FF Joys...

[lonewolf16x9]

He's not great but thankyou for asking, you've got to love Communities like this for that, people bother, I'll pass on the regards, many thanks...

The least I could do. I hope he comes through it okay.

Cheers,

Sim

Well unfortunately My Partners Father passed away on Sunday, He went downhill pretty quickly really. It was very sad to see him slip away like that all the time fighting it...

I never got out with the Camera and I have not taken a Picture in over two months now, My website has slipped form page one on Google to somewhere on page three, to add insult Tonight my Computer decided to have a Dicky fit and fry the drives, I may well have lost the lot as I had it raided and I think theyre all toast!
I 'm spending my next few days putting my Computer Science Degree to some use trying to get my Pictures back but I'm not too hopeful.
Gear will have to go right to the back of the list as I have had enough of PC's and may end up buying a Mac, or just giving up all together...

[redsim74]

Very sorry to hear of your partner's loss, Jules.

Life seems to have a way of piling on the miseries, certainly not a deserving way to start off a new year.

On a lighter note, I would heartily recommend a switch to Mac.

Kind regards,


Sim

[lonewolf16x9]

I suppose I could get used to an iMac and the fact it'd look a bit wierd connected up to my Eizo Monitor but hey ho , I really have had enough of Windows based PC's, spent the last three years crackin em open and I suppose familiarity can breed contempt too though...
I've liked working with the few Macs I've repaired for people and they seem willing to pay better too

I really want a new Camera though, ,an APSC one for the reach to go with the A850, and a serious Lens update this year too, I'm going to have to go some to achieve all that this year, I must get better at prioritisation
Also try not to have any more diasters...

[Greg Beetham]

That’s sad news on both counts Jules, but I guess from reading between the lines not totally unexpected on one hand if not the other. The hard disk fail sounds unusual, I’ve had disks fail before too but I’ve never had multiple disks go together…yet. What did it, a power spike, lightning or something?
I heard an unusual and not previously considered (by me) reason for computer failures from my brother (who has an aluminium and stainless steel fabrication shop); he said that the council inspectors were concerned about one of the welders, it’s a large three phase water cooled high frequency TIG and had a leak or overflow draining into the gutter outside. They reckoned that the current in that water could wreck computers all over the suburb as everything is ultimately connected too ground.
That sounds a bit of a stretch at first glance, but is it? I wonder how much industrial leakage into ground from some types of machinery there actually is in some places/suburbs, makes one wonder doesn’t it.
Greg

[UrsaMajor]

About 20-25 years ago I heard an entertaining story from a colleague at Douglas Aircraft. One of the laboratory groups had purchased some customized computers for recording data from test sensors, but was having problems because they kept crashing - losing data and requiring a cold reboot. After telephone support failed to solve the issues, the company that had supplied the hardware and software sent a representative from their tech support group.

The tech was escorted out to the lab, which was located in a hangar and separated from several other labs by canvas partitions. He went to work checking all of the equipment, testing the quality of the available power, etc. After this had gone on for some time with no success, he was scratching his head when a loud horn sounded, followed by an enormous CRASH that almost gave him heart failure.

When he recovered his breath, he asked the Douglas guys, "WHAT the h*** was THAT?"

To which the reply was, "Oh, that's just the lab next to us. To insure that our aircraft can fly in bad weather, they test our materials for resistance to lightning strikes. That noise was from their artificial lightning generator creating a lightning strike on a test specimen."

