Drove to work today in Funky and at work set the car to charge. This was not as simple and as easy as I thought it was going to be. I think this was partly as it wasn’t as simple as plugging in the cables and the car charging. However I got there in the end. I didn’t though manage to get to a 100% charge.
It has arrived
After much thought my new car has arrived. It is a GWM ORA Funky Cat First Edition.
I had been thinking about making the move to electric for some time. In the end I went with a GWM Ora Funky Cat. I will be writing about my experiences with it and publishing them on the blog.
This is a fully electric car and I chose the red and black model.
I’ve never driven an electric car before. The Ora Funky Cat is an electric car, so is also an automatic. Also I’ve only driven an automatic once before, and that was a hire car in Scotland back in March 2006 and that was a (huge) Volkswagen Passat estate. The Funky Cat also has an electric parking brake, so no handbrake.
It was with some trepidation that I sat in the car and drove off…
My Photo Stream is Dead
My Photo Stream stopped working on the 26th June. Yesterday I got an email from Apple which said it had been shut down.
This is a quick notice that My Photo Stream has now been officially shut down.
I really liked My Photo Stream, but time moves on. I have moved over to iCloud Photos instead.
Amazon Fresh to close
Read this article on BBC News: First Amazon Fresh till-less grocery store in UK closes.
Amazon’s first till-less store in the UK, which opened in west London just over two years ago, has been closed. The Amazon Fresh shop opened in Ealing Broadway in March 2021 and was the online giant’s first “just walk out” grocery store outside of the US. It permanently shut on Sunday along with two other Amazon Fresh stores, in Wandsworth and East Sheen.
I used it once, wasn’t that impressed. From a technological perspective, yes it was very clever and worked a treat. The system did exactly what is said it would do.
The main reasons I wasn’t impressed was that, partly I felt I couldn’t pick anything up to check labels, just in case the system didn’t “work”. The main reason was the variety and choice on offer. They did have a good range of stuff, but it wasn’t really stuff that I wanted to buy.
The whole shop has now been boarded up.
“Horrifying” AI Video
Saw this video on the BBC News website.
They watched Given Again, so I looked that up, as I thought that was an interesting use of AI.
Given Again from Jake Oleson on Vimeo.
I have downloaded the Luma AI app and am trying it out. To be honest with not much success and getting any results like those in Given Again. Will need to do some reading and more experiments.
Unable to Upload, resolved!
After syncing my Photos library to iCloud Photos I was left with 86 photographs which Photos was unable to upload.
It wasn’t initially clear why they were unable to be uploaded.
The solution I found on the web was to export the original files and then delete them from Photos and then import them into Photos.
When I tried that I got a 47,001 unknown error, which wasn’t really very helpful.
However after doing some more searching, the issue appeared to be that the original files were missing from the library and all that remained was the low resolution thumbnail.
As I had already made a back up of my photographs to Amazon Photos, I was able to find the originals on that service, download them, import them to Photos and then upload to iCloud Photos.
All fine now.
Makes you realise the importance of having your photographs in more than one place.
I have a minimum of two backups, one on an external drive and one in the cloud.
iCloud Photos Folders
It took a while to sync my iMac Photos library to iCloud. Initially I was concerned that the folders on my iMac weren’t syncing to iCloud, but after the iMac had finished uploading all the photographs in the library, the folders were then created on iCloud. Though my smart albums weren’t synced.
While the iMac was uploading photographs, it wasn’t initially downloading the photographs I had been taking with my iPhone, which was also using iCloud Photos. However, as with the folders, once it had finished uploading, iCloud Photos downloaded the new photographs to the iMac.
Overall I am pleased with moving to iCloud Photos, it does what I want.
iCloud Photos issues
I switched on iCloud Photos after using My Photo Stream for years and it then turned off by Apple.
I have noticed one problem with iCloud Photos and various iOS apps including Instagram and Snapseed.
The issue arises when you access the PhotoStream, there is a noticeable delay in the images appearing in the app.
With Instagram, you have to wait a while and even tap the screen before the images appear. Then the camera feed appears.
It is a similar story with Snapseed.
It also can take a while to swipe through your images with Snapseed.
It is easier to tap Open from device and then browse for the photo you need then.
I don’t know if there is a solution, at the moment it is more annoying than anything else. Initially I thought the Instagram app was broken, rather than thinking it was an issue with iCloud Photos.
Moving to iCloud Photos
I really liked My Photo Stream. It made my blogging and writing workflow so much easier. I would take a photo on my phone and then using My Photo Stream I would be able to use the photo on my iPad or my Mac. So I was quite disappointed that Apple have closed it down.
According to Apple the solution is to move to iCloud Photos.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that as I knew I would need to upgrade my iCloud+ subscription to the 2TB tier.
So for a week or two I tried doing stuff without My Photo Stream and without using iCloud Photos.
After a while it was apparent that this wasn’t working. So at the beginning of July I upgraded my iCloud+ subscription and on my home iMac I turned on iCloud Photos.
I knew it would take some time to sync my photo library to iCloud as I have over 70,000 photographs in the library.
I did initially have some teething issues, so had to restart the iMac and Photos a few times, but so far it appears to be working as needed.
I also turned iCloud Photos on, on my iPhone to check it was working.
The photographs I take on my iPhone are now available in iCloud Photos on my other devices.
I do quite like the ability to access all my photographs on my iPhone, whereas with My Photo Stream it was only the last 1000 photos.
Twitter WordPress Widget stopped working
With all the changes and problems over on the Twitter. One impact has been that the Twitter WordPress Widget has stopped working.
Instead of the stream of tweets, you get the impression from the error message that I don’t use twitter.
Though I don’t use the widget on this site, I do use it on other sites.
Thinking now, do I remove the widget, leave it, or what.
I guess what is key, am I still using the Twitter?