The New Wolfs Howl

Catching up

2010-08-13T15:14:02Z

It has been over six months since I last wrote anything of substance here, and a great many things have changed. There’s been a great many things happen that deserved to be commented on, but I haven’t had the chance. So, this post is an attempt to get The Wolf’s Howl up to speed on the world around us.

First off, me. I’ve moved house – twice. Sold my flat of several years residence and moved in with my girlfriend. But in between, I spent a few weeks lodging with my girlfriend’s brother. The reasons why are long and complicated and I can’t be bothered to go into them, but suffice to say that everything’s all sorted now. However, the whole process meant that I was without my computer for quite some time, hence the lack of content going up here.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been doing couple-y type things: decorating, tidying, clearing out and so on. And then last week, I went out and bought myself a new motorbike:

So there’s lot more reasons why I couldn’t get onto the computer. I find, though, that having a life is so much more enjoyable! I’m really not missing the life I used to lead, which mainly consisted of sitting in front of the computer screen looking pale and unhealthy.

Well, that’s brought you up to date on me. What’s happened in the world that’s worth commenting on?

1 In case you haven’t noticed, the UK now has a new coalition government. We finally kicked out the inept Mr Brown who nobody voted for… to replace him with a Conservative / Liberal almalgm that nobody voted for. So far, it’s a little early to tell whether we’ve swapped one bunch of losers for another, but at least there seems to be some honesty about them: “we need to make some heavy cuts to public spending and we’re going to do it.” Only time will tell.

2 A certain Mr Schumacher is back in F1, and seems to be back to his old tricks. His season has not been particularly good – the car isn’t performing like it did last year, and his team mate is consistently out performing him – but that hasn’t stopped him trying to run people off the road like the good old days. I’m sure Damon Hill knows exactly how Reubens Barrichello feels.

3 The natural world seems to be out to get us, with floods in Pakistan and earth slides in China in the last few days. Perhaps it’s Mother Nature’s way of paying us back for all the oil that’s been spilt by BP recently.

Limbo

2010-04-27T17:16:35Z

It’s been nearly three months since I last posted, but that’s because my offline life is quite involved at the moment and I’m not getting much time to spend in front of a computer. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible, so keep checking back. Thanks.

Nice try, but try again…

2010-02-01T18:18:08Z

Apparently, other stuff was happening in the world last week but everywhere I looked people seemed to be talking about the new Apple iPad. Will you be rushing out to buy one? No, nor me.

The iPad ushers in a ‘new category of device’ for ‘the largest mobile device company in the world’. At least, that’s according to Steve Jobs. Having watched the launch event on the Apple website over the weekend I think what Apple have actually produced is a very pretty looking device that completely fails to deliver anything new, and which over-charges for the ability to do the same old stuff on a different size screen.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t entirely hate it. It does look nice (one thing about Apple is that their current range of products is very nice to look at) and the multi-touch interface that was debuted on the iPhone and iPod Touch is getting better and better. From a using it point of view, I can see the attraction.

But from a useability point of view, it doesn’t appeal at all. Starting at $499, Apple is asking potential customers to shell out the same sort of money that, anywhere else, would get them a netbook or a low-end laptop with all the features and abilities of Windows or Linux to choose from. But from Apple, what your $499 gets you is a large iPod Touch. It can’t even be compared to the iPhone because of the lack of featues; there’s no camera (and I would expect an iSight at the very least) and while you can pay $130 more to have the 3G version – and shell out extra for a data plan – you can’t use it for making calls.

I love my iPod Touch, I use it every day. But it was over-priced. I love my iMac, I use it every day. But it was over-priced. Both of these together cover all my computing needs. There isn’t room for a third device, no matter how much Steve Jobs may say there is. To me, to be successful this device needs to be able to perform all the functions of the two devices it sits between. It can do the iPod Touch stuff fine, but it can’t do the desktop stuff because it doesn’t have a fully-fledged operating system. You can do what Apple want you to do, and that’s it. On a device like the iPod Touch that’s not so bad. On a device like this, it’s a killer.

When is a back-up not a back-up?

2010-01-25T18:16:33Z

I was reading this article over at The Apple Blog about the worrying number of Apple Time Capsules that go to heaven after only about 18 months and it got me thinking about what really constitutes a back-up.

The author of the piece was using a Time Capsule to back up all his data, and suddenly it dies because of a known fault with the power system. The hard drive is fine, and could be used to recover the data if Apple would allow it (the basis of the article is control of the user’s data).

