I was awake around five, despite being awake after midnight on a fruitless quest for an open online Apple Store. Not feeling the greatest this morning as a result, especially as I had gone to bed hungry.

My weight was down again, to 68.4 kilograms on the Withings scale. That was good. Now to eat something!

Had a glass of milk, and then out to weed the garden. The only gardening tool anyone needs is Roundup, or some like product. The only extra tool you need is a screwdriver to open the spray bottle.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then off to the Mitre 10 hardware store with Jean. Potting mix. Then Jean selected a Desert Rose, since they are a hardy plant that can take high temperatures. We brought them home.

Off to Willows for our walk through the shopping centre. Three and a bit times around. Boring scenery. Next was off to the Twelve oaks egg farm shop. The giant eggs have gone up to $3.20 a dozen, which complicates making change something fierce.

Eventually got around to putting away the still hot crockery from the dishwasher. It is more interesting to look at mail.

Ray phoned to tell me he would not be at lunch. However Jeff turned up. Somewhat later John also turned up. I had chef Noel's barramundi, and it was pretty good. Too much food for me, so I brought two salads back for Jean.

Jeff rolled up on his newly assembled Segway this afternoon. His first ride out on it. I got to try riding it on the grass. It was great fun, and very easy to get used to. Just the thing for a retirement village.

The Social Club event this evening was a fund raiser for the Bingo Club. So the various prize draws were after a ten minute Bingo call. I did get a $25 fuel voucher, which was actually marginally greater than the number of fund raising tickets I bought.

It rained! First time in ages. Around 8 p.m., after I got home. But it actually rained. I wonder if it will continue for long?

Ordered a silver iPad Air with cellular, and waited until morning (store was not working last night). http://www.apple.com/s/AM0V6u8

The only gardening tool you need is a small screwdriver to unlatch the nozzle of the weed spray squirter bottle.

https://www.connoisseuricecream.com.au on special at half price @Coles - no chocolate available. Just what was the point @Coles?

Sitting around at the retirement village. A neighbour rolled up on his second hand Segway, only assembled today. My first ride on a Segway. Yee ha!

I lurched out at dawn to find my 2009 MacBook Pro with the screen blindingly white, and the fans full on. No keyboard or touchpad actions apparent. So I used the start switch. The MacBook Pro came back up fine, and the fans soon got the temperature down. There was nothing in the Console error logs to indicate just why it had decided to go crazy. Annoying. Plus I still want to find what is still using 46GB of drive space before I give it to Jean. Not sure how big OS X Mavericks is, but applications are less than 13GB. After investigations, I decided I could not clean much more drive space. So now Jean has it so she can put her own accounts on it.

In iTunes, I still can not perform a search and expect to get any results at all. Nor can I see any Podcasts or Apps in the iTunes Store. A couple of tutorial videos popped up when I looked in iTunes. The internet is so slow that it took about ten minutes to play each of the few minute videos.

No books visible in iTunes. That is a bit of a worry. I opened iBook on my MacBook Air. It prompted me to move 779 ePub books over from iTunes. So I let it do so. I did not see when it completed, however iBooks seems to be acting much like I would expect. Reading the help files now.

I saw Duncan as we returned. I went over to find what his schedule was. He was free at the moment. So I assembled his pre-loved computer, as h had asked. Luckily it did not give any problems. The folks who had set it up did so just fine as a media computer without an internet connection. I tried to explain to Duncan how to use it, and suggested using the Tour that came with it. I hope Duncan is happy with it.

I was very pleased to see a parcel on the porch. My Gnut Kickstarter sensor had arrived. This tiny battery operated gadget establishes a WiFi network, sends an email of the reports of its sensor. I only have the waterproof temperature sensor. However other options are available.

I was awakened by rain around 1 a.m. It continued for at least an hour, moderately heavy at times. This is the first rain in a long while. Seems it totalled about 7mm. I did eventually get back to sleep, arising at six.

My weight is back up to 68.6 kilograms on the Withings scale. However I did have chips with lunch, and attended the Social Club event yesterday.

After scrambled eggs, we headed to Willows for our walk. At least three times around. No shopping.

I chatted with the solar panel people. It does not sound like there is a practical method of updating solar panels (or specifically the inverter) without losing the pretty high outward solar tariff. Looks like I am headed back to designing my own system, at least for the moment.

I walked back to the Arts and Crafts market towards midday. Jean came along for exercise. I had hoped to find some scones and jam and cream, but had left it far too late. So I had a ham sandwich and a Coke, and thought myself lucky something was left.

Walked back to the pub in the afternoon, along with Jean, again for exercise. Jeff and Ian were there, although there was no sign of Ron. A whole heap of the bowlers came in after their game, which made the place lively. Jeff was the object of a certain amount of attention when he left on his Segway.

The monthly Carlyle Gardens Arts and Crafts market was on this morning. Even just after nine, not only were the two car parks full, but the large field behind the Carlton Theatre was rapidly filling with row after row of cars.

There were a heap of people selling craft things, mostly suitable for Xmas presents. That seemed sensible, although we were not looking for them. There were also a fair number of home made jams and relishes available. Very impressive. Elaine is to be congratulated on her efforts, as there must have been about 70 tables out. There were even a handful of tables in the restaurant.

Internet speeds at the moment are approximately I do not believe internet is so slow. Leave everything in background. Watching an 8MB file take minutes to download is just too annoying.

Sensible reasons to drop Apple. @lessig: On the pathological way in which Apple talks (or not) to its customers: http://t.co/qWiCg8MpHd

Vine does not display any video in latest OS X Mavericks Safari. Broken? Or is Ghostery blocking it?

@mpesce: ok ok i get it, i'm officially old **cries inconsolably** No-one who has a Bat Pole to Sales behind the bookcase is old.

@mpesce: @ericlindsay anyone who remembers the bat pole is almost definitionally ancient. Ouch! That hurt.

Is it moral for humans to attempt to make themselves superhuman using enhancements? http://jetpress.org/v23/oskvig.htm What Aristotle said.

I was unfortunately awake sometime after 2 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. Finally got up and started using the computer

My weight is 67.6 kilogram, unchanged from yesterday.

I went for a morning walk about 5:40 a.m. About 3 kilometres in 30 minutes at 6 kph.

I gathered up the laundry and started the washing machine. Good start to the day, except for getting up so early.

Off to the markets at Willows after scrambled eggs for breakfast. Nothing much of interest at the markets. We did walk around Willows a few times before returning home to attend to hanging out the laundry.

More desultory charging and checking of batteries off and on during the day. The pile of rejected batteries is getting to be impressive.

Global wine shortage is Morgan Stanley stock market beat up

The case against daylight savings is overwhelming. It is a waste of time. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131101-when-does-daylight-savings-time-end-november-3-science/

I see the internet is impossibly slow this morning at 6 a.m. Ping times are still fine. Later on it seemed to wake up, so perhaps it was only a web site or two.

I watched TV this morning. Started with the ABC's Barry Cassidy moderating Insiders. Next was Alan Kohler's Inside Business. Finally changed to Channel 10 for Meet the Press. This had an interesting interview with communications minister Malcolm Turnbull. Trying to bring sanity and lower costs to the National Broadband Network. Lots of luck!

I must have slept well, because I was not up until after five.

My weight remained constant at 67.6 kilograms on the Withings scale.

We had scrambled eggs early, and left for Willows shopping centre around 7:30 a.m. Walked around about three times. None of the Misty Mountain milk we wanted in either Coles or Woolworths. Strawberries were expensive and we had other fruit, so we did not buy anything. We drove across to Sunland shopping centre on the way home. Checked the IGA. They were also out of the Misty Mountain milk. I bought a bread roll from Brumbys on the way out, which was not much shopping considering the time taken.

Jean reminded me that I had not done anything about fixing the glass shelves. So I selected the three that have damaged ends, and put them in the garage.

Jean had also been planning on shortening the tall purple shrubs. I went out with the shears and cut down the taller ones. I stuffed a number of the cut off pieces in the ground, so we will see if they survive as much lower shrubs. Put the rest out for the mowing contractors.

Had banana, kiwifruit and blueberries as second breakfast. Maybe I can hold off on lunch for a while longer now.

My new Apple iPad Air arrived, and rather distracted me from lunch. I did not get around to having tinned salmon on a bread roll until around two. Had the last of the tin of baked beans for dinner, and snacked.

After dark I heard a voice outside. It was John, gone walking without Gary. I showed him how the lights changed colour under remote access.

I was somewhat surprised that my Apple iPad Air arrived this morning with our usual TNT courier. Great service, and arrived a day before I expected it. I had checked delivery details before going shopping this morning, and it still listed it being in Sydney. It arrived in Townsville at 7:26, was on board the truck at 9:27, and delivered before midday. Well done Apple and TNT.

