Author Archives: Steve

How to kill your home Internet Connection with Apple iCloud Photo.

I love most things Apple, I take a bit of convincing some times. However, I recently saw the benefit of iCloud Photos, the ability to have all your photos in the cloud and on smaller capacity devices it will only download on demand the photos you want to view etc.

Upload all your photos from a weekend trip whilst you are away and they will be on your main machine when you get back etc. It holds a lot of advantages….

Sadly there is a downside to this.. I’ve been using digital photography for over 10 years, my photo library is over 25,000 photos about 90Gb in total. I didn’t think this would be a big problem. We use CrashPlan on all our machines, my iMac has uploaded over 400 Gb, yes it took several weeks, but it got there in the end.

iCloud Photo though isn’t quite as clever as other Cloud storage applications, it just grabs all the bandwidth available and tries to use it all ignoring the fact you might want to look at a website or down an email or two. The only control you have over it is to pause it. Even closing the application doesn’t stop it unless you have paused it. So you end up pausing it during the day and then having to remembering to resume the upload last thing in the day.

By comparison CrashPlan as you can see has a much smarter approach to controlling how much bandwidth it uses when you are using the machine or you are away from the machine.

I’m not the only one complaining about this, I’ve come across several other blog posts on the topic in the past few weeks. Short of taking my iMac to somewhere that has super high speed fibre internet to upload all the remaining photos, I shall just have to continue to upload a couple of hundred photos each day, pathetic really.

[2017 Update: Apple seem to have tamed iCloud uploads so that they are a bit more slow connection friendly. They no longer kill your connection. It backs off until the connection is available.]

Music of 2014

I’ve done similar posts to these before, but this year I thought I would do it slightly differently. Once again the list comes from one of my iTunes playlists which looks at the Top 100 tracks I’ve been playing in the last 12 months.

1. Peg – Steely Dan – The video how this complex track was ‘assembled’ by the best musicians in the business for the Aja album (in my opinion)

2. Genesis – After the Ordeal – This track comes from another favourite album of mine ‘Selling England by the Pound’ from the early 1970’s.

3. Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine – This track was used in a clever scene in the film Notting Hill starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant

4. Mason Williams – Classical Gas – No sure why I love this track so much, but it dates back to my early awareness of music and I tend to like guitar instrumentals a lot!

5. Bruce Hornsby & the Range – The Way It Is – A 1980’s classic, the track that started my love of Bruce Hornsby and his magic piano playing.

6. Gerry Rafferty – Night Owl – Gerry has a different way of singing, but I can listen to his albums often late at night without tiring of them.

7. Pink Floyd – Sorrow taken from the live album Pulse. I’m not always a fan of Live albums but Pink Floyd are an exception to this rule.

8. Robert Palmer – Simply Irresistible

9. Steelers Wheel – Stuck in the Middle – Gerry Rafferty again, Love the line ‘Clowns to the left of me Jokers to the right‘ it reminds me of trying to mediating in disputes at times!

10. Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight – I listen to a lot of Phil Collins tracks, love the drums on this track, especially once it gets going at about 3:15 in to the track!

Well that’s my Top 10 for 2014, but I listened to many many hours of music in 2014 and I suspect 2015 will be no different!

My favourite new track of 2014 was Pharrell Williams – Happy

Enjoy and Happy New Year.

Mac OS X – Preview

Preview on Mac OS X is a very underrated application. It has been included on every version of Mac OS X I’ve ever used, which in my case goes back to ‘Tiger’ version 10.4

Now at first sight it might not seem to be able to do a lot. You use it for viewing photo and graphic files, it also handles PDF files too, no need to install Adobe Reader… (thank goodness!!) It will also let you ‘preview’ Word, Excel and a number of other document formats.

OK so it does those… but did you also know you can do a lot more too…

For images you can:

Rotate images in 90 degree increments
Flip images horizontally or vertically (Mirrored ones)
Adjust the size of an image (so you can reduce the size of image before emailing it or uploading it to say Facebook)
Adjust the colour and other parameters of an image.
Crop images
You can annotate images with squares, ovals, lines, lines with arrows etc. Useful for adding labels and notes
Add Text to images in different fonts, styles, colours etc.
You can take screen shots of images/documents which is a quick and dirty way of creating images suitable for a website when you don’t want them to be huge in resolution!
You can take a PDF and digitally sign the document and save it with your signature. You do your signature on a piece of paper then hold it up to the camera.

I use Preview many times a day, it is a built in application that I couldn’t do without.

