Maverick or Mavericks

Was this coincidence or was this a sign? 5.5 GB of download would require some serious bandwidth, but I was sure the apartment fiber could handle that.

There seemed to be plenty of upgrade in the new OS, but I wonder if my ageing lappy and iMac could cope with the new programs.

But for the time being, let just enjoy the movie .....

Updating a Pain

I went through my blog entries during my travel and felt that I'd better put everything in a proper link pages. And when doing that, there were gaps and some entries which had yet to be uploaded onto the server.

So, for the last couple of days, I have been frantically uploading those entries as well as uploading the slideshows from my SmugMug site. Those took some doing, and I still got a few which needed sorting up. And then, work got in the way and after getting the calls out of the way, I should have some free time this weekend.

I would need to get all the entries for the Kyoto and Lugano trips in sequence and put them into a neat link page. Hmmmmm ..... Hive me anoyher couple of days.

New Flickr. Y No Pro?

I've been a Flickr member since Nov 2007, before converting into a Pro in 2009. I've never looked back ever since. I do host most of my photos on SmugMug though and I tried 500px and Picasa in the past. I've never trusted Facebook with my photos. I was keen on Google Plus but felt Flickr was still the clear winner.

So, I was glad to learn that Marissa Meyer made Flickr one of her main products when she took over Yahoo! Certainly Flickr is a good product, and the previous management neglected this diamond. So, which way did the new regime was taking Flickr?

I knew things were serious when the 3-months Pro account was given away before Xmas last year. I was waiting for them to implement a face-lift a lot earlier. So, when it finally came, I was actually very happy. Google probably caught wind of this change since they only updated their Plus experience only last. For the better.

I'm happy with the new interface. Definitely more modern. But the subscription model made me sit back. I felt that the company missed one important element here. Flickr was actually built on loyalty.

During the lean times, the user stood by the product. They wore their Pro badges with pride. I was one of them. By abolishing Pro - only allowing old timers to be grandfathered in if they have a recurring payment program - these hardcore band would wither away. I personally felt that the loyalty wasn't rewarded. In the days of social media, 6 years is a long time!

The jacked-up interface was a welcomed change. But I was hoping that there would be movement to recognise these Pro group of users who had stayed on through thick and thin. If there is one, I would sign up in a heartbeat. To have to pay extra just to have no advert is just plain lame.....

Update Crash!

It had been more than a couple of weeks since I updated the iOS software into the new version. Some of my apps crashed, but the worst one affected had been one called 'Day One', which I used as my blogging platform. At least at the drafting stage. It synced across all my devices, and once I drafted the entry, I would just need to upload it onto the SquareSpace server from there.

Since the update, it had crashed big time. I have since found it a pain to update the blog, and consequently, things had slowed down.

As a last resort, I had to delete the synced files and lost the older updates - I still got a backup. It was now back in order. I suspect it was because I had too many entries on the server. It just could not cope with the syncing. It was now back in order, and I would be updating my blog more regularly from now on….

Worth the Update?

Updated to iOS 6 in the early hours of today. And as expected, some of the old apps may not work. In fact, the main app unused for blogging and putting my thoughts together - Day One - crashes completely. There was an update later in the afternoon, but that too crashed. No joy!

But I was sure a path will come along soon for all the apps.

My iPhone 4S did feel significantly faster. Everything seems to zip along very quickly. The Facebook integration was particularly handy. My RSS program worked OK, as well as my SquareSpace app. The apps which tended to crash were the ones relying on iCloud integration.

The camera app worked fine. I have yet to try the panorama feature, but the samples I've seen on the Internet looked impressive.

To be honest, I have always been an early adopter when it comes to updates and software on my iDevices. Yes, it has it problems, but eventually things sort themselves out. Apart from the fact that I was not able to update my iMac to Lion since the P1 software - the main Internet source for my study in Gombak - is not compatible with the new OS. P1 never thought that their Mac user were significant enough to make the investment. Shane on them.

I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for update downloads for the apps. But on the whole, the extra speed alone was worth the update.