Category: Technology

Snow! – 16 January 2016

Posted on by Zogman

combo bA late start after the late night yesterday.  Couldn’t really decide what to do today and the weather didn’t look as if it was going to be all that good for a scenic drive.  That being so, we settled on a drive in to Glasgow and lunch there. On the way there, the snow started falling and by the time we got to Glasgow it was quite thick.  I’ve got a dream just now about getting an iMac to replace the Macbook Pro.  I asked the Apple rep in John Lewis some questions about it.  Some she couldn’t answer, some she could, but she didn’t inspire confidence in either Scamp or me, but she had a good way of moving ‘weans’ away from the expensive ‘toys’.  We walked out and down through Buchanan Galleries then down Bucky Street to the Apple store which is closing for “remodelling”.  They couldn’t tell me when it would re-open and I found that a bit disconcerting.  What I did find out about iMacs confirmed that not only did the JL rep not know much about the computers, but also she just made up some of the answers.  Why do JL employ supposed ‘reps’ from companies when these people know nothing about the products and sometimes deliberately mislead customers.  It’s not the first time this has happened to me.

I wasn’t feeling all that hungry, so we headed back to the car park, but made a detour to the JL teashop where we had a light lunch.  Luckily, Scamp had found a seat with a good view past the Concert Hall and up Sausageroll Street.  The snow seemed to abate for a while while we were in JL, but by the time we got back to the car park it was back with a vengeance.

Back home I made good on my promise and dug out the old sewing machine.  While it was not exactly the same as the one I’d been using on Thursday, it was close enough to work out the basics.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to get some 3in1 oil and get it lubricated at least and hopefully working.  Bearing in mind that this is a forty odd year old machine, for once I will have to be very gentle.  Let’s hope that tomorrow’s blog is not titled “It’s Broken”.

The morning after – 5 January 2016

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Last night after all the surgery, the diagnostics and the wee half I had to act as a nightcap, there was still one problem outstanding. One prog that wouldn’t settle down in the new ‘puter and it was iTunes. If there was one program I expected to screw up, it would have been iTunes. The worst program in Apple’s arsenal. So bad, I think it must have been written by Microsoft. iTunes simply refused to allow me in. It kept telling me I had insufficient privileges and I kept telling it I had. I slept on it.

This morning I was up at 7.00 still wondering how to fix iTunes or how to beat it into submission. This really is a dog of a prog. It needs put to sleep. I searched the internet for someone who had the same problem, but all the ‘solutions’ I read about were ridiculous (like format the disk and reinstall the system and all your apps from scratch – a typical Apple fanboy solution to everything on a Mac). Or else, I’d tried the ‘solutions’ already with no noticeable success. Then I hit on one really stupid ridiculous solution that everyone said actually worked. The page was full of ‘thank you’ messages. Here is what it said. Look for the empty ‘Users’ folder on the SSD and you’ll find it has no ‘read-write’ privileges set. Set them to read-write. It seemed a stupid thing to do. Why would you need to set a folder to read-write when it’s empty and hasn’t even been opened? I did it, and it worked. Just another of iTunes little foibles. I added my “thank you” to the long list.

It was a really, really dull and dismal day today, so after my last problem solving escapade I needed to unwind, but a walk through St Mo’s was out of the question. Scamp and I decided to go to the gym and then have a swim. The rest of Cumbernauld had decided the same thing. The New Year Resolutions (NYR) were there in force. At one point, all the training bikes were taken. I’ve never seen it so busy. That said, we still managed to get some exercise in and also got a swim.

Went to Tesco of the way home and posted Hazel’s calendar. Drove home through the rain.

Today’s photo was taken at the back door. Plants flowering in January.

Tomorrow will be better. We’re hoping to go looking for a shredder if we can hire a boat. We’ve burned out the last one. De-junking, another NYR.

