Bloody computers...

Oh thats just great, as soon as I buy PS CS2 and install it it going wrong. Double click on a file on an external drive and PS takes ages to load in and then says:
There is a serious error. Reinstall Photoshop

Tried that and immediately, Installation was not successful...
Restarted the MacBook Pro and hey presto! all is fine now.

Bloody Computers! Grrr....

Skype

I had a Skype tutorial with the SkypeMaster yesterday. I'm sold on it. I've wanted to use it for some time now but could not see the benefit over iChat. Now I see.

10 things I like about Skype:
1 - Video chat works
2 - Cheap calls worldwide. Actually it doesn't matter where you are so long as you have an internet connection anyone can call your SkypeIn number
3 - You can get a SkypeIn phone number with a geographic dial code from almost any country
4 - Voice mail is FREE with SkypeIn instead of the £1.50 a month for BT "answercall"
5 - SkypeIn numbers are only £20 a per to rent instead of the BT £11.50 a month
6 - Skype to Skype is free
7 - Skype friendly hotspots are popping up all over the place (there are over 1200 in London and over 50 in Brighton)
8 - I can set call to forward to any number if I'm away
9 - I can have a London Number (0207 or 0208) if I choose
10 - You don't need a computer at all to use SkypeOut

All we need now is for Apple to tie the iPhone into Skype and Mobile networks and we'll have one hell of a solution.

Photoshop

I could wait no longer. I have purchased Photoshop CS2.

My TryOut version decided to quit on me, although I did only have a couple of weeks left it's still a pain to be forced into buying CS2 when CS3 is about 4 to 5 months away. I am hoping for a FREE upgrade to CS3.

I did however manage to get a good price. £377+VAT and it'll be delivered on Monday.

Lost and found

Some time ago I was playing around with Automator trying to work out some sort of workflow and stuff. While I was doing that, you may remember, my laptop decided (I'm sure all by it's self) to remove some random files from my machine including some Music I had bought from the iTunes music store.

No of course I didn't have a backup of those files. I'd not even thought about it. Well I say I didn't have a back up, I didn't in the true sense but I do have a copy on the iPod and I've been enjoying the music that way so not really a bit problem. So long as the ipod works!

Well today I found a way to get my paid for music (and all the other stuff) off my iPod and back into iTunes. Hurray!

Thank you iLinkPod.app

Run the app
Open the folders
Drag the files back into iTunes

They do remind you NOT to Steal Music too

Excitment and Disappointment

EXCITEMENT
Yesterday saw Apple Inc. (R)Evolutionise the mobile phone and provide us with a great system for downloading Movies and streaming them to your big screen TV.
iPhone and Apple TV, in my dreams I have already bought them. Ahh such joy. All that computing power in the palm of my hand simplifying phone calls and conferencing and all that, streaming my iTunes downloaded Movies to my living room TV JUST BRILLIANT!

DISAPPOINTMENT
iPhone not available in the UK
Movie Downloads Not available in the UK

BUGGER!!!

Mr MacWhitey...

Seems there is a known fault with MacBook displays. We've had a little problem in the past which was fixed by resetting the PRAM but yesterday evening, du to some unexpected unplugging, Wendy needed to restart Mr MacWhitey.
No blank screen this time but a rather nice vertical candy coloured stripe pattern all the way across the screen.

OK so I need the reset the PRAM again...

Tried that 5 or 6 times but no joy. Wendy was getting panicky and a little tearful. Was Mr MacWhitey dead?

I phoned Apple Support, they told me it was a serious hardware fault and to take it to a authorised dealer to have it checked out. I then got an email from them describing the fault in detail and what to do to resolve it.

RESET THE PRAM!

Not sure why but I tried it a gain and this time it worked! They recommended updating the OS to 10.4.8 (10.4.7 was causing the problem) so now that's all done and Mr MacWhitey has been discharged from the hospital.

Wendy is very happy now!

The Twins

We had a bit of a false alarm yesterday. The twins were nearly delivered but mum wasn't ready...

We'll need to induce them today by going to High Wycombe and extracting them from City Link.

