Triple coincidence

I've been using the CofE Daily Prayer app on my phone for the last ten years. Late last night, when I went to use it, the app crashed. I uninstalled and re-installed it but it still crashed, so I gave up and prayed from memory instead. When I woke up this morning, a repeat performance. I had no difficulty using the app on my old Blackberry phone, which meant there was something wrong with my new phone. The one thing I didn't do was switch the phone off and on again. Once I did, the app worked perfectly again.  Silly not to have thought of that earlier. 

Recently, I've not switched the phone off at night as I did before. If it stays on for many days at a time, the very occasional tiny glitch in an app, or in the Android operating system can cause a crash. There was a time when the technology was young that it occurred more frequently than it does nowadays. The helpline advisor always started by asking "Have you tried switching it off and on again?" Funny that I'd forgotten this essential basic procedure. It reflects just how reliable smartphones now are. Note to self - remember to switch it off at night.

Another cold, bright sunny day, good for the spirit. I went to St Catherine's for the Eucharist, there were eight of us with Fr. Rowan presiding. After coffee and chat, I picked up the veggie bag from Chapter, then returned and cooked rice veg and lentils for lunch. I had a call from my sister in a panic as her laptop had frozen. I was prompted to guess that the reason was a big Windows update, as I noticed the restart icon had appeared in my laptop's toolbar. It's possible an update had been imminent the last time she switched off, or it had been in sleep mode instead of powered down. I persuaded her to do a hard reset, and when it re-booted, the update proceeded as intended and sanity was restored. 

I wish I'd persuaded June to get a Chromebook when they first came out, as there are no hassles of this kind with it, and fewer notifications to bewilder a non technical user, yet it would still be possible to do the same range of tasks as she now uses a laptop for, while doing battle with the distractions caused by notifications barely understood. Admittedly there's a learning curve involved in making the switch, but it's not huge - a different keyboard, a different file system layout, and writing documents using Google Docs, which definitely isn't in the same league as Libre Office. It's possible to use a version of Linux which looks and feels much like a Windows PC, and doesn't have any of the distractions. But, it's harder to make such a change the older you get.

After we talked, I edited and recorded the reflection I wrote yesterday, then at four I went out and walked for an hour and a half. Then I started work on a suitable slide show to accompany the audio. It took me longer than usual to find suitable visuals to use and had to complete and upload it to YouTube after a break for supper. 

We watched 'The Repair Shop' together, then an episode of 'Storyville' about an archaeological survey of a proposed housing estate in Cambridgeshire, which uncovered a village site with a late Roman era villa and several cemeteries around its periphery. One of the skeletons uncovered was that of a man in his thirties with an iron nail driven through one of his heel bones - evidence that he had been crucified. This is only the second skeleton ever to be found of a crucifixion victim. The other was found in an ancient ossuary in Jerusalem. Osteo-archaeology is one of the forensic science disciplines used in crime scene investigations and identifying war victims buried in mass graves, which can tell a lot about the person's life, especially if it's coupled with the analysis of DNA recovered from bones, and isotope analysis of material in teeth, that indicates diet and living environment. Unique, fascinating scientific detective work.

It's a triple coincidence that I watched Almodovar's movie 'Parallel Mothers' last weekend in which one of the characters is an osteo-archaeologist investigating a Spanish civil war massacres, and working my way through episodes of 'Bones' on Walter Presents, whose protagonist is also an osteo-archaeologist.

Troubleshooting Photos Legacy

Rain all night and rain for much of the day with the occasional respite. The latest big storm the sweep the UK is now reaching South East Wales. A good night's sleep nevertheless. As I got up at eight thirty, a government cabinet re-shuffle began with the sacking of Sue Braverman, as I predicted, following her succession of outrageous remarks recently. David Cameron has returned to politics as Foreign Secretary, having accepted a place in the House of Lords, the first time for this to happen in fifty years, and there are many other personnel changes as well due to resignations rather than sackings.

After breakfast I did my share of the routine housework then emailed recipients of readings for next Sunday, prepared yesterday and made a few minor edits to the next issue of Sway. Next, I made this week's Morning Prayer slideshow video and uploaded it to YouTube. I decided to check if I could also do the job with MS Photos Legacy on my desktop workstation, as there are still a few discrepancies between the apps installed on each device. It seems that I never installed Photos Legacy on my workstation. Once I did, I couldn't get it to work as it should. I keep getting Clipchamp instead, which doesn't do the same task with photos as it will with videos. Ridiculous.