Setting up keyboard and language was quick. Connecting to our local wiFi network equally quick. I do not have a SIM available as yet. I may have to update carrier settings later. I set up as a new iPad. Signed in with my Apple ID. I had about 92% battery, which is plenty.

Set up to use iCloud. First item, to use Find My iPad. Then Messages and similar. They encourage use of a password. Also iCloud Keychain. Use Siri.

I started this at 12:33 p.m. Completed (including taking note) by 12:45 p.m.

However I do not want to link this iPad with my normal set of iTunes files on the MacBook Air. I have insufficient remaining drive space on that computer to support it. So I will have to do its backup to the large drive on the iMac. As far as I can see, Mobile Apps on the iMac have not been updated this year. There are a lot that need updating. A whole lot.

I put our accumulated dead batteries out on a piece of paper. Took photos of the seventy four batteries with the ultrazoom camera, the iPhone, and three different iPad. Jean took photos with her SLR camera. Now we have some stock photos of seventy four dead batteries.

I realised I had never gotten around to updating the contents of iTunes on my iMac. It was basically empty (except for Cover art and Mobile Apps). I was hooking onto the large (160GB) music files that were on the LaCie 10TB external drive. Opps. So I copied the old contents elsewhere, deleted the iTunes Music folder, and moved the 160GB iTunes Music folder from the LaCie to the main drive of the iMac. It takes a while for even a Thunderbolt drive to move 160GB. About 20 minutes. I imagine the single drive in the iMac is the slowest link, despite it being a Fusion drive. Insufficient space in the Solid State cache.

Hope this works. If it does, I plan to start the new iPad Air doing backups on the iMac (which has plenty of space).

Somehow I got that transfer totally wrong. I had to delete the entire iTunes Music files, and start again with iTunes putting stuff in the correct place. It seems to have worked the second time.

However there are a few more problems. One is that some music is still in MP3 format. I thought that I had re-ripped my entire CD collection into Apple Lossless. So now I have to find out which is MP3, and why it was not re-ripped. Plus I no longer have a computer with a CD player on hand.

Another problem is I have a separate 24GB music library (iTunes G5), which essentially includes all the vocal tracks (Jean does not like vocals). These seem to have been ripped on my old 2005 model iMac G5, which does have a DVD drive. No enormous problem, in that I can always just select one of two iTunes Libraries to run.

There were around 170 or so apps to update on the iMac. This included all the iLife and all the iWork apps. I started them downloading after Jean stopped using her computer around nine in the evening. I have a bad feeling about just how large a download is involved in this. A very bad feeling

I was up a little after five this morning, after a rather late night slaving over iTunes. Downloads of mobile apps are still continuing after running overnight. Changed batteries in the charger as I attempt to find any remaining good batteries (and safely dispose of the dead batteries).

My weight has dropped to 67.2 kilograms, however I am very hungry. Made a glass of lime infused water, and washed the countertop to discourage ants. Started searching for left over airline candy.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast again. Off to Willows for our walk. Three times around, and then into Coles. Jean found fresh food. No Misty Mountain full cream milk available. I left her there, since it was nearly nine.

Went to the FoneZone Telstra shop, and bought a new NanoSIM for my new iPad Air. I have to say it was a fairly painless transaction. Maybe not for the experienced attendant, who again had to fight with the Telstra Siebel online accounting system. The Express did not, so it had to be entered manually.

Jean got a hot chicken, and some quiona and tabbouleh salad. So we ate well on Melbourne Cup day. We also opened a bottle of champagne. They go off you know.

Fought with the computer all afternoon and evening. Had my left over tinned salmon on a dinner roll, plus a glass of milk, plus snacks.

I found the mobile apps were still downloading into the iMac when I checked in the morning. I paused the very large Keynote, and Microsoft's OneNote, to let some of the 100 or so smaller remaining apps continue. Business Spec is stalled installing. It got gummed up last night. Not sure what the problem is with that, nor how to fix it.

Returning after the shopping. Everything in the queue had downloaded, which somewhat surprised me. There were about 38 apps showing as being not updated, but they were not updating anyhow. Business Spec was still stuck. I tried to Quit iTunes. It complained something was still downloading. No, it isn't. I finally had to use Activity Monitor to Force Quit iTunes. I hope this does not cause other problems.

Started iTunes again. Now shows 38 apps in the Updates list, none of them very large. Most important, it let me start the update of all of them. That was around 10 a.m. It was apparently stalled on this item is unavailable for a while. No real indication of which item it means.

By eleven there were only 18 apps in the iTunes download queue. I paused the largest of the downloads so that the shorter apps would download sooner. During lunch the smaller items did download, and I set the last few going again. All downloads except one were complete by 11:30 a.m.

The missing app download was Al Gore's Our Choice greenmail book. It gave a This item is temporarily unavailable message. Not too bad, even if it did take around 16 hours to download the apps.

Now the problem is that the updated iMac includes 353 apps. However my MacBook Air has 446 apps! So what happened to the missing apps?

I think I fell asleep and my fingers must have been on the keys. TapBots' Tweetbot tried to load heaps of tweets. Fell into a non-responsive state. I eventually had to Force Quit it.

I made a list of 466 Mobile Apps on the MacBook Air, using ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications eric \🍔 ls -1 > ~/Desktop/mobile_apps_list_mba.txt

I made a list of my Mobile Apps on the MacBook Air, using ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Mobile Applications eric \🍔 ls -1 > ~/Desktop/mobile_apps_list_mba.txt

There are 451 items in the actual iMac directory. However I am only showing 353 apps in iTunes. This is not a good start.

I decided that I needed to find duplicates on the MacBook Air, and remove them. This typically occurs when an app update changes name, because a dual purpose iPhone and iPad version replaces an iPhone and iPod only version. I decided I should not need these. If these were removed, I would have a smaller list to check. In the case where names of the files were the same, I could tell which was which from their date.

So I removed some apps from iTunes, by deletion in iTunes. I am sort of assuming most of these will no longer be actually in the iTunes Store, by nature of being obsolete. That got me down to 440 apps, which did not really help very much.

Air Sharing 3.4.3, Bento for iPad 1.1.5, Calvetica Classic 3.7.1, The Early Edition 1.3.1, Halftone 1.9.6, Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD 2.3.1, these are all removed.

Still too much of a difference. Next thing is to directly compare Mobile Apps, with especial attention to the list of 348 Apps in iTunes, vs the 446 apps in the actual directory. I decided to just delete old, duplicate versions of apps from the directory. It seems to me they are failed removals from ancient history.

I deleted: abcNotes 5.6, Adobe Ideas 2.0, aNote 2.3.1, AppBox Lite, Apple Store 110366, AR.FreeFlight 2.0.1, Atomic Web 5.9.0, Basic! 3.2.2 and 3.3.1, Bloomberg 1.1.1, Byword 1.0.3, Calvetica 4.3, Camera+ 2.3.3, ColorSplash 1.8.3, Consume 1.8.3, Currency 3.0.1, Dominos 1.4, Drafts 1.1.1, Dropbox 1.4.7, Evernote 4.1.8, Evernote 4.2.2, Flipboard 1.9, Glassboard 2.0, GoodReader 3.10.3, GoSkyWatch 5.1.0, GPS Kit 6.2, Heartrate 2.7.4, iBooks 2.0.1, iThoughtsHD 3.6, iToneMorse 1.3, iTunes U 1.0, iTunes U 1.1.1, Layar 6.1, Living Earth 1.52, Loom 1.3, Macworld 1.20, My Sketch 1.7, My Sketch 1.9, NASA 1.24, NASA Viz 1.5, NeoReader 4.2.0, NewsTap 3.5, Notability 4.10, Notes Plus 2.3.6, Notes Plus 3.0.2, Optiscan 1.9.1, Optiscan 1.9.4, Pano Camera 4.55, paperDesk LT 4.1, Paperless 2.0.3, Pear Note 436, Phraseology 1.0.7, Pocket 4.1, Posted Lite 1.38, Pro HDR 4.0, QuotaLite 14.0, RedLaser 3.2.0, Reader 1.5.4, Remarks 1.0, Remarks 1.3, Russian 3.0, Russian 3.2.2., Scanner Pro 4.0.2, Schelanders 1.0.6, Schelanders 1.1.1, SketchBook 2.5, Skitch 1.0.5, Snapguide 1.0.4, SoundNote 1.8.1, SoundNote 2.1, Splashtop 1.6.5.2, Star Walk 5.6.2, Star Walk 5.7.3, Strip Design 1.9.9.1, Tapose 1.0.30, Textastic 3.1, The Australian 1.10.0, The Daily 1.2.4, Thanks 1.5.2, Things 1.8.2, Time Out 2.0, TopXNotes 1.1, Twitter 3.5.1, Twitter 4.2, Vimeo 2.0.4, WaterMyPhoto 1.3, WaterMyPhoto 1.5, Week Cal 4.3.2, Whereis 1.4, Windfinder 3.0.3, Woodcraft 1.2.1, Woolworths 3.0.11, Zite 1.32

That got the list of files in the directory down to a more reasonable 352. However iTunes thinks there are only 347, a difference of five!

