4 days ago
Tis the upgrade season
So many upgrade / release announcements lately.
- Nikon D800/D800E
- Nikon D4
- Canon 5D Mark III
- Wacom Intuos 5
- Projected: Lightroom 4
- Projected: Apple iPad
- Alien Skin Exposure 4
- Snapseed for Desktop
- Adobe Photoshop Touch
- Projected: Adobe Photoshop CS6
- Canon Speedlight 600EX-RT
Seriously, I’m not made of money. I certainly will upgrade to Lightroom 4, lust after a new Wacom tablet and most likely get the new iPad. Everything else is going to have to wait until I can find a billionaire who wants to sleep with my wife *just kidding sweetie*.
Lightroom 4 rumored release date
I have been using Lightroom 4 for the last few weeks. Getting ready to demo some of the awesome features at the Old Car City workshop next week. Apparently Amazon accidentally put up a pre order page for Lightroom 4 with a release date of March 6th.
Also Apple has been sending out invites to an iPad release announcement on March 7th. It maybe the iPad 3 or just an upgraded iPad 2s (like the iPhone). I’ll be standing by, that’s for sure.
Crashes and Backups and Recovery! Oh My!
Recently I lost my hard drive with everything on it. It had my entire iTunes library, eBooks and my whole photographs library. I was more than a little concerned. I do multiple backups using Carbonite and Mozy for offsite storage and a local backup. But since I upgraded to Lion, I haven’t checked them in a while. Mozy hadn’t backed up since September, even though it said it had and Carbonite hadn’t finished up it’s initial backup since I started using it. Luckily for me, either out of foresight or pure luck, I backed up all my photos only 4 days earlier. I was able to recover some of the files all the dying hard drive, so I restored about 85% of what I originally had.
Lesson learned. I purchased another Drobo (this makes 3) to do nothing but backup files. At least if one of those drives crashes it can be rebuilt. I was able to recover some files from the offsite backup, but have learned those are a method of last resort. The restore is pitifully slow and cumbersome. I also put something on my calendar to check the backups at least once a month.
PlugBug Charger
The PlugBug is a pretty cool charger design. I have my MacBook Pro which I take with me when I travel. This little contraption will allow you to plug your laptop charger into it. You have a USB port to charge your iPad / iPhone / etc and still be able to charge your laptop. Saves having a second outlet in use when in the hotel or classroom. I can see a use, but I’m not sure I can justify the expense.
Post Morteum OS X Lion & Halloween
The upgrade was successful. I say that tentatively. I did have a few issues with TextEdit not working after the upgrade. Apparently Dropbox can affect the upgrade and toss things out of whack. Since I am familiar with Unix, I was able to figure it out. The couple annoyances are:
- iCloud accounts: In order to keep my iTunes in sync I uused my iTunes account for iCloud. This means I can’t use my mobile me account, which has more storage space, but is going away. All my calendars went away because of this and I had to do some creative work arounds. Annoyance, but not a show stopper.
- My mouse wheel works backwards now. When I use the wheel rather than it going in the direction I am used to, it goes the other way. I use the Wacom Intuos 4 as my device of choice. I can use a pen or a mouse with it. It’s great for editing and does very well as a mouse.
I am a sucker for Halloween. I love decorating and throwing a party. This year I haven’t decorated and we are going out to a campground for a Halloween party. Maybe I’m getting old or it’s not finding the same appeal. I kind of like having no clean up afterwards. This is a photo from our last Halloween party at my house. I hand made all the tombstones and most of the other stuff I have.
OS X Lion and IOS 5
It’s no secret that I love my Mac. Apple has done a great job in marketing and keeping things simple. Even as a computer geek, I love the fact it’s simple on the outside with the underpinnings of Unix on the inside. I understand Unix and can get a lot out of my Mac when I want to. I switched to all Apple products a few years ago. I own an iPhone, iPad, 4 iPods (various makes and models), 3 Apple TVs, Mac Book Pro and a Mac Pro.
I upgraded my Mac Book Pro (a 2005 model) with a solid state drive to give it some new life until I can afford to buy another one. It has been an amazing transformation. As soon as I get a few more dollars in the bank (not allotted to other places) I’m going to upgrade my Mac Pro with one as well. Fantastic speed boost (10 second boot time from almost 2 minutes), cooler and longer battery life.
I upgraded my laptop with Lion and all was successful. Now it’s time to upgrade the Mac Pro. It’s my workhorse and I hope all goes smooth. I have 2 Drobo’s fully populated with thousands of movies (most thanks to my sister) and gigs of photos.
I also upgraded my iPad to IOS 5 recently and that didn’t go so well. I lost everything on the iPad and had to start from scratch. What a PITA! My suggestion is to make a back up and remove all videos and audio files before you upgrade. I am about to upgrade my jailbroken iPhone as well.
The combination of Lion and IOS 5 will give me access to iCloud. This service will allow me to sync things much more seamlessly as well as store some of my music out on the net. I have both a mobile me and iTunes account which are different. They don’t play nicely. It would have been nice if Apple could have integrated separate accounts together into one.
Wish me luck!