Clare cooked monkfish fillets for lunch and I prepared sprouts and leeks to go with them. The fish was disappointing, very bony and not much of it. I suspect these were the tail end of the fish. Not the best part. To my surprise, I fell asleep in the chair after lunch. On waking, I decided to investigate what alternatives I could find for exactly the same job as Photos Legacy, and discovered a Cloud based app called 'Canva', which worked using my Chromebook. 

Although the layout was different, after a short session of trial and error finding my way around I was able to upload pictures and audio to create the same kind of slideshow with 'Canva' as I can with Photos Legacy. I means I have an alternative to fall back on if a Windows 11 update decides to delete, or change Photos Legacy in a way that makes it no longer fit for purpose. There are dozens of complaints about Microsoft updates rendering existing software useless. These big tech' giants love to tell us what we want or how we should be working.

Then Owain rang, pleased with the acquisition of a Google Pixel 7 on a monthly contract, and a new solid oak second hand chest of drawers for his flat. I look forward to seeing both in due course. It was half past four by the time I left the house for a walk, the rain had stopped and promised not to return for another hour. It was dusk by the time the wind and rain picked up again. Despite having my umbrella with me, my feet and legs were soaked through by the time I reached home at six.

Clare made a delicious cream of celeriac soup for supper, enhanced with a spoonful of miso which was well past its use by date and dried up, but with effort, it dissolved into the soup to give give it added flavour. A nice wintry evening dish.

I spent the evening troubleshooting. In order to Photos Legacy installed on my workstation to run, I had to find out how to make it the default app instead of Clipchamp. It wasn't as straightforward as it should be. It was also necessary to copy to the Cloud the special collection of downloaded photos I've compiled for use in making video slideshows. Now, it all works fine, enabling me to work in the same way on both devices.

Then I realised that the image found and adapted yesterday for the banner headline of this week's Sway, honouring Saint Cecilia I had incorrectly dated, and had to re-edit this from scratch. A very fiddly job. Then, an invoice document to correct for Iona to send to the diocesan finance office to remunerate me for the work on Sway. This too is part of the cost of running two vacancies, like locum fees for services, given that clergy have hitherto made publicity and information sharing part of their regular work. I don't think the work of a full time parish priest is ever valued and rewarded as that of a secular professional. But when a priest or lay person is appointed to an expert role in a diocese, their salaries are higher. No wonder morale is low when there are fewer clergy and more expert specialists on the payroll.

Hospitals in Gaza are getting to the stake where they can no longer treat patients as they are in areas under attack. The Israeli military claim to have instigated humanitarian pauses in the fighting, and safe passage corridors for evacuation of patients and others sheltering in hospital precincts, but fear of being shot or bombed in such conditions means that few are willing to take the risk of leaving, even though staying where they are is equally unsafe. The more fighting drags on, the more I suspect the Israelis will be unsure of when it will be safe to stop the assault. It's having repercussions for Jewish people all over the world, subjected to antisemitic attacks, even though Natanyahu's government is not their fault and there's nothing they can do to influence his action. It couldn't be worse.

Home run

We parted company with Ann after a late breakfast and headed up the A14 retracing our route towards Coventry, then going west past Warwick and Stratford to reach the M50 on the last leg back into Wales. There were wet weather warnings, but these had no impact on us until we reached Evesham, when a strong downpour made it difficult to seethe road fora while, but it soon passed, and we made it to Cardiff with two stops in six hours and ten minutes.

The French bean plants have produced another crop for Sunday lunch, while we were away and some of Clare's roses produced a spectacular splash of colour to welcome us home. After unpacking and tidying everything away, I had a sermon for tomorrow to complete. When it came to printing it out, Windows 10 went into to slow un-cooperative mode as it proceeded with its latest round of updates, hindering me from finishing the job, trying my patience to the limit. 

After supper and an hour of telly, a walk in the dark around Llandaff Fields to get some fresh air and relax before bed, but too weary to complete more than 80% of my daily quota. That doesn't happen very often. When I came to switch off the computer before bed it was still updating, and I had to leave it running to finish the task, resolving to get up later and switch everything off properly. These problems never arise with Chromebooks or Linux, which update quickly without fuss. At least I can carry on writing whenever Windows is being un-cooperative again.

