JJGraphics

Especially the seats. Anything has to be better that the park benches in the 800's.

Any other answers or thoughts, please? John

Can't seem to reply to a comment on a post I made. I get is this and can do no more:

I'm trying to establish exactly which decoder Bachmann have fitted to their latest 32-485SF Class 40 and whether it can be re-blown or not. There seem to be various opinions about this in different places on the 'net . . . John

Typical example of the editorial ignorance at BBC News. Amazed they did not illustrate the article with one of their usual pictures of young women flouncing about in fancy face masks which they seem to use for almost anything these days. John

Because you're almost brain dead?

Not the right place to ask this. Ask Andy to move it to Modelling questions, Help & Tips and you will stand a better chance of getting some helpful answers. John

Still getting Christmas Cards which were posted well before Christmas. Latest one arrived yesterday which was posted on the 14th no more than ten miles away. Wonder where that has been? John

Again, FWIW, Mrs JJGraphics went to Tesco in Wokingham just after 09:00 this morning and not only was the car park unusually empty, the store was, too. The store had the usual people with the big trolleys picking orders for delivery and Click & Collect, but ordinary customers were noticeably few and far between. No empty shelves, no queues for the checkouts and most of the checkout operators were waiting for their next customer to arrive. John

Went to Tesco in Wokingham about 10:00 this morning. Car park and shop was very quiet. Shelves were stacked, aisles mercifully free of staff with those damn great trolleys making up deliveries and the checkout operators were sitting and looking very bored. I was in and out in less than 15 minutes and came home with everything on our list. I think everyone has panic-bought themselves to a standstill. John

I've been using high-quality external SSD drives for some time and have not experienced any failures as yet. However, backing-up is absolutely vital if you have a library of photos you don't want to lose. A long-time acquaintance of mine who is a storage device engineer says, "It's not a case of if a storage device will fail, but when!" and I've seen brand new hard disks fail within a few days of being put into service and I'm not talking about cheap ones, either. I use a two-disk rotating backup routine with Time Machine for the Macs we have and that results in having at least one almost current back-up of all machines in addition to the live data on the SSD attached to the MacBook and on the internal storage on the other Macs. If you are interested in understanding more about back-up routines you might find this information I prepared for my clients useful: Backing-up.pdf Also . . . It is very important to format any new storage device before you first use it as the factory formatting is not always perfect, may not meet your needs or the storage device may come with a load of clutter on it which needs to be removed. When using external storage devices with a Mac it is important to format them for Mac. (A Mac can use a Windows-formatted storage device, but not the other way round. Using a Windows-formatted storage device on a Mac is not efficient and may end in tears). John

This thread which started with a genuine question which was answered is now descending into one of those silly Mac vs PC ones which get nowhere. You buy whatever kind of kit you prefer for whatever reason you prefer and its pointless arguing back and forth on the subject. Lets get on with building models . . . John

Absolutely! A Samsung T5 or T7 on USB3 is fast enough to be a boot drive. I have used an external SSD to supplement storage on my macBook Pro for my photography and graphics work with complete success. USB C is an even better proposition. John

Modern SSDs are so small they can tuck into a pocket . . . John

Its a lot cheaper and perfectly effective to use a good-quality external SSD to expand your storage. John

Some developers are good at supporting older software; some are not. I suspect that the ASi-only situation is at least three or maybe four years away.

I have not seen many people with cabled headphones recently. The current iPhones do have a socket, you just need an adaptor to connect the cabled headphones to the lightning port.

macOS 11 Big Sur brings an improvement to the performance of most Macs which can accept the installation, but user the actual experience will vary depending on the age, model and configuration of the machine. My new Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air (base specification) is significantly faster than my one year old Intel iMac which is well-specified with RAM, an SSD and a high-performance video card for my use with photography and graphics. Both are running macOS 11 Big Sur. You can change the colouring and appearance of the Big Sur interface significantly to suit your taste. You certainly don't have to have the garish default "wallpaper". I suggest that you spend a little time exploring the new System Preferences controls and I think you will be pleasantly surprised. There are a lot of technical changes which will not be apparent to the average user, especially in the area of security but, in particular, the new OS paves the way for the transition from the current use of Intel processors to the new Apple M-series processors, which bring astonishing performance increases and greatly increased battery life to the Mac laptops. John

Remember to wait at least five minutes before calling your Bank to ensure that the scam call has dropped and check that you can hear a proper dialling tone if you are using a landline. We frequently hear of people being caught out as the scammers keep the line open and wait for you to dial before answering in a different and plausible voice. The telecoms companies are making changes to prevent this happening but it may be a while before it is universally implemented. John

We have not seen a meter reader for a very long time and we have changed suppliers several times. They just accept your word for the readings. John

If you use an iPhone or iPad to take photos or videos, make sure that you do so in landscape mode and always have the Home Button on the right. This will avoid orientation issues. John

It some reports it is said that a Smart Meter uses only a small amount of power which is not added to the user's bill, in other reports it is mentioned that Smart Meters use a few pounds worth a year which is added to the bill. So much nonsense has been put out about them that I am left in serious doubt what is actually true. John

Nope! Any other suggestions? John

That old boiler had a good lifespan. I very much doubt the new one will last as long, but I have no doubt that you’ll be very pleased with drop in gas consumption! John

Quite so! Many things that have the word "smart" in their name are anything but smart, and we won't entertain any them in our house. John