Technospeak – Page 13 – My Photo Blog

Coffee, Dragons and Vitamin D – 25 August 2016

Posted on August 25, 2016August 26, 2016 by Zogman

On a cloudy day, I went for a coffee with Fred in the morning and we set the world to rights again.

Met Scamp afterwards and sorted out our winter, week-long Vitamin D supplement, sometimes known as a week-in-the-sun. For once the process of booking was much easier than it could have been, and has been in the past.

After that, the sun came out, and I took a walk as usual around St Mo’s. Still a few dragons flying around. None of them breathed fire, but I managed to get a shot of one, despite having completely the wrong settings on the camera. I don’t know what I did, but I was using ISO 100 with an aperture setting of f10 which produced a shutter speed of 1/40th. Luckily I set the camera down on the boardwalk to take a low level shot and this meant I had a really steady support, otherwise the shot would have been as shaky as the other 7 I took today. That’s what happens when you assume you have the normal settings and don’t check the info on the screen. Numpty. Still, it’s a good shot.

Physio to look forward to tomorrow :-/ Then maybe lunch out would be good. We’ll see tomorrow.

Cake Today! – 15 August 2016

Posted on August 15, 2016August 15, 2016 by Zogman

Well, we did have cake today! Woke to sunshine that didn’t really go away all day.

The sun enticed us out and into the wide world. We couldn’t agree on a destination until Scamp suggested that we go a walk along the canal. Now I go there quite often, but it’s a while since she’s walked along it, so it was decided that we’d drive to Auchinstarry and walk along to Twechar and back.

Today was the day the teachers went back to work after the summer hols and as we were walking along the railway, I was thinking about all the times I’ve sat in the assembly hall at school listening to head teachers and deputes droning on about grade averages, STACs, child protection procedures and other dry, boring paper-pushing nonsense. They always started with a jolly “Well I hope you’ve enjoyed your holidays and are feeling refreshed. Here’s the bad news …….. “. Drone, drone, drone. It was essential to get there early, not to show you were interested, although there were some that did. No, it was to grab the seats at the back where you could doodle unseen on the hundred page handout you’d been given with charts and tables and mind numbing statistics that meant nothing to anyone but the bean-counter who had created them. “Can you see this Powerpoint alright at the back?” some depute would ask. “Yes, we’re just not interested.” we’d mumble in reply.

Ah, but while all my former colleagues were enjoying this annual festival of figures and meaningless jargon, we were out in the sunshine, admiring the flowers and the light through the leaves and counting the wee fishes and talking to the ducks. It was when we were walking back along the canal towpath I heard what I thought at first was a motorbike before I realised that although the pitch of the engine was rising, it wasn’t changing gear and it seemed to he coming from Barr Hill which has a roman fort, but no roads. I knew what it was then, it was a Piaggio. It’s an Italian plane type called a canard. Which is a plane with a wing towards the rear and two little winglets just rear of the nose which makes it look as if it’s flying backwards. Some people think it looks like a duck, hence the name ‘canard’. Some have actual tail fins and tail planes like a normal aircraft and some have jet engines, but most have pusher props. That is, the propellers stick out the back of the plane and push it through the air rather than pull it like a conventional plane. (I like planes, in case you hadn’t guessed.) I’d seen one last year at almost exactly the same place, but hadn’t got a photo of it. I started taking my camera out of the bag and tried explaining to Scamp what it was I was so excited about. She didn’t share my enthusiasm and said “Oh, so it’s a plane?” I managed two shots of the Piaggio before it disappeared into a cloud. Neither of them very good. I’ve never managed to get a good clean shot of this plane. You can see today’s effort above. Maybe one day …

After we drove home and had lunch, Scamp wanted to work in the garden. I dumped my photos into Lightroom and let it get to work on them. Then we sat in the garden and read until it was time to make the dinner and then get ready for salsa class. I had done my exercises from the physio this morning under a hot shower and they paid off while I was in the class, allowing much more movement than I’d had last week. We were able to complete almost all the moves tonight which is proof that we are moving in the right direction.

Beautiful sunset tonight which augers well for tomorrow’s weather. We’ll see what the day brings. If it’s as good as today it will be very welcome.

Looking for the Capitan – 31 July 2016

Posted on July 31, 2016July 31, 2016 by Zogman

<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.

Dug wi’ a burst ba’ – 24 July 2016

Posted on July 24, 2016July 25, 2016 by Zogman

It 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.

Testing Again – 4 June 2016

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Zogman

The 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.

Keep taking the tablets – 30 May 2016

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Zogman

We 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

Posted on May 28, 2016May 28, 2016 by Zogman

We 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.

Friday, Fridges, Coots and a Coy Crow – 29 April 2016

Posted on April 29, 2016April 29, 2016 by Zogman

Friday used to be the beginning of the weekend, especially on a long weekend. Friday is the only day I regret being retired because you don’t get that TGIF (or TFIF for the atheists). My dad was right when he told me “you don’t get weekends when you’re retired.” Not to worry, the rest of the week makes up for Fridays!