Time for Windows running out

It rained overnight, and again while we were packing up to leave Oxwich this morning. We had to check out of our accommodation by ten, so we arranged to have our final cooked breakfast together afterwards and then parted company for the journeys home. Amazing that while other places had rain and even floods we had four warm days without rain. We reached Cardiff just after half past one, and my first job was to pick up the week's veggy bag. As we had breakfast late, we just had a snack and I cooked supper instead, after taking an hours walk around the park.

There was work to catch up on, relating to Carole's funeral in two week's time, drafting an order of service and working on a eulogy for which I'd already received substantial notes. When I switched on my desktop PC it immediately went into update mode, only this time it took more than half an hour to complete which was most annoying. As ever, Chromebook came speedily to the rescue. I didn't bother with my Windows laptop, just in case it wanted to delay me with an update - although it does everything five times faster - I just didn't want any more delay. Updating to Windows 11 may not be possible with my desktop PC as its hardware may not be adequate for the upgrade. If this turns out to be the case, I shall convert it to Linux Mint, as I know it will run much faster. I might not wait that long, if it annoys me any more. Fancy a key software upgrade designed in a way that make older hardware redundant. It sounds like a scam to me.

After a couple of hours of work it was time to turn in, the events of the day left me feeling very tired. It's funny to return from a refreshing holiday break and still feel tired. I think it may be something to do with  being confined to the same area and the same routines day after day for so many months. The stimulus of being in a different less familiar place and socialising with family somehow take their toll. A consequence of growing old? 

Better safe

Monday and Tuesday, annoying it rained most of the day, making routine tasks, shopping and laundry harder to complete. It didn't stop my daily walks however, and much of my time at home was spent researching journey detail for my novel writing. I've now been asked to do two funerals in the coming fortnight. It's six weeks since I did the last one.

I saw a high spec second hand laptop at a recent price in the window of the Tourotech computer shop, and wondered about buying it. I have some older pieces of kit that I keep as spares but rarely have to use. In fact they aren't particularly nice to use for any extended length of time. I think they are ready for recycling. I checked, and Tourotech will do that for me. I have and regularly use quite an old Acer laptop, running Linux off a solid state drive. It's not wonderful for photo processing, but I can boot it into Libre Office with a file open for work in less than a minute. The same process on my Windows 10 workstation takes four to eight times as long, and that's not a slow machine. It's just that Windows punishes users refusing to keep devices permanently running and on-line. If Microsoft ignores this not insignificant user group it can expect to lose them to Linux, Mac or Android.

Anyway, I rehearsed the possibility of part exchanging the Acer for the device I fancied, concluding that it would need to have Windows running on it again. I found the spare Windows hard drive from Clare's laptop, now happily working with Linux Mint, and put it into the Acer to find out if it would work. As it had an intact rescue partition on it, this proved no problem, except that this called for the reformatting of the main partition and re-installation of Windows. This process took seven hours without attaching my One Drive account to it and letting it sync! Probably another couple of hours. If ever I install Linux on any device, it takes an hour, plus update time, although this happens in the background and doesn't stop one using it to work on.

The worst thing about doing this was that when I replaced the solid state drive with the Windows one I forgot to make an up to date file copy of my novel. Figuring out how to extract one from the Linux file system seemed too much of an effort so I had to guess where I had finished off the night before and write some more to another file to copy and paste. It's not often I fail to make multiple copies of a vital file when finishing for the day, but on this occasion I did, and was sorry for this lapse. Next day I put the solid state drive back into the Acer and continued working on it. I had second thoughts about getting a new laptop. The Acer keyboard is better than ones on the other old machines I want to get rid of and from a writers point of view it's as fast as it needs to be.

It's been a bright and sunny all day today, such a relief. In this morning's mail, the application forms for my Llandaff diocesan safeguarding check arrived. My Permission to Officiate which depends on passing this runs out at the end of March. After lunch I walked up to Llys Esgob to see Bishop's chaplain Sarah Rogers, one of several senior staff whose job description has recently had added to it the task of verifying identity documents for PTO applicants, a new requirement of the procedure. 