After discussing the subject with the Douglas guys, the tech discovered that these particular individuals were all chemists, and had never heard the phrase "Electro-Magnetic Pulse". The computer systems these guys had bought had no special shielding of any sort, let alone protection against the massive level of EMP generated by a lightning strike 20 feet away.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

[lonewolf16x9]

Thanks for the stories guys!
Oddly I've been having update probs with the new seven install and have been phoned daily by Microsoft over the last week!
Gotta love Phone supports dogged persistance!
Anyway I could not install a dot.net framework update and in the end they could not bottom it, last option was the old fresh install. So I ws prepping for that and trying to back up everything from my Raid to an external whaen it happened, shouldn't have been a spike as I have a UAS and I'm surge protected (With a guarantee ).
Anywaay...
Been up all night trying to rescue everything and got my pics back from putting the drive in the Living room PC, and trying every bit of recovery software I have. Windows Installation is gone, the pices are now on the external and the Livingroom PC!
Tried another drive in the PC but to no avail, video card not going either, it's hard to analyse without any picture but something has fried the Graphics card most of the Harddisks and probably the best part of the Motherboard! It may be cheaper in the long run just to buy a new PC.
It's only nine months old and typically the firm I got all the bits off has gone bust! You gotta love the recession!

[agorabasta]

Hi Jules,

Seems like all points at the PS in your PC as the culprit.

Now your disks may have burnt electronics, but the platters have a very good chance to be OK, so all the info must still be there. So you may get it all back with some professional service.

Personally, I stopped using desktops quite a few years ago exactly for the reason that I couldn't trust the quality of PS units any longer since the desktop cases/PS were no longer made up to any serious standards; they all became either too cheap and poor, or were made for PC gamers.

So I moved to heavy notebooks and external storage. I don't lug those notebooks around, I simply use them as desktop bodies with external monitors and other peripherals.

[Greg Beetham]

Yep I agree with agorabasta, the PS you get with a case now is pretty much a token gesture, it looks like one, it feels like one, and smells like one….for a while.
The first thing that fizzled when I had a run of hardware fails was the PS, which I replaced with a proper aftermarket one with double overhead dual everythings. After that is was dealing with the legacy of what that crummy PS did to numerous items on the Main board during its death throws.
I have had two graphics accelerator cards fizzle as well, the first I put down to the aforementioned PS, but with the second I’m beginning to think the 24 inch screen may be imposing too much of a load on the poor blighters, and as I don’t even play games or such I wouldn’t have thought standard use would do much damage. At the moment it’s running from the onboard graphics (the reserve) so I’d better get another lamb to the slaughter pronto.
Greg
Ps Jules those parts would have some kind of manufacturers warranty from new, but it might only be six months for some items I think.

[bfitzgerald]

Greg I'd suggest a nice passive GPU with no fan which is what I use myself right now. I've pulled out graphics cards that have melted fans these babies can get pretty hot, case airflow is a problem at times not enough and the fan is working overtime trying to keep it cool.
I have some vivid memories of pulling out factory fitted GPU's (Dell) at the time the were enclosing the CPU and the rear case fan was pulling the heat off the processor away. Sadly this meant very little flow of air though the case. I replaced quite a few cards in Dell's due to that design fault.

Of course you could argue the passive one are not so powerful, but you'd be surprised how far they've come even the entry ones are quite decent now and bring other benefits (such as offloading CPU cycles with flash and video formats) even a cheapo AMD 6450 512Mb is actually quite good performance wise maybe not for gamers (you'd pass off some light gaming) but still fairly respectable and many are passive heatsinks and don't get that hot or draw much power.

[Greg Beetham]

Duly noted Barry, makes sense, actually the first one that went was a passive job with a huge heat sink the other one had a fan. The fans get covered in lint dust as well and have to be cleaned periodically I think, otherwise they loose too much efficiency. The case I’ve got came with a front and rear fan for hard drive/graphics card cooling and that is the first time I’ve seen that generosity I think, not that it ultimately did any good, not with the substandard PS that came with it.
Greg

[lonewolf16x9]

Greg I'd suggest a nice passive GPU with no fan which is what I use myself right now. I've pulled out graphics cards that have melted fans these babies can get pretty hot, case airflow is a problem at times not enough and the fan is working overtime trying to keep it cool.
I have some vivid memories of pulling out factory fitted GPU's (Dell) at the time the were enclosing the CPU and the rear case fan was pulling the heat off the processor away. Sadly this meant very little flow of air though the case. I replaced quite a few cards in Dell's due to that design fault.

