What have you been up to lately?

[Refractordude]

Visited an aquarium shop to enjoy their reef tanks and buy some rocks. I dipped the rocks and a few empty shells for my hermit crabs. I stopped by the health food store on my way home to purchase a banana cake. Once home I set up my scope and 7x50 binoculars for some stargazing a little later. I am back to work at my part-time garage job. Here is a video of what I do with the cart manager buggy.

[pakarinen]

Took my wife to an appointment and saw some crab trees blooming!

The Summer Triangle is up before dawn now.

[Ylem]

Visited an aquarium shop to enjoy their reef tanks and buy some rocks. I dipped the rocks and a few empty shells for my hermit crabs. I stopped by the health food store on my way home to purchase a banana cake. Once home I set up my scope and 7x50 binoculars for some stargazing a little later. I am back to work at my part-time garage job. Here is a video of what I do with the cart manager buggy.

OMG! Longest cart train I have ever seen!!
I have a part time job at Food Lion, my max is a lowly 15 carts LOL

BEAUTIFUL tank!
When my fresh water ones die off I may try a reef, it's also a 20 gallon high.

[Ylem]

Heading back to Savannah to help my dad, he's 86 and having some issues.
Trying to get him to move here, but stubborn is what stubborn does.

I had the same difficult discussion with my Mom. I failed to persuade and didn’t force the issue though I had PoA. It’s tricky. Good luck.

Help!!! it's 82F in here!

[UlteriorModem]

Gosh a clear night tonight! Only partly moony!

[UlteriorModem]

I like the framing, this might be a decent set of data

[turboscrew]

Fifteen minutes ago, my doorbell rang - my filterwheel (ZWO EFW 7x36mm) arrived!

I also found ZWO LRGB filter set in a shop here in Finland. Ordered.

Just fetched the LRGB filter set. That was quick!

[turboscrew]

I started to experiment with the imaging train. In my living room through window, because it's snowing outside AGAIN!
And now my laptop is upgrading to Windows 11! (Censored!). No way around it. It's either Windows 11, or no Windows at all. Frigging M$ ...heads! I really hope my Ascom-stuff still works.
I'd really like to go and strangle them all!

[OzEclipse]

I started to experiment with the imaging train. In my living room through window, because it's snowing outside AGAIN!
And now my laptop is upgrading to Windows 11! (Censored!). No way around it. It's either Windows 11, or no Windows at all. Frigging M$ ...heads! I really hope my Ascom-stuff still works.
I'd really like to go and strangle them all!

Get a Mac!

[turboscrew]

I started to experiment with the imaging train. In my living room through window, because it's snowing outside AGAIN!
And now my laptop is upgrading to Windows 11! (Censored!). No way around it. It's either Windows 11, or no Windows at all. Frigging M$ ...heads! I really hope my Ascom-stuff still works.
I'd really like to go and strangle them all!

Get a Mac!

No way. I'd rather install Linux. Just wouldn't like to do that to a new-ish laptop whose Windows 10 I paid for.
And I wonder if there are semi-rugged Macs...

[turboscrew]

I started to experiment with the imaging train. In my living room through window, because it's snowing outside AGAIN!
And now my laptop is upgrading to Windows 11! (Censored!). No way around it. It's either Windows 11, or no Windows at all. Frigging M$ ...heads! I really hope my Ascom-stuff still works.
I'd really like to go and strangle them all!

Get a Mac!

No way. I'd rather install Linux. Just wouldn't like to do that to a new-ish laptop whose Windows 10 I paid for.
And I wonder if there are semi-rugged Macs...

Phooh, it didn't upgrade to Windows 11 just yet.

The experimenting through the living room window doesn't seem to work. I guess the trees visible are too close.
And it keeps snowing.

[DeanD]

I started to experiment with the imaging train. In my living room through window, because it's snowing outside AGAIN!
And now my laptop is upgrading to Windows 11! (Censored!). No way around it. It's either Windows 11, or no Windows at all. Frigging M$ ...heads! I really hope my Ascom-stuff still works.
I'd really like to go and strangle them all!

Get a Mac!

I've got a 4yo MacBook Pro that I use for my portable planetarium business: and if I put the latest OS on it then I wont be able to operate any of my old tried and true programmes that are not 64bit compatible, including my MYOB accounting software. I've always believed "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but that doesn't seem to apply to operating systems, whether they are Microsoft or Apple...

... but then again, my business is moribund thanks to COVID restrictions anyway. Lucky my wife is working, so I am a "kept man"...


(PS: What is this "snow" stuff I keep hearing you northerners complaining about? )

[turboscrew]

I started to experiment with the imaging train. In my living room through window, because it's snowing outside AGAIN!
And now my laptop is upgrading to Windows 11! (Censored!). No way around it. It's either Windows 11, or no Windows at all. Frigging M$ ...heads! I really hope my Ascom-stuff still works.
I'd really like to go and strangle them all!

