Category: news

Posted on

Hmmm, too hot?

Having done some further research on my kernel panicing iMac I am wondering if it is getting too hot?

I had the hard disk replaced recently under Applecare and there are a few posts on the Apple Discussions Forums that show a few people are having a similar problem to me. Alas there is no simple or easy solution, which is frustrating.

I am now trying to work out what is causing the iMac to work too hard so it gets too hot and it appears that Flash may be part of the problem.

I am not sure what to do next, I think I might see if I can improve the airflow around the iMac, and also if there is a way to force the on board fans to start running at a lower temperature, ie before it gets too hot and then crashes.

Longer term I might replace the hard drive, 1TB is too small anyhow, so I would put in a bigger disk, tempted to put in a small SSD and then replace the DVD-R drive with a traditional hard drive. Might lengthen the life of the iMac for another couple of years. It is an i7 with 8GB of RAM so it is still very powerful.

Posted on

Blue Screen of Death on a Mac

iMac

I am getting very annoyed with my iMac at the moment. It is on a too regular basis having a kernel panic and freezing.

The symptoms are that though I can still move the mouse cursor, everything else is frozen, can’t click, right click or use the keyboard.

Generally it happens without me doing anything, though it did happen this morning for the first time with me in front of the computer. I was just scrolling through Safari.

The only solution at the moment is to power down and reboot. The Lion OS does then restore all my applications, but sometimes it corrupts the iPhoto library and this has to be rebuilt.

I actually thought it might be a problem with iPhoto or iTunes, but the most recent episode happened when those two applications weren’t running.

I have done a PRAM reset, and that doesn’t appear to have resolved the issue.

It has only been happening since I upgraded to Lion, but it is happening much more now, five times in the last three days, whereas before it was about once a week.

I am not sure if this is a hardware issue or a software issue. Doesn’t help (typically) that the iMac is now just over three years old and is out of AppleCare.

I am not sure where to go next. I am thinking about upgrading to Mountain Lion to see if that makes a difference, or go back to Snow Leopard.

By the way why is the title of the blog “Blue Screen of Death on a Mac” well when I once tried to sleep the Mac and then moved the mouse to wake it, the result was a blue screen!

Blue Screen on an iMac

Posted on

Kindle Fire for just £99

Though to be honest I have no idea what Black Friday is all about, Amazon have a great deal today on the Kindle Fire.

Kindle Fire for just £99

This 8GB tablet with a 7’ colour screen is just £99. If you don’t have a tablet and are interested in having a device to read books, surf the web, do e-mail and watch video then this device is a bit of a no brainer!

I do have the Google Nexus Seven which in many ways is a much better tablet, but it is nearly twice the price at £159. If I didn’t have that and wanted a 7” tablet then I would be getting the Kindle Fire.

Find out more on Amazon.

Posted on

No magic with BBC iPlayer

No magic with BBC iPlayer

I know many people out there have no sympathy for me now that I have lost access to fibre (through FTTC) and have reverted back to a relatively much slower ADSL connection when I moved house. I am aware that much of the UK population only have similar broadband speeds.

However I do think it is interesting to note the problems I am having, it has certainly made me much more aware of the advantages of FTTC over ADSL and the need to speed up all of the UK (not just my neck of the woods).

The other evening I sat down to watch Merlin on BBC iPlayer and it was stuttering like crazy… My Sony TV has internet capability and BBC iPlayer is accessible from the user interface without needing to use a laptop or iPad. I was slightly surprised as I had recently moved a few things around and connected the TV direct to my router. Previously I had used wifi to connect the TV to the internet and this had proved unreliable; when I had FTTC, it had worked fine over wifi. When I did a direct wired connection this appeared at the time to resolve those buffering issues.

I tried again, and once more it didn’t work…

I thought about it, checked upstairs and found that my son was streaming BBC iPlayer on his computer at the same time.

It was apparent that though my ADSL connection was fast enough for BBC iPlayer, it couldn’t cope with two streams at the same time. When I had the FTTC connection, it coped fine with higher quality BBC iPlayer streams, and streaming two programmes (and doing other stuff on the web as well) was all fine and dandy.

So we waited until my son’s programme had finished and then we watched Merlin.

What this incident made me realise was that the real advantage of FTTC wasn’t so much the speed of the connection, but the width. I find on ADSL that I can cope with waiting for things to download, but what I really miss about FTTC is the ability to use the full capacity of the fibre “tube” to do lots of different things all at once. Now with ADSL I need to schedule streaming and downloads to ensure that, not only do they work, but also to not inconvenience others in the house.

So is FTTC anywhere on the horizon for me? Not that I can see, which is a real pity.

Posted on

1000th Instagram

A week or so ago I posted my 1000th image to Instagram and to be honest it’s not one of my favourites or one of my best…

1000th Instagram

It’s a cooker!

