Category: Technology

Thoughts – 23 June 2016

Posted on by Zogman

23 juneNot a lot I can say about today, other than it was a day recovering from an excess of eating and sunbathing. It feels like that’s all we did for the last fortnight. The experiment with the Win 10 tablet went very well. Much better than I expected. It didn’t take me long to get back to using Mickysoft Live Writer. It really is the best blogging software I’ve ever used. It hurts me to say this, but it is so much better than anything Apple has to offer. Most, if not all the blogging software for the Mac is so far out of date it’s not worth using. Really, it is. It’s as if Apple has decided that nobody is writing blogs anymore so they aren’t going to support this form of communication. That is such an ‘Apple’ point of view. Mickysoft, for once seems to be on the ball and offers Live Writer for free. OK, you have to search around a bit to find a way to install it in a 32bit Win 10 ‘puter, but it does work.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is the proliferation of ‘free’ WiFi in mainland Europe. By ‘free’ I mean WiFi that’s available in cafes and restaurants there. There’s no such thing as ‘free’ wifi as much as there is no such thing as a free lunch. However, for the price of a cup of coffee and a cake I was given the password in all the cafes I went to. For heaven’s sake Britain, dig yourselves out of the 19th century and embrace the 20th cent (21st century may take a little longer). Even some of the ports abroad have truly free WiFi. It may be a bit slow, but it’s open access wireless. Glasgow now advertises free WiFi, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting connected to it. Advertising it is one thing, supplying it is another.

I eventually dragged myself out today to take some shots down the Luggie Water. Lovely smells from the flowers in the bushes and along the riverbank. What were bare sandy banks a month or so ago are now covered knee deep in foliage. Great time of year.

Then a strange thing happened. Scamp had been looking through my blog posts in the afternoon and I was just about to add my latest one when I couldn’t access the blog page, nor could I get any of my site based emails. Panicked a bit then phoned Hazy who knows everything there is to know about email, websites and such. She got right back to say there was a problem at the host’s end. Panic over then. It was down for about an hour then came back as right as rain. Now I’ve got a plugin configured to send me emails when the site is down. Thanks again Hazy, my web monkey!

Voted today for the EEC Referendum. Don’t know which way it will go. That’s a lie, I’m writing this on Saturday night and I now know the disaster that awaited me on Friday morning, but I’ll write about that later.

Testing Again – 4 June 2016

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4 JuneThe new lens was due to arrive between 3pm and 4pm so we had time to kill today.  The day had started with heavy cloud, bit without the rain that had been predicted.  However as the day wore on, the clouds lifted and the sun shone, but there was a cool breeze, so rather than sit in the garden as we’ve been doing recently, we did our phase one packing.  Just to see how much we could lob into these canvas bags.  How more efficient they are than the big heavy rectangular boxes my mum and dad had to drag on holiday with them.  No rolling wheels for them, no, they had to carry them.  Going on holiday was a tough business in the old days.

<Technospeak>
The lens arrived on time and I took a two or three shots.  They looked as good as the reviews had predicted.  This lens is a 12 – 32mm zoom and this equates to a 24 – 64mm in 35mm terms.  On a 35mm camera, a standard lens is anything between 35mm and 60mm, so this lens covers this with a little more on the short end.  In other words, it’s a wide standard lens, a kit lens.  It doesn’t do anything very special, but it does it very, very well.  Those two or three shots showed that it was really sharp.  It provided the sharpness of a prime lens with the versatility of a zoom.  It looks like it’s going to be locked on to one of the Olys for some time to come.
</Technospeak>

All of the photos in the matrix were taken with it today.

JIC and Hazy: The one top right is all that’s left of the Adventure Playground on the path to Condorrat.  They’ve taken out all the old stuff.  Now we wait to see what will replace it with.

Spent the rest of the afternoon coaxing, first the Mac and then the new Linx tablet, to work properly.  The Mac problem is iTunes.  My least favourite Mac prog.  I applied an update this morning, something I rarely do.  After that I kept getting a popup telling me that something to do with the dock had crashed.  After checking on the net, it turns out that everyone else who has the problem links it to the same iTunes update.  Apple, I don’t expect this of you.
The Linx problem was that some of the apps wouldn’t load any more.  When Control Panel failed to load with an error that looked like the progeny of half the alphabet and an international telephone number, I knew it was time to restore it.  Unfortunately the restore got to 95% and got stuck.  I restarted it and it worked a bit better.  The apps loaded, but Control Panel still failed.  I’ve downloaded  the restore from the Linx site.  If I have time tomorrow, I’ll install it and see if that helps.  Microsoft, I do expect this of you!

Looking for warm sun tomorrow.

