Tag Archives: problems

Why Am I Struggling with the Butterflies?

The flowers in our back yard are very popular with butterflies and, with nice evening light in the garden, I was bound to drag out the macro lens.  However, when I tried getting some shots, the camera was having a really hard time focusing.  I often ended up using the manual focus ring to get something close when the camera kept focusing on the background.  I had struggled with a couple of other subjects previously and I was beginning to get really annoyed.  This was not a cheap lens, and the camera certainly isn’t cheap but why wouldn’t it focus on a butterfly?  I was using animal mode so thought it would cope.

I ended up trying different focus area modes.  Narrowing it down to the small focus spot and moving that around by hand rather than using the subject detection modes was my next effort.  I seemed to have some better luck, but it still was unreliable and was giving me a red box around the focus area.  Why wouldn’t it work.  I took a look in the menus to see if there was something in there which was going to be an issue but nothing there either.  I was beginning to be fearful I had a dud.  Then I noticed something.  The focus limit switch had moved from the full range to having a minimum focus distance of 0.5m.  That would certainly be an issue.  Put it back to where it should have been and suddenly the focus was working perfectly.  What a dope.  Not sure when I had knocked that switch but it might have been a while back.  Doh!

WordPress Editor Has Been Broken

You’ll often hear the phrase “If it isn’t broken, why fix it?”. In the case of WordPress, this definitely seems to be relevant. I have been using WordPress since the blog started and with good reason. It is a simple and straightforward editing tool that allows new posts to be created easily and quickly. I prepare the images in Lightroom and export them directly to the blog and text is generally – including this – created in Word and then pasted into the blog editor.

WordPress rolled out a new editor form with blocks for elements of each post. I don’t doubt that the intent of this was to create a more flexible editing environment and one that probably achieves things that previously required plugins. However, the result does not seem to have been very well tested or not be a wide enough group of users with differing requirements. Here are some of the shortcomings I have experienced.

The biggest issue is speed. The new format is unbelievably sluggish. When I am making edits, sections of the page seem to be really slow and when it decides to auto save the latest work, it seems to be stuck doing so forever. Then, there are some familiar sections now in new formats at the side. Collections is still there but clicking on it seems to require tons of time to think about stuff before it shows up – if it does!

Collections might be slow but tagging is now horrible. I create my tags in Word and paste them into the field but this no longer can be relied on to work. Sometimes they just vanish. Other times they disappear and then reappear. I can write some in to the box directly and then they vanish in front of my eyes. I often ignore this section and add the tags later in the Quick Edit view of the post lists.

Adding media is no longer so simple, While the new blocks for images and galleries have some nice elements they are slow to create. Now you have to select the source each time rather than defaulting to the media gallery. This extra click each time gets annoying fast. Also, in the old editor, if you scrolled down the media page to get to the shots you wanted, adding another image would bring you back to the same spot so you didn’t have to scroll again. That is gone. Media is added as a new block. There is no obvious way to add a block at the bottom of your post. Instead you add one and see where it shows up and then move it down as required. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the page there is a Sharing box which seems to do little other than get in the way.

Even editing the publishing date is a pain. They have moved that around a bit in keeping with the other changes but now, when you tab between fields, your cursor is at the end o the current data. Previously, tabbing would move you to the next box and select it. This facilitated rapid changes to the entries. Now you have to manually delete each entry and then type a new one. One more step for each entry which is not a big deal initially but soon becomes a nuisance.

The legacy editor is still available. However, it isn’t hard to imagine that, over time, this will become obsolete and won’t provide functionality until it is deleted so I am working with the new format to see what I can do to get to grips with it. However, it is testing my patience. It has significantly slowed down my process and made post creation more difficult than it used to be. I have got the hang of bits of it but getting used to something does not make it useful. Pull your finger out WordPress and sort this out. There are so many users of the system, it is important that it works or they will soon migrate to another platform.

Lightroom Furor Missing the Point?

Adobe recently updated Lightroom and introduced a new version of the import dialog. This move caused consternation in the online photo world and they are currently planning to revert back to the previous version. So much of the focus was on lost functionality in the new version. I have struggled to see how bad the losses were. Everything I needed before was in the revised dialog and from what I can see, the bits that went away were not exactly game changers. Of course, different people have different uses so it might matter to them.

