I love technology

A tale of failure and corruption

Tonight, I downloaded all 862 photos I took on Saturday from onedrive.com to my Mac. When I tried to unzip the resultant file, I got an Error 79 message. I know, you’re thinking, “Oh, Error 79! Right. What is that?” It basically means you have a corrupt archive, but go ahead and try a dozen typical troubleshooting steps, anyway, because surely one of these steps will fix it.

NONE OF THEM WILL WORK.

Undaunted, I then set up networking between my Mac and PC (the latter of which hosts the photos locally) and used that to access the files on the Mac as if they had been there all along.

I love technology1I mean, I do. In the olden days with a film camera I wouldn’t have had this issue because I would have taken 36 photos in total, and they would have been picked up in an envelope at a local drugstore a week after dropping the roll of film off. And if the photos all sucked? Too bad. Book another trip and try again! So this is still better, even if it had to fail utterly first..

Making your point a little too effectively by accident

I got this in an email today and find it amusing.

When I clicked the broken image link, I was disappointed to find that the article was not advocating a return to rotary phones, but rather how neat it is to use a pen with a notebook. And yes, it’s great, until you want to find something you wrote somewhere in the middle of the 200 pages of notes you’ve scribbled incoherently. And if you keep your paper notes meticulously indexed and organized, YOU ARE A VERY WEIRD PERSON. Not bad, just weird.

The return of the quiet keyboard

Today I bought my second Logitech K750 solar-powered keyboard. I kind of broke the original version at work when trying to get it working with the USB receiver. But I got a lot of use out of it before my gentle destruction of it, so I’m not perturbed.

But you may be thinking (well, probably not), why would I buy one when I have the CTRL mechanical keyboard with the best keys ever? A good question! These are the features I wanted:

  • Wireless. I could easily swap it in and use it as needed.
  • Numeric keypad. This is one of those things I occasionally need.
  • Quiet. The keys are very quiet, making it the perfect alternative when even I get a little tired of the CLACK of a mechanical keyboard. It happens!

And that’s about it, really. The solar part is a bonus, because it means I never need to buy batteries. It was on sale for $20 off, so I decided to go for it. The only issue right now is the keyboard has a slight curve to it, making it a bit bow-shaped. This means that if I press hard enough on the keys or the board itself, it noticeably flexes, as most of the bottom surface is actually not flush against the desk. This is an issue I did not have with the previous model. It’s not terrible because the keys work with a fairly light touch, but I may still take it back. I’ll mull for now.

And so my vast keyboard collection expands by one more. In a way it’s good that my new PC’s motherboard doesn’t support Bluetooth (a baffling omission, really), as it prevents me from trying out any of the vast number of Bluetooth keyboards out there. Mind you, a $15 USB Bluetooth adapter would fix that…

Watch: me run

I recently updated my Apple Watch to the latest version of watchOS. It includes a feature where it will detect if you are starting a workout activity and ask if you want to start recording the workout.

Tonight it asked if I wanted to start recording an indoor run.

I was playing air guitar at the time. While sitting in a chair.

May need a little tweaking.

(Either the watch software or my air guitar technique. I’m not sure which.)

iPad Pro: not reviewed (yet)

I picked up an iPad Pro 10.5 inch model tonight with 256 GB of storage. This will replace my 32 GB iPad Air, which still works without issue, it just does most things a little slower.

I was originally going to get the 12.9 inch model but they are weirdly hard to find right now so I’m going to see if the 10.5 works for me. I have a few weeks to try it out before Apple will say “lol it’s yours now, buddy!” and won’t let me exchange it.

I’ll post more impressions or some kind of review later but for now let me just say that I don’t remember having to repeatedly tell Siri things before during the setup. The process went smoothly otherwise. I’ve elected to just add apps as I need them rather than do a full restore from backup.

I also got a pencil so will be creating amazing works of art shortly. My definition of amazing may differ from the traditional one.

As a bonus, I now have four iPad chargers. I can almost start wearing them as jewellery.

iPost, Part 2

I’ve found it strangely soothing to lay in bed and tap out a post on the virtual keyboard of the iPad. I do so using the WordPress app rather than loading in this site directly, as the app smooths off the edges of working on a tablet’s smaller display.

Speaking of Macs, I now have a Macbook Air, my first laptop and also my first Mac. I’ve used Macs on and off for years and always resisted the siren call because of price, lack of good gaming choices and as of Windows 7, OS X is no longer a compelling reason to venture over to the Mac side of things.

Regarding the first point (price), ultrabooks (super-slim and light notebooks) and the Macbook Air are pretty much at price parity, with neither side holding a definite advantage on comparable specs. This will probably change over the next year as more Windows 8 ultrabooks come onto the market but for now the pricing and features are close enough to remove it as a deciding factor.

On the gaming front, things have improved in Mac land but it still sucks compared to the PC side, it just sucks less. And that’s why my main machine is still running Windows.

On the third point, OS X has its flaws and strengths much like Windows 8 (which I currently run), so that’s a wash, too.

I opted to get the Macbook Air because it’s especially light (less than three pounds), has excellent battery life and the keyboard is backlit, something I’m always a sucker for. Its primary function will be for writing when I am away from the home machine, so this sucker is ultimately meant to pay for itself. Or at least pay a little for itself. Really, I’d probably be happy if it just paid for the taxes.

Ironically, I made this post on the PC while the Macbook was updating.