Five years ago, it was just a matter of sending identity documents to the Provincial Safeguarding Officer to be checked. Now each applicant has to be seen in person. As if the senior staff members didn't already have enough work to do! At least the end of producing passport, driving license and a document with my National Insurance Number on it for good measure, was that Sarah was able to put the completed application into her evening mailbag for sending. 

It's all a necessary formality, and as Sarah and I have known each other for eighteen years, there's no chance of anyone impersonating me, but it may not be the case for someone who's a newcomer, known by name but not by face in the diocese. In our contemporary world where credible identity theft is not unusual, an element of risk exists of abuse attached to any impersonal bureaucratic process. Trust in others has been replaced by evidence leading to proof that someone is trustworthy. 

This is not the same. It displaces the element of personal relatedness which makes us who we are. It can detract from our human dignity and sense of worth. In times past, we earned trustworthiness and respect through right and proper relationships with those we served without having to prove anything. Sure, things could go wrong, they can and still do, even for those whose identity credentials and police checks are impeccable but are cunning enough for their deceit and transgressons not to be found out, or because they deceived friends in high places into refusing to act on hearing concerns about their behaviour. Safeguarding checks are entirely necessary, but it's still possible for someone to have a clean record and yet still be abusive and a manipulator of others, and get away with it. It's a reality of life, yet thankfully today we are more vigilant than ever in history due to higher standards and values applying to the care and respect all people deserve, no matter who they are. The required change in disciple just takes some getting used to.

A day of updates

Yesterday, morning, Clare and I went to our solicitor's office on Llandaff Road, to go through the revised draft of our Wills, and sign them. The last time we did this was November 1992, just before we moved out to work in Holy Trinity Geneva. Co-incidentally, we're flying to Geneva on Thursday, on our way to locum duties in Montreux. I've already been busy with arrangements for a wedding blessing and a christening on top of the regular services. It's going to be an interesting time.

 I went over to visit my old friend Graham Francis, who's living now in retirement just down the street from St Saviour's Splott, where he has been helping out during the interregnum, in the same way I was helping out at St German's. Recently he's been undergoing chemotherapy prior to surgery to remove a stomach cancer. He's facing up to this life threatening challenge with confidence, realism and good humour, and continues to busy himself with worship and ministry in whatever way he has energy for.

A secondary reason for visiting him was to give his Windows 7 laptop a servicing, and decommission his ten year old desktop machine, which still runs, but astonishingly slowly. Fortunately, many years ago I set up a back up program to auto-run - Syncback. The computer hasn't been used much since the advent of tablets and smartphones, so backups an external drive have only ever been partial. Even so, given the time, it successfully completed its routine, so that now he has a complete and up to date archive of his files of the past decade, if not longer, which can be attached to his laptop when needed. 

Sadly the intermittent use of this device also has created problems with updating, and it runs very slowly, due to congestion which the use of CCleaner took ages to sort out. The anti-virus library was 520 days old and there were scores of other Windows security updates. All seemed to be competing for internet attention, and after four hours, I had to walk away, leaving the machine running in the hope that in the course of time, days if not weeks, it will sort itself out. I recall a similar problem with the office PC over in St German's taking weeks to update, although that problem was compounded by a flaky wi-fi connection.

Bringing machines back to working order after increasingly longer layoff, due to the ease of being able to do basic everyday tasks on a tablet or smartphone, is a great disincentive to using a Windows computer, so it's no wonder their market share is falling. This adds to the perennial problem of built-in redundancy, caused when older operating systems are no longer supported with security updates, or drivers not provided to enable older hardware peripherals to run with a newer operating system. Good equipment going to waste, causing electronic waste pollution when disposed of wrongly, and all due to the illusion that newer and fancier, with more options available is really desirable. It isn't, so the big computer businesses play tricks to force us to give up on old kit. What a foolish world!

   

Long drawn out updating

After a late breakfast, I finished off my Sunday sermon, then headed to St German's for the Friday Mass and hunger lunch. When that was finished, it was time to return and inspect the office PC. Overnight, it had updated its anti-virus libraries and scanned automatically, and, the download counter for the update backlog of updates stood at seventy five percent. The machine was still locked into completing this as a matter of priority, and the much simpler task of downloading and update the more preferable Chrome browser promised to take forever. So the PC will be left running until Sunday for its next inspection.