I could not see copies in iTunes of 2 versions of App Deals, and can not figure which app it is.

Time Out 2.1.4 worried me, as I could not identify the app. Turned out to be Things to Do: Melbourne.

I accidentally deleted XE Currency, but do not need it.

I was awake unfortunately early, before five. Pre dawn chorus of birds were not helping. Plus I was hungry.

My weight has unfortunately increased to 68.6 kilograms.

It started raining at 5:30 a.m. Fairly heavy at that. Maybe we are finally going to start the wet season? Jean's new desert rose seems to like the water. There was a little rain every now and then for a few hours.

To Willows shopping centre for a walk around eight. We managed four turns around the shopping centre. Collected the mail on our return.

Lunch and late lunch were each chicken on one of the small dinner rolls.

Off to the bar at four. Ian was also on the way. Ray turned up a little later. No sign of Jeff, although he was at home.

I installed the Telstra NanoSIM I bought yesterday. The new Apple iPad Air seems to be happy about being on the Telstra network, at least according to settings. Now I need to install the Telstra 24/7 app.

Discovered that TimeOut 2.0 (which I had trashed) is actually a working application called Things to Do: Sydney TimeOut 2.1.4 was Things to Do: Melbourne.

I fear I will need to use the Command I inspector to check every App in iTunes, to see if any are in the trash. So that was a pretty tedious ten minutes wasted.

I have obsolete versions of Halftone and Quota Lite installed on the iMac.

I really wish there was some way to check what you have purchased from the iTunes Store. For those saying there is, all I get when I try is an empty screen. iTunes is the most useless piece of shit.

Eventually I set the two computers up side by side. I went through comparing what was showing in iTunes on each. I had earlier made a diff file of the differences between the directories of apps on each. However since the file name and the app name can be very different, that was more a check.

When I found an app missing on the iMac, I added the address of it (from the MacBook Air) in iTunes to a text file. Each app name has a link to the iTunes website address for that app.

I totally ignored the 153rd year of the Melbourne Cup horse race. Except for this tweet. Take it to the knackery.

Apple report on Government requests for information regarding customers.

In the evening I started updating the apps on the iMac. Each text file entry would become a working link if you made any change to the line (like adding a space). Click that to get to the iTunes web page for the app. Click in the web page to get to that app in iTunes Store. If search worked in iTunes I would not need to use these workarounds.

I started some of the 99 outstanding apps downloading. Sort of doubt I can start them all tonight. Just too tedious.

Despite how tedious it was, I sat around until I had all 99 of the downloads started. I left the largest of them until last, including one that was over a gigabyte. That made it close to midnight before I gave up.

I see Apple have responded to (many) complaints about the features from iWork '09 missing in the new versions of iWork. About the new iWork for Mac: Features and compatibility. Basically they say Pages, Numbers and Keynote were rewritten for 64 bit operation. Some additional listed features will be added over the next six months.

Apple have provided additional advice on importing and exporting iWork '09 files. There is a fair bit missing.

An account of How Moves app Tracks You with the latest technology on position and movement identification.

Moves also lets you access your Moves data if you have a free account with them. This means you can change to a different iPhone, and your data can travel with you (just log in again).

I was awake just prior to five, with the sky already starting to lighten. Way too late to see the ISS pass over.

My weight has gone up to 67.8 kilograms, which is a pity.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Hang out the laundry.

Thanks to Jean reminding me, I put three battered glass shelves in her car. We dropped them off at Twin Cities Glass and Aluminium to have the battered and cracked ends cut off.

On to Willows. We only walked around three times. It was already getting busy in the shopping centre by the time we left. All I bought were a couple of dinner rolls.

Had a phone call from Twin Cities glass mid morning. We were able to go collect the three glass shelves. Cost $44 for the half hour job of cutting the ends to clean up the broken bits. The folks there did a fine job on them, even giving the cut ends a bit of a cleanup. I am hopeful of ending up with something nice looking.

Jean dropped me at the restaurant, where I had some pumpkin scones and jam and (mock) cream. I can (just) resist mock cream. Had it been real cream I would have been lost and returning each week for more.

Had a chat with various people, including Jo-ann. I need to find the details of my proposal for a hearing loop and send it to her.

I managed to do a total of 90 situps during the day. I need five sessions, not three. Plus more of each of course.

I found all my downloads had completed overnight. Now to find out what stuffed up.

No matter what I do, I can not seem to extract a decent list of the actual apps I have on hand. Only the lists I massaged and manipulated out of the file directory. However file names do not always reflect the app names. Plus since search does not work at all in iTunes, I want the iTunes URL extracted as well, so I ca find the bloody app without a Google search. Annoying.

Good advice for Tony Abbott on how to hijack an aid program @tonyabbottMHR

It looks like there may be more risk from meteors than expected, according to a study of the 20 metre Russian meteor of 15 February 2013, which released energy equivalent to 20 Hiroshima A bombs. New estimates say there may be 20 million of them that size, not the three million previous expected. NASA Near Earth Objects program was basically ignoring anything smaller than 35 metres as not a danger.

More funding needed to watch the skies!

I was checking if I could export RunKeeper data (you can via their web site), which covers outdoor walks. These are increasingly uncommon as summer heats up. I had already checked I could export Moves app data, which also covers indoor data, at least while carrying my phone. Then I thought I had better check whether I could export Withings scale weight data (you can). However that reminded me of the Withings Pulse, a Bluetooth pedometer (and pulse meter) that is small enough to just stay in your pocket all the time. I decided to order one, after reading reviews.

The Withings devices are available in Australia from Household Technology, so I ordered the Withings Pulse. Our blood pressure meter is not exactly perfect, so I ordered the Withings blood pressure monitor as a replacement. It will attach to older iPhones and iPads (30 pin connector).

I also noticed they had the little Netatmo weather stations that connect to WiFi. Although the outdoor unit can not handle rain or wind measurements, I thought it would do 80% of what I did want, and give me readings without me having to read and write down results. I never got around to installing the multi-piece weather station equipment I tested at Airlie Beach in this place. Too many wires, and it needs a Windows PC for recording. So I ordered that much easier Netatmo version as well. I had looked at them fairly carefully when I saw Netatmo in the Apple Store the last time I visited Sydney.

I must have finally slept well, as it was six on a bright and sunny morning before I got up.

My weight was down slightly to 67.7 kilograms. The fight for weight control is lost this week, as I have a lunch date at the restaurant.

I lurched out and did 35 situps in my first session of the day. And again before breakfast.

Off to Willows. We managed to walk around almost four times, as well as collect some food from Woolworths. For once Woolworths had the things we wanted on special. Then bought three dozen eggs from Twelve Oaks farm. We have really been going through eggs with scrambled eggs for breakfast each day.

Walked to the restaurant for lunch with Dot, Ray and John. Not bad. My barramundi was even larger than last week. Ray's steak was enormous. Lots of doggie bags taken away.

Walked to the restaurant with Jean around five for the usual social club evening. Many people I had not seen there in ages. Lots of people wearing name badges, after the social club had a badge prize. Had a beer, and a glass of champagne. Felt drunk all night.

I started downloads from the App Store. The internet is as usual excessively slow. However it was mostly done by the time we left for Willows.

Started adding email accounts to the new Apple iPad. Usually that is not needed, but treating it as a completely new device meant I had to do manually stuff that iTunes backups normally does. I had forgotten just how many email accounts I had accumulated. Very painful afternoon, since you actually need to enter tedious details correctly every time.

One interesting sidelight. BigPond mail is auto-entered by Apple's iOS mail, which would normally be helpful. However iOS seems to enter the old versions of that, not the changed ones that have applied since BigPond started using Microsoft Live to run their email sometime in 2013.

Twitter stock market launch is useless. Still stuck at a lousy 140 characters.

I was up a little before five. Jean turned up a half hour later saying the laundry of the sheets could be started. I managed to do another 35 situps by 5:30 a.m. and a second lot by 6:30 a.m.

My weight remains 67.7 kilograms.

Off to Willows shopping centre, where we walked around three times. Jean had spotted the Tip Top Cafe style thick sliced raisin bread I like on special, so that answers what I will be eating for the next few days.

Except I had a small dinner roll with chicken and cranberry sauce around 10:30 a.m. because I was still hungry after breakfast. We later had a glass of champagne each, because it goes off you know.

Wandered over to the pub with Jean around four. None of the usual suspects were there. No sign of them. I had a slow beer, and caught up with App.Net on my iPhone. So I eventually wandered back. I guess there is no reason to continue my stay past Tuesday morning now.

