Computing – Page 25 – Richard & Caroline's Blog

November 25, 2013November 24, 2013

Wacom Tablet – starting with the Pen

Wacom Intuos Pro

With the house move as well as Caroline having her own sewing and craft room, I have my own office which I use as my digital darkroom. I am still in the process of getting everything set up the way I want but one of the new purchases to make editing easier is my new Wacom Intuos Pro Tablet.

When you talk about Tablets then Wacom are the market leader. Many people love tablets others prefer the mouse. If your thinking of trying one then you have to give it a good try. The analogy I heard was this “For the first week its likely trying to use a paint brush with your feet.”

I have to admit, the first few days were difficult, I could definitely use a mouse or tack pad a lot easier and get better results. I have now been practicing for just over a week, a mix of just messing about, plus some actual serious editing in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop, but as well as that, I have been using it for just general web browsing and controlling the computer. I am now getting to the point where it is starting to get to feel natural.

This weekend I gave it a good try out in Adobe Illustrator, I made a scale plan of the bottom of the back garden so I could start to make a plan of where to site the chicken coup and bee hives to fit in with the current garden layout as I wanted to leave the main tree and statue that we have at the back. It was my first time using Adobe Illustrator and its a very odd program. Like its name sake Adobe Photoshop it has a very steep learning curve. I watched a few tutorial videos on the internet but it is still a very confusing program for a beginner like me to get the hang off. Still it allowed me to use use the tablet while I concentrated on the program.

November 14, 2013

Splash ID Crashing on Launch

I use a password manager on my phone and computer, I have a lot of passwords to remember for lots of different systems and as I change many of them every month keeping track of some of the more seldom used ones can be difficult.

My password manager of choice, SplashID stopped working after the last upgrade on the laptop, but still worked fine on the phone.

The other day I finally got round to searching the web for the answer to my problem as it would crash after I entered the password ironically!

A quick search of their support area soon found an answer.

Unfortunately the fix did loose me all the data but as I had the data still on my phone a quick sync remembering to set the phone as source soon had all my data back.

Always good to have more then one copy of your data!

The trick is to find the com.splashdata.splashidmac folder in ~/Library/Containers/ and rename it. Then relaunch the app and log in. It then works but has no data. Set your phone as the source, re-sync and your back in business. Once you are sure everything is working delete the renamed folder as there will now be a new one with your configuration that works.

November 11, 2013November 14, 2013

Moving Home Update – Making the Office Usable

There always seems to be a never ending list of job to be completed when moving house.

This weekend saw us finally empty the storage units, so all our things are in our new home.

We are now surrounded by boxes but we our gradually getting them unpacked.

Another big step this week was the assembly of my desk. Setting that up emptied several boxes so thing are moving a long nicely.

It was nice to edit my photographs using two monitors again but after calibrating my old Sony CRT I noticed it struggled to reach the appropriate brightness.

Looks like my decision to buy a new monitor for Christmas is justified.

October 25, 2013October 26, 2013

Testing and a final install of Mavericks

Well after my blog post yesterday about creating an OS X Mavericks install disk; what did I do with it?

Well, I created another partition on that external drive and then booted from my new install disk and installed Mavericks to the fresh partition. I then imported my apps and some photographic data.

It was then time to test my applications.

For all my key applications, I had already visited the various software manufactures websites and confirmed that their software worked, but I wanted to know for myself. Just because it works does not mean some aspect of work flow has not changed that could be a show stopper for me.

I was pleased to find that everything worked as before. Some of the underlying tech is fantastic, with the way it speeds up the interface, reschedules processor tasks for more efficiency etc. What the user notices is a speeder machine, a more focused and polished interface, a better calendar and I love maps and iBooks on the desktop.

For Mac users and iOS users this has been a very busy few days. Lots and lots of app updates, a major OS update for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and the Mac. Major pieces of software have been made free for users with the latest OS’es or new Hardware.

If your setting up iCloud Keychain then be patient, Apple’s servers are pretty busy at the moment.

October 24, 2013

Creating a OS X Mavericks Install Disk

Back in October last year I blogged on how to create a OS X Moutain Lion Install disk, as the OS was download only. Tuesday saw the release of the latest Mac OS, OS X Mavericks; yes gone are the big cats that saw us through the previous decade, now it seems we have place names, starting with Apple’s own backyard and Mavericks, named after Mavericks Beach I believe.

If your still after my original blog post you can find it here:

https://brown-family.org.uk/creating-a-mountain-lion-install-disk/

Its posible worth a read as it covers in slightly more detail some of the techniques we are going to use below.

Terminal Screen Shot

Creating an install disk is basically the same as before but with a minor exception. The install dmg cannot be just restored theres a few extra steps involved, and this means we need a little prep at the start.

First job is to make some of the hidden system files you are going to need visible, so step one is to get are hands dirty and drop to the command line, not something most Mac users are used to, but with OS X being UNIX its incredibly powerful.

Step 1

Launch Terminal; You will find this under Applications/Utilities, or if your lazy like me hold down the Command Key and hit the space bar, then type terminal and press return.

At the terminal command prompt type:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles Yes

Then press Return.