Often I read complaints in tech' web articles about the havoc wreaked on workloads by the interference from routine downloads. You can schedule them for when you're not working and are prepared to leave a machine running. To hell with you if don't like leaving computers switched on all the time. Linux systems tell you when software update downloads are available, and let you decide when to activate them. For the most part, these happen in the background, allowing you to continue working. I seem to recall that system tweaks are available that permit users to regulate the amount of bandwidth used by an update, in case a fair amount is required for work. 

Microsoft strives to impose control on this process, by giving their updates absolute priority by default. Their argument is, it's safer for all users, but especially those prone to ignore notifications and refuse to take responsibility for personal computer security. It's possible to opt out of the default and regulate this for yourself, with a little effort, but no choice is given about this default and not doing so generates unhealthy dependency on 'Microsoft knows best'. Users, from the outset should be confronted with a choice about whether they go along with this, and be offered an alternative to manage updating for themselves, with a separate mechanism working along Linux lines. It's already been mooted in on-line forums, but will it ever happen I wonder?

This evening, Owain arrived for the weekend in time for supper, although were obliged to start without him, as we were due leave early and walk in the rain to St John's Canton for a concert. We arrived early, and well before the concert started, Clare had a phone call ostensibly from me, but looked bewilderingly at me across the room, but my phone was silent in my pocket. I took it out to show her, and she looked even more puzzled. I opened the phone and discovered the opening screen had acquired a locking device. My first thought was that my phone had been hacked, as it otherwise looked identical to the way I expected it to. Then the penny dropped. I'd picked up Owain's phone, identical to mine, and he was ringing Clare's on my phone in a panic, to arrange to retrieve his phone before the concert. We arranged to meet for the exchange over the road outside Tescos, asap. I couldn't then call him to check his ETA, as his phone was pass-coded. He did, however, turn up within minutes, and I was able to return in good time to St John's before the concert started.

It was given by the Castalian string quartet, with works by Haydn, Schumann and Beethoven. They are a group of young musicians, playing together since 2011, having met and trained together in Hannover University School of Music. They have risen quickly to rank with top tier international touring performers, and no wonder. They play with such disciplined cohesion and passionate energy as generates exciting performance, rich with emotion. It was a rotten night, so there were hardly three dozen people present. I felt sorry for those who didn't brave the elements to share this experience. The church is a superb music venue for all kinds of live performances, and musicians tend to love it. In the silence between musical movements, the wind could be heard roaring through churchyard trees over the high roof. It was as if the music emerged from the wind, and was driven along by it. A marvellous experience.

   

Midweek ministry

Midweek 'class Mass' again yesterday morning at St German's, with one of the younger groups of children. I used the story of The Three Children and the Burning Fiery Furnace, and improvised a responsive version of the Song of the Three Children with them. They rose to the challenge very well. Some classes are more reluctant to rise to the occasion. It's my version of Godly Play!

The monthly Ignatian meditation group switched to our house at the last moment due to a domestic crisis for one of the members. A couple of other members were indisposed at the last moment, so we were just three, and I was asked to lead as soon as we were gathered. I too the Gospel passage for the day from John eight, with Jesus arguing with those Jews who would talk to him, but were not disciples. A difficult passage to envisage, let alone follow and meditate upon because of its nature, but I felt it would be a good passiontide challenge. Each of us struggled but had something to say in the end. It's not something that you can regard as 'success'. Learning comes in many guises, especially about difficult things.

I didn't go into the office to work later, but eventually worked from home. I say eventually, because I'd just got started, editing Monday's Board meeting minutes to include two documents mentioned, when the machine I was working on automatically rebooted, following a flashed pop-up warning too quick to read, then spent an hour installing a batch of updates. I was not well pleased with this singular act of dictatorship on the part of Microsoft. Any time you lose control of a device like that without being sure of the reason is cause for concern that security has been compromised. When will those well meaning controlling fools realise that they are undermining confidence in their own system? Give me Linux and Open Source any time. Pity I have to use Windows for work all the time.

This morning I went to St John's Canton to celebrate their midweek Eucharist for St Patrick's Day, having received a late evening email from Fr Phelim to ask if I could cover for him. It's nice to help in my local Parish as well as further afield so I always say yes if I can manage it. It's also nice to be able to walk to church, although a lingered too long at home and had to take the car this morning to be sure to arrive in good time. There were fourteen of us, and I'm there Maundy Thursday in the morning as well.