Open Heart Surgery – 4 January 2016

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAScamp was out with her sister this morning which gave me the opportunity to complete the first and most difficult part of the procedure to replace the hard disk in my MacBook Pro with a solid state drive. Sounds so simple, but like all these things, it gets more and more complicated the deeper you research it. Over the last few months I’ve read many and varied descriptions of how to achieve it. I’ve watched many videos too, some very good and some downright terrible. I’ve added memory to the MBP and upgraded the hard disk too over the years, but this was much more difficult and invasive. So, this morning I was removing the DVD drive and the HDD. I’d already bought the caddy that would hold the HDD and fit into the space left when the DVD drive was removed. There is just so little space in the MBP, no room for a second HDD, so something had to go. I don’t use the DVD very much so I won’t miss it much.
Technophobes can ignore the next page and a bit as it will only give you nightmares.  Just scroll down and read the bottom bit.

I chose to do the minimum amount of disconnecting of mylar connectors as these are so fragile. Ok, deep breath, cup of strong coffee and in we go:

  1. I disconnected the battery and two SATA connectors from the motherboard, unscrewed the three black screws holding the DVD drive and gently slid it out.
  2. Next I disconnected the L shaped clip and the SATA cable and connected them to the caddy.
  3. Next disconnected the old HDD and removed it. Also removed the four buffer screws from the HDD.
  4. Fitted the HDD into the caddy. Screwed it in place and, very tentatively, slid the caddy into the space previously taken up by the DVD drive.
  5. Screwed down the caddy with the three black screws, reconnected the SATA cable and replaced the battery connector.
  6. Test number 1. Replaced the base and fixed it temporarily with two screws. Switched on.
  7. It was slow, but it booted. That’s what I expected as the DVD SATA is a slower connector than the HDD one. BINGO!
  8. Scamp arrived home, so we had a quick cup of tea – Water in Scamp’s case then headed out to the shambles that is Currys – PC World. Let’s call this the interval:

Went to Currys – PC World at Bishopbriggs where, according to their website they had the drive in stock. When we got there, there were loads of Currys personnel walking around looking busy, and all carrying bits of paper. I asked one of them if they had Sandisk SSDs and he took me to the stand for SDs. No, SSDs Solid State Drives. Oh yes, they’re down here, but they didn’t have them. I told him the web site said they had them in stock. Oh, we keep them in the warehouse. You have to order them online and pick them up here. No, sorry, I’ll go elsewhere. I didn’t go far, I just went to the checkout. Have you got a Sandisk SSD? What size? 240Gb I replied. Yes, just a minute. Just about a minute later, he arrived with the SSD. He must have run down to the warehouse got the drive and ran all the way back. He wasn’t even out of breath!  A cup of watery Costa coffee, then back to attempt part 2.

  1. I plugged the Sandisk into an old enclosure I had and proceeded to clone the OS from the HDD using Carbon Copier.
  2. Remember the four buffer screws from step 3? I screwed them into the fixing holes in the Sandisk Ultra II SSD and mounted it in the cradle, locking it down with the fixing screws.
  3. Test number 2. I screwed the base on again with two screws and switched on again. Again it booted, but again, it was simply booting from the same drive. Changed the booting drive in system preferences and rebooted. This time it booted much quicker. Much, much quicker. It was booting from the SSD!
  4. That was the beginning of the end of the installation. Or it may have been the end of the beginning. Just another four or five hours moving stuff around between the two drives and it was done.

Well, that’s the story. Really what I did was based on a book Hazy encouraged me to read, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. In it they have tiny little droids that they inject into the system in the spaceship where they autonomously repair and upgrade the system. That’s what I did here. I just let the Weemen read the webpage. Showed The Professor the instruction sheet from the SSD. I even asked Dennis to record the whole thing so I could pass it off as my own work They they did the rest. Simple!

You thought I’d done all that myself? Aye Right!

The Shortest Day – 22 December 2015

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combo b“Maybe we spend too much time looking at glowing screens.” I heard this while I was listening to a podcast coming back from another walk to Dumbreck Marshes.  I couldn’t agree more.  We all spend far too much time in this virtual reality we live so much of our lives in.

Before my Damascene revelation today, we went to Stirling, to shop and stock up for Christmas at Waitrose.  It was just in case the snow comes in great drifts in the next few days and we can’t struggle our way across the tundra to Condorrat to buy the last loaf of bread in the bakers.  Yes, I know the temperature is almost in double figures today, but you never know, do you?

