Broken in Mavericks - Major widespread Data loss situation - Mavericks + External Drives + WD Western Digital software

Please be aware that there are serious data loss issues ongoing with Mac OSX Mavericks and Western Digital drive sofware. Both the Apple support and WD forums have multiple customer reports of total external drive data loss.

The data loss is not limited to systems activly using the WD software and drives, other vendor external hard drives are being lost. 

Personally I just lost 1TB of Time machine backups on a Iomega external drive. I did have a WD myBook for a while about 2 years ago but was not aware the WD drive software was still active on this machine.

Current advice from Western Digital is to uninstall the WD drive software before going to Mavericks. Uninstaller is here 

This situation as already caused a lot of digital pain, loss of data and as a technical person makes me sad in so many ways.

This is the set of ugly messages from Disk Utility as it fails to repair the damage to

Only solution Erase, Repartition and make a new volume. The disk was stuck for in a not mounted state and not able to be erased saying disk could not be "Un mounted." Fix for that was to find the running fsck_hfs process and kill it. Pointed TimeMachine at the new volume and replaced the Old volume name.

To the data distruction digital hall of shame we add ....... Western Digital

and for lack of governance and oversight of vendors ... Apple

You really ought to do better.

Giraffe Profile pictures

Here are some Giraffe profile pictures just in case you need them ;-)


Provided cost and rights free. All taken at Hluhluwe game park in South Africa 2011

3 Villains called "Rabbit"

Recently came across three separate, and as far as I know unrelated, stories in which the major villain character is called Rabbit.

• Utopia - British Channel 4 TV series 
• Rainbows End - Science fiction book by Vernon Vinge
• Banshee - USA HBO TV series.

Coincidence or conspiracy ?

Fold back the unmapped world

Google mapping and Streetview is not considered new technology but has recently evolved to include more portable mapping devices. These backpack and bike mounted camera+gps devices will fold back the areas of the unmapped world and capture a snapshot of how places are.

Photo above from Google who used the backpack mounted "Trekker" to map the Grand canyon in USA.

Just like buses, wait for one mapping car then three come along at once.

The Streetview story is a geeky cocktail of  technology and a real determination to innovate in the mapping and visualisation of earth. Currently available in selected countries from all continents the mapping and remapping continues. With the combination of maps, Streetview and Satellite imagery the real joy is being able to locate and view a location from all different angles. When viewing the images be sure to note the Mapping/Image dates as places can change dramatically through the seasons and in a few years.


Cheers

Gannett

Exmoor Explorer 2013

Had a great if somewhat wet and tough time on the Exmoor Explorer this weekend. The 20+ mile mountain bike event that was entered by over 300 people starting from Minehead rugby club in North Devon.

Having not done an organised mountain bike event before I was not quite sure what to expect. Things did not get off to a great start as after the first climb the chain snapped but I was soon back on the trail with a bit of help from Toby with a chain tool. The event route was well selected just about every type of terrain Exmoor has to offer. Some of the downhills on lumpy grass track were perilous resulting in a roll in the heather ( and not in a good way).

The hardest part was getting up Dunkery beacon, the ground was vertical and the rain horizontal. Even after all that effort the view was just misty.  Other parts of the course were better as later on the rain cleared and stunning vistas across Exmoor opened up.

It's important to know your limitations and for me that was getting to the half way tea stop. Most of the return section seemed like an uphill struggle even if the profile shows otherwise. Cramp was biting and grit & mud had got in everywhere. However the best technical sections were on the return leg with a couple of glorious woodland trail descents, just needed a bit more oomph to make the best of them.

By the end of the day the back brake had faded, the rear gears were jamming but the tyres and wheels held up well. For next time I would prep the bike better, remove saddlebag and not bother taking cheese and pickle sandwiches. Flapjack, cake and tea were provided at the tea stop and end of the event. 

Overall was pleased to have finished in around 290 out of 380 position.  Thanks to the organisers for a great event.

Silverstone Classic 2013

Had a really great time at the Silverstone Classic last weekend. A heady combination of show cars, historic races and time to go round the pits to see the racers in preparation. The bands in the evening cranked out familiar tunes to pass the darker hours.

Like this lad, petrol heads never lose that fascination with super sized motors.

Go see 30 + Lamborginis jostling to get out the car park on YouTube  or best of the rest gallery of cars here.

Compilation of Video clips from weekend.

Cheers

Gannett

Publishing - revolution

My sister published a book today. It took 20 years to write but just a couple of hours to publish to the world.  No fancy software was required just MS Word and a web browser to upload to the Kindle self publishing store.  Preparation of the manuscript takes the usual effort for writing, proofing and simple formatting but then upload and publish is really straightforward.

To work best as an eBook simple consistent formatting is required. A page break before each chapter and use paragraph styles to format the headings helps build a live link "Table of contents" page.  That along with some cover artwork makes the complete package.

No more waiting for publisher approval, no more slaughter of trees, the kindle publishing platform is direct and all electronic process.

Originally the development of DTP was all about being able to emulate the technical requirements needed for paper and ink publishing but for ebooks, where the page is formatted on the fly, almost no formatting is needed.


I haven't examined all the commercial arrangements, and I don't know if there are fortunes to be made, that probably comes down to promotion and marketing but the ability to access such an efficient publishing platform is a true revolution.

And the book ....  It's a tale for youngsters told from the view point of Nipper a brave sheepdog that saved 300 cows and sheep from a barn fire.  Over in the kindle store ...  

Not surprised by this.

The Independent newspaper reports ...

British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows

Research shows public opinion often deviates from facts on key social issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration ....

It's probably because more folks read the Daily Mail than The Independent and Daily Telegraph put together :-). The Daily Mail, like much of the press these days, is a shameful paper that will print what it thinks the public wants to read regardless of the facts of a situation. Specialising in taking opposite ends of a story in the same week it has the morals of a crack den.

Newspapers have a guiding influence on public opinion, so the research above proves how badly they are doing their core function.

Gannett