This evening, over to St German's for the last of our Lenten Stations of the Cross with Adoration. The whole school is coming over next Wednesday morning for a special edition of the Way of the Cross, featuring that calypso chorus from 'A man dies' which I learned as a student in Bristol back in 1963.

'Gentle Christ, wise and good

They nailed him to a cross of wood.

The Son of God, he came to save

With borrowed stable and borrowed grave.'

Business on the move

We were relieved to hear Rachel and Jasmine had arrived safely after the ten hour flight back to Phoenix. Jasmine woke up in the afternoon and went for the briefest of introductory visits to her new school, then back home for more rest. Rachel did some house hunting, in preparation for her move into the city from deepest rural Cottonwood. It'll be great when we know they are settled in their new situation.

Meanwhile, there's a CBS office move to prepare for at the end of the week. Monday and Tuesday afternoons were taken up planning how we can keep working without interrupting the first key task of the year, mailing a hundred or so invoices out to the first batch of signed up radio users. For me it meant preparing the mail-merge data and getting it to run properly, so that Julie has an editable file to work on when she arrives on Thursday. Inevitably I hit snags, and opted to complete the chore at home. With all the admin PCs are configured to synchronise with Microsoft Skydrive, I can put its usability to the test, when Julie comes to work this Thursday on the invoice file generated. 

This  lunchtime I had a funeral at Thornhill. There was a familiar face among the mourners who greeted me cordially after the service. It took a moment for me to recognise Fr Roger Balkwill, who was assistant Curate in Caerphilly the same time as me, forty five years ago. The deceased was his brother-in-law. We've met no more than twice in the years since then. USPG sent him to work in mission in Zimbabwe after his curacy, and when he returned, he went to work in the West Midlands, which was where we next met, twenty years later. Co-incidentally, the last time we met was nearly two years ago, at the funeral of priest who was a contemporary of ours.

Afterwards, I collected Owain from home and we visited PC World together to buy yet another computer for the office. The next CBS move will be our seventh. It will place us in a building where we don't have the 24/7 access we need, so we're arranging a hire a room for a night support base in our present location, where we do have 24/7 access, and that means we need to create a clone of our radio monitoring and recording system, a necessity for continued operation. An extra PC is needed for this.

 The decision to buy a Lenovo 23" all in one machine took five minutes, the purchase took the best part of an hour on top of this, so eventually we got back to the office and Owain got Windows 8 installed and updated, updating being necessary before it was possible to upgrade to 8.1, which is why it all takes so long. NOT a selling point in the business world where time is money! Even so, it took just over half the time it took me with each of the other two PCs I've dealt with this past two weeks, a testimony to the faster BT Broadband we have in the office compared with our very flaky TalkTalk home broadband. Even as I write this, not many minutes pass without getting an auto-save error message, and most nights the signal drops irretrievably and no even a router re-boot will fix it.

With Owain working on PC commissioning, I was free to help pack stuff into the huge removers' crates delivered to our end of the office, and to pack away as much electronic gear as we can do without for the next couple of days.  It felt as if we were making little impression on the task in hand, since our admin area also doubles up as a radio workshop and is rarely tidy, but by the end of the afternoon, most of the cabinets and cupboard were empty and ready for the removers to take. We're looking forward to having extra space with our new arrangements, and hopefully that'll bring more order and calm to our work-space.
   

Windows woes

Today was a damp day. Rachel, Jasmine and Clare went off to the St Fagan's Folk Museum. I went shopping for new office equipment, meeting up with Ashley in John Lewis', and returning home with a seventeen inch HP Windows 8 'laptop' to set up for use as a dedicated crime data work-station for the CBS office in the coming year.

Thus far I have been deterred by so many negative reviews from considering Windows 8, but now it's getting rarer to find Windows 7 kit on sale, there wasn't much alternative to spending lots of time and energy hunting for something to buy of the specification required before the end of our financial year. Ah well, sooner or later I have to find out more about this, and waste time re-learning how to use a piece of equipment to perform familiar tasks efficiently, just because a user interface has been changed without any reason that's at all relevant to my needs. But this is what commercial companies do to prove that we are their slaves, rather than them serving out best interests. 

