Technospeak – Page 12 – My Photo Blog

Boots – 6 December 2016

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Zogman

When we got home last night Scamp discovered that she’d left her boots in the STUC building. One frantic Facebook message later ensured that the boots had been found and stored ready for pickup today. That was my task for the morning.

The drive in to the STUC in the West End of Glasgow was a delight this morning. Very light traffic and even got parked just outside the building. Boots collected, I made tracks for home because it was a dreary, dull, dreich day – that was a four word alliteration in case you hadn’t noticed.

Firefox has been avoiding loading Flickr recently, ever since version 50.0.2 installed itself automatically. This is the first time I’ve had a problem with Firefox, but I’ve had loads of problems with Flickr, so initially I blamed the website not the browser. However after a bit of research today I discovered the problems with v50.0.2 are widespread and not just with the Mac version, but with PCs too. Not everybody is affected and even my problem is not always repeatable. For instance, today it started off with baulking at loading Flickr around 4pm, but tonight after no changes to the installation, it’s loading fine. It’s not bandwidth, because first thing this morning loading was fine. It’s a conundrum. In the past few days I’ve tried deleting the caches, switching off all the extensions, rebooting the Mac. Nothing seems to give long-term success. What I have done now is switch off ‘auto update’. That way I have a baseline to start from. Maybe Mozilla will fix the problem, but maybe pigs will fly too.

Today’s photo is a start at a still life from tiny wee 00 size (1:75 scale) figures. I know it looks fairly simple, but this took me over an hour to set up and photograph.

Tomorrow I’ve got a meeting timetabled with Fred and Val. The Scottish education system has been highlighted as the worst in Europe and the Scottish Government have tasked us with fixing it. We can probably do that over a cup of coffee and also find time to discuss Celtic’s exit from the European Cup and the new Stones album.

What a grey day – 19 November 2016

Posted on November 19, 2016November 20, 2016 by Zogman

After such a lovely bright, cheerful day yesterday, today dawned dull and uninspiring. After we dropped JIC and Sim off to meet their old friends, we headed into Glasgow. J&S were heading there too, but by train, luckily. When we got on to the M80 the CITRAC lit up with the joyful news that there was congestion after Junction 4. At 1.30 on a Saturday afternoon, congestion on the M80 can only mean football traffic. We never did find out what had caused the holdup because we cut our journey short and left at the Robroyston turnoff just after the queue had started. After a wander around the limited variety of shops and a coffee, we headed back. By this time the football fanatics were all safely ensconced in their seats in the rain watching 22 men chasing a ball while one man, dressed in black, tries to control them. What fun.

When I opened the Macbook Pro this morning it just sat there. As far as I could remember, when I’d closed the lid last night there was about 40% in the tank. Where had it gone, or had it gone and was it just joshing me? When it finally loaded, it proudly displayed 0%. So where had it gone? I looked all round the table where the MBP sits and I couldn’t find any juice lying around. Then I checked Coconut Battery 3, my go-to app for the truth about the battery. First thing to notice that the design capacity bar was red, not good. It read 25.6%. Not good at all. I tried charging it up to 100% and completely discharging it, before charging it up to 100% again and discharging it again. Nope, it sticks resolutely to 25.6% capacity. I’ll overcharge it now and see what it’s like after that. If it doesn’t work, then it’s time to call in the Weemen (Should that be WeeXY now? Naw, it’s Weemen) Repair Team to fit a new battery. That’s why I gave them the opportunity to hone their skill before I need to call them in for the big job.

Meanwhile I’m filling up the new external HDD. It looks like it’ll take more time than I expected, but hopefully it will mean the photos will be more secure for a while longer.

Rough looking weather forecast for our visitors to fly into tomorrow, but it looks like the worst will be past long before they land.

Scraping the car – 18 November 2016

Posted on November 18, 2016November 19, 2016 by Zogman

Yes, it’s that time of year again when you need to scrape the car in the morning. No heated screen or heated seats luxury here JIC!

Scamp was going to the dentist this morning, so I helped her defrost her car while I ran the engine on mine and turned the heater up full speed, full heat and air-con on. Mine was soon defrosting nicely while we scraped away at Scamp’s. That’s where the pic of the frozen leaf came from that. When Scamp left to get her filling done, I headed back in to have porridge for breakfast. First time for ages, and it worked its warm magic again.

