Category: Technology

Too much time on my hands – 13 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

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.

Drip, Drip – 25 July 2016

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25 July b

The title refers, of course to the weather.  Yet another rainy day, but as I write this in the back bedroom while Scamp watches Celebrity Masterchef (boak!), there is blue sky with some clouds of course, but blue sky nevertheless and the promise of a better day tomorrow.  Hope it’s a better day for Scamp too.

Scamp’s new phone was due to arrive this morning between 9.12am and 10.12am.  I just love DPD’s accurate time intervals.  Anyway, it arrived just around 9.15am and as she opened the parcel and then the box the phone was in, I noticed that the seal was broken on the box, the bit that says “If the seal is broken reject the phone, blah blah”.  I carefully took the phone out of the box and noticed there were finger prints on the protective plastic cover.  The cover itself looked as if it had been removed and replaced.  You know how it looks when that’s been done, the bubbles and the edges not quite right.  Now it might be my paranoia, but in these days of heightened cyber security fears, that sort of thing shouldn’t happen.  We eventually agreed that she should phone Vodafone and request a replacement in a sealed box.  It took three phone calls and finally a post on Facebook to get the thing almost sorted.  I say ‘almost’ because she now has to wait 48 hours to get approval to get the replacement from a Vodafone shop.  Neither of us can understand why she has to wait that amount of time and neither of us is happy with the result.  Customer service from Vodafone has been shocking for both of us now and I don’t think either of us will be renewing our current contracts.

I’ve been painting experimentally today, using cling film to create interesting effects in watercolour.  I tried doing the same thing with acrylic, but it wasn’t as successful.  The next thing is to try it on a real painting, and on a larger piece of paper.

Neither of us went to salsa tonight.  Me because I couldn’t really be bothered and Scamp because her shoulder is still giving her some pain.

Did you know if you overwater a spider plant, the plant gets rid of the excess through the leaves?  That’s where today’s photos come from.  It’s amazing what you find out.  Every day’s a school day.  I never thought I’d say that again after June 2014.

Better weather forecast for tomorrow.  Let’s hope they aren’t lying.

Dug wi’ a burst ba’ – 24 July 2016

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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

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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.