Author: jamesclay

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Trying to work out why it doesn’t work

I have an Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter. As well as using it for presentations, I also bought it so I could connect my iPhone to a TV so I can watch video from services such as Netflix, iPlayer, and Amazon Prime.

According to the description on the Apple website this is what it does.

Use the Lightning Digital AV Adapter with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod with Lightning connector. The Lightning Digital AV Adapter supports mirroring of what is displayed on your device screen — including apps, presentations, websites, slideshows, and more — to your HDMI-equipped TV, display, projector, or other compatible display in up to 1080p HD.

Well for that purpose it does what it says on the tin.

The page also says.

It also outputs video content — movies, TV shows, captured video — to your big screen in up to 1080p HD. Simply attach the Lightning Digital AV Adapter to the Lightning connector on your device and then to your TV or projector via an HDMI cable.

Well yes, that is what it says, my experience is that this experience is less consistent.

I recently connected my iPhone to a Philips TV in a hotel room and attempted to play a TV show from Amazon Prime. The result was a stuttering video which was unwatchable.

I remembered though that a few weeks back I had done something similar, but with a Sony TV and that had worked fine.

I did check online for a solution, others had experienced the same problem. The solution offered though was to use AirPlay. Great if you have that set up (which I do at home with an Apple TV). However I don’t have that setup when travelling to different hotels.

So the end result is, if it doesn’t work, I am watching video on the 6” screen on my iPhone rather than the 50” TV screen in the hotel room.

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How do I help to work towards creating more inclusive and equitable AI?

meeting
Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay

There are several ways you can help to work towards creating more inclusive and equitable AI:

      1. Educate yourself about AI and its potential impacts on society, including its limitations and biases.
      2. Advocate for diversity and inclusion in AI development and use, and support initiatives that aim to promote these values.
      3. Participate in AI development projects and ensure that the teams involved include diverse perspectives and expertise.
      4. Encourage ethical and responsible use of AI, and advocate for transparency in its deployment.
      5. Support efforts to address bias and discrimination in AI, including the development of unbiased and fair AI algorithms.
      6. Consider the social and ethical implications of AI when making decisions about its use, and work towards ensuring that it benefits everyone.

By taking these steps, you can contribute to creating a more equitable and just society where AI is used for the betterment of all people.

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Hiding the time

iPhone screenshot

Might be just me but I quite like how the iPhone hides the time on my Lock Screen using my photographs.

Here is the full screengrab.

iPhone screenshot

Though sometimes it is too good at hiding the time.

iPhone screenshot

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Digital Cameras are back baby…

Meerkat at Bristol Zoo.
Meerkat at Bristol Zoo taken with a Sony DCR-PC110E

According to a BBC report, digital cameras back in fashion after online revival.

Digital cameras from the early 2000s are becoming must-have gadgets for many young people because of a burgeoning trend online. And in the past 12 months, videos with the hashtag #digitalcamera have amassed more than 220 million views on TikTok.

…and to think I still consider this *new* technology! 

One of my favourite photographs, which was taken with a Sony Cybershot Digital Camera in 2004.

My first digital camera was HP PhotoSmart digital camera, this 0.3MP camera used proprietary memory cards, didn’t have a LCD on the back, went through batteries real fast and as for picture quality, well it left a lot to be desired, though outside shots weren’t too bad!

Houses of Parliament taken with the HP Photosmart

There is no way to view pictures on the camera, so you needed to upload them to a computer first.

Since then I used various digital cameras, including other HP PhotoSmart cameras. I then moved over to Sony Cybershot cameras, and I had about three of them.  I still have one that I use now and again, though I seem to have lost the card reader for Sony’s proprietary Memory Sticks which the cameras used.

I also had a Canon EOS 300D for a while and I did think it took some really good photographs.

Hand sculpture
Sculpture taken with a Canon EOS 300D

I bought a Canon EOS 400D back in 2007 and I still use on a regular basis today. 

It’s not very good in low light conditions, this is when I use my iPhone instead. Today I take nearly all my photographs using an iPhone.

coast
Spanish coastline panorama taken with an iPhone 13

I am thinking though of getting a replacement for my EOS 400D

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It’s alive I tell you, alive!

Apple Pencil
Image by Nana Dua from Pixabay

One of the (now not so) little people got a new 10th generation iPad for Christmas.

He asked if he could borrow my first generation Apple Pencil to do some drawing on his iPad. I realised that the pencil was paired via Bluetooth with the older iPad, so I unpaired them. We then tried to pair the now charged pencil with the new iPad and no joy. 

Reading on the web, it was apparent that the method of pairing was to plug the pencil into the iPad. Now this is where we had a challenge. The 1st generation Apple Pencil has a Lightning connector, the 10th generation iPad had an USB-C connector.

We got one of those and then set about charging and pairing.

It seems to be failing to hold a charge, despite being connected and fast charging from the 10th generation iPad. Reading the web it looks like that as I hadn’t used the pencil in a while, the battery had died.

Though I had given up hope, my son hadn’t. While I was away for work, he tried once more to charge the pencil, and low and behold, it charged up, it paired and is working well with the 10th generation iPad.

It’s alive I tell you, alive!

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Tech Stuff: Top Ten Blog Posts 2022

In 2022 I wrote and published 30 posts. In 2021 I published 32 posts on the blog, this was less than in 2020 when I wrote 43 blog posts. Compared to 2019 when I wrote just 18. 