Scamp wanted the drain in the fridge unblocked. It’s a messy, awkward job that means the fridge has to be angled out from the wall so I can clean the drip tray at the back after unblocking the drain hole in the fridge itself, then drag it back in. Only, this time when I dragged it back, one of the little wheels at the back came unstuck. The axle had come loose from the wheel and in an attempt to fix it, I tried to drive out the axle using the screwdriver as a drift (<Technospeak> a DRIFT is a bar used to push another into or out of place </Technospeak>). It didn’t work. The axle got jammed in part of the chassis of the fridge. Oh well, I’d just have to forget the wheel and use a packer to sit that corner of the fridge on. Switched it on and … the light came on, but the compressor didn’t. Shit!
Left it for about 10 minutes to settle but still no go. Switched it off and made a cup of coffee while Scamp priced a new fridge. I imagine I had rattled the compressor too much by hammering the drift. After the coffee and the shock that the most expensive fridge she found was £9900, I switched on the fridge and Lo and Behold, it sprang into life. Obviously my analysis of the situation was correct and the refrigerant just needed to stabilise itself. Phew!

Went for lunch at Cotton House, then had Scamp’s tyres checked at Jim Dickson’s and finally booked her car in for MOT next week. Lunch and housekeeping dealt with.

Walked over to St Mo’s and took the “Big Dog” AKA Nikon for a change. The batteries in the Nikons last forever compared to the Olys. About 750 shots at present with the battery on category 2 out of 4, 1 being New. Got some shots of mummy coot sitting on a nest with at least one wee red chick in it. Further on I actually framed my shot to include the round out of focus light. The rest of the shots were too poor to bother with.

On the way home, I saw a crow having a bath in a puddle. I thought it would make a good shot, so I brought out my camera. The crow took one look at me and walked away. Ok, camera back in bag and walk away. Took a few steps and watched the same crow walk back to the puddle again with its towel over its shoulder. It saw me watching again and did an abrupt about turn. I didn’t want to delay it’s bath time any longer and turned my back on it before its bath water got cold.

Just another Saturday – 23 April 2016

Posted on April 23, 2016 by Zogman

After 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!

Out for a Spin – 19 April 2016

Posted on April 19, 2016April 23, 2016 by Zogman

Got up this morning and couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do. Yes, it was sunny, but it was cold. Yes, there was very little wind (good for cycling) but that wouldn’t make for interesting skies. I was feeling quite down. In an attempt to lift this “creeping malaise” to quote Floyd, Scamp suggested we go out for a light lunch. So off we went.

I’d driven over the new Drumgrew bridge yesterday. Now don’t look askance, this is quite a big deal. The bridge has been closed for over 5 months now to allow it to be raised to accommodate the cabling for the electrification of the Glasgow – Edinburgh railway line. The closure has been a real pain as the only other direct route from Cumbernauld to Kirkintilloch is a single track road with very few passing places. So to return to today, we drove over the new Drumgrew bridge and out towards Kirkintilloch – nobody in their right mind actually wants to go to Kirkintilloch, which means that the upgrade of the Drumgrew bridge was a bit pointless really! To cut a long story short, we drove to Drumgoyne and had lunch in a garden centre there at a table next to the window and in the sun. My ennui was lifted.

Rather than drive back the same way we had come, I turned at the end of the road and we went back through Killearn then over the hills to Fintry. It’s been ages since I’ve driven along that stretch of road and today was a good choice. The light during the run was lovely with bright sun and fluffy clouds driving shadows over the hills. Just what I wanted for another time lapse.
[Have you ever had one of those words or phrases that’s in your head, but just won’t come out your mouth, or in my case down to my fingers and out through the correct keys. Time Lapse is my blind spot. I know the technique. I could, and often do, give anyone the MEGO effect (My Eyes Glaze Over) talking and enthusing about it, but ask me what it’s called and all I can say is “That time exposure thing, no, not exposure. Delay, no, not delay either. It’s that effect you see on the TV all the time.” One day I’ll remember the phrase, but by that time I’ll have moved on to some other obscure effect, I’ll forget ITs name, and the whole thing will start again. Aargh!]
The Time Lapse.

It wasn’t the most dramatic scenery. We’re not talking Rannoch Moor here, just some low hills with interesting clouds casting shadows on them and best of all, a convenient parking place. Unusual in itself in Scotland. This time I set an interval of 5 second and 60 frames. That would give me just over 4 seconds of video time for 3 minutes of filming / frame recording time. This was a much better setup than yesterday. Firstly because I was using a tripod today, but secondly and mainly because I could sit in the car instead of wandering around like a spare … The video, once the Oly had created it, was good enough. More leisurely than yesterday’s one. That may have been due to the shorter interval or to the fact there was less wind than yesterday. However, it worked and that’s the main thing – and the focus was correct this time! You might notice that I collected a few cars on the road in my time lapse (see, I’m remembering it now) and also, towards the end was photobombed or should that be time-lapse-bombed by a bee! Once I get the thing sorted out in my head and remember its name, everybody wants to get in on the act! While I was packing up I noticed a goose sitting snoozing among the bracken over in the next field. By the time I’d changed lenses it had woken up and was keeping an eye on me. I grabbed a few shots and left it. I imagine as it didn’t immediately fly off that it was either hung over from the Old Firm match on Sunday or it was sitting on eggs. Either way, I didn’t want to annoy it and we drove away.

We stopped further down the road at the Crow Road car park (remember going there to do mountain climbing JIC and Hazy?). Spent some time watching the shadows running across the valley rather than trying to record them. That’s where the monochrome landscape came from. Behind me some sheep were lunching on the thin grass over by the rocks and I thought they’d make an interesting shot or two. That explains the shaggy sheep shot (be careful how you say that!).

Hoping for more sun, less ennui tomorrow.