I much prefer the superior Linux operating system with its choice of user interfaces, but in the everyday world of users who are just consumers of tools and products, persuading anyone to change their habits is as difficult for them as it is for me. So reluctantly I have a go a learning something new and pretty irrelevant to my working needs, as it's less inconvenient than chasing around after an alternative. 

If you're relatively new to computers, setting up a Windows 8 PC is elegantly simple. If you've spent decades getting Windows or Linux machines to work the way you want them to, it's painful. You feel as if you're not in control. The way the user interface works is different, it's more difficult to get beneath the slick looking surface to the level where there's detailed control. At first encounter, it feels as if you have no control at all. The user interface is designed with touchscreen in mind more than mouse. Touch is all very well, but  mouse control is more accurate in the hands of an experienced user. The chosen machine wasn't touch-screen, and I found this infuriating at first.

Setting up the machine for initial use took four time longer than doing a fresh Linux install, then even longer as I pressed on to upgrade the machine to Windows 8.1 straight away, since this fix promises to address some of the complaints made against Windows 8 from day one. All in all, we're talking five hours finding my way around and then machine minding installation and downloading patches and upgrades. This included half an hour going around in circles trying to find out how to do the upgrade, as links provided pointed to the Windows App store, and this had nothing to show how to get the upgrade. I got the upgrade from the Microsoft website, which was less than user friendly, taking to the bottom of a very long page before you could click on a download link that produced to goods. What a mess!

OK so TalkTalk internet is lousy and slow, but it only crashed the upgrade download once, and after a reboot, picked up where it left off, so that's one up for Microsoft. But, the process took up the whole of a Saturday evening, and at the end I still had to find out how to install my small portfolio of programs to turn into a piece of kit for the office desktop that 'just works'.

This is is me, performing a few of the functions of a system administrator (most are beyond me) to keep a small team of people active and confident that computers will do what they need, are secure, stable and don't make unintelligible demands of them that get in the way of productive work, or require them to change and re-learn working methods without hindering their work schedule. If the creative and visionary designers of a new generation of operating systems had understood the needs of the 'drones' at the real workfaces of the world, they would not have changed so much at the functional surface level, or at least made adoption of such a change optional. No wonder PC sales have slumped badly over the past year. Bad news travels fast.

 

Machine minding

An uneventful few days. I took Andrea to her train on Tuesday morning, went into the office in the afternoon and to Chi Gung in the evening. Wednesday in the office was devoted to preparing the mailing of a dozen letters of invitation to prospective members of the Crime Reduction Partnership Board of Management for the inaugural meeting at the end of the month. Once the job was done, I had the task of re-assigning and setting up the new HP desktop PC for the Administrator to use, as it didn't suit Ashley's workflow pattern. Julie now has one machine with the office accounts on it and another for managing the rest of her labours. Getting that right also involved moving the printers around, but in the end, there were improvements all round.

What I hadn't bargained for was a massive twenty two item system update installation from Microsoft, which effectively took four machines in succession out of service for at an hour at a time. Downloads happened in the background, but then, when installation started, system reboots were required which took an age to complete. I was left machine minding, and got home much later than expected as a result. It was the same with Windows PCs at home as well. I was grateful for the use of several Android devices to consult until the job was done on a further three machines.

I went into the office early on Thursday, as I'd forgotten the night before to install our standard backup software on the new HP desktop, which Julie is accustomed to using at close of day. Then I had to wait while my office machine did its updates, as I'd not got around to it the day before. Luckily most of this week's waiting time was done when there wasn't a need for all the machines to be in use, and other things could be done not requiring computers in the meanwhile. Big companies can afford a tech guy to waste his time machine minding, or devising clever automated routines to run updates network wide, but I'm not that clever. 

It did make me wonder however just how many hours of productive time the world's billion computers take up waiting for updates - well, probably half of them don't bother installing updates, don't need to, or are designed beautifully to update in the background without interfering with anyone's workflow. But still if it's half a billion PCs, taking a total, say, of fifteen minutes waiting time a month, that's three hours a year, fifteen hundred million hours productivity time. Just say two thirds of those are updated out of work hours by corporate IT staff, that's still five hundred million wasted hours a year. Apart from the hours re-deployed by meticulous planners who factor in tea breaks, assignations, keep fit routines, or a trip to the shops in their down-time. Thankfully, the rise and rise of Linux based equipment via Android and Chromebook operating systems is effecting a necessary change in this. Will Windows ever catch up?