Finished at last

I've been intrigued by Lego Technic models for awhile now and wanted to face the challenge of building one for myself.

The kit I bought makes two models, a rally car and a beach buggy. I chose to make the rally car.

In the box was a thick book of step by step instructions, bags with all the parts needed for the build and a sheet of stickers.

In the Lego kits that make one model, the bags are numbered so you are only working with a limited number of parts at a time. Because this was a kit to make 2 models, the bags were random so I had to work with all the bags at once. With over 1,000 parts, that proved to be tricky in the early stages of the build.

The model has some pretty impressive features; rack and pinion steering, suspension on all four wheels. doors that open, an opening bonnet, a tailgate that opens and turns out the rear quarter panels and an engine with pistons that move up and down as the rear wheels turn.

Progress report

I took my drone out for its maiden flight this morning. I am happy to say that all went well. I was able to take off, ascend to about 10m, fly the drone around and land it back safely. 

For the moment, I am flying in "beginner mode" which restricts the height at which I can fly. It also makes the controls a little less responsive and will not allow me to fly unless I have a GPS signal.

There were a few issues though, nothing to do with the drone.

My iPhone 5s is just too small to see properly the settings and where the drone is going. Even if it was larger though, the glare of the sun on the screen combined with my glasses which darken in the sun made it very difficult to see.

I bought a landing mat to ensure that the drone came down on something soft. However, as the drone came down, the wind from the propellers moved the mat away DOH!!

I've got a support for my iPad coming along with a sunshade for it. That should mean I will be able to see what the camera is looking at and view the map which shows where the drone is currently positioned. Looking forward to my next flight once those items have arrived.

 

Are you up to date?

You have probably read about the latest crisis that has hit the NHS in Britain. A large scale ransomware attack has meant that many UK health trusts have had to shut down their IT systems.

The ransomware got into the systems via infected emails and other internet links. Those affected will have a message on the screen telling them that their files have been encrypted and will only be released upon payment of 300$ worth of bitcoins.

Large companies in Spain have also been affected including Telefonica, Iberdrola  and Gas Natural , along with Vodafone's unit in Spain. These companies have asked staff to turn off computers or cut off internet access in case they had been compromised.

It seems that Microsoft patched the issue earlier this year, but only on version of the Windows operating system that it continues to support. However, up to 90 per cent of NHS computers still run Windows XP which was released in 2001. Microsoft cut support for it in 2014.

Windows XP was very popular because it was robust. It followed in the wake of Windows ME (Millennium Edition) and Vista both of which were bloated and buggy.

Since then Microsoft introduced Windows 7 which stripped out all the bad parts of Vista, the equally unpopular Windows 8 and the latest  -Windows 10.

The issue for the NHS is more than just updating the operating system on its computers. Many of the machines in use are simply not powerful enough to run later versions. An upgrade would cost more than the cash strapped service could afford.

A lesson learnt

My daughter wants to know how to transfer the pictures from her iPhone to a Windows laptop.

That is something I have done several times and the process is normally simple. You connect the phone to the laptop and Windows recognises it and asks where you want to save the photos and even if you want to delete them from the phone once the transfer is complete.

The snag is that she has over 2,000 photos stored on the SIM card i.e. NOT in the phone and therein lies the problem. Windows will recognise the pictures on the phone but not on the SIM card. There must be another way but it is very difficult to find an easy method.

You can buy SIM card readers that should do the job but they all seem to work with older versions of Windows and not the 8,1 that she has on the laptop.

I have no doubt there is a solution but it might not be quick and simple.

The lesson learnt is NOT to store too many photos or videos on any portable device without some sort of backup.

A friend of ours had a similar situation with a digital camera. He could no longer take pictures because the memory card was full. When I enquired he had over 1,000 photos stored on the card. Just imagine if he lost the camera or the card became corrupt, he would have lost the lot. His solution was to buy another card rather than delete the photos he had. I hope that, at some point, he heeded my advice to transfer the photos he had to somewhere safer.

It only takes a few minutes to transfer pictures and video to a computer where you can keep them safe. 

In my case, the desktop I use has two drives which mirror each other. If one fails, as it inevitably will at some point, the other drive has an exact copy. For older pictures that are archived,  I use a NAS box which again has two mirrored drives for the same reason.

Professionals go even further and save their work to several drives or media stored in different locations.