Then type:

killall Finder

And press return again. This will cause finder to restart but with the show all files settings as defaults.

Step 2

You know need the OS X installer which can be downloaded from the Mac App Store free of charge; nice one Apple!

Step 3

Once Downloaded you will be presented with the OS X install screen, ignore this for now and go and look in the Application folder. Here you will find the installer. Now that it is downloaded copy the install to a couple of old harddisks to keep it safe, if you have an so download speed like me then you will not be wanted to download it again. Ctrl-Click and select ‘Show Package Contents’. Browse to Contents/SharedSupport, find the InstallESD.dmg file and double click it to mount it.

Step 4

In the mounted dmg find the BaseSystem.dmg file this file is hidden and cannot be found unless you followed the first step. Now Launch Disk Utility and drag your destination disk to the destination field and the BaseSystem.dmg file to the Source field.

Restore image Click Restore.

After a minute or so depending on the speed of the disk you are restoring to; you will now have a disk called OS X Base System. You now need to browse into System/Installation. Here you will find an alias for Packages. This needs deleting.

Step 5

Find the full Packages folder from the root of the mounted InstallESD volume and copy it to the where you deleted the alias from.

You should now have a bootable OS X Install drive.

Step 6

Lastly you need to set your finder defaults back to normal.

At the terminal command prompt type:

defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles No

Then press Return.

Then type:

killall Finder

If like me you want to give the new OS a good test but not yet install on your live install disk then you can use tools like SuperDuper clone you install disk to an external disk, boot with your new install disk and install to the other external disk, then boot from it and test everything. Only once you are happy you can upgrade your main disk, but remember to have a time machine backup or a clone of it just in case.

October 22, 2013December 10, 2013

A big day for Apple

Apple had a press conference today and as well as the expected iPad announcements there were a few extra announcements.

Of most interest to me was the announcement of the latest version of Mac OS X. I’ll have to check with Adobe and a few other software manufactures of software to see if everything is compatible and I may install on a separate hard disk first to test before upgrading my main system.

The big thing from Apple was that all the software updates are free, a great move.

Not announced but also available today is another iOS update. 7.03 was which as well as a bug fix also includes the new iCloud KeyChain.

Updating my iPhone now.

October 14, 2013October 13, 2013

Reliance on the Internet

Well the move is complete, we still have lots of work to do, including the basics like plumbing in the washing machine, but things are slowly coming together. We have had very little internet access for the last few days, even now its still slow and flakey but its slowly getting better.

Its really surprised me how much we have missed the internet access. Just about everything now a days is easier to do online. Even little plumbing and joinery jobs we have been doing, I would usually just check on line and watch a few YouTube videos just to make sure I knew what I was doing.

We really do live on line lives today.

October 1, 2013September 30, 2013

Compositing and Backgrounds

I always like where possible to get things right in camera. The above shot was taken outside in the garden, the sun was a light source but I also used a Elinchrom flash head and large softbox on a C Stand, the flash was actually the main source and the daylight as fill, but often its just not possible to do this kind of thing as the location is not suitable.

It is in situations like this where compositing can be the answer. You take a photo outside to use as a background and take the main photo in the studio. You then combine the two using photoshop.

Below is a quick fantasy composite that is not intending to be realistic to show what I mean.

The key to making a realistic composite is making the lighting match and shooting with the intention of making a composite.

The above shot would make a likely composite. The plain background was due to a seamless infinity curve in the studio, would make it easy to select just the model and place it on a background.

For the backgrounds I have never had a lot of success but then I read some tips on Scott Kellby’s blog about shooting for backgrounds.

Check it out and have a go, I know I will.

http://scottkelby.com/2013/how-to-realistic-shallow-depth-of-field-backgrounds-for-compositing/

September 19, 2013September 20, 2013

iOS7 24 hours later

Well its now just over 24 hours since I updated to Apple’s latest and greatest iOS. If you read the internet forums its either the greatest thing ever or the biggest disaster ever and Apple will go bust in days.

So far I like it, lots of improvements to functionality. I do find it slightly less intuitive but one quickly finds ones way around. The biggest issue is for me is the icons look a little odd and a bit like cartoon icons. They may work better with the more colourful iPhone 5c. Also so I am not sure I like the way folders take on the colours from the background it can look a little odd sometimes.

Overall I like it, and its a much improved OS. In case you are wondering the photo above that I am currently using on my lock screen was taken last year in the studio. A strongly lit background with no light on the model. I had her repeatedly jump up in the air while I photographed her. It was a fun shoot, quite a laugh for both of us but very tiring. The pink gradient was added later in photoshop.

September 16, 2013September 14, 2013

iPhone 5S, 5C and iOS 7

Well its going to be a busy week for Apple. We have the release of the new hardware this week, basically tweaks and improvements to my current iPhone 5.

I am more interested in iOS 7, there are some significant user interface improvements that I am looking forward to, and I will be one of the first to upgrade all of the family Brown Apple devices to it on Wednesday when its released a couple of days before the new phone.

If your after more details about the new Phones and iOS 7 check out Apple’s website and also MacRumours, as well as some interest thoughts from Chris on his Blog; (i)Phone Update Part 1 & (i)Phone Update Part 2.