sorry JIC, that was just gobbledegook to you, wasn’t it? 😉

Dull, but drier day forecast for tomorrow. Don’t know if it will be worthwhile going anywhere, but we live in hope.

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

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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.

Not the best day – 8 September 2016

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img_3380-flickr-252We woke to torrential rain. It’s a great feeling to be able to lie in bed reading in the morning, knowing that lesser mortals are struggling through the deluge on their way to work. Sorry 😉

Around lunchtime we went for a swim at Stalag Luft III also know as Westerwood Leisure Centre. The new rules state that you will check in with your membership card. You must pay £2 (refundable) for a locker key. You must also sign in for the aforementioned key and must sign it out again when you leave. You must bring your own towel. For heaven’s sake, you’ll have to bring your own water soon. It seems as if these rule changes have been designed by committee. You know what I mean, someone has an idea, someone else has a different idea, then a third person also has a further idea. Rather than choose one of the ideas, the committee decide to implement them all, even if they contradict each other. As you might have guessed, a new centre manager is in place and it looks like she’s more of an idiot than the last one. Once we got in to the pool, we found that water aerobics was in full flow. No room in the pool, so we sat in the steam room while the steam was coming out of my ears. Couldn’t get in the jacuzzi because it was covered up, no doubt waiting to be fixed. Thankfully they had finally sourced a piece of wood and a joiner skilled enough to replace the missing slat in the seat of the sauna. Once the aquarobic group had left the pool, the spa girls took over the middle of the pool to have a giggle and shout contest. I’m going to suggest to the new centre manager that it might be a good idea to make the middle of the pool 2m deep, then the ignorant bastards would drown as they giggled and shouted. You might have worked out by now that I’m not a happy bunny. I don’t see why I should be paying for a facility that isn’t really meeting my requirements. Looking back a year in this blog I’m reading that at least twice and sometimes three times a week I was getting to the gym in the morning. That’s not happening now. It would appear that the new centre manager has taken the pleasure out of leisure. I’ll give it until Christmas and if things haven’t improved, I’ll cancel my membership, which would be a shame as Scamp appears to be satisfied with the changes.  By the way, we returned our keys but didn’t sign them out.  Oh, oh.  That will mean a visit to the headmistress’s room or lines for us next time.  “I must always remember to sign out my keys”.  “I must always remember to sign out my keys”.  “I must always remember to ….”.

Outside it was still raining and we went on a pilgrimage to find a new cable for Scamp’s old style Samsung tablet. According to the Internet, Maplin had the cable, but when we got there all five of the assistants were more interested in getting a group selfie than in actually selling anything. It never ceases to surprise me that this store is still in business.  They never seem to have anything useful in stock, their assistants have less knowledge than an Apple Genius and I rarely see anyone actually buying anything.
Tried Currys – Nope
Tried Tesco – None
Tried B&M – Nada
Drove to Glasgow to Staples and, you’ve guessed it, no Samsung cables. Even tried Poundworld with the same result. When we were driving home the rain stopped and the sun came out for a while.
Finally solved the problem when I went to the bloke in Cumbersheugh town centre who sells phone covers. He also sells old style Samsung cables. Got one, and now the tablet charges, but the rain is back on.

Today’s photo is of a selection of our James Grieve apples from our miniature apple tree. The rest were made into a lovely apple pie.

More rain tomorrow. Oh what fun.

Another dismal day – 6 September 2016

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6 SeptI spent the morning working out exactly why and how I wanted to put a contact box on this, my blog. I think the answer is in my description. The key phrase is “this, my blog”. It’s My blog. It’s a documentary of my life now, in this new phase of my life, meant for me, my family and my friends. However, it is in the public domain and I realise that others may want to read it and I’m very happy to let them do it. With that said, here is my solution. The blog is a daily publication, one post every day. If you want to read it, feel free, especially if you know me, but nobody wants an email every day to remind them that I’ve added another ‘slice of my life’.  I did try with Hazy’s help to create a weekly update on posts for the previous week, but that became too complicated and unnecessary as far as I was concerned. If you want to keep up to date, I suggest that for the present, you save “www.https://dhcampbell.co.uk/blog/” in your favourites so you don’t miss a single episode of this unfolding story.  What I suppose it boils down to is that I won’t be adding a ‘contact box’ to the website any time soon. However, I reserve the right to change my mind any time I feel like it.  Thanks for the suggestions and help with the contact box, Hazy.  It may make an appearance some time in the future and I’ll need more help then.  You know me, always changing things. To all the (all because there are more than two of you now!) rest of you, I hope you continue to enjoy the read, and the photos of course.