With Scamp’s tooth fixed, we all headed off to Loch Leven to have a walk in the cold, fresh air under a clear blue sky. Perfect conditions to test the F707’s infra-red capabilities. Well, the F707 and a furry monkey. The furry monkey which usually sticks to our fridge has magnets in his/her hands and feet. The magnets are fairly strong and are the only ones that have been able to overpower the spring in the solenoid. For that reason, the furry monkey came with us today to Loch Leven. He/she … Let’s fix this ridiculous he/she thing now.

In a book I’m reading (and eking out the pages to make it last) his/her references are solved by making it ‘XYr’. The ‘XY‘ stands for the unknown chromosome balance so ‘XYr’ can be male, female or indeterminate gender. That seems an elegant solution, especially these days with LGBTIQ. Life used to be simpler with just LGBT and it made sense. I think the ‘I’ is for ‘Isnae Sure’. I have no idea what ‘Q’ stands for. It could be ‘Questioning the Magic Donkey’ for all I know. Anyway, thank you Becky Chambers for solving that problem. I hope I got that right Hazy!

Soooo, getting back to the monkey, remember the monkey? XY seemed to enjoy the trip and is now happily back in place in XYr place on the fridge.

The selection at the top came from the 70 odd photos from the day, plus the one from the frozen car. The IR images took a fair bit of post-processing to get the effect I was looking for and although the quality isn’t great, the effect is. I’m not sure if I prefer the false colour version or the monochrome. Mono looks cleaner, but the false colour is more interesting and alien. Further experimentation is required if the furry monkey is up for it.

Lunch was excellent as usual in Loch Leven’s Larder although the shop seems to get posher and more twee every time we go there, which is a pity, but I suppose is inevitable. After that we drove back home via the Forth Road Bridge to get an updated view of the new cable-stay bridge. Dinner was a carry-out from Bombay Dreams.

A good day, most enjoyable. Cold tonight. Temperature just touching zero. Hoping for another sunny day tomorrow.

A Full House – 17 November 2016

Posted on November 17, 2016November 18, 2016 by Zogman

Tonight we would have a busier house as JIC and Sim were coming up for a flying visit.

Scamp was out this morning meeting one of her in-laws for coffee and I was charged with clearing up the painting room ready for JIC and Sim. Of course, I didn’t do that, there were more interesting things to do like format one of the borked drives and test copy files to it to make sure it was working properly. It was. I also worked out how to get my Sony F707 camera working in IR mode again, more of which later. Eventually I did get round to clearing up the room at least so that it looked like a room again.

When Scamp came back I drove in to Glasgow to see if Staples had a decent price for the 3TB backup drive I’d picked on the net. They didn’t, but it looked like Argos in Cumbernauld of all places did have it, so it was back in the car then back to Cumbersheugh in the driving rain, only to find that the drive I’d earmarked had been sold. Blast – well, I did actually say a different word which also started with ‘B’ but finished with a ‘D’ and had the letters ‘A,S,T,A,R’ and ‘D’ in the middle. You’ve probably heard it, and maybe even used it before. Not you Scamp, not you. Anyway, I settled for the slightly cheaper 2TB version and payment made, new toy collected, headed back to the car through the rain. That’s when I saw today’s PoD. Cumbersheugh isn’t a pretty town, but it does a really good gloomy. I instantly liked the shot with the little silhouette of an out of focus ‘wee wummin’ (remember ‘wee wummin’ from a couple of weeks ago?) in the middle distance. It looked good in colour, but I guessed it would look even better in mono.

Right, this Sony F707 IR thing needs a bit of explanation. If you look here, you’ll understand what it’s all about, maybe. I’d forgotten all about it and the magnet trick, but today, again in the seridipity of the Internet, I chanced upon a more up to date post about exactly the same thing. That got me started again, sticking an Infra-red filter on the F707. A 720nm filter is virtually black to the naked eye, but allows a narrow band of Infra-red light through and virtually none of the visible spectrum. The Sony just pretended it wasn’t there, except for making everything have a red tint. I think I prefer the results from the crossed pola filters. There’s a bit better range of colour to them. I’m intending to try it out tomorrow with some hoped for sunshine.

Popped in to the airport to pick up the travellers and then back past CITRAC signs warning of ice tomorrow. Ice in Scotland in November? Surely not.

Hoping for sun tomorrow. Always!