Film photography

Things you don’t often hear these days…

I have just got to finish off this film…

I am waiting for the photographs to come back from the developers…

eos_30_tcm13-26634 Well yesterday I was ‘just finishing off a film’ I still have my Canon EOS30 film SLR camera, I can’t remember when I bought it, a long time ago, but it was one of the few cameras I have bought new.

I love using it, it has eye control focusing, so with the camera to your eye you look at the focusing point, half press the shutter and the camera uses that focusing point. I have never understood why Canon never incorporated this feature in to their digital SLR cameras.

After using digital for over ten years now going back to film is quite testing. There is no instant feedback in a screen on the back or with my iPad attached to the camera to see the results!

I don’t use my film camera much these days, but I won’t get rid of it!

Lefax Radio Log

I was given this item by a Filofax friend of mine. It combines my love of Filofax and the love of radio in to one! It dates from 1928. The leather organiser is a little delicate now, but I’m in the process of preserving it to stop it getting any worse. The paper pages though are fine, I’m keeping those separate. See the post over on Philofaxy for the full story behind this remarkable find.

My Top 100 music tracks of 2013

Once again here’s the Top 100 music tracks I have listened to in 2013, this is an output from iTunes so it includes music I listen to in the car, whilst at my desk or wandering around. I listen to many hours of music in any week, but these tracks are the ones I’ve listened to most. In the year I listened to over 3000 different music tracks!

What do you enjoy listening to?