On the way back we stopped at Halfords to get the headlight bulb replaced in my car.  I could have done it myself, but I couldn’t remember the sequence for removing the clips and bolts, well, that’s my excuse.

After we got back, I went out to have my religious conversion and Scamp went to do more shopping, this time in Glasgow.  When I got back, I stared at these ‘glowing screens’ again to get the photos downloaded and processed and then get this blog written.  We need the glowing screens, but I dare say we could use them a little less.

St Andy’s Day – 30 November 2015

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combo-bThe last day of November!  It started with rain, as have most of the days recently.  I had a full agenda today with a trip to Glasgow quite prominent.  I’d decided to go on the bus, thereby saving money since I had all day to go, shop and come back before dinner time.  Scamp was out with Gems singing in the afternoon, so the day was my own.  I wrapped up well and headed off to the bus stop, then remembered that the timetable changed earlier this month and I was now five minutes late for the bus.  Did I dare try to become one of the 700 who daily park at the station, or did I drive in to Glasgow, park in the exorbitant Concert Hall carpark and pay a king’s ransom for the privilege?  A dilemma.  I opted for the train.  Hey, it’s Monday.  Some folk will probably be having a long weekend and not going to work, so the carpark won’t be crammed full with people parking on the verges, in the turning circles and in the flower beds.  Strangely, for once, that’s exactly what happened.  Hunners of spaces.  Well maybe not hunners, but enough.  I got a space easily.  Even better, I got my ticket walked on to the platform and the train appeared.  As if by magic.  Sometimes things just happen for you.

By the time I got to Glasgow the sun had come out, the rain had stopped and the day was looking good.  Dandered through ‘The Toon’ and got what I was looking for, just the essentials.  I also saw some things that I’d like, like a new SSD (not to be confused with an S T D which is a totally different thing … or so I’m told) for the Mac.  Shh, don’t tell The Mac, it’s meant to be a surprise.  It might be its Chrissy Prezzy.  I saw a Sandisk 480GB one for £99 in Maplin and almost bought it, but decided to check on-line to see what price I could get it for there and to read some reviews.  As I thought, Amazon had one for £73.  Same make and same model.  It’s now on the shopping list, along with a new battery for the same unibody device.

In Glasgow I wandered around St Enoch’s Christmas Market.  How much longer will we be able to say ‘Christmas‘ without breaking some EEC law?  It’s ludicrous that we have to change our traditional names because we’re frightened of upsetting some group or other.  Moves are already afoot to change Easter holidays to Spring holidays because it offends some religious groups.  Doesn’t ‘Spring’ holiday offend Wiccans and Neopagans or some other nature loving group?  You can’t win.  Just leave it as it is and if other groups don’t like the word, then they don’t have to use it.  Simples!

Got some photos in and around the St Enoch area.  I’ve been watching the light on the new underground station there and the way it contrasts to the old St Enoch building with the clock tower.  Most impressed with the steel and glass structure.

Quick cup of coffee and a granola from Laboratorio Espresso and got the train home.  Overall a good day, greatly helped by the unexpected ease of parking at the station and by the glorious sunshine.  The down side was having to scrape the windscreen of the car before going out to Salsa tonight.  Oh well, you can’t have it both ways.  I much prefer the clean cold to the miserable rain.

Progress and Gadgets – 26 October 2015

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Sooo.  Last night the circuit breaker on the electricity consumer unit tripped, nearly causing a major catastrophe.  We nearly didn’t find out who was dropped out of Strictly!  Luckily, we managed to throw the switch and get the Tivo™ box up and running again before the big reveal.  However, this is the third or fourth time the electricity has tripped recently and we’ve pinned it down to something in the kitchen that’s doing the dirty.  Best guess is the kettle, which poses another problem.  You see, I fitted the socket the kettle is connected to!  So it’s either the kettle or my handiwork.  I think it’s the kettle itself, but I’m willing to believe it could be the socket.  Simplest thing to do is replace the kettle and that was my plan today.  As usual, I got sidetracked when looking for something as simple as a kettle.  We mostly use the kettle for making tea (for me) hot water (for Scamp) and coffee (for both of us.  All cup or mug sized quantities.  When I was looking, a hot water dispenser caught my eye.  It has a reservoir that holds about 2.5 litres of water and dispenses it as max 250ml of freshly boiled water.  It seemed to fit the specification, and even better, it’s a Gadget.  I just love gadgets.  That’s why I drove to Argos at Robroyston to collect one.  Scamp was unimpressed.  Well, what would you expect, she’s a pragmatist.  Why buy a water boiler when we needed a kettle?  I take her point, but if we all thought that way, we’d still be driving around in black cars with solid wheels.  We must embrace progress.  That’s my motto.  Progress and Gadgets.  I didn’t tell Scamp that I also saw a WiFi controlled kettle.  That would definitely have been a step too far.  I also got a socket tester while I was out and checked the kettle socket.  It passed with flying colours.  So it was the kettle after all.