A Day of Surprises – 15 November 2016

Posted on November 15, 2016November 15, 2016 by Zogman

Surprise No 1

When I woke this morning, just after 8am, the sun was shining. It stayed that way too. Now after the last two days we’ve had, that was a big surprise. I checked all five of my photo backup drives and with a combination of them all, I can account for all the photos from 2000 to November 2016. Not bad going. However, one of the big old Western Digital MyBook drives looks like it’s a goner. That is a great shame. I’ve always thought WD were a really good make, but I suppose the ten or twelve years I’ve had it, it’s worked hard and sometimes there has been the occasional accident, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. Soon it was time to leave the photos and go get my flu jag. That’s jab to some people, but jag if you’re Scottish.

Surprise No 2

When I got to the surgery they were just calling my name. That was lucky. When I went to see the sister, I recognised her right away as an FP (Former Pupil) of Cumby High. I couldn’t think of her name, but I remembered the face, because last night when I was browsing the photos in the oldest collection, I came upon the poster I’d made for Bugsy Malone, one I was really proud of, and here was the female lead from the show wearing a nursing sister’s uniform. We got talking and she asked if I had any photos of the show, because nobody in her family had thought to bring a camera to the show. I told her that I probably had, but it would take me some time to find them. I couldn’t believe that was away back in 2003! Anyway, she said she’d just give me a gentle wee jag. She lied. It was gentle at the time, but it’s aching now!

Surprise No 3

After I got back and found the said photos, hundreds of them as it turned out, I got dressed for the weather which was still bright, but cold and headed to Auchinstarry. Walked along the railway to Twechar and got some photos in the sunshine. I’ve still to process them, but by the time you’re reading this, they will be done with a bit of luck. Walked back and took a long cut – the opposite of a shortcut and walked the last half of the path along the canal. Almost reached Smithston when a kingfisher flew out from my side of the canal bank, across the canal and down towards the marina. I was too surprised to grab my camera which was switched off in my bag. Walked along to where I thought it had landed but couldn’t see it. Then to my amazement, it shot out of the far bank and continued down the canal and away. It’s years since I’ve seen a kingfisher on the canal and I was beginning to think they had gone. Since this one is at least a mile and a half away from my last sighting, I’m hoping there are at least two of them now. I’ll be ready next time with the Nikon and the 300mm lens.

Weather forecast for tomorrow is wintry with rain, hail and snow predicted. We’ll just have to wait and see, it’ll be a surprise!

Super Moon, Ordinary Day – 14 November 2016

Posted on November 14, 2016November 14, 2016 by Zogman

Not such a bad day today compared to yesterday. Thankfully, Scamp is feeling a lot better and I think a phone call this morning from Hazy helped too, that and looking forward to a visit from JIC and Sim has lifted her spirits. Still a bit cloudy with the occasional rain shower, but we had that in Lanzarote last week too. Having said that, the temperature differential is significant, nearly 20ºc .

Last night’s attempt to resurrect the damaged partition on the external hard disk ended in failure, as I expected it would. However PhotoRec which comes as part of the free TestDisk partition recovery suite managed to find all the photos in the damaged partition and, using it I also managed to download some of the photos to check that they were intact. It looks like most if not all of the photos are recoverable. The problem now is where to put them while I sort them back into their proper folders. Sorting them into the folders won’t be a big problem as the Hazel app on the Mac and File Juggler on the PC will manage that task with relative ease. The problem is that I now need (yet) another external hard drive to use as temporary storage while I do the filing. I might just bite the bullet and buy another external HDD and be done with it. Then I’ll format the old one and use both as a photo repository. It does make you think though, that a free program downloaded from the ‘net can search your hard disk and recover deleted photos even from a formatted drive. If a free prog can do that, what can dedicated forensic software used by police and other agencies do?

For the rest of the day, I went to the gym and then for a swim. Really quite enjoyed it. Salsa and Kizomba tonight was demanding, but also enjoyable.

Today’s photo is of the ‘Supermoon’. Did look slightly bigger than normal, but nothing to get excited about.

Looking for sunshine tomorrow. Always looking!

Dreicher – 13 November 2016

Posted on November 13, 2016November 14, 2016 by Zogman

It’s a new word, dreicher. It’s not in the dictionary yet, but with a few more days like today it will be. It suits the circumstances today. It’s been dull and rainy all day. I think we had the the house lights on all afternoon.

I was hardly out of the hose today. Today’s shot of Mr Squirrel was taken through the kitchen window. I spent most of the day trying to rebuild the partition table of an external hard drive that I broke a few weeks ago. One of the old PCs is still struggling with the task as I write this. I’ve not got a great deal of hope in it working, but it was my fault that broke it. Luckily it was a drive that contained a backup of a backup of my photos. It’s all about belts and braces. I just checked today and it looks like I have about 15 years of photos in a variety of hard disks scattered around the house. Maybe I should take the time to build just one more backup … Or maybe not.

