MacBook Pro backup

Helped Susan to get SuperDuper going this afternoon, but she had 400GB on her 500GB drive and the first pass of the app always takes a long time. She probably didn't complete the clone before leaving for Bangkok and HK by Finnair today, but she'll be able to run it overnight when she gets there.

The new 1TB Western Digital drive is unbelievably tiny!

Almost bought a MacBook Pro

I have been concerned about the possibility of my daughter losing her MB Pro, and was thinking of getting a similar model as a kind of reserve, but it would have cost NOK 17.5K, which is a hell of a lot of money under the circumstances..

Instead I ordered a 1TB WD external drive, and we'll take a SuperDuper clone before she leaves for the East again this weekend.

Not sure if we would be able to run from this clone on my New iMac, which runs either Lion or Mountain Lion, but we'll check it out. If it works, at least she has the opportunity to work while waiting for a replacement.

Just dusted off the T91MT

It must be many months since I last powered on this, my remaining Windows device, probably stimulated by all the talk of Surface RT..

Spending the usual hour or so slowly installing updates, and removing a couple of unwanted apps, has been enough to put me off Windows for life...

Forwarding to Gmail

Decided to return my online.no mail to forwarding it to Gmail as a way of ridding myself of a growing bunch of Spam reaching the Apple Mail acct.

It didn't work reliably for a couple of hours and I'm not sure whether that was due to the time passed, or my changing the Inbox style to Classic, but after the latter things worked perfectly as desired.

Where have you been Fraser?

Reading! I tend to do things in phases which can last for months, and thats what I've been doing this summer, which wasn't one of Norway's best.. I came across Christopher Brookmyre, Dana Stabenow, and Alan Bradley's series of over thirty eBooks. A great summer!

On the technical front, I was happy to get my iPhone back with a stable Home Button for a LOT less cost than Apple would take..

Apple Rant: Too eager once again, I updated both my iPhone 4 and the iPad 3 to iOS 6, and in the process installed the new Podcast app on the phone. This has resulted in my being unable to stream podcasts from my iMac's Shared iTunes Library even after deleting the Podcasts app! What were they thinking? Apple Maps don't affect me, otherwise I would have been a lot angrier..

Have been looking at the latest gadgets, but neither the Surface RT, nor the Galaxy Note 2 appeal. I also think five active devices is enough for the time being ;)

On the internet front, I was overjoyed to receive an email from Telenor advising of a SIM upgrade, which would allow me to obtain 4G on my ZTE 'miniruter', and 10 times the current speeds. YES!

IPhone 4 sent for repair

but not to Apple. No way will I pay them $300 for an hour's work to shift a $5 dollar item.. instead, I am paying $100 (NOK 600) to the local service firm AppleSpesialisten.no

Of course I heard from the above as soon as they received the device, saying the Home button was Ok. Not the best sign, as I had included a note pointing out the intermittent nature of the fault!

I told them to swap it anyway, and hope to get it back tomorrow or Saturday.

Of course the problem might have been due to a loose connection, which just could have been shaken up in the post. I just hope it works perfectly when I get it back..

Nexus 7 from Multicom

I felt a bit fed up my Samsung Galaxy Nexus was not getting a swift update to Jelly Bean, and had heard only good reports of the ASUS Nexus 7, so on Saturday 25th August at 11 AM I ordered a US model from Multicom..

On Tuesday at 1:30 PM it was delivered to the door by my friendly postman :) That I call service!

I plugged it in to charge, started adding key apps, and was a little surprised to be advised that an update to 4.1.1 was ready, even if the battery level wasn't. I continued adding apps, including Evernote. That was a mistake as I have almost 5000 notes containing a number of images. It took a long time, and I don't think it did the battery much good..

When the battery level allowed, I upgraded to 4.1.1 OK, and continued adding apps. However, although I was happy with the look and feel of the Nexus 7, I was worried how slow the charging was going. Checking battery state with Spare Parts Pro I found it said the device was discharging.. WHAT!?

I tried a few things to narrow things down: swapped the Nexus USB cable with my GS2's. No change on the Nexus, but the GS2 certainly charged OK via the Nexus cable.. then I used the iPad's charger, but still the device said 'discharging', even when it was slowly moving towards 75%.

Ended up plugging it in beside my bed, and it reached 100% by the morning. Will add comments as and when I learn more. By the way, there are a number of other posts about slow Nexus 7 charging on the web.