Get a Mac!

I've got a 4yo MacBook Pro that I use for my portable planetarium business: and if I put the latest OS on it then I wont be able to operate any of my old tried and true programmes that are not 64bit compatible, including my MYOB accounting software. I've always believed "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but that doesn't seem to apply to operating systems, whether they are Microsoft or Apple...

... but then again, my business is moribund thanks to COVID restrictions anyway. Lucky my wife is working, so I am a "kept man"...


(PS: What is this "snow" stuff I keep hearing you northerners complaining about? )

The snow is the white stuff that lands on your mirrors and other optical gear, if you bring your reflector out during the snow fall.

My point about the Windows was, that I bought a semi-rugged laptop not long ago. It should tolerate light drizzle and -30°C (-22°F) temperature. I haven't seen semi-rugged Macs.

The fully rugged laptops are pretty expensive, but my semi-rugged was only about 700 eur.

[GCoyote]

Helping my wife get packed for yet another half month long business trip.
Good time to do some observing without waking her up as I move gear, IF the weather breaks in my favor for once.

[turboscrew]

Behind my back my laptop DID upgrade to Windows 11. The good news is, that the programs seem to work, and after an hour or two, I managed to find out how to shut down the laptop and where to find the programs. Still a bit pissed, but not enough to kill anybody. And the upgrade is inevitable, eventually.

[Butterfly Maiden]

I am always reluctant to upgrade my Mac Operating System when updates become available.

Most of the updates are to fix security issues, but others update some of the main component parts.

I know I should also backup my important files before doing an update, but I don't I don't have any excuses. I have two external hard drives to be able to do the backups, but I suppose I am a little lazy about doing it

I do have backups of all my photos on an external hard drive, as these are not easily replaced if something went wrong during an update.

My previous Mac OS was macOS 11, also known as Big Sur. The latest update is to version macOS 12, known as Monterey.

Everything went smoothly and all is okay.

[GCoyote]

I am always reluctant to upgrade my Mac Operating System when updates become available.

Most of the updates are to fix security issues, but others update some of the main component parts.

I know I should also backup my important files before doing an update, but I don't I don't have any excuses. I have two external hard drives to be able to do the backups, but I suppose I am a little lazy about doing it

I do have backups of all my photos on an external hard drive, as these are not easily replaced if something went wrong during an update.

My previous Mac OS was macOS 11, also known as Big Sur. The latest update is to version macOS 12, known as Monterey.

Everything went smoothly and all is okay.

Portable back up drives are getting very cheap. You should at least back up all or your business documents at least once a quarter (US) or in your case to meet record keeping requirements in the UK. Several name brand external drives come with software that will do an automatic daily back-up.

I'm getting ready to do another full back-up because the cat tells me it's almost tax time.

[Butterfly Maiden]

Portable back up drives are getting very cheap. You should at least back up all or your business documents at least once a quarter (US) or in your case to meet record keeping requirements in the UK. Several name brand external drives come with software that will do an automatic daily back-up.

I'm getting ready to do another full back-up because the cat tells me it's almost tax time.

@GCoyote Gary, I know I am a naughty girl for not doing proper backups , and I would regret it if something went wrong.

When I backup my photos I also back up my Documents folder (I forgot to mention that in my last post).

My MacBook Pro has disk utility software already included to do backups. As I said though, I am just lazy for not doing them

[KingNothing13]

Behind my back my laptop DID upgrade to Windows 11. The good news is, that the programs seem to work, and after an hour or two, I managed to find out how to shut down the laptop and where to find the programs. Still a bit pissed, but not enough to kill anybody. And the upgrade is inevitable, eventually.

I work from home - connect to a work VPN, go about my day, etc.

Last spring, my laptop - at the time running Windows 7 - I log in to the VPN and my system starts an upgrade. Okay - fine, it does that - updates and such are controlled by the IT Security dept (I work in IT as well, but not security).

Then it starts to update to Windows 10. I was baffled. It never worked right after that. Less than a week later, I have a new laptop, with Win 10 native. I was livid when that update started, and I was never given a reasonable explanation as to what was going on.

*MY* laptop (as opposed to work laptop) is a 2017 Macbook - and it is starting to show it's age. My battery has been an issue for about a year now. I do not want to get a new one yet as I do not know how parallels is going to work with the M1+ chips and Win 11, and I have a few games that I play in Windows that I still want to be able to play.

First world problems.

[turboscrew]

MacOS, I think, is based on BSD Unix, so there should be nice backup programs. In Linux I have a backup partition, and program called "TimeShift". It's set to do backups automatically once a month, while I'm sleeping. Just have to remember to leave the machine running. If it misses the set time, it retries at the next opportunity.
You can set the backup period quite freely. It's easy.

Someone might say that it's bad idea to backup on the same disk, but this disk is rotating rust, not SSD, and ddrescue is quite good in getting the data from even partially broken disk, and every once in a while, I do backup onto external hard drive.