Having some photographs when I visited The Harry Potter Studio Tour I decided to share some of the more suitable photos as backgrounds for Zoom and Teams and this was the tenth most popular post on the blog and dropping six places from last year was: Harry Potter Teams and Zoom Backgrounds.

Despite new posts and more traffic, the ninth most popular post, dropping seven lpaces, on the blog was my post about QR codes on chocolate bars, Cadbury QR Coding and Twirling which has been my number one post for a few years now. It was published in 2015 and was one of many posts I published on the use of QR codes back then.

Number eight, rising two places, was from June 2020 when I wrote about our gas metre: How are we using gas overnight with our new smart meter? Having had a smart metre installed, I started to notice that we seemed to be using a fair amount of gas and electricity overnight! This made no sense, as we didn’t have the heating on, no hot water was running and the only electrical device running was the fridge!

Dropping four places to seventh place was a post from May 2020, on how the amazing BBC Archive had posted a series of images of empty BBC Television sets across the years to be used as BBC Zoom and Teams Backgrounds. I used these quite frequently in my Zoom meetings.

TARDIS

Rising one place at number six was a post from December 2020 about Using iPad as separate whiteboard in Zoom, which was a follow on post from one I had written about using an iPad in Teams

Fifth place was Ten Amazing Winter and Snow Backgrounds for Teams and Zoom perfect for this time of year.

Well we had winter and now we have summer. Going up four places, the fourth most popular blog post on the blog was from April 2021 and was a series of images (virtual backgrounds) I wanted to use for online meetings over the summer: Ten Amazing Summer Zoom and Teams Backgrounds

Dropping two places to number three was Using iPad as separate whiteboard in Teams. This was a post in response to a tweet on the Twitter.

This inspired me to give it a go and see if I could get it to work and as a result documented the process.

.Going up four places, the second most popular blog post was from December 2020, Ten Great Christmas Zoom and Teams Backgrounds. Using the excellent image sites, UNsplash and Pixabay, I put together ten festive images that could be used as backgrounds for Zoom and Teams meetings.

Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash

In July 2021, there I was opening a PowerPoint file from my OneDrive folder when I got this error message: Sorry, PowerPoint can’t read ^0. I couldn’t open any of my files on OneDrive. Having looked around for a solution and to be honest it wasn’t too much help. I did try and reset OneDrive but this didn’t work. I was convinced that this was a permissions issue rather than file corruption or data loss. The file sizes looked fine for example. In the end though I did come up with a solution which I wrote up as a blog post to help others: Solving the Sorry PowerPoint can’t read ^0 error and this was the most popular blog post this year, rising four places from last year.

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I think the Apple Pencil might be “dead”

Having purchased an USB-C to Lighting adapter from the Apple Store in Bristol to connect a first generation Apple Pencil to a 10th generation iPad, I think there might be a problem with the pencil.

It seems to be failing to hold a charge, despite being connected and fast charging from the 10th generation iPad.

Reading the web it looks like that as I haven’t used the pencil in a while, the battery has died.

Currently I have it connected to an older iPad with a lightning port, hoping it will charge.

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Pairing 1st generation Apple Pencil

iPad with Apple Pencil
Image by Sakura Phutthalong from Pixabay

One of the (now not so) little people got a new 10th generation iPad for Christmas.

He asked if he could borrow my first generation Apple Pencil to do some drawing on his iPad. Now what I wasn’t sure what to do was how to pair this. It needed charging first and I tried using my iPhone which didn’t work. I then got out the old iPad, charged that for a while and then charged the pencil. I realised that the pencil was paired via Bluetooth with the older iPad, so I unpaired them.

We then tried to pair the now charged pencil with the new iPad and no joy. 

Reading on the web, it was apparent that the method of pairing was to plug the pencil into the iPad. Now this is where we had a challenge. The 1st generation Apple Pencil has a Lightning connector, the 10th generation iPad had an USB-C connector.

What I don’t have is a USB-C to Lighting adapter. I do have a USB-C to Lightning cable, which came with my phone, but this has a male Lightning connector and the pencil also has a male Lightning connector. I have mislaid the female-to-female Lightning adapter that came with the pencil a few years ago. 

So it is looking like I will need to go shopping to buy this USB-C to Lighting adapter.

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Enabling Touch ID and failing

We were setting up a new iPad that one of the (now not so) little people got for Christmas.

The 10th generation iPad has the Touch ID option for purchases.

As we went through the process of downloading apps, we had to keep entering the Apple ID password. We checked the option to not require the password for 15 minutes.

Require After 15 Minutes – If you’ve entered your password within the last 15 minutes, you won’t be asked to enter your password again.

This didn’t seem to work. So we enabled the Touch ID option for purchases.

Upon purchasing the first item, Touch ID worked fine, however for subsequent items, purchases required the password.

I knew that this was not the way it should work.

We would go back to settings and uncheck and then check the option for Touch ID.

However, despite purchasing a first item, Touch ID working fine, for subsequent items, purchases required the password again,

We seemed to be stuck in a loop without an idea of how to fix it. Google wasn’t much help, with sites only talking about checking and unchecking the option for Touch ID.

In the end we did a full factory reset of the iPad and started the set up process again.

This time we enabled Touch ID in settings first, which asked us for the Apple ID password, then in the App Store, purchasing via Touch ID worked fine and as it should.

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Places in London to work

Saw this Twitter thread. Really useful list of locations in London for working and reading, where you don’t need to buy endless cups of coffee.

But I like coffee…

coffee
Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Well not continuously…