Well that’s better

So after getting just 125 miles recently, I  did a charge to 100% and the predicted range was a much better 168 miles.

This was guessing down to warmer temperatures and recently using the heating less.

How low can you go?

After what I thought was a low predicted range at a 100% of 139 miles, I found myself with a predicted range of just 125 miles when I recently charged to 100%.

Certainly a combination of low temperatures, heating, pre-heating the driver area, motorway driving, and demisting the windscreen.

Though this time last year it was just 122 miles.

Disappointed but not surprised

Was disappointed but not surprised that the predicted range for the Funky Cat on a 100% charge was just 139 miles.

It has been cold and I have been driving with the heating on.

Well that was frustrating

One of the reasons I went out and bought the Canon R100 was so that I could have a higher resolution camera than my aging EOS 400D. The 400D did 3888 x 2929 10MB images, whilst the Canon R100 did 6000 x 4000 24MB images.

I would import my photographs from the 400D onto the Mac into Photos using an USB cable. It would import the full size images.

One of there features of the R100 is to use WiFi to connect the camera. There was a Mac app, but I decided to use the app for the iPhone. The app would import the images from the camera and then save them to Photos on the iPhone, which then would upload them to iCloud so I could access them on the Mac if I needed to. I thought I had cracked that workflow.

By chance, I worked out that my camera was exporting images to the iPhone at a reduced resolution, way reduced. It was importing them at 1620 x 1080 rather than 6000 x 4000. Great for Instagram or Facebook, but not so good for full size editing. 

On a recent visit to Glastonbury Tor I hadn’t deleted the images from the SD card so could re-import them at the correct resolution. You can compare the two images here.

This is the reduced image.

This is the original image.

You can click the images to see them full size.

In addition here is a zoomed in comparison of the two images, you can see the difference in resolution between the two images.

Screenshot

I did not realise that this was happening, so unfortunately, some of my first full resolution photographs from the R100 were lost. I had assumed they were transferring at full resolution, and I deleted them from the SD card on the camera.

I have changed the settings on the camera and I am now thinking about keeping the images on the SD card as a backup.

It was frustrating, so much so, that I am now thinking about going out again and retaking the photographs I had taken with the R100.

Tech Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2024

Wordpress
Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay

Having posted that I was unable to post a top ten from 2024 looking at the dashboard I realised I could see the stats for the blog posts from 2024.

In 2024 I wrote 61 blog posts, down slightly from 2023 when I published 69 blog posts. In 2022 I wrote 30 posts. In 2021 I published 32 posts on the blog, and in 2020 I wrote 43 blog posts..

M4 Mac mini

Mac mini

I recently replaced my old iMac with a new M4 Mac mini. I went for the base model.

      • 10-Core CPU
      • 10-Core GPU
      • 16GB Unified Memory
      • 256GB SSD Storage

I have been meaning to replace the iMac for a while now, as it is old, and is no longer supported by Apple. I have replaced the fusion drive twice on the iMac, and I think that means it probably would go again at some point in the future.

So far, I have been really impressed. The new Mac mini is really zippy and certainly is fast enough for virtually everything I want to do with a Mac. 

The only real negative is the size of the hard drive. At 256GB it’s rather small. However the 2TB storage option would have cost an additional £800. Decided it would be easier to buy an external 4TB storage for £100 or thereabouts.

I got a 4K monitor to run it with, as well as a cheap Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Going back to the office or not?

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Well first week back at work after the two week break for festivities. I nearly wrote first week back in the office, but with hybrid working, I suspect for some, this first day still means working from home. Also in various parts of the country the snow and flooding would make commuting challenging Personally I headed to our Bristol office. We still have a choice of where we can work with hybrid contracts, but I read yesterday about how many companies are now forcing or requiring staff to come into the office.

This was covered in a Guardian article, ‘It didn’t come as a surprise’: UK workers on being forced back into the office.

Some welcome cuts to hybrid working but others feel less productive and are considering change of job or country.