Scamp wasn’t feeling very well after lunch. I think it’s down to too much light breakfasts. What she needs is another week of fresh fruit followed by a fried breakfast … Or maybe not!

Hoping for just a little light tomorrow with ISO speeds in three digits.

The Sound of Silence – 13 October 2016

Posted on October 13, 2016October 13, 2016 by Zogman

He came! He actually came and within twenty minutes the aerial was down and dismantled. The aerial man gave us back the sound of silence. To paraphrase Stuart MacBride’s heroine Detective Chief Inspector Steel, “Seventy five quid plus VAT? My sharny ¹ arse!” This guy did the job and we thank him very much … we did pay him too.

Earlier in the day, Scamp met her aunt and managed to establish the identity of a great many people in a sixty year old wedding photo. It made me think that in today’s world where so many of our photos, even wedding photos are not printed, how will we perform a similar task in the future. Will we still be able to view those videos on their lovely shiny DVDs engraved with the movie highlights of today’s wedding groups? Will the photos that are printed using ink on ‘archival’ paper last for sixty years? Will the resolution of the full frame CCD be as good as the old fashioned 6×6 TLR? Not a chance. The other thing we need is to record the names and fit them to the faces of the people in those photos. I realised too late, after my father died, that I’d lost touch with all those people whose faces I saw in the old photos. They were also dead, but they had also taken their identities with them. What I urge you to do is to record, preferably in ink and on paper, the names of the faces in your old photos, and if you don’t have physical photos, print them out on the best quality paper you can afford. It’s not for you, it’s for the ones who come after you. They are the ones who will be left scratching their heads after you can’t be relied upon to enlighten them.

Today’s PoD was taken on the east of Fannyside Moor looking towards Slamannan. It’s a great place for Big Skies and this certainly was a big sky. I like it because it’s a place where you can just watch the clouds rolling past without cars constantly zipping past. The only traffic today was a lady on a bike who was riding a tail-wind. I hope she had already cycled the head-wind part of the route and was on her way home.

Today’s Inktober drawing was of the church in Cumbernauld Village and is a building I’ve been meaning to draw for some time. It really is the most awkward shape with bits apparently added on at different times in its history. The windows, especially seem to have been placed wherever the builder found a space for them. Only the tops of the upper windows line up properly and some have lots of small panes of glass while others have fewer, larger panes. In all, I was pleased with the finished sketch, probably even more so because I sketched it in the open air. I’m not French, so why should I call it en plein air. That’s just being a poser, or should that be poseur?

Tomorrow is unplanned as yet, but it will not include listening to the crows landing on that aerial or dreading the screech of it rotating in its rusty bracket. The bracket is gone, the pole that held the aerial has been recycled and the aerial itself is in a skip. I love the sound of silence.

Befouled with dung. Merriam-Webster ↩

Too much time on my hands – 13 September 2016

Posted on September 13, 2016September 15, 2016 by Zogman

It 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.

Autumn – 1 September 2016

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Zogman

This is the meteorological first day of autumn, so the weather fairies say. Just thought you deserved that information. It was a bit cooler today, but not inordinately so.

On Saturday we had intended going to Tea Jenny’s for lunch, but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t manage it. Today, I suggested we remedy that and off we went to play the 500metre traffic light game and have our lunch in TJ’s. Luckily the traffic was a lot better today and we managed to pass the traffic light test quite quickly. Tea Jenny’s is simply a tea room in Falkirk, an old fashioned tea room with odd (as in random) china cups and teapots with hand knitted tea cosies. Although you can get a full lunch there, the main attractions are the soups and sandwiches, oh yes, and the gigantic meringues. None of these really hit it off for me. For me it has to be Stovies. If you don’t know what stovies are, then you almost certainly aren’t Scottish and will need to Google the word, because I’m not going to describe stovies. Everyone has their own version. Today’s stovies had potatoes, onion and sausage in it. It’s not as good as my mum made, nothing would be, but it ‘filled a wee space’ today. One of the attractions for us is the variety of tea cosies. Today’s candidates are shown above. The photo was taken by the best camera in the world, the one you have with you. In this case, my iPhone.

With my fingers firmly crossed, I’m going to say that I think I’ve solved the gallery problem. It looks like the problem was caused by a rogue plugin messing things up. The plugin has now been severely spoken to and has been banished to the ‘Deactivated’ box. It has also been grounded for the rest of the week.