Passing clouds of inconsequential observations
Himself After downloading the developers version of Windows 8 I installed it as a virtual machine with Virtual Box.
After a false start trying the Other Windows option:
I tried the 64Bit Windows 7 option and off it went:
It was mostly a case of clicking through the standard settings apart from the Advanced installation option for a completely fresh install:
We went for a walk in the Autumn sunshine while it whirled away and returned ready to go:
The iPad has created a whole range of new ways for music making from recreating traditional instruments:
to rethinking the way instruments work:
http://youtu.be/cad2iWNop9A
and Smule have a range of apps that cover both ends of the spectrum. The latest is the MadPad with which you record sound & video samples of any objects you happen upon. These are then laid out in a grid for you to drum on to create your masterpiece.
One of the default sets is a range of bicycle sounds. So following in the footsteps of a young [wikipop]Frank Zappa[/wikipop] on a 1963 edition of the [wikipop]Steve Allen Show[/wikipop]
and our very own Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra:
I banged away…
On Saturday the [wikipop]MacBook[/wikipop] was getting a bit clunky and on investigation the hard disc was found to be damaged and needed wiping/formatting. Just what those girls do to the poor thing, having previously destroyed the old [wikipop search=”iBook G4″]iBook[/wikipop]’s disc, remains a mystery.
After backing up to the [wikipop search=”Time Machine (Mac OS)”]Time Machine[/wikipop], downloading the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant and installing that on an old USB hard disc we were ready to boot from the external disc and wipe the internal disc. The wiping did not affect the recovery partition that [wikipop search=”Mac OS X Lion”]Lion[/wikipop] creates and so that was used for the reinstallation.
The process seemed to go without a hitch until the point when the computer should have restarted which it failed to do:
It repeatedly downloaded the installer but then hung showing either 5+ Hours remaining or Around 0 seconds to go. The download was restarted half a dozen times each with the same inconclusive result. Fortunately [wikipop]Tim Minchin[/wikipop] was hosting the Comedy Prom on TV and his Lullaby helped to relieve the frustrations:
Having shut down the MacBook for the night I tried it one more time on Sunday morning. It seemed to stall yet again but while I perused the support forums for any advice there was a reassuring [wikipop]startup chime[/wikipop] and it leapt into life and started the installation process. Once installed Martine sat in bed retrieving the backed up stuff which, to her alarm, reinstalled thousands of old emails.
But in the end, albeit with a little frustration, the whole disc-less wire-less installation did not fail us.
The above header image is currently being slid about with the Header Image Slider plug-in. This is a set and go option with the Twenty Eleven theme so no need to hack around in the header.php file. It is currently running on the random option which will show the various slides and fades available.
I just noticed that we have reached 9000 spam comments.
Thanks to the wonderful Akismet they are all caught and dealt with appropriately…apart from those that I cut out and keep to preserve their wonderfulness.
I captured the image with Skitch which has just been acquired by Evernote who have made it available for free.
Setting the [wikipop]FTP[/wikipop] upload to your own domain (as opposed to the built in Skitch offering) took a couple of attempts.
The Directory setting requires yourDomain/directory and the Base URL requires the full URL to find the images. The above example assumes you have created a directory called images to store them in. Skitch uploads the image then reads the full URL for you to copy to the clipboard….http://www.yourDomain.com/images/someImage.jpg