Of course you could argue the passive one are not so powerful, but you'd be surprised how far they've come even the entry ones are quite decent now and bring other benefits (such as offloading CPU cycles with flash and video formats) even a cheapo AMD 6450 512Mb is actually quite good performance wise maybe not for gamers (you'd pass off some light gaming) but still fairly respectable and many are passive heatsinks and don't get that hot or draw much power.

Thanks for the comments, Greg and Agorabasta,
Barry I'm sort of already on it, I built an entertainment PC for the livingroom last year with an AMD Quad core processor, the 925 I seem to remember. It has a low power draw of only 95W but still a reasonably quick 1066 Bus speed bunged it all in a horizontal Antec Fusion case with an Asus Xonar sound card running my Celestion floorstanders thru an Amp. Anyway the whole thing is pretty much fanless, very quiet too

I'm wondering about an i5/i7 Mac Mini for the Photography though, as the whole thing is pretty much a heatsink? I don't want a Glossy Mac screen as it can't match my Eizo for colour...
It would help me reclaim some much needed deskspace too, I keep my PC ontop after working with them I'd not have one near the floor again, not even on a stand. (Fag smoke/nicotine/dust bunnies/Hair/cat pee, yes cat pee!) Opened up too many like that and what it does to the inside is not pretty...

Lighter note and back to Photography:
It's forecast misty with brilliant sunshine later for the Lakes, I'M GOING OOT! YAY!

[lonewolf16x9]

Well never took the Camera in the end, just looked at it and went without! Reaility has bitten a bit and I think I have decided to part company with my A850, I will never be able to afford to put the Lenses on it that it deserves and if I could I'd never be able to carry it all up the fells. Photography should be fun and I need to have/use a system that will be good enough for my needs wihout having to resort to extorionate FF Glass (Zeiss) that has SSM and full time manual focus etc. So it'll be back to APSC for the foreseeable future A77 for Airshows etc and an Nex 7 for Landscapes and Fellwalking, or just give up and chuck the A850 in the bin! I had fun with the A77 and I think I'd have it with the Nex7 too so I want to work towards a system revolving around those two I think, which means the A850 and the 70-400 which I soo Treasure will have to go to pay the ferryman...
Next question is how much do I ask for the A850 immaculate 200 shots with all the bits and screen protector and the 70-400 the same (no shots!)
Bottom line is I need to keep my gear costs within reason and not go off on flights of fancy anymore, my body is knackered and my ability to work limited, good enough will be good enough.
There off my chest...

[David Kilpatrick]

I'm only keeping my A900 for specific studio work. After doing micro AF adjustments, and learning to force myself to set ISO 50 or 100 whenever practical and make full use of manual focus mag and focus peaking, I find the A77 really does match the A900 for 90% of work - and then, it extends life into another 20% extra which the A900 can not do at all.

David

[lonewolf16x9]

Did you ever get your AF problems with the galloping Horses sorted out David?
I'd like to stay Sony and I'm pretty sure I will, AF may drive me away though, that said my Canine 7D was no good there either, very hard to set AF and my Nikon D3/700/D300/s/7000 had just too many settings invariably the wrong ones for any given situation! Left right Middle I think I can deal with that!
Wish I could go back and get my A77 kit back but alas no and I doubt I'll be able to afford the kit again, body only then saving for a 16-50 or the 16-80 Zeiss
But at least there is another Sigma 8-16mm to look forward to again Gotta love the Siggy 8-16...

[David Kilpatrick]

I've micro adjusted the 70-400mm on A77 and believe that makes a big difference. There has been no race meeting since, but I'll repeat the test when there is a chance. I was comparing with the very latest brand new Canon 300mm f/2.8 and 1DMkIV - so it was hardly an equal contest!

David