	Name	Artist	Album	Year	Plays	Last Played
1	Peg	Steely Dan	Aja	1977	38	22/12/2013
2	Night Owl	Gerry Rafferty	Night Owl	1979	30	17/12/2013
3	Anything For Your Love	Eric Clapton	Journeyman	1997	29	24/12/2013
4	Classical Gas (Acoustic Version)	Bernd Schoenhart	Classical Gas (EP)	2004	29	05/12/2013
5	The Way It Is	Bruce Hornsby & The Range	The Way It Is	1986	28	27/12/2013
6	Right Through You	Alanis Morissette	Jagged Little Pill	1995	27	05/12/2013
7	Piano Intro/Great Divide (Live)	Bruce Hornsby	Here Come The Noise Makers	2000	27	22/12/2013
8	Mary Shut The Garden Door	Donald Fagen	Morph The Cat	2006	27	05/12/2013
9	The Way That You Do It	Gerry Rafferty	Night Owl	1979	27	27/12/2013
10	You Always Want What You Have	Lighthouse Family	Whatever Gets You Through The	2002	27	27/12/2013
11	Get Down Tonight(Miami Club Mix)	K.C. & The Sunshine Band	The Very Best Of KC & Sunshine Band		26	02/12/2013
12	(Don’t Fear) The Reaper	Blue Öyster Cult	Agents of Fortune	1976	25	05/12/2013
13	Lovely Day	Bill Withers	Magic Summer Feeling	2003	24	05/12/2013
14	Everyone’s Gone To The Movies	Steely Dan	Katy Lied	1975	24	05/12/2013
15	Sorrow	Pink Floyd	Pulse	1995	23	18/12/2013
16	Run Like Hell	Pink Floyd	Pulse	1995	23	18/12/2013
17	Gimme Shelter	The Rolling Stones	Let It Bleed	1969	23	05/12/2013
18	(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman	Carole King	Tapestry	1971	22	27/12/2013
19	Hold Me	Fleetwood Mac	Mirage	1982	22	05/12/2013
20	Ordinary Morning	Sheryl Crow	Sheryl Crow	1996	22	05/12/2013
21	Where Would I Be Now	Michael McDonald	Blue Obsession	2000	21	27/12/2013
22	Don’t Worry	Appleton	Magic Summer Feeling	2003	20	05/12/2013
23	World Where You Live	Crowded House	Recurring Dream	1996	20	27/12/2013
24	Sad Songs (Say So Much)	Elton John	The Very Best Of Elton John	1984	20	22/12/2013
25	My Favorite Mistake	Sheryl Crow	The Globe Sessions	1999	20	05/12/2013
26	I Might Have Been Queen	Tina Turner	Private Dancer	1984	20	19/12/2013
27	Too High	Michael McDonald	Motown	2003	19	05/12/2013
28	High Hopes	Pink Floyd	Pulse	1995	19	18/12/2013
29	The Tide Will Rise	Bruce Hornsby	Harbor Lights	1993	18	22/12/2013
30	Hot House Ball	Bruce Hornsby	Hot House	1995	18	05/12/2013
31	Defenders Of The Flag	Bruce Hornsby & The Range	Scenes From The Southside	1988	18	05/12/2013
32	For One Day	Dido	Safe Trip Home – DeLuxe	2008	18	07/12/2013
33	Lions	Dire Straits	Dire Straits	1978	18	22/12/2013
34	For My Wedding	Don Henley	Inside Job	2000	18	07/12/2013
35	Everything Is Different Now	Don Henley	Inside Job	2000	18	05/12/2013
36	New Kid In Town	The Eagles	Hotel California	1976	18	05/12/2013
37	Last Good Time In Town	The Eagles	Long Road Out of Eden	2007	18	07/12/2013
38	Do You Know	Fleetwood Mac	Behind The Mask	1990	18	07/12/2013
39	Murrow Turning Over In His Grave	Fleetwood Mac	Say You Will	2003	18	07/12/2013
40	Learning To Fly	Pink Floyd	Pulse	1995	18	18/12/2013
41	Woman Tonight	America	History: America’s Greatest Hits	1975	17	27/12/2013
42	Big Rumble	Bruce Hornsby	Hot House	1995	17	24/12/2013
43	Jealous Guy	Bryan Ferry	The Ultimate Collection	1988	17	05/12/2013
44	Tomorrow’s Girls	Donald Fagen	Kamakiriad	1993	17	22/12/2013
45	Other Side of the World	KT Tunstall	Eye to the Telescope	2004	17	05/12/2013
46	Stay (I’ll Miss You)	Lisa Loeb	Magic Summer Feeling	2003	17	05/12/2013
47	Nobodys Perfect	Mike + The Mechanics	Hits	1996	17	22/12/2013
48	50 Ways To Leave Your Lover	Paul Simon	Negotiations And Love Songs 1971-1986	1988	17	27/12/2013
49	Start Me Up	The Rolling Stones	Forty Licks	1981	17	05/12/2013
50	Gasoline	Sheryl Crow	Detours	2008	17	05/12/2013
51	Pearl Of The Quarter	Steely Dan	Countdown To Ecstasy	1973	17	05/12/2013
52	Stop Loving You	Toto	Past To Present 1977-1990	1988	17	05/12/2013
53	Walk In The Sun	Bruce Hornsby	Hot House	1995	16	26/12/2013
54	Till The Dreaming’s Done	Bruce Hornsby & The Range	Scenes From The Southside	1988	16	22/12/2013
55	Crying In The Night	Buckingham Nicks	Buckingham Nicks	1973	16	06/12/2013
56	When You Come	Crowded House	Recurring Dream	1996	16	27/12/2013
57	Sara Smile	Daryl Hall & John Oates	Hall and Oates: Greatest Hits Rock ‘n Soul, Pt 1		16	22/12/2013
58	Silence	Delerium	The Chillout Sessions 2 [Disc 2]	2002	16	05/12/2013
59	Expresso Love	Dire Straits	Making Movies	1980	16	05/12/2013
60	Workin’ It	Don Henley	Inside Job	2000	16	27/12/2013
61	Los Endos	Genesis	A Trick Of The Tail	1976	16	19/12/2013
62	Do It Again	The Juju Orchestra	Bossa Nova Is Not a Crime	2007	16	05/12/2013
63	Aja	Steely Dan	Aja	1977	16	28/11/2013
64	Never Be The Same	Christopher Cross	Christopher Cross	1979	15	05/12/2013
65	Time After Time	Cyndi Lauper	20 Number Ones	1983	15	22/12/2013
66	Damn It, Rose	Don Henley	Inside Job	2000	15	05/12/2013
67	Try And Love Again	The Eagles	Hotel California	1976	15	05/12/2013
68	Dreams	Fleetwood Mac	Rumours	1977	15	05/12/2013
69	Way Of The World	Genesis	We Can’t Dance	1991	15	27/12/2013
70	Lifeline	Spandau Ballet	TRUE	1983	15	05/12/2013
71	Building The Perfect Beast	Don Henley	Building The Perfect Beast	1984	14	05/12/2013
72	Hotel California	The Eagles	Hotel California	1976	14	22/12/2013
73	Sara	Fleetwood Mac	Tusk	1979	14	03/12/2013
74	I Want To Know What Love Is	Foreigner	The Definitive	1984	14	22/12/2013
75	Any Colour You Like	Pink Floyd	Pulse	1995	14	24/12/2013
76	The Longest Night	Bruce Hornsby	Hot House	1995	13	07/12/2013
77	Son Of A Preacher Man	Dusty Springfield	Magic Summer Feeling	2003	13	22/12/2013
78	Bleed To Love Her	Fleetwood Mac	Say You Will	2003	13	03/12/2013
79	Black Friday	Steely Dan	Katy Lied	1975	13	01/12/2013
80	Mandolin Rain/Black Muddy River	Bruce Hornsby	Here Come The Noise Makers	2000	12	30/12/2013
81	Air Born	Camel	Moonmadness	1976	12	07/11/2013
82	Let’s Go Together	Change	The Final Collection	1989	12	07/12/2013
83	Into Temptation	Crowded House	Recurring Dream	1996	12	18/12/2013
84	The Boys Of Summer	Don Henley	Building The Perfect Beast	1984	12	20/10/2013
85	Ripples	Genesis	A Trick Of The Tail	1976	12	19/12/2013
86	Surrender the Rain	Lindsey Buckingham	Out of the Cradle	1992	12	21/09/2013
87	Street Life	Roxy Music	The Best Of Roxy Music	2001	12	03/12/2013
88	Deacon Blues	Steely Dan	Aja	1977	12	07/12/2013
89	Magical Mystery Tour	The Beatles	Magical Mystery Tour	1967	11	20/10/2013
90	The Changes	Bruce Hornsby	Hot House	1995	11	21/09/2013
91	Italian Plastic	Crowded House	Woodface	1991	11	08/11/2013
92	Northern Skies (remix)	Dido	Safe Trip Home – DeLuxe	2008	11	16/09/2013
93	Little Tin God	Don Henley	The End Of The Innocence	1989	11	25/11/2013
94	American Pie	Don McLean	American Pie	2003	11	24/12/2013
95	Brite Nitegown	Donald Fagen	Morph The Cat	2006	11	20/10/2013
96	Out Of Reach	Gabrielle	Magic Summer Feeling	2003	11	25/11/2013
97	Stealin’ Time	Gerry Rafferty	City To City	1978	11	02/12/2013
98	Tinsel Town	Seal	Seal IV	2003	11	02/12/2013
99	In The Cage Medely	Genesis	Three Sides Live	1982	10	19/12/2013
100	Another Day	Paul McCartney	All The Best!	1987	10	24/12/2013