With the knowledge that I can now have wired ethernet upstairs I can now put the twins in the spare bedroom with the printers. Great!

Network Goodness

I've got 2 Apple Airport Express units so that I can wirelessly connect to my ADSL line which is downstairs AND have the ability to print to me USB printer upstairs.
I also have a Ethernet Laser Printer which is currently plugged into the ADSL router and all works fine.

I've just tried plugging it into the 2nd A.E. and what do ya know. It bloomin' well works!!! I'd been told by the muppets on the front desk at Solutions in Brighton that this would not work. "The Airport Express isn't designed to extend your wired network..."

Now I can get that laser up stairs with the other printer :)

Special Day

While clearing out some old papers I came across the invoice for my very first iPod.

Bought on 22nd November 2001 from Cancom Web Sales
Description - 1 Apple iPod 5Gb MP3 Player (Firewire) Mac
Total Price - £351.33

I still have it and it still works!

I post some pics later

Maximum File Size

I've been reading more about the disk drives I just bought and find that they come formatted in FAT32 which means that the maximum file size is 4GB.
No I know this sounds silly but I started thinking 4GB, thats far too small and thinking that I should cancel my order with ebuyer.

On considering that for a few minutes, I actually don't have ANY files that big so shouldn't be a problem unless my backup software creates 4GB+ file sizes.

I could of course reformat in HFS or HFS+ either of which would remove the file size limit.

Backup the Backup....

After some serious thought and some very serious consideration of the bank balance, I've taken the plunge and purchased two back up drives.

LaCie have a good name and looked good value compared with others in the same range. These babies are NAS type disks with 10/100 ethernet and USB2 ports so can be on the network or directly connected.

My intention is to run some sort of backup routine to Drive 1 for both client machines and then back up Drive 1 to drive 2 so that if any drive breaks I'll still have a copy.

Al says retrospect Pro is the software to have so I'm going to investigate that to see what it does.

The twins are due on Wednesday this week I'll post more news after they arrive.

Remote Control

As you'll know I recently bought a new Mac Book Pro. This came with the usual applications and stuff with a strange addition of a Remote Control.
I've been wondering why I'd need a remote control with a portable computer. Lets face it, the portable computer is designed to be close to you so why the remote?

Well, today I found a use for it. For some time now I've enjoyed the occasional long soak in a hot bath while listening to a "Bathroom Tunes" playlist but I've not done this since I bought the MacBook. While switching over computers I'd lost the playlists so didn't have my favourite Bathroom tunes avaialble.

Like a light bulb going on I suddenly found a use for the remote. I can now lay in the bath and flick through the tunes at will. Oh Joy!

The cruel world of Data Backup and restore

As regular readers will know I recently lost a whole bunch of data from my laptop due to some crap going on and resetting things etc. so I set up a rigid regime of backing up every day to ye trusty old LaCie 300GB external hard drive designed by Porsche.

All my data got sent to the drive every day at 11:15 pm while other trivial stuff got sent to my iDisk at 11:00 pm. All was working fine and reporting as completed full back up and daily incrementals until I tried to restore some data. Can't mount the volume .... or some such message. Great! I've backed up but can't restore. Luckily I didn't actually need any data restored.

Since then I've been intermittently doing a full backup manually to the external drive. Now the story gets worse.

I keep ALL of my digital photos on the external drive and while doing some work on sorting out some data I accidentally knocked the drive from a low table onto the carpeted floor. Now all my backed up data is locked in the drive which now just clicks twice when it's turned on.

I know, I know, I should have backed up the backup and stored it off site etc etc but I didn't. I absolutely could have cried yesterday when this happened and even considered kicking the cat but we don't have one and I couldn't find someone else's.

Looks like this will cost me between £140 and £250 to get the data back. Worst thing is I don't even know for sure what's on the disk. I know I've got a full backup of all my current laptop data b ut I'm not sure what I've deleted from my laptop and "Archived" on the external disk. I guess I'll just pay up and start thinking of some other way to back up and back up the back up.

We've also got 2 machines now so I'm considering 2 NAS disks, one for each machine, and then back up disk 1 to disk 2 on a weekly basis.

Oh how I long for a TIME MACHINE.......