Of course, it all depends upon what importance you place on your photos. In the case of my daughter, they are memories of her family and friends that cannot be replaced. I hope we can find a solution, otherwise those memories could be lost for good.

A little diversion

Those of you who are sat at your computer wondering how to pass the time away can explore some of Google's "Easter Eggs". Be warned though, they might be amusing but they are pretty much pointless.

Here are some to get you started. They work in Google Chrome browser but may not work in others.

In the Google search box type:

1. do a barrel roll
2. askew
3. a long time ago in a galaxy  far, far away
4. blink
5. Google in 1998
6. zerg rush
7. atari breakout
8. Conway's game of life
9. Super Mario Bros
10. flip a coin
11. roll a die
12. Bacon Number -followed by the name of a celebrity
13. apples v oranges - or any other combination you like

There are plenty of others for you to explore - if you have the time to waste that is!

In his bag

I thought I had a lot of Canon gear but this pro photographer beats me hands down.

PS Carol Thorpe, if you you have trouble identifying any of that equipment, email me and I will send you a list.

Working with the light

Those of you who have looked at my pictures from the Auditorium will have noticed how harsh the lighting is in there. The directional spotlights bleach out people's faces and at the same time cast very dark shadows. To be fair, it is pretty much the same in any concert venue.

One solution to the problem is to use flash but a) that is so intrusive during a concert b) you need to be close up for it to work and c) it also bleaches out subject that are close whilst throwing further subjects into shadow.

I normally try and sit at the back of the first section so that I can see the whole of the band and point my camera at different parts. I use a 70-200mm lens on a full frame camera and sometimes add a 1.4x extender to give me more reach.

If you were to look at the information about my photos, you would see that they are mostly taken at full aperture for that lens i.e. f2.8 and shutter speeds are nominally 1/120th of a second. At 200mm that would give me many blurred shots but for the incredible image stabilisation system of the Canon lens.

In the Auditorium I set what is called exposure compensation to bring the exposure as far into the highlights as I can without losing them into solid white. In photography speak that is "exposing to the right" because the highlights are shown on the right side of a histogram of light. "Clipped" highlights are impossible to recover whatever wizardry you try to perform later on a computer.

At those settings, I then allow the camera to choose an appropriate ISO (film speed in old parlance) to get correct exposure. In my days with film, 400 ISO was the highest speed you could buy. You had to what was called push process it to get speeds up to 1,600 ISO and the result was then very grainy.

These days digital cameras have a range of ISO speeds up to 100,000 and more. As the speed increases so does the digital noise and with noise you lose precious detail in a multicoloured blotchy mess. Looking at the speeds that my camera has chosen shows the range to be from 1,500 to about 5,000 ISO and sometimes even 6,400.

When I process the pictures in my computer there are several things that I do. First of all I correct the colour to try and bring it close to neutral. Then I reduce any noise without losing too much detail. I crop my photos to achieve a better composition and finally I try and bring back some of lost information in the shadows.

Therein lies a problem though because what I am relying upon is wide dynamic range from my sensor i.e. its ability to record detail in shadows and highlights at the same time. Dynamic range of digital sensors is always at its highest at the lower ISO settings e.g. ISO 100 and progressively gets lower as the sensitivity increases. At 3,200 ISO it is at its lowest.

These days, the cameras with the greatest dynamic range are those that use Sony sensors which includes Nikons. Canon are lagging behind in this area of design. On the latest Sony sensors you can find detail in areas that appear totally black on first sight - quite remarkable.

To make matters worse, Canon sensors also suffer from banding at low ISO settings. Banding occurs when you try to lighten shadows and show up as colour streaks across those areas. Fortunately, banding is not a problem at the higher ISO settings I use in the Auditorium.

So why did I not chose to go with Nikon? Well, when I first bought a full frame camera, the Canon 5D MkII seemed to have a better feature set than the Nikon D700 which was its competitor. Once I had lenses and flashguns to go with the camera, I was pretty much locked into the Canon system and it would cost me a small fortune to change now. In any case, we Canon shooters live in hope that new versions of their cameras will catch up and hopefully surpass Nikon and then we will be the ones with smiles on our faces.

Further update

For the benefit of those of you who may be contemplating an IPTV set top box to watch  foreign TV.

Pam and I resisted the temptation to have UK TV installed for 11 years. When we first arrived there were a number of ad hoc solutions available including the infamous microwave system. The most satisfactory way was to have as large a dish as you could tolerate and a fake subscription to Sky. We did not favour that and so subscribed to Canal + instead.