I created a new POP email account for the Amperic Knut WiFi enabled measurement device. I helped fund Knut on Kickstarter, and thus had an early example of the device. I quote: Knut wirelessly connects multiple sensors to your mobile device (iPhone, Android) or home computer (PC, Mac). Because Knut uses email to send and receive data, it does not require any subscriptions or fees. On the other hand, it also is looking like Knut can not use a standard POP email account. It seems to need IMAP, which is not available from my usual email provider. Sigh!

I started out by reading the Amperic Knut online manual. Not a good start. It looks like the Knut iOS app is iOS6, not iOS7. All my devices are running iOS7.

I tried getting some updates via iTunes on my iMac. Apple Store, Texilus, Moves and PCalc Lite all stalled at the processing file moment, and would not install. The same apps installed on my MacBook Air. I shut down iTunes. Restarted it. That appeared to fix the problem. I have more trouble with iTunes ...

I found the easiest way to get a detailed list of which Apps I owned was to do it via a third party. Just listing the apps in Mobile Applications was unsatisfactory. I signed up to App Shopper. Once a registered member, I was able to download their free AppShopper.com Importer program for the Macintosh. Once you point that at where your Mobile Applications folder is, and supply your App Shopper login details, it dumps the list of apps you own up to App Shopper. They have all the details and descriptions of the apps in their own database. You can sort the list in various ways. You can also rate each app. That should about fill my needs. At least it seems to work, unlike iTunes.

I had a couple of Philips Friends of Hue light strips that Jean kindly brought back from the USA. While they are intended for 120 volt USA power outlets, it looked like they used a conventional switch mode power supply to provide 12 volts for the LED lamps. I took a chance and plugged one in to a Australian 240 volt socket adaptor. The Hue light strip turned on fine.

Today I used my iPhone to connect it to the Philips Zigbee bridge controller. Once I recalled how you linked extra LED bulbs to the Hue application, I was able to change the colours of the LED Hue light strip readily. This should be fun!

Not so much fun is what to do about the two damaged bulbs. I can not delete damaged Hue bulbs without resetting the Bridge. If I do that, I fear I may lose the scenes I have modified.

Maybe will bring the two damaged bulbs back from Airlie Beach. I can replace them there with good bulbs. I will still end up with the three bulbs in the Philips Hue Starter Set, plus two damaged bulbs (one only suitable for downlighting), and two new bulbs. That gives me seven bulbs at Carlyle Gardens, and five at Airlie Beach, which is enough to be pretty silly.

I am checking my new iPad Air against my older iPad 3. Deleted email accounts on the older iPad. Disconnect the older iPad from iCloud support. Get rid of some account related items, such as NetBot and TweetBot.

I was up around four, after an early night. One champagne at lunch and one beer in the afternoon yesterday still have me feeling as if I had been drinking to excess.

My weight is down to 67.4 kilograms for our weigh in today. That is not too bad.

I celebrated by having a couple of slices of the thick cafe style raisin toast for breakfast. And again for lunch, but with a glass of champagne this time, instead of orange juice.

Off to Willows before 7:30 a.m. We did not bother with the markets this time. We lost track of how many times we walked around, as the doors to Willows were not open. We went to the markets side, where the doors were open by the time we reached them. Walked for 50 minutes.

Vine.co is broken. Video never displays. Useless crap. Probably waiting for a cookie it will never get.

The Next Web is broken. Articles never displays. Useless crap. Probably waiting for an advertising cookie it will never get.

I watched Insiders on the ABC this morning. Started by carrying on about asylum seekers, since it is hard to turn around a half dozen boats you are rescuing off the coast of Indonesia. Seems Indonesia took back two boats.

It also looks like Insiders still can not get any guests from the government side. They had new Opposition leader Bill Shorten as a guest. Labor will go for an emissions trading scheme for carbon dioxide. Direct action is a lemon. But so are ETS. Just put pollution bans on high emissions from companies, if you are serious. Neither side is serious about global warming however.

I watched Alan Kohler's Business Insider on the ABC. Much more entertaining than most. However at the end of this year, that is gone from the ABC. A real shame.

Meet the Press appears to have disappeared from Channel 10.

I had no internet connection when I returned from lunch around 12:30. After checking a numeric ping, I power sequenced the Belkin ADSL modem. Still no connection on a numeric ping. I power sequenced the Belkin ADSL modem yet again.

The Tendo Ethernet hub seemed to indicate dead cables to the Time Capsule. I power sequenced the Time Capsule. I think the Ethernet cable had issues. I also had to disconnect and reconnect my MacBook Air to the WiFi network provided by the Time Capsule. That seems to have solved the problem. Another 20 minutes wasted with lousy networks.

I fought with Apple computers all day (and read one ePub eBook on my desktop computer - for research). Sync of which page you are on seems totally broken. Same with bookmarks. iBooks is obviously beta for anything except reading. As a reader, it is pretty good.

iTunes Store seems totally broken, but these days I never expect iTunes Store to work. Pot luck whether you can figure a work around for any particular problem.

I was up late, and it was already light, around 5:40 a.m. I already had clothing in the washing machine, so I started that going before six. Did 40 situps nice an early as well.

Weight is down to 67.2 kilograms on the Withings scale after not eating much yesterday.

Scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then we were able to hang the laundry out to dry. I even had time to put down ant sand on the resurgent ant trails. Plus I sprayed weed killer on the weeds trying to establish a foothold around the house and in the garden.

Off to the discount pharmacy for a monthly supply of tablets. That exhausts two of the prescriptions. Then back to Willows for our walk in air conditioned comfort. We checked Target (no shorts in my size), and BigW, where Jean got gumboots. We must have walked around at least three or four time. I bought another Apple iPad charger at JB HiFi, mainly to get a working USB cord.

More of the little tiny dinner rolls for lunch and dinner, with salmon.

Ken dropped over this afternoon. No internet connection (although it had previously been reliable, which surprises me). It failed a few days ago while he was using it. He has a dial tone on his phone line. However I can not understand what has been done with his Hills Home Hub. No RJ45 jumpers there at all. Looks like it was installed hard wired to two locations. The Ethernet cable between modem and computer is working. I was able to discover the IP address of his modem, and bring up the internet web page. No real clues there. The modem drops out after a few seconds. So I guess most of problems would have to be on the external line. I suggested a call to Telstra, since it is also their modem.

I dropped over to join the neighbours for a drink in the afternoon.

Malala’s fight is for free schools, not government schools. Her father an education entrepreneur for free schools. http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9073181/malalas-school-wars/

My iPad Air refused to accept a charge from a previously working USB cord. RT @iPhoneTeam: RT if you hate this http://t.co/7qh0fGTkU6

I tried to charge my new Apple iPad Air this morning. It refused to charge on a third party USB to Lightning cord. That was not a good thing. We have several such third party cords, so we can just leave them lying around. However visually they are identical to the genuine article with an Apple blessed chip.

I did some more checking. The third party USB cables will not connect the iPad Air to a Macintosh. The same cable still works just fine on an iPad Mini. So it is not simply the updated iOS that is causing this issue.

I had another gadget arrive. A Better Batt charger for my Fujitsu F550EXR camera batteries, and two extra Batter Batt batteries for the Fuji F550EXR camera. The indicator lights aid they were charging and then charged. Hope that is right.

More gadgets are believed to be on the way. Unfortunately the Startrack web site claims that the consignment numbers do not exist. Way to go. Bloody internet access is such a piece of shit.

I still seem to have a totally stuffed iTunes installation on every computer. iTunes Store is unable to download upgrades for updated apps on the iMac. Just spins wheels and gets nowhere. Downloads will not start. What a useless piece of shit!

Lightbow update would download to my MacBook Air. I eventually got an error message from the iTunes Store via the iMac. Try again later.

Tried later. iTunes downloaded three apps. It is now stuck processing file. I imagine it will still be processing the fucking file when I look at it in a quarter of an hour or so. iTunes is a bloody disgrace. Apple's latest set of upgrades have been absolute shit!

I restarted iTunes for a second time. I was finally able to complete the upgrades.

I tried to buy some books over the internet. They are available in ePub or in Mobi formats. Mobi for Amazon Kindle, ePub without DRM for every other ebook reader.

However my minimum allowed web browser text size (so that I can read the display) meant the selection boxes were not able to show the entire contents. I just had to hope that the first selection was trying to say ePub, and the second Mobi. Luckily they were.

Next step was to pay, with the only option being PayPal. While I have a PayPal account, I can not easily put money into it (hell will freeze over before I give PayPal long term access to my bank account or credit card). So I had to add credit card details, something I would never allow my web browser to save.

Then PayPal wanted a phone number. Well what happens if I do not have a phone number? Given how pissed off I am with phones (thank you spammers - and politicians and charities - for ignoring the Do No Call register), discarding the phone is increasingly likely. The only thing I want a phone line for is internet access.

