A few random musings

No real structure to tonights blog - just a few thoughts and things to share with you.

First a quick PC update.  After spending a significant amount of my weekend faffing about with my desktop, I have finally managed to kill off the pesky virus.  It was complex and has taken out some functionality, including getting internet access as it has killed the ability to renew the IP address.  Fortunately, the router is fine and wireless is saving me with the Netbook.  But it is a real nuisance and I have lost access to my main email address, although my reserve webmails are fine.

I was minded just before Christmas to update and replace my PC but hung on  Well now I have ordered a new one that should be with me in just over a week.  I have ordered it from pcspecialist.co.uk, who built my last one for me.  It is great to get things built to the specific spec. you want, at a great price.  I prefer to go this route rather than buying a bespoke system.

I will go into a more detailed review of this at a later date.  Suffice to say I have specced to a high performance in the expectation of a soon to be announced Adobe Photoshop CS5.  Probably next month if any of the web rumours are to be believed.  I will go straight past CS4 in that case.

With the file sizes from the 7D i.e. 100mb for 16 bit TIFFs, decent processing power is now needed.

On the wildlife front, I was delighted to see my first butterflies of the year, with two Brimstones flying through the garden, and one Comma that landed - I did get some images which I will post once I have had the chance to process.

I took a walk along my local canal first thing yesterday, hoping to see Kingfishers.  I saw them back late last year, but we had serious cold weather throughout the winter and the canal was frozen solid for quite a while.

It was while reading this story last week that I thought I would take a look to see if we were affected.

Certainly there was no sign of any kingfishers, so I have to hope that they have just moved on rather than succumb to the weather.

Frogs are still very active in my pond, and the Smooth Newts have also come to life, with males, females and plenty of last years young starting to swim freely.

Martin