Since then though things have changed. The rebroadcast companies have mostly gone out of business and people now use their giant dishes to pick up Freeview rather than Sky. Although the TV via the Internet solution is not new, it does seem to have gained in popularity. Instead of having a fake IP address to access UK catchup TV, you can now view the channels live for a monthly or annual subscription.

As I said in my previous blog entries, you do need a good connection to watch streamed TV especially live.  It isn't just speed, your connection needs to be stable.

I was using Powerline connectors to link up the lounge of our house to the router and these worked fine for most applications. Our SMART TV seemed to have few problems, neither did our Apple TV box once Apple had sorted out the firmware issues. The video on demand service from Canal + also worked OK.  Certainly, the Powerline connectors provided a better alternative to wireless which can be flaky at best. We reserve that for use with our tablets and smartphones.

Even Powerline though has its problems when it comes to streaming HD video on a regular basis. All sorts of devices that you may have on the circuit can introduce noise to the signal and disrupt the quality of your viewing. I have read that even something like a mobile phone charger on the same circuit can cause problems.

To try and solve my issues, I strung an ethernet cable from my router to the switch behind the television. It isn't very elegant and the cable is a trip hazard but this is just an experiment. I knew that a wired connection was going to be the ultimate solution and that has proved to be the case. As my friend in the UK says, "copper is always going to be the best way to go".

Back in the UK I would have routed a cable around the house burying it under the skirting board and under carpet and that would have been neat. Here though we do not have carpet and the skirting board is a row of tiles; there is no elegant way to route a cable inside the house.

What I am going to do instead is take outdoor cable from the router through the bedroom wall and then  around the outside on top of the ledge that runs along the wall to the lounge where a second hole will bring the cable to where I need it. A morning's work and £30 should solve our problems and give us a stable TV reception.

 

An update

A month ago, we had IPTV installed and at the same time, our Canal + (now Movistar) box was replaced.

I am pleased to report that the new satellite box is performing perfectly. We can now rely upon it to record programmes for us. That is a huge improvement on the previous box that would crash each time it started up. A great result - well done Movistar.

There are however issues with the IPTV box. 

Some days it works flawlessly, we can watch programmes, go back and watch catch up and even record programmes that have been aired already to a portable hard drive.

Other days though things start out well and then, for no apparent reason, the picture stalls and a message appears at the top of the screen telling us we have a connection problem. The solution is to switch the box off and then switch back on again to try and re-establish a connection. Sometimes that works instantly, other times it can take up to a minute to get the picture back.

The other problem is stuttering. The connection remains on but the picture stutters. It happens less frequently and usually cures itself within seconds. It happened last night during "Strictly come dancing" a programme that many users of the service would have been watching.

The question is, where and why do these problems arise?

WARNING TO CAROL, THIS IS THE TECCY STUFF!

Streaming video live requires a good, stable Internet connection with sufficient speed and bandwidth to cope. We know that we have sufficient speed at our end because I test it regularly and it averages 8.4Mbs. The company that supply the service claim that you only need 2Mbs so we are well above that. I have also tested our connection for other parameters (ping and jitter) and it is rated B+ (one grade less than perfect) - sufficient for good reproduction of video and audio. The only thing I can't check for over the Internet is "packet loss" but looking at the statistics for my modem, there is zero packet loss reported. Packet loss would be a serious issue, not just for the Internet TV but for any other activity on the net.

The connection between the box and my Internet modem/router is via Home Plugs that use the electrical wiring of the house to carry network signals. Not as ideal a set up as having ethernet cable to the box but far better than a wireless connection.  The plugs installed are rated at 500Mbs and are designed for audio visual signals. Behind the TV is an unmanned switch that distributes the signal to the various devices that require a connection. However, when the TV is on, there are usually no other devices that are accessing the Internet in the house so all of the available bandwidth is directed to the television.

The only conclusion I can come to is that there is an issue with the supplier which I will be taking up after the holiday on Tuesday.

Praise indeed

We met up with John and Carol Thorpe the other day at the VaiVen.

Carol said the she thought my photographs from this year's fiesta were some of the best that I had taken of the event. That was very kind of her and I much appreciate the sentiment.