But has he really got a back-up of his data? Well, on one hand yes he has because he’s taken the data off of his main machine and put it onto another machine in case the first one fails. But on the other hand, no he hasn’t because his equipment is faulty and he can’t access the data.

Having more than one copy of your irreplaceable data is A Good Thing ™. It means that you recognise that technology is not infallible and you’re taking steps to plan for the day when something breaks. Think about the things that you keep on your computer – how much of it can you afford to lose? Your contacts? Yeah, you can probably re-create those from your phone or PDA but it’s a pain. The pictures from Junior’s last birthday party? Nope, those you can’t get back. So you need to protect what you can’t afford to lose.

Apple’s Time Machine and Time Capsule combination offers Mac OS X users a simple way to do this; the Time Capsule is permanently plugged in and the Time Machine software automatically backs up the data every hour. For most people, I think that’s a little excessive – my data doesn’t change on an hourly basis, that’s for sure.

But this convenience is also its downfall. First, it’s always on. Therefore it will be prone to things like overheating power systems. Second, it’s automatic. This, to me, is not as good as it sounds. Taking a back-up of your data should be something that you make a positive action to achieve. Yes, automatic back-ups don’t get forgotten but if you think you’re going to forget to back-up your data regularly, set yourself a reminder. You need to think about what data you’re backing up, why you’re backing it up, and whether you can afford to over-write the previous data set or whether you need to keep it – not just let the computer decide. And then, once it’s backed-up, you need to test that it is usable.

You also need to plan for catastrophe. An external hard drive that stays plugged into your main machine all the time is going to be subject to the same dangers that your main system is – fire, flood, power surge, theft. Ideally, you want them separated – in different buildings if possible. If that’s not possible, then find a nice secure place for your back-up drive. Keep it unplugged when you’re not using it. And, preferably, have two that you alternate.

As a guide, this is my ideal back-up scenario:

Main computer: iMac with 250Gb hard drive, approximately 60Gb of data that needs to be backed up. Plenty of music files (which I could rip from CD again, but who wants to spend all that time?), loads of photos that are irreplaceable and a bunch of other documents that need to be kept.

Frequency of data change: when I add new music or pictures, or when new documents are created. None of this happens very often, so a once-a-fortnight back-up is probably enough. Interspersed with one-off transfers of new sets of pictures as they are taken.

Back up solution: two 250Gb external USB hard drives. Powered from the computer – so no separate power unit to fail and take the whole piece of kit out – they’re small and convenient. One time, use drive A to take a copy of the necessary folders. The next time, use drive B. Only overwrite a data set when the drive becomes full. And yes, I do mean take a copy; just drag and drop folders. I prefer not to use back-up software, as while that will save space, it also adds another layer of complexity to the mix.

Storage: drive A at the office, drive B at my girlfriends house. Convenient for the frequency that I need them, and safer than having them all in the same building.

With two 250Gb drives and 60Gb of data to back up once a fortnight I’ve got space to have four months of back-ups available. With two drives, I’m not totally sunk if one fails. And storing them in two separate places – neither of which is in the same building as the computer they’re backing up – means I’m covered for acts of God, thieves, and so on.

To me, Apple’s Time Capsule / Time Machine combination isn’t a credible back-up solution and if your data is important to you, you won’t rely on it to be one.

Snowing again

2010-07-29T19:33:09Z

… and once again the whole country grinds to a halt.

The scene outside my window doesn’t look anything like this picture, but all over town there’s complete chaos as roads are blocked and drivers struggle to get up and down hills. At it’s thickest, the snow is maybe two inches deep but that seems to have been enough to cripple us and confine everyone to town.

As I mentioned last time it snowed and everything stopped, surely as a technologically adept society we should be able to deal with a bit of snow – especially snow that has been forecast for the last few days. It’s not July, people, snow isn’t that much of a surprise, surely?

It’s been a while

2010-01-03T10:49:25Z

Well, here we are in a brand new year – and a brand new decade. And I thought it was only right that (after such a long silence) I at least wish you Happy New Year.

Right, that’s that out of the way!

Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I don’t normally, and I’m not planning to start now, but I’m going to make you a not-in-any-way-legally-binding promise that I will try to put something new here every week. I do miss writing the odd rant or software review, so I’m going to get back in the habit.