Since it was Monday and that’s Gems day at our house, I made myself scarce and went to do the Gym / Swim.  That’s where I took today’s epic photo from.  That was sarcasm.  It’s not the best photo in the world, not by a long way, but it gave me a chance for a small rant against wind farms.  These blights on the landscape are great propaganda weapons.
They are usually painted white (white means clean, pure, untouched).
Sometimes the columns are painted green at the bottom (green means natural, balance, harmony).
Really, they do very little.  You’d need thousands of them to generate the same amount of energy as a decent sized coal-fired power station.  Also, it’s called “free” energy.  It’s many things, but free isn’t one of them.  There’s the initial cost for one thing.  The cost of maintenance.  The lack of efficiency.  The cost of replacement, and finally and the cost to the tourism marked for the loss of revenue from these eyesores.  The only good result I’ve seen from them is the annoyance they’ve been to Donald Trump.  That was an off-shore wind farm, so there is not the same scenic impact, but still the same maintenance and replacement cost.  If we want “free” energy, why don’t we use wave power?  Simple.  It’s not seen.  Wave power generators are sub-sea.  You don’t know they are there.  You see the wind turbines turning, so you are fooled into thinking they are efficient, clean, free and an efficient way of making energy.  There are other, as yet untapped methods of generating energy, as described here.There, that’s the rant finished for now.

Salsa at night, but we only stayed for our own class.  We’d both had enough by then.

So, how would a WiFi kettle work?  I must look into that.

Just call me Mr Phones – 24 October 2015

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IMG_2797- blog--297-1Late getting to bed last night and up fairly early this morning. Fred P was picking me up to go to a colour mixing class at Cass Art in Glasgow. It didn’t turn out to be the most interesting class ever, probably the least inspiring I’ve been to in fact. However, it did make me smile when one woman managed to get the sleeve of her pink sweater in the deep blue ultramarine oil paint and then spread it across the front of the sweater too. It’s the sort of thing I would do, but I was circumspect this morning and dressed in my oldest rugby shirt – and I didn’t get a mark on it!  All we did really was make a colour wheel, something I’ve been teaching weans to do for donkey’s ages.  The example above is about the best photo I’ve taken today!

Poor Fred is stuck in the Talk Talk debacle and needed to get home pronto to go to the bank, so we didn’t have the usual casual wander around town, setting the world to rights. Shame.

When I came home it turned out Scamp had been in to town and back again today too, so there wasn’t any point in going there for lunch. We finally went to Milano’s, after finding out that we couldn’t get a table at Cotton House.

Last night I’d received an email from the Vodies saying that my old iPhone had been unlocked and to complete the procedure I had to fit a new sim to it and connect it to iTunes. This seemed a strange procedure, but I was willing to give it a go, so we headed off to Tesco to get a 99p sim. Came home and after two resets and a carrier settings upgrade, it sprung into life and announced that it was connected to Tesco with three bars of signal strength. At last, the Vodies do something right.

That was about it for the day. Scamp is singing with Gems at Abronhill tonight and I am alone writing stuff and sketching.  I’ll go to Tesco and put a tenner on the phone tomorrow and I’ll be in business as Mr Phone with two iPhones and a Samsung.

Don’t call me – I’d just get confused which one was ringing – I’ll phone you!