The Gas Man Cometh – 3 June 2016

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DSC_5892- flickr--155The Gas Man came to fix the (Not So) Smart Meter that would not only mean no meter reading for us and no estimated bills either.  The actual meters had been installed about a month ago by another Gas Man, but he couldn’t get the electricity and gas meters to talk to one another.  This GM, after a couple of hours work and frustrated phone calls, got them to talk to one another, but they resolutely wouldn’t talk to the server.  It wasn’t his fault.  As usual with these things, it was the server that was down, so he apologised and arranged yet another appointment to (hopefully) complete the installation.  We have volunteered to have these gizmos installed and it’s causing all these problems.  How many more problems will rear their heads when the whole country has them fitted as the Gas and Electricity companies seem determined to do.

Once the Gas Man had gone, we went out for a run.  Scamp wanted to go for coffee to her usual place at Robroyston and maybe drop in to Staples to get a memory upgrade for the Windows 10 tablet.  Instead, I took her to the Tea House on the Loch in Gartcosh.  Tea and Cream Scones on the veranda with a sunny view over Johnston Loch.  Hopefully we’ll be back, but not until the dandelion parachutes or the willowherb fluff that was blowing in the breeze have gone.

Spotted Mr Grey waking from an afternoon roost in the trees surrounding St Mo’s pond later and got a few decent grab shots with the Nikon and the Tamron lens.

New lens on order from MPB (yes, another one!)  Should arrive tomorrow.  Looking forward to using it.  Don’t know where we’re going tomorrow.  It depends on the weather (light rain forecast!!) and when the lens arrives.

Keep taking the tablets – 30 May 2016

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30 MayWe went in to Glasgow with the stated intention of getting a tablet/laptop.  Apparently what I was looking for was a “2 in 1”, which I suppose describes it quite well.

Note to JIC.  
Please feel free to ignore this part as it’s almost all technospeak.
First stop was Staples where I saw the cheapo looking Linx 10.1″ tablet with a clamshell keyboard/lid.  Cheapo maybe, but it had 2 x USB3 ports and 1 x micro USB for power and doubling as a port if you have an OTG (On The Go) cable.  Even better, it was at a bargain price of £149.99.  Ok, one possible.
Ok, JIC, Technospeak over.

Next stop was John Lewis who on paper had a load of these 2 in 1s.  Unfortunately, if we ignore the very expensive Mickysoft offerings, there were only two.  One was an Acer with no price on it and no power in the battery, the other was an HP at £80 more than the cheapo Linx.  The spec appeared to be almost the same, in fact it only had 1 x USB port and 1 x micro USB.  So it looks like it’s back to Staples.

Before that, Scamp decided that lunch at Patisserie Valerie was in order.  Since she prefers to eat inside, we got a table no bother because everyone wanted to sit outside in the sun.  Had our order taken: Crayfish Salad for both of us and Apple Pie for after for Scamp, Pecan Pie for me.  Tea for both.
The tea arrived, and so did the manager to apologise, but there was no Pecan Pie.  No problem, I’d just have the Apple Pie.  A little later he arrived back to say that sorry, there was no Crayfish Salad.  He did offer alternatives.  Scamp went for Chicken Caesar and I chose Chicken Brochette.  We’d been sitting for 20 minutes by this time.  Half an hour later and still nothing had arrived although the manager had floated past about 15 minutes before to say that my chicken was just going on the grill.  I’d had enough.  We offered to pay for the two teas, but the girl on the till would have nothing of it and told us the manager “should have been dealing with it.”  If I’d had to speak to the manager himself, Begbie would have come out of the box again.

Back at Staples, I bought the Linx.  Unfortunately, when I got it home, I found that it looked nothing like what I’d seen in the shop.  Quick phone call and was told to bring it back and they’d exchange it for the correct one.  I did, they did and this time I checked it before I left the shop.  So far, it’s doing everything I expected it to do.  Pity the same can’t be said for Patisserie Valerie.

More sun promised for tomorrow.  Bring it on!

When is a laptop not a laptop – 28 May 2016

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28 May wWe drove into Stirling today for lunch at the Indian and not a lot else. The lunch was good and instead of nan bread we had chapatis. Scamp and I don’t like this new idea of chopping up a nan bread and serving it in a basket. I suspected that unscrupulous restaurants could be collecting uneaten nan pieces from previous diners baskets and using them to pad out new ones. Just a suspicion, but Scamp agreed that it was an unsavoury possibility, so we decided it would be better to get chapatis which are served whole.

On the way to the restaurant, I dallied in Stirling’s computer shop. I’d been looking for a laptop to take on holiday and I’d had a few bargains in the past from Computer Depot. Years ago, Ali, the owner, sold me a little MP3 music player that has a massive 64MB memory and also took extra memory in the form of SmartMedia cards. This probably means nothing to most people these days, but back at the turn of the century (that sounds such a long time ago, doesn’t it) they were very high tech and could be had in sizes up to 128MB. With a 128MB card in the player, you could have almost 3 hours of music at your disposal. I still have the Diamond Rio music player, and occasionally it will work. Anyway, there were no laptops that were in my price range. What they did have was one of the new (well, new to me) 2 in 1 tablets with a clip on keyboard.