Together we decided that this was due to a combination of factors:-

• Better equipment - trading my 24-105mm f4L IS lens for the superb 24-70 f2.8L II has improved the quality of my photos. I also used the 70-200mm f2.8L II which is regarded as one of Canon's finest lenses. Fitted to my 5D MkIII, these have given me an advantage over those with more consumer orientated equipment.  
• Better technique - with more practice at taking photos of these events my technique  has improved.
• Better processing - using Adobe Lightroom allows me to process photos much quicker and with greater consistency in terms of colour and exposure.
• Greater familiarity - knowing the pattern of events at the fiestas means I can be in the right place with the right equipment to capture better photos. I no longer worry about being in front of people and in their way.

Above all though, I have to thank Carol for her advice and support which has helped enormously.

So far so good

As I said on Friday, I upgraded the operating system on my desktop computer to Windows 10. The process was painless and only took half an hour.

The upgrade is free and the license is for life so there is no cost nor will there be in the future. WHat is there to lose?

I had intended to wait because I was completely satisfied with Windows 7  but then I read that a friend of mine, who is an IT technician in Liverpool, had upgraded his computer. I also read a comment on Facebook from the company that built my computer saying that Windows 10 was the best operating system that Microsoft has produced. They recommended all of their clients who had machines with Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 to take advantage of the offer - so I did. 

The first day I encountered a minor problem when my computer would not shut down completely. All of the programs closed and the screen went black but the computer was still running. Upon investigation I found that I needed to tweak the power settings. With that done, my computer shuts down properly and everything works as it should. 

Would I recommend the upgrade to others?

If you are entirely satisfied with you current operating system, especially if you are running Windows 7, then you can wait. You have a year in which to decide whether to upgrade or not. 

Just like with the Windows systems of the past though, Microsoft will sometime stop support for Windows 7 and then Windows 8. At that time you will no longer get the security patches that are essential to keep your computer safe. By that stage it will be too late to get a free copy of Windows 10 and so you will have to pay whatever price Microsoft decide to charge. 

The bottom line is that there is nothing to fear with Windows 10. Follow the guidelines to stop Microsoft from gathering too much information from you and all will be fine. Having installed Windows 10, you will enjoy a smooth computing experience that is both fast and stable.

PS Although I am recommending a move to Windows 10 based on my own experience,  you have to decide or yourselves what to do. It it all goes wrong and you end up with a dead machine, please don't blame me.

To upgrade or not?

Having said yes to Microsoft's offer of a free for life upgrade to Windows 10, will I actually install the upgrade when it arrives?

If I was running Windows 8 or even 8.1 the answer would be definitely yes. Those two versions of the operating system were downright unpopular especially with those like me who have a desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard. It was designed for use with tablet computers or touch screens and is shows.

If I was running XP or Vista I would look at the ways I could upgrade to either version 7 or even 8.1 with the promise of a free upgrade to 10.

Once support for XP ran out it became open season for the hackers to find ways to explore its vulnerabilities. Without the regular security patches from Microsoft, XP is a problem waiting to happen for those who connect to the internet. Vista is still being supported by Microsoft and is a lot better now than it was to start with but I would still want to be rid of it.

The case for upgrading from version 7 though is less compelling. My last computer (a Dell running Windows 7) was mostly reliable and very rarely crashed to the "blue screen of death". When it did, it was the result of a rogue program rather than Windows itself. My current one is only a year old so it is early days yet - it too is running Windows 7.

Having trolled the internet for advice about whether to go ahead and upgrade from 7 to 10, the best answers seem to suggest, yes download it but then wait. The possibility of a program or two not working properly or worse still a device driver that is not supported is real.

Even though Microsoft have been testing Windows 10 for some time and have many users out there trialling it, there are bound to be some issues for the early takers. You have one year in which to install the system before the offer expires so waiting is not a real problem. 

Get up to date

According to Microsoft, Spain has the oldest computer software and hardware in the whole of Western Europe.

At least 25 percent of all computers in the country still run Windows XP which is no longer supported by Microsoft. Most manufacturers of support hardware such as printers and scanners no longer manufacture compatible equipment.

Windows XP was first released on October 25th 2001. It was and is the longest running version of the operating system only being succeeded by Vista on the 30th January 2007. Vista proved to be a lot more troublesome than XP though so many continued to use XP rather than upgrade.