What I am surprised about is that far less attention is being given to the fact the new release is horribly buggy. The new import dialog is a prime example. You have the import presets as before but if you change to a new preset, the location that is shown for where the files will be copied is the previous one. If you click to change it, you see that the correct folder for the new preset has been selected. It actually sends them where it is supposed to but it shows a different location. This is annoying but not impossible. The import dialog presets have been buggy for as long as I can recall with certain elements impossible to get rid of once selected.

Overall, the program is a lot less reliable. I have had develop screens lock up when it gets tired with a blue block replacing the image in question. If I leave it open long enough, it locks up completely. Sometimes, when I go to the Open Recent tab, the arrow appears but no recent catalogs are on display.

So, while everyone has been getting really messaged up about the import dialog, I am not that bothered. I think they should have been focusing on how Adobe released an update to Lightroom that seems to have a ton of problems with doing the basic stuff it is supposed to do. That seems far more worrying to me.

Arghh!! Technology Hates Me!

Time for a quick vent.  It seems I have brought down upon myself the curse of technology.  Being a techie type, there are plenty of forms of technology in my life.  Recently, they have been conspiring against me.  I am not a superstitious type of person.  The world has more than enough of those so it doesn’t need me to add to the list.  However, even a rational person could begin to wonder.

First, the TiVo packed up.  It had been misbehaving for a while.  Finally, it gave up and could not be restarted.  It just kept running through the beginning of the start cycle but never got any further.  Time for a new TiVo.  I had been pondering an upgrade for a while so a repair did not seem the way to go.  Plus, I wanted to have TV back quicker than the repair would manage.  While working on this, I go to the computer to look something up and it is off.  It shouldn’t have been.  A reboot brings up a warning about the CPU fan failure.  Crap!  That is a lot cheaper to fix but still, CRAP!

Next day a new TiVo and a new CPU fan are in my possession.  I need cablecards for the TiVo and have two from the previous unit.  Only one is needed for the new one but it has to be the M-Card, not the S-Card.  I start thinking this is going to be the next problem.  I must have the old card type rather than the one I need.  A quick Google on my card tells me it is an M-Card.  Hurrah!  Plug it in and the TiVo is not so convinced.  I need an M-Card.  Quick cal to cable company says no problem.  Place isn’t open until tomorrow but it is an easy swap.  Meanwhile, I can replace the CPU fan.

Next day, a quick swap is performed and I have an M-Card.  The TiVo likes it.  I get some details and call to activate.  Done.  No picture yet but I’m sure it takes a while.  Later on, still no picture.  A call to cable company and we run through some stuff.  Should be working they say.  It isn’t.  All tricks tried.  No luck.  We’ll send out a guy – tomorrow.  Okay.

Next day guy arrives, tries all I tried and no luck.  He is confused.  Calls the office and they un-pair the card and my account and then re-pair them.  Bingo!  We have pictures and sound.  Something is working.  Shame we couldn’t have tried that yesterday but never mind.  Is everything working now.  Appears to be until, oops, a couple of days later, the website – this website – seems to have vanished.  A little tech support from the hosting company and it turns out the database password has miraculously changed to something different in one of the website config files and it is nothing like the password I set up years ago when I created the site.  (This is a password I have not needed since so do you think I know what it is supposed to be??  Of course not.)

All of these things are now fixed.  The question now is, what’s next?  Place your bets on the next thing to go wrong…

Offline for a bit!

If you are a a regular reader of this blog (and thank you if that is the case) I owe you an apology.  I have had a bit of a gap in my postings.  There are a couple of reasons.  First I have been tied up with a couple of other things that have meant I wasn’t always able to get back to writing something.

However, the bigger problem was that my desktop started to show signs of impending death.  The OS must have been corrupted somehow and so a reinstall was called for.  Never had to do that before and trashing the system to start again was a bit nerve wracking.  Of course, it didn’t go totally smoothly but, courtesy of some good backups I got most things back up and running.

I also took the chance to think about what I really needed on the machine.  Yahoo! Messenger has not made it back on.  When do i ever use that these days?  The priority was getting the most important stuff back up and running so writing blog posts was relegated.  However, things seem to be back to normal (mostly) so hopefully I will be a bit more reliable in future.