<TechnoSpeak>
It only 32GB storage and 2GB RAM, but the processor was a quad 1.33Mhz with the ability to run at 1.83Mhz in burst mode. It had one USB 3 port and a micro USB 2 which, as well as being used as a charging port, could double as an import/outport device with an On The Go (OTG) cable. It was running 32bit Windows 10 which is a lot better than I thought, now that I know how to ‘refresh’ the install. The 32 GB wouldn’t be nearly enough storage for holiday photos, but if I used the USB port to connect an external hard drive it would be a neat solution to the problem. Almost as neat as the old HP netbook but much faster. Certainly worth considering. I didn’t dive in and buy the one he had on offer, mainly because I couldn’t find any reviews of it on the net, but I’m looking at alternative versions. In the words of Facebook, “A lot has changed in laptops since you last looked.”
</TechnoSpeak>

Today was a good day weather-wise and tomorrow is meant to be even better. We’ll see.

Flooers – 3 May 2016

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combo bFlooers is a sign that I didn’t find my muse today.

The morning was a bit frantic waiting for the lady to come to give us a quote for a new boiler.  The final figure was a bit more than Scamp or I had anticipated, but we knew it was going to be the most expensive.  We were quite intrigued with the amount that heating technology has advanced in the fifteen odd years since we had our present boiler installed.  Then, smart phones were an inventor’s dream.  Today you can control your boiler remotely from anywhere in the world with a smart phone.  Whether we can do that control, in fact whether we will need to perform that degree of control will depend on the final cost.  Another quote coming tomorrow.

I finished an acrylic painting today.  Not finished to my satisfaction, but like Whistler allegedly said, “I intend to do no more to it.”  I think it’s already about an inch thick in paint in some places.  Later, after dinner, I did a few wee delicate (for me) watercolours, teeny wee things, but I like them.  Something I saw in a gallery in Stirling.

Photographs were hard to come by today, or to be more exact, subjects were.  I’ve watched Scamp’s Forest Flame gaining in colour day by day and now the flowers are out, they’ve almost reached their maximum colour intensity.  The flowers are quite insignificant compared to the bright red of the sprouting leaves.  Dandelions are a favourite of mine.  I like the ragged looking yellow head and when the time comes, I love the dandelion clock with the little ‘ballerinas’.

Early rise tomorrow to take Scamp’s car in for MOT, then more technology overload with another quote for a new boiler.  Oh what fun!

Just another Saturday – 23 April 2016

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Page_1-2- flickr--114After yesterday’s biz, today was just another Saturday.

We went to Stirling and bumped into Scamp’s sister and her daughter (the same ones from yesterday) in our favourite curry shop. I wouldn’t have bothered going back there after the disappointments of our last two visits, but I’m glad we did. The menu, if more expensive, had gone back to its previous old faithfuls and I’m guessing the chef was back from his/her sabbatical because the food tasted like it used to. The only stumbling block was the nan bread which we both agreed was too soft and doughy. We’ll let them work on it.

Walked round Stirling shopping centre. That didn’t take very long. Stirling, apart from the castle and the old buildings leading up to it, isn’t all that interesting. More and more shops closed in the shopping mall it’s a sign of the times. Not as bad as Dunfermline the other day. Things are getting bad when the Cash Converter shop closes down. Anyway, we didn’t linger long in Stirling and drove home empty handed apart from a Thunderball ticket that proved not even worth the paper it was printed on. Oh well.

Today’s photo is the final one in the series of Shug and Tam meet the Queen. By the way, just in case you were wondering, it has nothing to do with Mrs McQueen turning 90. It’s just such a nice wee minifig, I thought I’d like to do something with it. I’m done with Comic Life for a while. I’d forgotten just how irritating it was to work with. Until you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to explain just how badly coded it is. Even the version 1 as its flaws, the most annoying is when it loses focus on the object being edited. Leave it for a while to get its wind back and focus returns. Not something you want to happen when you are working to a deadline, so I doubt if you’d use this on a commercial basis. However, it cost me nothing so I shouldn’t complain, but I always do 😉

To those who read my blog posts, I apologise for the number of updates to it recently as I struggled to add two short videos. I finally worked out today that the only video format that WordPress would abide was MP4. I was sure I’d added a MOV once, but I was wrong. It was only when I was checking the HTML code today that I realised my error. I may not embed any more videos for some time, but hopefully I’ll remember that I wrote this explanation – partly to you and partly to myself!