Following Vista came Windows 7 which was stable and proved to be as popular as XP. Then Microsoft brought out Windows 8 which, like Vista, had more bells and whistles than the stripped down 7. Like Vista though, it proved to be unpopular and was replaced by 8.1 which revived  features that IT users wanted.

Users of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 have been promised a free copy of Windows 10. Users will have noticed an item in their taskbar which allows them to register for this so that once it is available on the 27th July it will be downloaded ready to be installed when they are ready.

Notice though that the free offer leaves out those 25% of Spanish users who are still running XP and those who upgraded to Vista.

Microsoft say that Windows 10 will be the last version of their operating system. Instead of releasing further versions, they will continue to update the one that you have automatically.  

Keep it clean

I have a brand new computer to replace my four year old Dell. The new computer is housed in a case which has removable dust filters on the intakes so keeping it clean inside should be easy. All I should need to do is take out the filters, wash them, let them dry and replace them – job done.

That was not the case with the Dell and nor was it the case with any of the other computers I have owned. There was no intake fan on the Dell but there were vents to allow air inside which didn’t have dust filters on them.

This summer I noticed that whenever I used a web browser the fans on the Dell would speed up meaning that the computer was getting hot.

I therefore took the side cover off  to investigate. On preliminary inspection there did not seem to be a lot of crud inside, the fans themselves were pretty clean so I needed to look further. What I found was the vanes on the CPU cooler were filled with dust and there was a lot of fluff and dust blocking the intake on the fan that cools the graphics card. Using a blower and a brush I removed all the dust and fluff that I could and that seems to have done the trick.

The point I am making is that one of the primary causes of computer failure is dust inside. It chokes up the fans which leads to excessive heat build up and that causes untold problems.

If you have a computer that is more than a year old and you live in a dusty environment, you really need to remove the side panel and check it inside. Be careful not to touch any sensitive electrical components or you may kill them with static. Get in there with a vacuum or a blower and brush and remove as much of that dust as you can. It doesn't matter if you touch the fans but keep away from the motherboard and the memory cards.

If you are not confident about doing the job yourself, take the computer to a shop where they will clean it for you. Taking this simple step could save you an expensive computer repair and will keep your machine working quietly for longer. 

I’m going the NAS route

From my days of taking photographs and movie on film I have umpteen boxes and albums of photos and several large reels of home movies. I may never look at any of them again but that does not mean I will part with them.

Once I moved over to digital, my pictures and video were stored on the hard drive of a computer and were moved from one machine to another as I upgraded. I never thought to back the files up until I realised just how much of a collection I had. That is when I bought an external hard drive to store backup copies. The problem is that, making a backup is time consuming and therefore something that I neglect to do on a regular, scheduled basis.

As my hard drive gradually fills up, I know that it is time to archive a lot of those pictures and video that I will probably not want to use again but don’t want to lose. At the same time, it would be nice to be able to access files that I do use regularly on other devices around the house even outside the house via the internet.

I’d heard of NAS and investigated the idea of storing files using one. Originally though, these seemed frighteningly complicated not to mention expensive. These days though, the systems that run them have become a lot more user friendly and the prices have dropped.

A NAS, for those who are not familiar, is Network Attached Storage. Instead of being attached to one computer in your home network via USB, a NAS is attached to your network via your router. The date stored on it is therefore available to any computer or device on the network and in many cases outside your home via the internet.

In its basic form, a NAS is a box which contains a hard drive driven by a processor and software. More sophisticated NAS boxes though contain multiple drives and offer more facilities and more flexibility in terms of set up.

We all know because we have been told that hard drives can fail, some know only too well from bitter experience the consequences of a hard drive failure. My current computer has two hard drives in what is called a Raid 0 array. The date is shared between the two drives in an attempt to speed up data transfer. However, if one of those drives fails, all is lost because the other one only contains part of the information. OK, I have my data on an external drive but could not restore my computer from it.

Fortunately, there are other versions of Raid that protect you from this sort of problem, the most common of which is Raid 1. In a Raid 1 array, the data is stored simultaneously on two hard drives so that if one drive fails, the data is still intact on the other.  If I was starting from scratch, that is how my computer would be set up with two identical disks. The downside of this approach is that you need two drives of equal capacity to store only half the total i.e. two 2Tb drives to store just 2Tb of data.

Storing a regularly updated complete copy of your system on a NAS provides the same security as a Raid 1 array. However, it is possible to take that level of security further because NAS boxes that take two drives allow you to set them up in a Raid 1 array and the better ones even allow you to remove a faulty drive and replace it whilst it is running.