Next it wanted my address. Why? eBooks get delivered electronically. Not only did it want my address, it wanted my address in a form that matched its records of Australian addresses. Which I happen to know are wrong for both my addresses. So we played several rounds of guess which address will be acceptable. This sort of shit is unacceptable.

I was up by 5:20 a.m. with the light already well established. It started raining a little at 5:40 a.m.

My weight was up again, to 67.4 kilograms on the Withings scale.

We drove to Willows by around 7:45 a.m. Our three turns around the shopping centre were very peaceful, as they had not yet started playing music. Tempted to take a fourth walk, but Jean was not walking well by then. No luck on vegetable shopping at all, but I did get two more of the small dinner rolls.

After attending the computer club iPad training course, I wandered into the restaurant. As I hoped, they had scones and jam and proper whipped cream. So I managed to have these as morning tea. Good stuff, except for my diet.

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism http://www.rense.com/general37/fascism.htm Compare and contrast with your society.

iPad mini with Retina display Wi-Fi + Cellular http://t.co/MVkBtbwXlG They are on sale now in Australia, delivery late November

I tried to book a bus ticket on Greyhound. They have changed their web site. It looks a lot better, and is generally easier to navigate.

However I had first world problems. Had to enable cookies, which I hate doing (because of tracking by third parties).

Then Greyhound gave a choice between Flex Fare and Full fare (the latter a dollar extra). What is the difference? I have no idea, and could not find any explanation on the Greyhound site.

All done, credit card accepted and all. So I wait for the ticket to show in my web browser. It has opened another tab for it to appear. However it never appeared. Wonderful! Luckily Greyhound also send a copy by email. Being a belts and braces person, I figured I would print it.

Switched on the printer. Waited for it to warm up. Sent the printout, having removed the colour bits so as not to waste toner. Printer not connected. Find the Ethernet lead that had been disconnected during some other internet problem. Connected it. Wait, wait. Finally I can print my ticket.

I wandered along to the rather ensmalled Carlyle Gardens Computer Club Apple iPad training group. A lot of people seemed to be away on holidays this week. A bunch of people sharing what they have learned about using their new iPad. A number of new users do not actually have a computer at all.

A failure to download again from Apple iTunes. Three updates will download. Then iTunes stalls with the message that it is processing the file. However processing never finishes. Meanwhile, every other download is stalled.

I quit and restarted Apple iTunes. I might just as well be using Windows XP, if I am going to have to keep restarting applications. This sort of shit is why I dumped Microsoft back in 2004. A decade on, maybe it is time to dump Apple?

When I restarted iTunes I was able to start another three apps downloading. The first of these has just stalled at the processing step. Now all three downloads are stalled on the processing step.

Time to kill off iTunes once again. On restart, I downloaded one app. This time it went to completion. So I downloaded the next item individually, rather than using the Update All Apps button. That also installed without stalling. Is the problem something to do with updating all apps at once?

I noticed the Apple iPad Mini Retina was released rather silently this afternoon between five and six real Australian Eastern Time. It looks like it is using the same new double core A7 CPU used in the iPad Air and the iPhone 5s. Clock speed is 1.3GHz, same as the iPhone 5s, rather than the 1.4GHz of the iPad Air. I suspect this is an effort to get a decent battery life, and reduce heat buildup in the smaller body.

Geekbench says 1390 for single core, 2512 for multicore, against 1465/2643 for the full size iPad Air. The iPad 2, original iPad 3 Retina, and the original iPad Mini all produced about 260/495 from the 1GHz A5 or A5X CPU. The iPad 4 Retina speed bump increased performance to 700/1400 with its 1.4GHz A6X CPU. Performance increase of over 500% in less than 20 months. I think these models are the iPad Apple set out to produce in the first place. CPU performance is similar to a laptop of three to four years back.

I ordered one online, pretty much as soon as the Apple Store went back online.

I awoke at four, and could not get back to sleep, so I got up at 4:30 a.m. which is a little early to have much light around outside. Sat at the computer catching up.

My weight remains stable at 67.4 kilograms on the Withings scale. I have noticeably lost a fair bit of weight over the year. However there is still a decent amount of flab to get rid of.

Willows walk in the morning. Only around three times. Dash into Coles for milk, and some sweets for my bus trip (no lunch stop).

Closed down all the systems. I also found time to disengage the two old Hue light bulb from the Zigbee hub. Next time I can add some new ones.

I was able to get straight on to the bus when Jean dropped me off about 15 minutes before the bus was due to leave. Our driver got us through swiftly, and even had a short break at Delta outside Bowen. We pulled in to Airlie Beach a little after three.

So credit card companies will demand PIN instead of signature? How about I stop using credit cards. See how that works for you.

I dropped in to the news agency and collected old copies of the Whitsunday Times. Into reception and checked no mail had been left. Hot water on, plants watered, fiddled with the ADSL modem, AdTrap and the Time Capsule until all three were talking with each other, and then added the Hue Bridge, so all the internet facilities were working correctly.

After all the problems, had a gin and tonic, followed by a rum. Must avoid doing that every time I have internet issues.

I was up at 5 a.m. on an overcast day. A good day for walking.

I weighed 67.5 kilograms according to the old manual scale, 67 kilograms according to the Blue Anatomy scale from Kogan. Both of these seem optimistic about weight loss to me. The blood pressure gadget claims I was 120/86 early in the morning, with a pulse of 51.

Walked along the foreshore, through the Lion's path, and turned inland at Cannonvale. Then continued along Shute Harbour Road to Home Hardware. They had the Mort Bay colour change light bulbs (well, one), but only in bayonet cap. Not sure I have any bayonet cap sockets here. I must check.

Walked back to Bunnings, which did not have any colour chang light bulbs. They do have some colour change gear in battery driven stuff. Maybe type approvals are easier that way? One interesting item was 900mm long stair treads in treated pine. These are 45mm thick, and cost about $15. If I had a car I would get several for uprights.

Walked to the Whitsunday Shopping Centre, by which time my phone claimed I had done 7.1 kilometres. Bought a newspaper, had some snacks from Brumby's bread shop franchise. That let me go in to Coles a few minutes after they open at eight. Had more shopping than I expected, and a lot heavier. Soda water and tonic water on special, so I added them as mixers for my parties. Stone fruits were finally in season, so I was able to get nectarines and peaches, to go with the bananas, apples and mandarines. Oranges were down to $2 a kilogram, so I got some of them. It sure bulked up my load.

The only taxi disappeared while I was getting out to the taxi rank with my trolley. Luckily another taxi came along in about ten minutes. So I was back home with a shopping load I could only just lift a little after nine.

A cruise ship was anchored out in Pioneer Bay. Around eleven I walked down to the markets. Talked with a few of the people I know there. No sign of Glenn, from which I deduce he is helping his former neighbours move to Melbourne. I managed to walk a couple of kilometres. Also collected the Whitsunday Times from the newsagent.

Glad to see LNP taking the view that since the Warsaw Climate Change Conference will not succeed, there is no point wasting resources on it.

Press ignoring giant mutant Fukushima turtle destroying town. http://topekasnews.com/giant-fukushima-mutant-turtle-finally-captured-japanese-military/

I had lost the internet when I got back at 12:15 p.m. No error showing on the modem. Numeric ping not getting out. Power sequenced the netGear ADSL modem. Internet is now working again.

Internet fails at 6:30 p.m. Numeric ping fails. No error lights on ADSL modem. Came up spontaneously a few minutes later.

I was awakened by rain, which gradually increased to moderately heavy rain. I got up before five, partly to check whether too much water was entering the rooms through the wide open doors to the balcony. Far too much rain for me to be able to take a walk. The birds all seem to be complaining about the rain. Read the last of the accumulated Whitsunday Times newspapers, which at least gets them off the floor.

I weighed 67.5 kilograms according to the old manual scale, 67 kilograms according to the Blue Anatomy scale from Kogan. Both of these seem optimistic about weight loss to me, but at least are totally consistent with yesterday. The blood pressure gadget claims I was 106/75 early in the morning, with a pulse of 50.

Now to find something for breakfast. Had a boiled egg on toast. I thought I did a boiled egg in two minutes, but my timer shows it is more like three and a half minutes for a soft boiled egg. It seems I need more to eat than that.

Jean has ordered a bread maker and a small countertop toaster oven. We talked about trying to find a bread maker that would do small loaves, but never found them.

I installed a bunch of small updates on the MacBook Air, prompted by the automatic update mechanism. That reminded me to do the same on the Mac mini.

Continuing to clear out old email. Attempting to delete at least a hundred of them each attempt.

Which also reminded me that I had never set up Telstra 24/7 on my new iPad, so I did that as well.