Two in a row – 21 April 2016

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combo bTwo good days of sunshine in a row.  That’s what we in Scotland call Summer!  We decided not to waste it, so Scamp had the brilliant idea of taking the bus to Dunfermline in Fife.  No driving for me, so that put a smile on my face – for once.

Bus to the “Toonie”, then another less rattly and rickety bus to Dunfermline.  We walked down to Pittencrieff Park where we were accosted by the squirrel that stood there quite the thing in front of us and begged for peanuts.  Unfortunately for Tufty (reference to an ancient road safety cartoon) we didn’t have any, not expecting to be waylaid by a hungry animal.  We walked on through the park and strayed for a while in the greenhouses admiring the flowers and the goldfish pond.  Lots of hand painted mobiles that looked almost like puppets hanging in part of it.  I really should have taken some photos of them, but only now realised I hadn’t.  Oh well, a reason to go back again.

Had lunch in a Wetherspoon’s.  Cheap and cheerful – you can’t beat it.  Walked round the town and I added some books to my Bento booklist.  Why on earth Filemaker stopped supporting this excellent app, I’ll never know.  Filemaker Pro is a great piece of software, but it’s no use on an iPhone.  It’s a sledgehammer to crack a nut, whereas Bento is a nutcracker.  By that I mean it fulfils the purpose it was designed for.  I’m sure there is enough space for both of these apps in the world.  Filemaker, you made a big mistake there, and it’s not just me saying this.  Google Bento and just count the number of people worldwide who are mourning the cutting off of this software in its prime.

Bus back from Dunfermline and then the rattly, shoogly X3 back home.  Another lovely day.  Tomorrow isn’t to be as nice, which is a great shame.

Moody Monday – 4 April 2016

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P4040124- flickr--95It has rained almost all day, but that’s ok, because it produced today’s PoD which is a water drop of the curve of a tulip leaf with another tulip leaf or two behind.  Taken with the somewhat bypassed E-PL5.  That shouldn’t be the case, because the E-PL5 is an excellent camera.  In some ways it surpasses the E-M10 in that the rear screen has even more flexibility than the ’10’s and the EVF can flip vertically to allow the camera to be at ground level with the photog looking down through the viewfinder and out through the lens rather than lying prone to get one eye to the viewfinder as is the case with the ’10.  Without the EVF, it’s just that little bit nearer too which is a great advantage for taking candid shots which I occasionally do.  I used the kit lens for the above shot and it makes a fine fist of the job.  For some reason, the ’10 doesn’t like the kit lens and produces dark blobs which look like dust bunnies but aren’t.  I’ve checked with my sensor checker lupe and the sensor is clean.  The lens also had a problem with the aperture leafs sticking which caused the ’10 to overexpose occasionally, but the ‘5 hasn’t shown either of these faults so far.  I’ll keep a weather eye open for problems in the next week or so.

Like I said, it was a wet day today, and as is Monday which is Scamp’s day for Gems, I made myself scarce this afternoon and did a little bit of work in the gym and then had bit of a swim and then 15 minutes in the sauna to round off my session for the day.  Pool was very busy, but that’s to be expected with the school Easter holidays on.

Hoping to go to salsa tonight and maybe try to remember what we did in bachata last week.  Hoping for better weather tomorrow and the chance to get my bike out.

At the Airoport I’m happy – 12 March 2016

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combo bListening to the “Passaheros” and “Condestinos” announcements while we wait in one queue after another, I’m almost tempted to stand to attention when German flights are called. German seems such an abrupt stentorian language. More a set of commands and demands than lyrical French or stiff upper lip English or even drunken Gaelic. Like the lady who informed the chef at breakfast “You vill cut up the fried eggs for me.”  A statement.  Not “Vill you … ?”, a request. Thinking along those lines, wouldn’t it be better if we used local vernacular at places like airports: “Aw right, them thits gaun tae Zurich git in the queue noo. Them thits no, jist haud yer wheesht an’ wait ’till yer telt.” Now doesn’t that have a bit more character and humour?

Anyway, for once we were called to the gate, then boarded well ahead of time and we are currently flying through the air strapped in to an armchair in an aluminium tube, heading in the general direction of Dublin. Isn’t technology wonderful?

Arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule in Glasgow. It took about 20 minutes to get through security, possibly because three planes had landed in swift succession, possibly because the much vaunted automatic Euro Passport booths weren’t working again – well, to be honest, they’ve never worked since they were brought in. It took another 20 minutes for the cases to be delivered. What’s the point of having faster and faster transport links when the infrastructure at the airports isn’t up to the job? Anyway, we were home and the weather was, as a flight attendant once said “… eh, Scottish.”

Today’s title comes from the Loudon Wainwright III song “Lowly Tourist”
“… at the airoport I’m happy ‘cos I know I’m going home.”