Right up at the top edge of the North York Moors where it gives way to Cleveland is a 320 metre hill called Roseberry Topping. We were wandering about, as we do, near to Kildale when this view of it came into view. I think the best views may be from the Cleveland way. More scouting required.
Roseberry Topping.
Last week I was reading a very interesting post by Adrian Lewis and it prompted me to double-check that my backups were current. Yesterday I was using my laptop when a message popped up saying that Windows Explorer had stopped working and would be re-started automatically. Well it re-started and a few minutes later the same thing happened. Hmmm, something not right, maybe its a heat problem, maybe I should shut down for a while I thought. So I did.
Later I re-started the laptop and within a minute or so I got a pop up to say that Windows had stopped working! Then the screen went black except for the tool bar. Nothing would work. I thought . . here we go again, another disk problem. So I forced a shut down and re-started in Safe Mode with Networking and restored the machine from a restore point created the day before. Everything back to normal, phew. But is it?
Well at least if the disk IS on its way out I have my photos all backed up on various drives. But what happens if the back up drives fail? (actually I mean WHEN the back up drives fail). I mean how many mirror copies do we make, is digital storage really safe? I know that SSDs (Solid State Drives) are supposed to be far more resilient that regular drives but they are also far more expensive.
By way of showing how important it is to back-up our data, and equally, perhaps make hard copies of data we deem to be most important (Print photos, documents etc) I offer you this picture I shot this afternoon of five laptop hard drives and a desktop computer hard drive, all of which failed on me over the past few years. It really is a case of WHEN, not if, the disk will fail.
Scrap Metal
. . . So while I am waiting I have re-worked an image I made in the summer of 2012. It was shot with my Nikon D300 using a Nikkor 50mm f1.8 at f1.8. The sun was shining today but the temperature didn’t get higher than 9 degrees, brrrrr! This shot provides some warmth anyway.
Sunbathing flower in the garden.
Last weekend saw us up in the Ribble Valley in Lancashire. We stopped off at Clitheroe to look around the shops and the market. We also wandered up to the castle where there has been renovations. There is a museum and a cafe, a play area for the kids and the views are just beautiful. For a small town of around 14 to 15 thousand souls it really has a fair bit to offer the visitor.
My image here is of the First World War memorial with its lone soldier keeping vigil and serving as a constant reminder of Clitheroe’s sacrifice. In the distance is Pendle Hill, this is Witch Country! See more about that . . .
A view of Clitheroe from the castle.
Near to the Clock Tower at Dunham Massey House and Park in Cheshire stands a 500-year-old Oak tree, or what remains of it anyway. I suppose it’s entitled to show its age as it was a youngster when Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries. It was a fine specimen when Guy Fawkes et al conspired to blow up the Houses of Parliament along with King James VI and I.
Old Timer
This morning I was sorting out my kit bags. I have quite a few of various sizes that I use depending on what I want to take out with me. When I go out shooting I have a large bag that I can load most of what I may need and that stays in the car boot and I transfer a body and one or two lenses and filters into a smaller bag to set off for a walk. Things can get complicated once you realise you just can’t carry everything for hours on end anymore 😐
Anyway I often end up with bits of kit in various bags and then I need to tidy up. That’s what I was doing this morning when I came across my Sigma 105mm macro. My mind wandered away from the task in hand and I put the lens onto my Sony as I hadn’t yet used it since buying a Nikon to Sony E lens mount adapter. One of the shots I got is this one that I thought looked like a waterfall of leaves.
Dried leaves waterfall
Another from my morning walk with the low sun causing the raking light while my f22 aperture setting created the star burst effect on the sun.
Low Winter Sunlight
I ventured out of the centrally heated home this morning into the cold clear air to stretch the old legs a bit and to fill the lungs with fresh air. I walked through the cemetery and saw this one headstone being lit by the low sun threading its way through the trees.
Let there be light.
After what seems like an awful long wait through short days and long nights the days seem to be stretching out just a little. Today we had clear blue skies and sunshine. Temperature still in single figures though and today’s clear skies mean sub-zero temperatures over night tonight. So today the evergreens in the garden received just a little reward for their patience and efforts in shrugging off the snow that bent them low in the form of some weak sunlight. It also lifts the spirits to see the sunlight reflecting off them, spring is only a few weeks away now.
A little reward
A little reward
A little reward
I have spent some time recently “de-cluttering” my study in the loft. It’s amazing how much you uncover that you had forgotten about when you start digging! Amongst other things I found boxes of floppy disks . . . . and fortunately a floppy disk drive. I found a lot of my old Uni notes and test papers as well as web sites developed as part of my web developer certificate studies.
I also found a lot of the disks had on them some old photos taken with my Sanyo Digicam, my first digital camera that took whopping 1MB pictures! They are now on my network drive.
Old Sanyo
Unfortunately there were a number of disks with un-readable files on them. Some of them were old Microsoft Backup files, I looked and searched for a way of opening them to no avail. So having not needing these files for years I decided to recycle the disks.
Recycled Floppys
I wonder how long it will be before another de-clutter will see me uncovering old disk drives and trying to recover long forgotten or obsolete files.
athyfotographic 