Downloading several of David Sparks' ebooks to my iPad. An update of Paperless, and also Markdown, his book with Eddie Smith. I want to buy David Sparks' book on dealing with Email. However there is no longer any real visual indication in iBooks (or much elsewhere) of how a download is going. The two current downloads have been going for over 40 minutes. I can tell something is working from the WiFi indicator, and the traffic light on my ADSL modem. A real indicator would be nice.

I lost internet access around 6:53 a.m. this morning. Numeric ping failed. The NetGear ADSL modem is not showing an error light. iTunes downloads are showing errors mid download. I power sequenced the ADSL modem.

Telstra. It would be really nice to get through a day without the bloody internet connection in country Australia being broken yet again.

But only if you have obsolete mag strip cards? “@stevecheney: Coin is incredible. https://onlycoin.com …” No use for modern Chip and Pin.

It would be really nice to get through a day without the bloody internet connection in country Australia being broken yet again. @Telstra

Is Janet Yellen wearing a gold necklace while defending USA Federal Reserve? I would take that as a hint about banks. http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/janet-yellen-defends-feds-stimulus-program-20131115-2xkem.html

I have a heap of music for which no cover art exists. So I have no cover art in iTunes. The only good solution I can see is to create my own cover art.

First thing is to determine what size cover art is needed by iTunes. Is is sounding like iTunes now wants 1400 x 1400 square .jpg, at least for Podcasts. However for most purposes, something around 600x600 probably suffices. Phones and iPads, and even Apple TV, are unlikely to show cover art full screen. The smaller the artwork, the less it adds to file sizes.

Since most of my music is Classical, I want to have backgrounds that represent the style of music. So obvious art is photos of stuff like a full orchestra, a chamber orchestra, string quartets, trumpets, organs and similar.

Next I looked in my (incomplete) list of composers, and went hunting for images of the composers. These are mostly bad, because few were painted more than a few times.

I was up late, around 5:40 a.m. but seem to have slept well. Trouble is I feel like shit. A bit of scattered overcast, but I think it will be a very hot day.

I weighed 67.5 kilograms according to the old manual scale, and 67.5 kilograms according to the ever changeable Blue Anatomy scale from Kogan. Not sure how one scale stays the same, and the other has me gaining a half kilogram. The blood pressure gadget claims I was 113/77 at six in the morning, with a pulse of 52.

Off to the markets. It looks like the collective wisdom of the markets is that today will be a lousy day for selling anything. First day of Schoolies, I believe. Not many people wandering around. I could not find any limes at a reasonable price (I do not think $1 each is reasonable). It is a pity that I had bought apples, bananas, peaches and nectarines at Coles, as they were available. I bought a fruit medley of small plums, strawberries, cherries, apricots.

Caught up with Rex, who was back from overseas. He confirms Glenn is away in Melbourne.

I finally looked more carefully at the colour change T shirts, which change from black and white to colourful in the sun. Bought a rum one for Jean.

Started raining like mad in the evening. I fear this may dampen the spirits of the Schoolies in town. The forecast for the rest of the week is even worse.

A typical internet failure for the Telstra connection. After working all night, and collecting my morning email. Internet connection failed silently at 6:05 a.m. Numeric ping provides destination net unreachable messages. I power sequenced the NetGear ADSL modem.

Internet connection to iTunes is running incredibly slow at nearly nine tonight, although ping is still working. Taking minutes to download a few megabyte. An estimated minute a megabyte is really slow. Rain related? More likely iTunes is totally stuffed.

Spot on prediction, from carpet to clothes. @cstross: New blog entry: The future will not be hand-stitched: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/11/the-next-revolution-will-not-b.html

After working all night, internet connection at Airlie Beach failed just after six. An outage a day keeps the outrage in play? @telstra

Numeric ping, numeric traceroute, my equipment is still working. Power sequence ADSL modem, and something at the exchange wakens @telstra

Could @Telstra possibly be throwing away connections when they run short of IPv4 assignments?

@Telstra Lindy. Never any outage reported. It really feels like a software glitch, every day. Going back years.

More civil disobedience from hacker whistleblowers to be expected. Respect for law must be earned. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cyber-activist-jeremy-hammond-sentenced-to-10-years-in-prison-20131115

I had weird dreams involving trivial mathematical theorems. I was up late, around 5:20 a.m. on a cool and partly cloudy day. Looked like there had been rain.

My weight was 68.1 kilograms according to the old scale. 67.7 according to the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale, which was complaining about not finding a server. It seems I had been snacking far too much in previous days. Blood pressure is 107/65, and pulse is 50.

Doing heaps of file transfers between multiple drives, in an attempt to rationalise my media collection. A 4TB drive would be really handy about now.

A media day for me. Read the remaining newspapers for the weekend. Watched Insiders, and Inside Business on the ABC, and then Meet the Press on Ten. That is getting pretty useless these days. In the afternoon I viewed The Bolt Report.

I tried to get email at 5:30 a.m. Nothing came in. A numeric ping failed to work. A numeric traceroute failed to get past the NetGear ADSL modem on 192.168.211.1. All lines showing green on the modem, but nothing is happening. I do have a dial tone. I power sequenced the Netgear ADSL modem. Still stuck without a connection. I power sequenced the ADSL modem a second time. Red wide area network connection failure light, followed by green. Ping returns. Wen access returns. Mail is still silently failing. This is a bug in the new version of mail. I restarted Mail, and it actually got mail again.

Internet connection fail overnight at Airlie Beach @telstra Second time I power sequenced the ADSL modem I got connected again.

Mail on @apple OSX 10.9 does not recheck POP3 servers after internet connection lost. You need to restart Mail application. Bug?

I started trying to rationalise my media drives. This generally involved transferring the contents of large drives to other larger drives. Things like 1.5TB of media. Initial estimate 4 days of transfer time, which settled down to 19 hours of transfer time via USB2.

I was awake sometime before five, on a partly overcast morning with some clear patches.

My weight was 67.7 kilograms according to the old scale. 67.5 according to the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale.

Off for a walk around Airlie Beach. Helped a lost backpacker find the Greyhound bus terminal. I got most of the way to my five kilometres, and then snuck into Brumbys bread to collect a mini sausage roll and a mini party pie for breakfast. Even worse happened at the new agent when I collected my newspaper. They had Darrell Lea chocolate mint balls and chocolate orange balls. There goes the diet.

Raining again at 11:30 a.m. The Schoolies are not going to like that.

Boiled egg on toast for second breakfast, or maybe lunch. It was very nice. I need to set my timer slightly longer than 3 minutes for those 95 gram eggs.

I had no internet connection, according to Mail. I tried a numeric ping. Same problem. NetGear ADSL modem is still showing all green lights. I power sequenced the NetGear ADSL modem. Connection established, ping working, web pages working, mail not received.

Complaint to Apple: POP3 Mail Not Collected After Internet Fail. Manual Get Mail silently fails (the loss of delivery feedback is also annoying). This applies to multiple accounts, on two different mail servers. I need to restart Mail before it seems to overcome this issue. I do not recall this behaviour prior to OS X 10.9.

My @telstra internet connection at Airlie Beach was down overnight. Power sequence of modem needed to restore internet.

Maybe less snooping in order? @chriskkenny: Assange and Snowden are vandals. Yet, pathetically, heroes of the Left.

Who do you distrust most? Queensland government politicians or violent bikie drug gangs? Tough one. #qldpol

Undiplomatic “@mpesce: Having been to the Westfield Hornsby, I have to say evacuation is probably the best thing ever to happen to it.” Yes!

Maybe copying 3,095,128 items this morning from my past backups was not such a great idea. Completed tomorrow morning.

Just as well you did not go to Hornsby Westfield @mpesce Roof just got ripped off.

I repartitioned the Movies H264 backup drive from FAT to GUID using Disk Utility from an Admin account. I formatted the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journalled), without invoking the case sensitive option (if case sensitive, you can not do the copy). I used Command I to bring up permissions, and unticked Ignore Ownership on this Volume. This is mostly all listed in Time Machine: How to transfer backups from the current backup drive to a new backup drive, except for the bit about case sensitivity.

The backup (of 790GB) started at 8 a.m. The copy list was ready to commence at 10:35 a.m. 3,095,128 items to copy. Estimated time about a day. Over one million files copied in my backup, only two million to go, by around 3 p.m. Should be complete by morning. Down to fewer than one million to copy by 6 p.m. with a further six hours estimated.

I continue to copy the contents of the one terabyte drive to two of the larger Western Digital Drives. At the moment I am using 18 power points to keep everything powered. One eight hour transfer of 187GB completed overnight. Another 222GB transfer to a different drive started at 5 a.m. That completed a little after midday. Since I still had almost 300GB free, I started a few more file copies. The first was 116GB, with an estimated 5 hours to completion.

Around 4:30 p.m I was able to start a 140GB file transfer which is probably the last I can fit on the drive. That will take an estimated four hours. That was the last. Only 8GB left on a 2TB drive.

