steve – Page 37

January 24, 2010January 24, 2010

Another day, another IT fail……

……this time the fail belongs to Western Digital.

I’ve been after an external hdd for while now, my options are limited due to me wanting Firewire 800. So as I should be getting some expenses paid back soon I decided to hit Barclaycard.

The latest fail is the WD My Book Studio (Mac Edition – though it seems the fail isn’t just confined to the Mac version of this drive). So is it a bag of crap?, no the drive is quite a nice neat small drive. Seems to be fairly quiet. But the problem is with the software. WD have installed some software called WD Smartware. It offers a Time Machine type backup (pointless on the Mac as we have erm Time Machine), it also mounts a Virtual CD every time you boot it. The latter is my big issue, I don’t want that virtual crap appearing every time.

I don’t want WD Smartware installed, but I can delete this quite easily. However the Virtual CD keeps coming back every reboot. Apparently it’s the herpes of software, you just can’t get rid of it. Well you can get shot of it quite easily. Tomorrow (once the HDD is formatted – using the 7 Pass secure erase) it’ll be going back to the Apple Store. I have 14 days to return it, which I will do.

One day I will find an IT related purchase* that doesn’t need to be returned.

* excludes the ‘used’ Magic Mouse I got from John Lewis (£45) as is appears to work fine. Anyway it’s a mouse, it does mouse things well, that said it was returned by someone so maybe they found a fault. Though after a few hours the battery life has dipped from 72% to 62%, so maybe that’s another purchase to go back.

/update: Seems the application has knackered Appleshare on my Mac (means I can no longer connect to my MacMini webserver via afp://)

/update2: After tonights apple security update my Mini no longer boots. Not entirely sure who is blame, but it’s coincidental that after using the woe that was WD Smartware things started to go wrong. After all I’m currently using my MacBook which also had the same system update applied, but crucially didn’t have WD Woeware installed.

January 12, 2010January 27, 2010

Apple prediction…..

….well everyone is having a go so why not me.

New Tablet/slate designed to replace Newsprint

So, what’s it gonna be called?

Apple to bring back the iBook name, using iSlate as the TM name for the interface/applications.

It’ll look like a big iPhone. It’ll probably be more expensive than it should be. If it has 3G then please don’t buy it on 02.

So price.
$600 USD
£511.23 UKP

Further prediction: People will moan about it.

/edit only $100+ out for the cheap model then.

January 11, 2010January 11, 2010

One of those debating posts.

Camera updates…….

I know it’s gonna cost money, but I think I might update both this year.

I’m getting drawn towards the 7D at the moment, seems it has everything I could want. Well almost everything as it’s not Full Frame. But that’s where the 2nd update comes in. Update that to the 5d MkII. Simples?

Right the old 5D sells for around £800 on Ebay, so once they’ve shafted you with Paypal fees etc it’s more like £750. So that’s around £1500 (for both), plus around £100 for each BG-E4 so lets make it £1,700.

A new 5d MkII is £1700 and the 7D is around £1250, so that leaves me £1,250 short. Maybe this year bonus (if it happens) may cover this.

We’ll see, a lot depends on if I like the 7D, the 5D’s sell and if a bonus arrives.

/edit Contacted Mifsuds to see what they trade in at.

January 6, 2010

Late night snow images

It’s late, but thanks to iso3200 and playing with White Balance I bring you……….

Velux View

Not as bad as others are getting though. Probably still enough to knacker Brum’s transport infrastructure.

January 4, 2010January 4, 2010

The bird

A Robin to be precise.

Robin

Quite a friendly little thing, only downside was the fact it was about 1.5 metres away and I was using my 300mm and 1.4 converter. Still the Image Stabiliser seems to have coped well as I was shooting at 1/50.

Taken at the Sandwell Valley RSPB reserve, where I spent the final morning of my Christmas holidays. Then went shopping, guess which one I prefer. I’ll give you a clue, it’s not shopping.