Google is your friend, Artists – 23 October 2015

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comboI need some exercise.  All this sitting around isn’t good for anyone.  So, you guessed it, it’s gym and swim today.  I managed all the myriad of torture machines without any mishap and then just as I was getting in to the pool, the waterbabies or whatever these swimming tots are called were all leaving with their swimming proficiency badges.  The mummies and daddies and the occasional gran and grandpa were all smiling and holding their badges high.  The tots weren’t bothered in the slightest.  I think it was the prospect of lunch that got them more interested.

Painted a little when I got home after another bowl of the rather excellent Fish Stew I made yesterday.  Sorry, I completely forgot to mention the fish stew yesterday, I got so carried away with the bread.  Anyway, lunch was Fish Stew.  After that, although the sky was darkening, I was going stir crazy so I drove down to Auchinstarry and walked along the railway.  It’s ages since I’ve been along that way and I really enjoyed the walk.

When I got back Scamp was getting ready to go to the Witches sort of Halloween party which has a Tropical Theme this year.  Great excitement.

After she left, I put the finishing touches to the painting I’ve been doing for the last three days.  Just a wee sketch with watercolour washes.  Not from one of my photos this time, but from a Google Street View on Skye!!  Absolute mine of possibilities for the frustrated artist.  These were the final washes on the painting.  I’ve been trying to work wet on dry for a change with water-colour.  I think it’s working, at least I’m impressed with it.  On a completely different topic, another thing that impresses me about the new phone is the lightning connector. or more so the fact that you can plug it in to the phone upside down or right way up, in fact there is no right way, they’re both right.  Fantastic bit of planning.  Not like the USB male plug that only goes on one way round, but both sides look alike. You know what I mean, it’s just a stupid setup.  Why someone hasn’t reinvented it by now I don’t know.

Good news and bad news – 20 October 2015

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comboI waited in all day, well, until about 3.00pm.  DPD were due to deliver my new phone between 4.00 and 5.00 and they are always on time.  I realise they are not the best company to work for, but for once there is a delivery company you can rely on.  I know this is probably means that my next delivery will be late, but so far they have been faultless.  Anyway, I went out for a walk about 3.00 knowing that I could be back for the delivery.  It had been a beautiful morning with lovely golden light.  By the afternoon, it had deteriorated into cloudier skies and a temperature that was dropping.

The delivery arrived on time, but unfortunately, Vodafone had omitted to supply a sim card for the new phone.  The person I spoke to in customer services knew that I have an iPhone 4 at present and it has a micro sim card.  I presume he also knew an iPhone 5 needs a nano sim, but didn’t bother to send the nano sim with the phone.  Instead of emailing this time, I phoned and navigated the telephone menu under the flag of ‘thinking of leaving Vodafone‘.  Phone it up for a laugh.  The lady on the recording changes to a sad voice when enunciating that option 😉  Got a very pleasant man who said he’s send me a new nano sim by first class and should arrive tomorrow.  It was only later when I was talking to my son, I found out that you can just take the sim in to a Vodafone shop and they will cut the sim down for you.  Why could nobody tell me that?  Vodafone, you are losing me fast.

The photos were a bit more interesting today, because the light was better.  Have I said that “It’s all about the light”.

Workflow Problems

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I always shoot in Raw these days. I’ve been shooting in this format for nigh on twelve years. I gives real flexibility for post processing, but as a backup, I add a medium quality JPEG. It’s useful for viewing on a tablet when I’ve not got the laptop with me. When I download my pics I use Hazel to strip the JPEG files out to my NAS storage drive so they don’t clog up the Mac’s HD. Hazel also files the images for me by date in a folder on the NAS. Recently this has become cluttered and I want to sort them more methodically so that they are filed by month in a folder and then by date within that folder. I started what should have been a simple rearrangement this morning. It’s still doing it now at 11.55pm!! I thought the NAS drive was supposed to speed up my workflow, but it looks like that’s not the case.

It rained today. First rain we’ve had in weeks and it seems as if it’s going to stay for a few more days. Oh well, the farmers have their hay cut and the the gardens need the rain. We’ve had a pretty dry September and for the first few days of October it’s been better than average. Still hoping for more late sun this month. We can but hope.

Better pleased with today’s monochrome landscape. Pen and wash.

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