Many employers are mandating the return to the office, in this other piece on the Guardian website.

The post-festive return to work in the dark days of January is never easy, but this new year is shaping up to be tougher than usual for UK workers. Not only must they brave days of severe cold and ice, but many face the end of post-pandemic hybrid working.

The article continues…

Such orders are provoking fresh battles between employees and their bosses, who believe staff need to be brought together to foster collaboration, creativity and a sense of belonging.

The challenge I find with that, is with a geographically distributed team, even when you are in the office you are spending a lot of time on online calls and meetings. The value in being physically in the office is lost. 

Of course if everyone is in the same office, then I can see the value of being together. Though if one person isn’t, then it can be exclusionary. Additionally for some people the physical office isn’t necessarily the best place for them to work effectively. There is an assumption often made that people all work in the same pattern and prefer the same kind of environments. This is, to me, obviously not true, but not everyone sees it that way.

I do find that a social office is a nice place to be, but from a productivity perspective, less so, unless we have decided as a team to do something together. Also with the increase in the number of online meetings, offices don’t necessarily have the spaces to accommodate these. I know if I have a series of online meetings, I will more than likely work from home, as the office isn’t the best or most conducive space for online calls and meetings.

I personally see no value in being together physically in-person if the event is purely a transmission of information. That could be done online, actually probably more effective (for me) as a document rather than a presentation.

Where I see real value in being together in-person is for planning, problem solving, analysis, and the suchlike. You can do these kinds of things online, but for some (including me) I find these work better when in-person.

Should people be back in the office? Well a lot depends on what their job and role is. I do not see the point of forcing people to come to the office to spend the day at a desk in online meetings. There is value in people meeting in-person for some activities as well, so encourage that, but just  to work, then why?

The other thing, forcing people into the office, will have an impact on morale, as people will resent the time and money spent on commuting into the office as well. This means they will resent their employer, which will result in reduced productivity and other issues.

I have always thought that if you want people to come to the office, you should use more carrot than stick. Encourage people to come to the office. That could be late starts to allow for off-peak rail travel, or less congested roads. Coffee and food is also a good motivator, provide lunch on the less busy days.  That is something you see a lot, even when office working isn’t forced, is how empty the offices are on a Monday and a Friday. If no one goes into the office on these days, then no one will go into the office on these days, as the social interactions and collaboration won’t be happening as there isn’t anyone to socialise or collaborate with.

I don’t know what the answer is, but working with your staff is critical, and review what is happening as well. For me flexibility is key, working from home, working in the office, there are for me many factors, as I am sure there is for others. 

Charging to 100% in the cold

I charged the Funky Cat to 100% a couple of times a week or so ago, and the results were very similar at 167 and 168. Considering it is cold, and I have been using the heater (and pre-heating) in the cold weather, these predicted ranges are better than I would have expected.

However on the past two charges to 100% the weather has been much colder and this has impacted on the predicted range.

These were lower at 157 and 155.

Both times I charged using a standard 13amp three pin socket.

No top ten for 2024

Usually at this time I would publish a blog post of the top ten posts of the previous twelve months. However WordPress have stopped doing free stats for blogs that show adverts. So I don’t have detailed stats about the top posts.

Having said that this year I wrote 61 blog posts, down slightly from 2023 when I published 69 blog posts. In 2022 I wrote 30 posts. In 2021 I published 32 posts on the blog, and in 2020 I wrote 43 blog posts..

Geo-location on the R100

In a previous post about my new Canon R100 I wrote.

One feature of the iPhone I have liked for when taking photographs is the geo-location data which is added to the images. The Canon EOS R100 doesn’t have built in GPS, but in theory you can use the Canon Connect app on the iPhone to add GPS data to the photographs you have taken with the R100. When I recently took the camera to Portishead I forgot to do this.

On a recent walk to Sand Bay I remembered to start the Canon app on the iPhone and I took a range of photographs and the GPS data (from the phone) was embedded into the images.