It is part of my Instagram project for 2012, #366photos, in which I take a photograph every day during 2012 and post it to Instagram. You can see all the images I have taken for the project on my Flickr account.

A nice feature of Instagram is the functionality to also post to Flickr. You can also post to other social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. I do like Instagram and I see it less as a photographic app and much more a social app.

Posted on

Podcast Choice #08 – In Beta

I have been asked a fair few times about the different podcasts I listen to. I not only have a lengthy commute to work, but also travel a fair bit for work, so it’s vital to me to have something to listen to. This series will discuss and review the different podcasts I listen to or have listened to. In a previous blog post I spoke about the why and how I listen to podcasts, now we look at the actual podcasts I listen to.

Podcast Choice #08 - In Beta


This week’s podcast is In Beta.

In Beta is a talk show about the ever-changing state of web-based and open source software. We examine how “ship first, fix later” affects our tools and culture, with an emphasis on mobile, social, and web apps. Hosted by Gina Trapani & Kevin Purdy.

In another podcast choice I recommended This Week in Google, one of the regular hosts of that show, Gina Trapani along with Kevin Purdy have started their own podcast, In Beta.

If you enjoy This Week in Google then I think you will also enjoy In Beta, which though is different in terms of style and content, is familiar and comfortable.

The structure is quite simple, Gina and Kevin chat and discuss a variety of issues, some topical, some not. Their conversation is somewhat technical and developer focussed, rather than looking at the social implications of the beta culture. Not that they don’t venture into that area, but this is very much a geeky podcast and they wear the geek label on their sleeves. However this is not a heavy technical geeky podcast talking about code. No much more talking about software development and how changes by companies such as Apple and Google have an impact. Kevin and Gina in addition do discuss social tools such as Instagram and Twitter, but the focus is very much on the developer perspective and how changes to the APIs impact on third party developers.

I am not a developer and really know very little about coding and programming, however I have found this an interesting insight into the minds of programmers and developing software. This is a relatively new podcast, at the time of writing they are at episode ten, but the content so far has been good and I think it has settled into a enjoyable conversation about software, development and open source. If you are interested in coding from a developer’s perspective and how they approach software development in a conversational format, then do have a look at In Beta.

Subscribe to In Beta in the iTunes Store.

Posted on

Not quite one of those days, but nearly…

iMac

Got slightly annoyed with my iMac the other day. Came home from a day out, switched the iMac on and it just stuck there on the grey startup screen with the grey apple and the grey swirly thingymajig!

I was reminded of my iMac problem in May when attempting to upgrade to Lion, my hard drive failed…

I tried to start in safe mode… and that didn’t work.

I did manage to get into recover mode and verify and repair disk permissions.

I did try a few other things and none of them worked… it wasn’t helping that I couldn’t access apple.com through my broadband connection. No idea why that wasn’t working.

The only real option left, according to what I was reading was to reinstall Lion. In theory I could do that with Internet Recovery, however with the ADSL connection I am now on, downloading 4GB of Lion install file reliably wasn’t really an option. I do have the Lion install on a DVD, but even that didn’t work…

In the end I decided that, as I am still covered by Applecare, that I would take it the Genius Bar at my local Apple store; so I made an appointment for the following morning. I then put the iMac into Firewire Target Disk Mode and backed up my important files. Not too bad in some respects as I had done a full backup back in May, and incremental since then, so not too many files to sort out. This time though I did do a backup of the Home Library folder. I forgot to do that last time and lost a few important files as a result as the data was stored there rather than the Documents folder!

The following morning, I needed to drop my car off for a MOT, so after checking the files had backed up, I (for some reason) decided to restart the Mac and leaving the grey swirly thingymajig to swirl I drove off to the garage. Having dropped the car off, grabbed some breakfast and got a lift home, I decided I had better pack the iMac before heading off to the Apple store. I was therefore quite surprised to see that it had booted properly and I could see my desktop. I decided to check that it was working as it should and restarted the system…. it started correctly!

Hmmm, not sure exactly what the initial problem was then. I suspect that there was something that wasn’t working correctly from a software perspective and leaving the Mac to reboot for an hour or so was what it needed to sort itself out. Still a little concerned though.

I cancelled the Genius Bar appointment and have since then put the iMac through its paces without any problems.

The car passed the MOT too…

Posted on

Nope, no fibre for me

I’ve had it confirmed to me by BT that the cabinet, my phone line is connected to, is not on the upgrade plan to FTTC. Nor are there any plans to upgrade it to FTTC in the near future. What I think this means is that BT either can’t or won’t upgrade the cabinet.

I don’t see them doing it anytime soon, so I will be stuck with a slow ADSL connection for the foreseeable and long term future.

There also doesn’t seem to be any real alternative either.

Ah well….