I was up at five, on a mostly clear morning, despite some overcast. I started preparations for cooking myself a steak for breakfast.

My weight was unchanged at 67.7 kilograms according to the old scale. 67.4 according to the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale.

I took some photographs of the flame tree, blazing in the early morning sunlight.

Walk Cannonvale Bunnings Coles no taxi walk back over 9 kilometres

New business model for assassination for hire, via crowd funding and bitcoin http://www.dailydot.com/crime/deep-web-murder-assassination-contract-killer/

I have lost the internet around 4 p.m. during moderate rain. Numeric ping not getting out. NetGear ADSL modem not showing any error lights. Power sequenced ADSL modem. Red internet fail light after a few minutes. Followed by internet access a few minutes later.

I lost internet access again around 6:20 p.m. This time I had a red fail light on the NetGear AGDL modem. Numeric ping fails. The internet connection came back spontaneously a few minutes later.

I had another stall from Apple's iTunes Store when trying to download apps. One downloaded. Two are stalled at the processing step. One larger item is sitting without much progress.

Internet based products are basically a steaming pile of shit.

I think that I got ahead of myself in contemplating dumping Cultured Code's Things task manager. Daniel Jalkut's article persuaded me to think about it. Things stays.

I was up at 4:40 a.m. An overcast day, looking very much like rain.

My weight was unchanged at 67.7 kilograms according to the old scale. Down to 67.2 according to the very inconsistent Kogan Blue Anatomy scale.

I went for a walk around Airlie Beach this morning, while it was overcast. Past the Port of Airlie Marina, and their beach, and around the town. 5.8 kilometres in one hour. Did not get as wrecked as I would have going to Bunnings.

Boiled egg on toast for breakfast. About 3.5 minutes seems about right for the timer. The newish $7.95 BigW toaster is basically shit. Jams toast, does it uneven as well. Not unexpected. Must keep a knife with an insulated handle on hand, in case I ever forget to disconnect the power when extracting toast.

3% of Bitcoin trades every hour? That is a bubble. Major merit of Bitcoin is it can not be printed by Government. That is not enough.

Spying! @LindaNagata: Good morning! And here's a site tracking the movement of individual tiger sharks around Maui.

Why I will NEVER buy a Smart TV. LG TV spies on you for advertisers. Get lost advertisers. http://us.lgsmartad.com/main/main.lge

I am right for Ziggy’s new #nbn Still have my old Apple dial up modem, with WiFi output. Might be quicker than @Telstra ADSL?

Is @Telstra ADSL slower than Dialup? Can’t tell. http://www.ozspeedtest.com/legacy-bandwidth-test/telstra-bigpond-speed-test/18/2/ is broken.

Build your own custom bookcase Senator Brandis, that is what I have to do. #auspol http://www.afr.com/p/national/brandis_library_shelved_by_finance_viUjNUrHA13I0bUw0F11lI

From @Telstra: @ericlindsay if you are having speed issues pop through 24x7 Tech here and we'll make sure it's running right - http://t.co/5RP4ZpEiQ9 R

Giggle! @Telstra: @ericlindsay if you are having speed issues pop through 24x7 Tech here - http://t.co/5RP4ZpEiQ9 R Service unavailable!

Who is most likely manipulating the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement? Who is isolated on Copyright? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/18/the-united-states-is-isolated-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership-negotiations/

More on Trans Pacific Partnership http://topromotetheprogress.wordpress.com/2013/11/17/visualizing-negotiating-positions-in-the-tpp-ip-chapter/

While the Australian government is taking SBY off the phone tapping list, can you take me off as well? #auspol

Why are taxpayers still funding #theirABC ? At least I don’t pay anything for that clown Sandilands and other shock jocks.

If Andrew Bolt can be charged under 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, why can’t #theirABC /Guardian be charged under security?

@ScienceAlert: Australian researcher Leonardo Guida discovered a two-headed ray https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152086788997518&set=a.10150142234567518.335336.7557552517&type=1&theater from Springfield. No Nukes!

I see that the Apple iTunes Store app downloads are still stuffed. Why would anyone rely upon anything on the internet? The Telstra connections are crap. ADSL speeds are a tiny fraction of what the modems (and distance) indicate you should get. When you get through, the stores and web sites are also often broken. Internet is full of crap.

After a really quick start, my 1.12GB iPad iOS 7.0.4 software update stalled totally at about seven minutes a little over half way through. WTF? I stopped the download and restarted it. Did this three times before I gave up. To hell with Apple's updates.

I am back to being ready to cancel BigPond. If I do that, I will also have the Telstra phone line removed. To hell with the fucking Internet. I might as well be back with dialup.

So, after 51 minutes I finally got a successful (and fast) download of 1.12GB over about seven minutes.

iTunes is now totally stuck verifying iPad updated download. Sigh! iTunes is just a piece of shit! Got some sort of change 9 minutes later. Looks like the iPad is now getting the update. All done after one hour and eight minutes. What a pain!

I completed my work on the old 1.5TB and 2TB dual drive Western Digital drives that are full of rips of my DVDs. Both drives are about as full of movies as they could get. Just as well I have not bought many more recent DVDs.

More important, I was able to distribute almost all the DVDs that were on the one TB WD hard drive. That drive has now been formatted as a second drive for Jean for her backups.

Alas, I have found yet another single disk 2TB WD drive containing TV-SF-DVD movies. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be coming up in Finder or in Disk Utility. Powered it down and up again. Still not getting a file listing from Finder. Bloody useless USB. It did eventually come up. Lots of SF TV shows. Only 20GB free space. I guess I can file that drive as well. Pity the confounded thing was formatted with a Master Boot Record.

A failure of the internet around midday. Numeric ping fails with an unreachable destination. NetGear ADSL modem is now showing a red internet failure light. Traceroute fails. A little later, traceroute works, and red failure light is back to green. Still no numeric ping.

Power sequenced the NetGear ADSL modem. That got the internet connection to work again.

I was up very late, after five, despite having gone to sleep early last evening.

My weight was down to 67.6 kilograms according to the old scale. Up to 67.3 according to the very inconsistent Kogan Blue Anatomy scale.

I started boiling an egg for breakfast, before my walk. My blood pressure straight after breakfast was 131/92, with a pulse of 52.

Walked to Bunnings hardware, and bought satin chrome door handles. After four years, I have finally decided I should fix the lack of handles on the sliding cupboard doors. Walked back to the Whitsunday Shopping Centre, which got me to over six kilometres. Nothing much was open at the shopping centre, although I did buy a newspaper. The humidity, even at seven in the morning, was terrible. I caught a taxi home instead of waiting for Coles to open.

I can not get search to work with the iTunes Store. This dramatically reduces the chances of me ever buying anything via iTunes. Interestingly a Guest account does work. Why do I suspect a problem with my access settings or extensions in Safari feeding through to WebKit? I need to experiment more.

This afternoon I tried some experiments. I noticed on my old Mac Mini that I was able to access search on the iTunes Store. However it seems to have a full complement of Extensions present and enabled in Safari. Then I noticed in Safari Preferences, Advanced, Accessibility, that it was not checked. I usually limit font sizes to a minimum of 14 or 18, so that I can read web pages.

So I unchecked the font size limit on Safari in my MacBook Air, and tried a search. That worked also. This is getting interesting.

So I sent feedback to Apple.

Attempts to Search iTunes Store fails. There is a pause that may be related to search time, but no actual visible results appear.

This seems to be a WebKit issue. If Safari Preferences, Advanced, Accessibility is ticked with a larger font size selected, then Search in iTunes always fails. If I untick it, I get search results.

This is repeatable on three Macintosh, using Snow Leopard and Mavericks, using Safari 6 and Safari 7.

Mind you, neither computer can show anything from the Store in Apps or Podcasts. No idea why not.

I would shop there @IanWoolf: Myer trying to kill internet commerce #thebusiness - I won't shop there if they stocked anything I wanted.

Justifying One’s Right to Exist http://t.co/lX7vXG2ow8 via @jdbentley

Internet access via @telstra BigPond suddenly lost at Airlie Beach at 8:20 a.m. after working fast last night. Powering ADSL fixed it.

Nice one! @TopherField: Can digital currency like Bitcoin be worth more than real currency? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUd9ca63HUo #bitcoin #bitcoinsenate

http://www.ozspeedtest.com does not work. Can anyone suggest a working internet speed test in Australia? No Flash or Java please.

A real coin will not buy you a fish on a deserted island either. All a social construct. @ElMuggs: @ericlindsay @TopherField bitcoins …

Ever tried to get approval for solar panels for an apartment from a Body Corporate in Australia? http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/21/solar-industry-facing-job-losses?CMP=soc_568

I stock fishhooks as well as coins. @ElMuggs: @ericlindsay @TopherField true but if you melted it down you could make a fishhook. ;)

I lost internet access vis @Telstra BigPond suddenly at 8:20 a.m. Numeric ping says destination unreachable. NetGear ADSL modem lights are still green. Numeric traceroute fails to get past my modem. I power sequenced the NetGear ADSL modem. Internet came back into action.