DW5110-D1

I had to buy something new today. When I saw the DW5110-D1 I just knew I had made the right choice. The sleek lines of the DW5110-D1, the way it sat, the designer had obviously influenced by the design and lines of a single seat racing car. The blue and white paint scheme looked so right on the DW5110-D1.

I got if home and unpacked it quickly and fired it up and put it to work. I admired its shape and form as I waited for the DW5110-D1 to warm up. I quickly familiarised myself with the controls of the DW5110-D1. Fully charged it burbled like an F1 racer on tick over.

I flicked it in to high power mode, turning the click wheel of the DW5110-D1 to the desired setting, waiting for the acknowledgement signal and then we were ready.

I was immediately impressed with the handling of the DW5110-D1, it took the rough with the smooth, carving it’s way through creases leaving a smooth path behind it.

The impressive power to weight ratio of the DW5110-D1 was no doubt the key to its high performance over all surfaces. The small turning circle of the DW5110-D1 and its shapely designed nose shape helps it get in and out of tight spots.

A pile of shirts completed, I stood and admired my new DW-5110 Rowenta Steam iron……..

Stevie Nicks on Absolute Radio

I’ve been a Fleetwood Mac fan for longer than I can remember, certainly the early 1970’s possibly before then as a kid. I’ve also loved to hear about the background to some of my favourite songs no matter which band it is.

I came across this interview this evening, absolutely brilliant and a very enjoyable hour listening to the music from that golden era as well as hearing Stevie. Moments like this have to be captured and savoured.

Absolute Radio Icons: Stevie Nicks by Absolute Radio on Mixcloud

New Filofax Shoulder Bag

I had never considered buying a Filofax bag until recently.

I spotted a Filofax bag on offer in their sale. It was still quite expensive but I had a discount voucher that I could use so it brought the price down a more sensible price.

So this is the Filofax Architect Portrait Courier, it’s rather smart don’t you think?

It came in it’s own dust bag which I keep it in when I’m not using it.

It’s bigger than I thought it would be. It has two main pockets which are very generous in size. Turning the bag over there is another slip pocket which will take an iPad or similar full size tablet. There is a grab handle at the top, and also a strap for looping the bag over a wheeled suit case handle.