My excuse for not writing much lately is that I’ve given up my geek-centric ‘life’ in exchange for an actual proper life and so I’ve not had the inclination or time to spend hours sitting in front of my computer. I’ve discovered that it’s much better to be outside, interacting with people. Imagine that! Who’d've thought it?

But, because I’m amazingly lucky and have a very understanding other half, I’ve been given a great excuse for getting back to the geeking – at least on a part-time basis. Christmas saw a gift of a Mac Box Set (Snow Leopard, iLife ’09, iWork ’09) so I’ve been spending time getting used to the new OS and updating the software I use. That process has today brought me back to my blogging client and – finding that it seems to no longer be supported and is not bug-free on SL – I’m trying out others (I’m writing this in a trial version of MarsEdit).

Anyone else out there using Snow Leopard? What are the good and bad points? What new features should I be most excited about (I’ve moved from Tiger, so I hope there are quite a few new things I haven’t found yet). Drop me a comment and let me know.

Brief Notes

2010-01-02T11:41:49Z

1. Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, appeared on Question Time and seems to have caused a bit of a stink. He’s now complaining about being faced with a ‘lynch mob’. Seems a bit ironic, considering that he’s supposed to have said that he was a fan of a former head of the KKK.

What gets to me about the whole thing is that regardless of your opinion of the BNP, they are a legitimate political party and the BBC has a duty to present an unbiased, balanced view of UK politics. Like them or not, the BNP are part of that.

2. Jan Moir has caused a bit of an uproar with her comments about the death of Stephen Gately. As with the whole Ross / Brand issue, I wonder how many of the 21,000 that have complained to the PCC actually read her article? A lot of the uproar seems to have been stirred up via Twitter by the likes of Stephen Fry, and from what I saw there seemed to be a lot of bandwagon jumping and not too much reasoned debate.

3. An American man is trying to sue Bank of America for $1,784 billion trillion. I know it’s US dollars, but it still counts as money. Trouble is, there isn’t that much money in the world and – even if there was – he hasn’t presented any evidence to support his claim. Apparently, he suffered poor customer service but if he that means he can sue, I think we’ve all got a case to go after our banks.

4. Looks like Donnington is going to miss out on hosting the British Grand Prix from next year. Despite Bernie giving them more chances to come up with the necessary financial backing than he ever gave Silverstone, it looks like they can’t manage it. Big shock!

All that remains to be seen is whether Bernie sticks to what he said a few months ago and takes the GP back to Silverstone, or whether he reverts to what he said when Donnington were first announced as new hosts – that the GP would leave Britain rather than go back to Silverstone.

Personally, I’d like to see the BDRC tell Bernie where to go, but unfortunately without the GP they’re a bit buggered so they can’t really afford to do that.

5. Jean Todt has been elected to replace Max Mosley at the FIA, so no surprise there – and probably no change in the way the FIA is run either. Todt was Mosley’s choice as replacement and the FIA seems to have been run solely for the benefit of Ferrari, Mosley and Ecclestone for years so it’ll likely be business as usual.

SOTD #188

2009-10-17T10:57:19Z

Today’s song is God Gave Me An Angel by Chris Rea

I was never born with the face of a movie star
I was never blessed with an easy load along the way
I have taken the wrong turning
So many times I can’t remember
But one thing I have for sure
I can always smile and say

God gave me an angel with a smiling face
God gave me an angel this I know
My churches are all empty and I’m guilty every day
But God gave me an angel anyway

Hadn’t heard this for quite a while when it popped up iTunes. I really listened to the words for the first time in I can’t remember how long, and realised that I, too, have been blessed with an angel.

[You Tube]

Pick me again

2009-10-01T19:53:47Z

After yesterday’s entry – tulips in April – I’ve also added a second photo to the National Trust competition.

This one was taken on my recent holiday in Cornwall. What it shows is the beam of the working beam engine at Cornish Mines and Engines at Cambourne. In the periphery, modern day Cambourne can seen – built on the site of what used to be a major Cornish tin mine. The casting on the side of the beam and the traditional Cornish flag place let the viewer know exactly where they are, what they’re seeing and the history that comes with it.

As yesterday, if you like the image click here to vote.

Pick Me! Pick Me!

2009-09-30T17:22:51Z

Thanks to Gareth for giving me the heads up on this one: the National Trust and the Sunday Times are running a photography competition and I’ve just entered one of my favourite NT snaps. If you like the picture, please take a moment to vote for me by following this link.