So what of the day then? It started off a bit dank, damp and miserable in the morning, but with the prospect of better things to come in the afternoon. Unfortunately, that prospect never materialised because the dank and damp became dull and drizzle in the afternoon. Undeterred, I went out on my bike to pick some brambles, the wonderful free, hedgerow fruit that some misguided people mistakenly call ‘blackberries’. Managed to gather just over half a kilo (which sounds better than 500gms to my ears) before the drizzle strengthened to full tilt rain. Strangely, this happened at much the same time as yesterday’s deluge. After that I gave up and cycled home. I stopped near the wet corn field and grabbed a shot of tractor tracks that I knew I could convert to a gritty black & white in Lightroom. Now, here’s a tip for all you budding typists. When you are keying in a word like ‘white’, don’t let your left ring finger slip down a row on the keyboard from the ‘W’ to the ‘S’ key. Just a little heads-up there. The other photo in today’s meagre mosaic is of a couple of flies on bramble leaves. I just liked it.

Tomorrow the weather WILL be better, just repeat three times:
“The weather WILL be better”
“The weather WILL be better”
“The weather WILL be better”

Who knows, it might work.

Flooers, Painting and Salsa – 1 August 2016

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1 AugYesterday you were subjected to a lengthy story about my problems with computer technology. Today I tackled another lengthy computer technology problem, but before you switch off, I’m just mentioning it for my record, because you will remember that this blog is as much for me as it is for you. With that in mind, all I’m going to say is that making a bootable USB drive is a minefield and I’m going to leave it at that. I may leave the USB drive at that too.

It was another lovely day and, I wasted some of it staying inside when I should have been out walking or cycling. I did get a painting started and it’s beginning to look ok. Maybe better than ok. I’ll know better when I finish it.

I got some more beastie pictures at St Mo’s. I also got some flower shots. I like what the ‘cooncil’ have done with the wild flower area. Maybe they will think about looking after it this time and not allowing it go to thistles and grass like they did with the other areas in the past few years. They’ve also pulled out the plug with an exceptional effort at producing an adventure playground that weans actually want to play in. It looks brilliant NLC. Pity you couldn’t have made a better job of grassing the hilly parts.

Salsa tonight was difficult. Two weeks off and I’d forgotten every move I’ve learned this year. The old moves, I can remember, the new ones are still ‘new’ every week. It’s the Goldfish Syndrome. I really must make a commitment to learning a new move every second week at least.

I was thinking about yesterday’s landscape shot. It was the way the lighting illuminated the textures and the way the highlights and shadows created a three dimensional feel of the hills that I liked. I saw it again tonight as I was driving home from Glasgow. The glancing rays from the setting sun created that 3D feel again. I didn’t have a camera, but I knew it wouldn’t last long enough for me to get off the motorway and grab a shot even if I’d had a camera. It was good enough just to see it.

Painting and cycling are on the agenda for tomorrow with a bit of luck.

Looking for the Capitan – 31 July 2016

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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.

The phone was there all the time – 27 July 2016

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27 JulyScamp phoned up about the replacement phone for the one with the broken seal. For once she got a Scottish voice. She started to explain the saga when the guy broke into the stream of consciousness and asked “Samsung?” When she agreed, it was a Samsung, he told her that it happens all the time. Allegedly Samsung do open the boxes to make sure that the Samsung phone in the box is up to scratch (and has no actual scratches). It’s their version of Quality Control. Why then don’t they seal the boxes back up? Dunno, neither did he. He did however assure her that the phone was legal and ok to use. Why couldn’t the other three duffers have told her so in the first place, causing her untold stress and a needless 48 hour wait before she got the phone working? Vodafone. I think that’s the answer. The company that doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. I’m going to take the assistant at Vodafone Glasgow’s advice and go with Tesco next time. In fact, I may take Fred P’s advice and buy a phone and just do Pay as You Go next time. For all the call time I use and the minimal amount of text I send, I could survive on PaYG, with a decent amount of download time.

That started the day off a lot better than yesterday. The sun came out too for a while, so we went to sunny Falkirk to get some fish for the tea. Seabass en Papillote, just like I made for us and Hazy last week. I hope I spelt it right, but I can’t be bothered looking it up!

Went on an expedition to St Mo’s later to get some photos. Found lots of hoverflies. Always like taking their photos. There are such a variety of them around at this time of year. Also lots of Soldier Beetles AKA Bonking Beetles for obvious reasons!

Finally I tried getting Annette’s Nexus 7 to work again using yet another hopeful sounding ‘solution’ from an ‘expert’ on the net. It didn’t work, but it did kill it completely this time. Now it won’t charge either. I think I may have eventually ‘bricked’ it. Good riddance.

Hopefully another dry day tomorrow when we can go out and I can get a couple of landscapes photographed if not painted. We’ll see, it’s all in the lap of the weather fairies.