The woven shoulder strap is very generous in width and it is also quite long too but it has a metal buckle to adjust the length.

Now in terms of what will fit inside. The smaller front pocket has a variety of slots for pens and cards but still has enough room for other small items too, including a personal size Filofax!

The leather flap has a zip pocket in it as well, plenty big enough for your smart phone or similar. The flap closes with a magnetic fastener in the middle.

The slim pocket on the back can take an iPad easily, it has a velcro tab at the top to hold it closed too.

The main pocket can take an A4 Filofax or an A4 size zipped conference folder easily. I’ve also tried it for size with my 10″ Netbook PC, and it slides in easily with space to spare. In the photo is an A5 Zip Holborn, that goes in sideways with plenty of room too. I think the biggest size of PC you could fit in would be a 11.6″ display one, such as a MacBook Air or a similar sized Chromebook.

A large ring size personal Filofax as shown here also fits inside the front pocket easily.

As you might be able to see on the detail of the front flap it is made of leather and textile lined inside. But the leather is a smooth finish and a pebbled finish in two distinctive panels.

Being a vertical format bag compared to the horizontal format of most messenger bags I find it retains it’s rigidity a lot better.

I’m very pleased with it, grab one for the man in your life for Christmas….

Apple iPod

The iPod has been a great invention. It was the first Apple product I/we owned. It was Philip my son who first made me aware of the iPod, he showed me the advert for the 1st generation iPod, it almost seemed to be too good to be true. A small device that you could slip in your pocket that could hold hundreds of CDs. I sat trying to work out how much storage space I would need for my full CD collection, which at the time was about 200 CD’s.

Before the iPod came into our lives I had been using a CD Walkman to play my music CDs on journeys and around the house. But it was limited in battery life and by how many CDs you could carry.

Sony Discman

Before the CD I had a Sony Walkman, this was back in about 1983, at the time I lived and worked in Cyprus and I used to record audio tapes instead of writing letters and posted them back and forth in the mail. It sounds old fashioned but it was great getting tapes from friends and loved ones. I forget the exact model number, but I bought a Sony recoding Walkman which had a built in radio and a single speaker on the back and a built in microphone too, so it was quite a versatile device.

So anyway the Apple iPod, Philip was still at school when the first one came out, he was originally going to buy the 5Gb model, but me being me I offered to give him the difference in money to buy the 10Gb model.

iTunes was also a big improvement over Windows media player at the time. I was using that on my PC before I got my own iPod. I discovered Smart Play Lists and that has been quite a bonus for me, they present music to me that I’ve not listened too for a while and that means I listen to a lot more tracks rather than buy new ones all the time.

iPod

My own first iPod was a third generation 20 Gb model, not exactly a classic but it got me started. There were a few issues with this model, mainly battery life and also the battery charging indication, because it doesn’t control the charging very well, the battery would get overcharged and this in turn would limit the life of the battery. I have changed the battery on mine at least twice, a strong set of finger nails and good eye sight is all you need to get the back off to change it!

Eventually along came the iPod Touch in Philip bought a 32Gb 1st gen model and sold his original iPod.

I also upgraded my iPod to a newer model with a colour screen and a 60 Gb drive. Compared to my previous one it was a massive improvement on the user interface and battery life too. I still use this one in the car, it holds all of my music collection and I just synchronise it every few months.

I also bought an iPod touch in 2010 although I have used it for a lot of other things as well as listening to music. Alison now uses it for listening to BBC Radio 4 in the kitchen!

Alison joined the club with an iPod Nano, she listens to dozens of podcasts rather than music. I’ve recently started using this as it is so compact and light in your pockets.

Her mini disc player/recorder still works, but interfacing it to anything is a pain

Philip replaced the iPod Touch with an iPhone 4 which he has recently passed on to me

iPhone 4 with iOS7

Alison now has my iPod Touch, it has replaced the 1st generation iPod Touch which still works but it is a bit limited in what you can do with it now, which reminds me of my Psion organisers really!

With wireless syncing of devices to our iMacs and iCloud we no longer need to connect the latest devices to our computers every few days, just a charger by the side of the bed or in the kitchen is fine.

Over 30 years of portable music devices since the Sony Walkman through to my iPhone, the technology has got better, but one thing hasn’t changed… the music I listen to. Steely Dan and a the rest of my music collection.

Steve Morton

A view of technology and some non-technical things.