This may all sound a bit over the top but if your data is as important to you as mine is to me, then it makes sense to have the highest level of security that is reasonable. For those who might be interested, I have a Synology NAS with two 3Tb drives on order which I will set up in a Raid 1 array. 

What we need to know

Before we consider signing up to the new fibre optic service we need to know how it will work.

In order to get a full 100Mb download speed, the cable needs to go to your house and not just to a box in the street. Therefore I ask, are Bitel proposing to take their cable into people’s houses?

Will Bitel be the internet service provider? If that is the case then we would end up with new email addresses and login details.

Telefonica offer us 5 email addresses with an allocation of server space for each. What will Bitel be offering?

Will the email service be simply web based or will we be able to use an email client to access our mail as well?

Telefonica has a spam filter that weeds out a lot of the junk mail that we would ordinarily receive. Will Bitel offer a similar service?

Many of us have contracts with Telefonica that would need to be cancelled if we moved to the new system. Bitter experience with Telefonica shows us that cancelling a contract with them is not as straightforward as it ought to be. Are Bitel prepared to handle that part of the process for us?

We would need a new modem at least to access the fibre optic system. Will Bitel be offering a modem or even a Wi-fi router as part of the package?

Apart from the monthly cost of the service there may be a set up cost. If that is the case, how much will it be?

The actual speed that you get depends, not just on the type of cable but on the contention ratio. Too many users sharing the connection would lower the speed. What contention ratio will Bitel be working to?

Perhaps most important of all. Can we be sure that Bitel will be in existence for the long term?

I am sorely tempted by the idea of a high speed connection not just for downloads but for uploads as well. I believe the upload speed with a fibre connection will be in the order of 8Mb which would vastly reduce the time it takes me to upload pictures and video to the internet. Although 100Mb sounds nice, the 50Mb service is 20 euros per month cheaper and should be more that adequate for the moment. I feel sure that could be upgraded if the need arose.

Don’t panic!!!

Gameover Zeus, or GOZ as it is known, was designed to steal people's online banking login details thus allowing the criminals to clear their accounts.  Computers were infected by the owners clicking on attachments or links in emails that looked innocuous. The malware also dropped a copy of Cryptolocker on the computers.

So there were two scenarios, either your login details were stolen and you lost money from your bank account or all the files on your computer were locked up and you had to pay a fine to unlock it.

The good news:

“US and European officials announced they had managed to crack the malicious software that has already been used to divert millions of dollars to bank accounts of criminals. The authorities have also cracked Cryptolocker – the scam that  has already shutout hundreds of thousands of users from their own computers and ransomed the data.”

The bad news:

The criminals will be back and will find ways to restore their systems. Experts say we have a two week window in which to ensure that our computers are safe. That means, making sure that we have up to date anti virus software and that our operating systems are also up to date.

If you have a version of Windows that is still supported i.e. any of the ones from Vista onwards, then Microsoft will push updates to you which of course you should accept. You should also make sure that your anti virus software is up-to-date and if you haven’t got this software installed, you should see to this immediately. There are plenty of free versions out there to choose from or you can pay for something with a bit more functionality.

Last night I left my computer running so that my anti-virus software could perform a full scan using up-to-date virus definitions. I am pleased to say that no nasties were found during the process.

I never open suspicious files in emails in the same way I never follow those emails that insist I update my details for any online banking services so it was unlikely that I should have installed any malware. However, it is always better to be safe than sorry.

The really good news:

As much as my friend Pete dislikes Apple operating systems, they are rarely the subject of these sort of attacks. Because Apple has a much lower user base, it simply is not worth the effort for criminals to target them. In the same way, those who are running the various incarnations of Linux will be spared.  The cost of running the most popular operating system is that we are the prime target for criminal activity.

That is impressive

Excitement mounts in London as the Duchess of Cambridge is admitted to hospital in the first stages of labour.

The world’s press have been gathering for weeks in preparation and have been setting up ready to catch the all important shots of the announcement.

Being a camera geek, I’m more interested in the equipment these guys are using than the impending news. This picture from the papers of one photographer has me intrigued. I know it is a Canon L series lens like the ones I use; the red ring on the barrel and the distinctive white finish are a giveaway. But which one is it?

In a game of “mine’s bigger than yours”, this guy would probably win.

PS The part at the front is the lens hood, the actual lens starts behind that where the red ring is located.

A possible explanation

Yesterday, the picture on our Skype call to Molly kept freezing. When we disconnected and started again, the picture would come back but then after a minute or so would freeze again. It was a very frustrating experience!

Today, I have found what might be the reason for our problems in this article from the Guardian. 

Spamhaus, which operates a filtering service used to weed out spam emails, has been under attack since 18 March after adding a Dutch hosting organisation called Cyberbunker to its list of unwelcome internet sites. The service has "made plenty of enemies", said one expert, and the cyber-attack appeared to be retaliation.

A collateral effect of the attack is that internet users accustomed to high-speed connections may have seen those slow down, said James Blessing, a member of the UK Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) council.

"It varies depending on where you are and what site you're trying to get to," he said. "Those who are used to it being really quick will notice." Some people accessing the online streaming site Netflix reported a slowdown.

Spamhaus offers a checking service for companies and organisations, listing internet addresses it thinks generate spam, or which host content linked to spam, such as sites selling pills touted in junk email. Use of the service is optional, but thousands of organisations use it millions of times a day in deciding whether to accept incoming email from the internet.

Cyberbunker offers hosting for any sort of content as long, it says, as it is not child pornography or linked to terrorism. But in mid-March Spamhaus added its internet addresses to its blacklist.

In retaliation, the hosting company and a number of eastern European gangs apparently enlisted hackers who have in turn put together huge "botnets" of computers, and also exploited home and business broadband routers, to try to knock out the Spamhaus system.

"Spamhaus has made plenty of enemies over the years. Spammers aren't always the most lovable of individuals, and Spamhaus has been threatened, sued and [attacked] regularly," noted Matthew Prince of Cloudflare, a hosting company that helped the London business survive the attack by diverting the traffic.

Rather than aiming floods of traffic directly at Spamhaus's servers – a familiar tactic that is easily averted – the hackers exploited the internet's domain name system (DNS) servers, which accept a human-readable address for a website (such as guardian.co.uk) and spit back a machine-readable one (77.91.248.30). The hackers "spoofed" requests for lookups to the DNS servers so they seemed to come from Spamhaus; the servers responded with huge floods of responses, all aimed back at Spamhaus.

Some of those requests will have been coming from UK users without their knowledge, said Blessing. "If somebody has a badly configured broadband modem or router, anybody in the outside world can use it to redirect traffic and attack the target – in this case, Spamhaus."

Many routers in the UK provided by ISPs have settings enabled which let them be controlled remotely for servicing. That, together with so-called "open DNS" systems online which are known to be insecure helped the hackers to create a flood of traffic.

"British modems are certainly being used for this," said Blessing, who said that the London Internet Exchange — which routes traffic in and out of the UK — had been helping to block nuisance traffic aimed at Spamhaus.

The use of the DNS attacks has experts worried. "The No 1 rule of the internet is that it has to work," Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who pointed out the inherent vulnerabilities of the DNS years ago, told AP.

"You can't stop a DNS flood by shutting down those [DNS] servers because those machines have to be open and public by default. The only way to deal with this problem is to find the people doing it and arrest them."

Is she jinxed?

Pam’s new iPad went on the blink four weeks after she’d bought it. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, it would cycle on and off going back to the Apple screen whenever she tried to do anything with it. Eventually the iPad gave up and told me to reinstall the software and hardware which I did.

That made no difference, once I had reinstated all the settings etc from iCloud, the iPad went back into the same cycle of switching on and off. There was nothing else for it, the iPad went back to Apple for investigation and now we have the result. Apple say that, after exhaustive testing, they cannot reproduce the problem. They do go on to say that they have installed the latest software and firmware (something I had already done) so who knows. The iPad is currently on its way back to Spain.

Last night, Pam’s phone decided it had no SIM card installed. Switching the phone off and back on did nothing, removing the card and reseating it made no difference. I tried my SIM card in Pam’s phone and that worked. I then tried her SIM card in my phone and got the same reply, “insert SIM card”.

I know that these little pieces of plastic with their multitude of gold connectors can go faulty but after all the years she has had it why?

The only conclusion I can come to is that Pam is emitting some weird electro magnetic  forces via her fingers that magically corrupt electronic devices. For the moment, I am keeping the TV remote under my control just in case and as for my cameras – don’t even go there!