A failure in iTunes again. Three apps download, and then the whole download system stalls at the processing file step. I had to force quit iTunes. Next time I downloaded each app individually, and each worked.

I had somehow neglected to set the file save defaults to searchable PDF in ScanSnap Manager for the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 scanner. This meant I could not search the scans I did in the evening. Luckily I noticed my mistake in checks that I made after a half dozen or so scans. I was able to scan those items again.

Part of the delay in starting the scans was getting the paper wet on the bus while travelling here. I had spread them around to dry, but then not started scanning.

One large pile of things to scan turned out to have already been scanned. I had help them aside for further processing rather than scanning.

I was up slightly before five on a warm, humid overcast morning.

My weight was up to 68 kilograms on the old scale, and remained at 67.3 kilogram on the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale. My blood pressure was 114/75, and pulse 54.

Some idiot set off the fire alarm at one of the resorts down by the street before 5:30 a.m. It is carrying on saying evacuate now in between shrieking. I imagine most people will ignore the alarm. That is what we all do at the Terraces.

A very leisurely walk in the oppressive humidity, followed by breakfast on the main street.

I had an early night, giving up around ten.

I started Apple's OS X 10.9 Mavericks free operating system upgrade for my 2009 Apple Mac mini. The internet connection here is running quickly. I was able to download the 5GB of the operating system in only a few hours (I was away when it completed).

I started the actual install around eight. It was complete around 9:30 a.m. No real dramas, except one Admin demand, which is almost certainly the ScanSnap Manager.

I downloaded about a half dozen apps via iTunes Store with no trouble. Then tried downloading Moves app. That stalled totally, with no real indication that anything actually started. I discovered it at eight when I returned from my walk. I stopped the download. Another half dozen updates appeared in the list. I asked for each of them. Each worked, except the last app stalled. Sigh! Stopped the download, and then restarted it. This time it worked. Sigh!

Apple have updated all the iOS iWorks apps. Downloaded two short apps with no problem. Apple's Pages stuck at the processing step. Sigh!

I had to redo the scans a second time. Not sure of the error was mine last night (probably), or when I updated the Mac mini to OSX 10.9 Mavericks this morning. However the ScanSnap Manager was still not set to turn the scan into searchable PDF. More accurately, it was set to do that for the first page only, and not subsequent pages. So although I did a test search, I did not initially notice it only found stuff on the first page (most stuff was only one or two pages anyhow). Think I have it all done right now.

I had a report from Jean re Carlyle Gardens. Had to restart the modem when I got back this morning. I mention this in case you're keeping records of outages.

Truth in advertising at last @TimHarford: Costco apologizes for Bibles labeled fiction http://ktla.com/2013/11/20/pastor-finds-bibles-labeled-under-fiction-at-local-costco-2/#axzz2lJ215hTU

I was awakened around 1:30 a.m. by medium heavy rain. Rain continued throughout the night. I find it impossible to sleep under those conditions. So I got up for keeps around 3:30 a.m.

My weight remained 68 kilograms on the old scale, and dropped to 67.1 kilogram on the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale. Might just as well toss a coin as rely upon these scales.

It rained all morning, decent soaking rain, not just a drizzle. Not impressed by all this rain. Hope some of it is going where farmers want and need it.

I looked at the markets area with binoculars. I can only see one tent up down there. I think that is a wash.

I had no internet at 3:30 a.m. on a rainy morning. A numeric traceroute stalled at the NetGear ADSL modem. Likewise a numeric ping. I power sequenced the ADSL modem. Internet connection resumed operating.

So you stop Microsoft Windows from the Start button. Plus the third version of XBox is the One? No wonder I am confused.

I feel this temptation to find out what is on TV at 3:30 a.m. TV is utter garbage during the day and evening. Do they hide the good bits?

BigPond Internet @telstra was out of action at Airlie Beach at 3:30 a.m. No modem error lights. Power sequence the ADSL modem fixed it.

Mind you, @telstra connection is lost almost every day at Airlie Beach. Same lack of symptoms each time. May try yet another modem.

I was up at 4:45 a.m. after a good night of sleep, uninterrupted by rain.

My weight was variable on both scales. Down to 67.6 kilograms on the old scale, and up 100 grams to 67.2 kilogram on the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale. I feel very hungry. The readings did not reach the server, because the internet was down (again).

Had a glass of the last of the milk to fortify myself for my 5 kilometre morning walk around Airlie Beach. Ran into Ven and Bunit, who was clutching a quad drone with a pan and tilt camera attached, and massive servomotors. Must organise to get a video of the plants growing in our gutter. Collected the newspapers I missed on Saturday.

Really was hungry when I returned home, so I had a boiled egg on toast, and orange juice. That was the last of the eggs.

I found I had no internet connection at 4:45 a.m. in the morning. My scale complained it could not reach the server. Numeric ping fails. I power sequenced the NetGear ADSL modem, and the connection to the internet returned.

No @telstra BigPond connection in Airlie Beach at 4:45 a.m. Power sequence modem. Internet returns. I think they run out of IP numbers.

My @Kogan Blue Anatomy scale usually warns me each morning it can not reach the server via @telstra BigPond. So I know to reboot modem.

@Telstra Hi Renee - I tweet Airlie Beach outages when I get internet again. Rebooting my modem gets a new IP number.

@Telstra Hi Renee, sometimes running a numeric traceroute a few times will wake up the Airlie Beach connection, but not often.

No-one will confirm that. @mpesce: Scott Morrison is refusing to confirm Scott Morrison. #insiders Bloody Daylight Saving states.

Works for me. “@drance: Son 1 explaining Captain Hook is a good guy because he fights the crocodiles.” in Tropical Queensland croc country.

I was up around 4:44 a.m. An overcast morning, threatening rain.

My weight remained at 67.6 on the old scale. It increased to 67.5 on the Kogan Blue Anatomy scale. This scale seemed to get through to its server, however I could not get mail.

Spent time on the computer, then off to the transit terminal to catch the seven o'clock bus to Townsville.

I had no internet connection when I checked before 5 a.m. A numeric ping and a traceroute both fail. I power sequenced the NetGear ADSL modem. Internet connection returns.

I started a download only of the iPhone iOS 7.0.4 update, since I had a relatively quick internet connection once it restarted. Estimate 10 minutes. A few minutes later, the 1.12GB internet download was stalled at about 50GB. I paused the download, and then restarted it. This time the download completed.

I backed up and synched my iPhone 4, and the iPad Mini.

I had a wait until a little after seven for the bus, as it was running a few minutes late. It did not set off until around 20 minutes after seven. This was the first time I had encountered one of the new buses. Leather seats, WiFi, and USB power. The leather seats seem pretty fancy. Bus chassis is much the same as the previous models Greyhound have been using. This was the first run for this bus. USB was already out of action. The USB sockets are way too vulnerable to big feet knocking them loose. they need to be recessed somehow. The Global Gossip WiFi could be connected, but did not actually seem to connect to the internet. Still, Greyhound are undoubtedly trying to improve their service. Personally I find them more than acceptable.

We arrived in Townsville maybe a quarter of an hour late. Given how much road construction delays are in the last stretch, this is not bad. Jean was waiting for me with her car.

I was collected by Jean in her car. We reached Sizzler for lunch just before midday. As usual we had their light meal. A tiny (130 gram) steak and chips which is more than enough for me, one serve from the well stocked salad bar, and dessert included. That is enough to keep me feeling full until I go to sleep. A larger meal than 90% of those I eat.

I wanted a spare USB to Lightning cable. It turns out that the new Apple iPad Air refuses to even charge on third party Lightning cables. I wanted to leave spare Lightning cables in both locations, in case I forgot to carry a cable.

There is a JB HiFi with computer parts at Willows Shopping Centre. Jean also encouraged me to get the 4TB hard drive I wanted, since it was getting down towards the $200 price point I wanted. She knows she tends to get whatever drives are freed up by any changes I make. In fact, I was bringing her two freed up one terabyte drives, for use as backup drives.

Jean was also able to get some milk and a banana while we were shopping.

I had a lot of trouble getting a connection from my MacBook Air to my Apple Time Capsule (or to the alternate AirPort Extreme router). I finally powered down the entire connection chain. Brought power back up to the Belkin ADSL modem, then the Tendo Ethernet hub, and finally to the Time Capsule router. At this point my internet connection was restored.

Start politician pensions at age 70, so we can all see how well it saves tax money. #auspol

I had an infant mortality failure of one of my 3.2 Watt Mort Bay colour change LED light bulbs. I had started it running during the evening. A few hours later it had died. No symptoms of which I am aware. I changed luminaires, but the problem appears to be the bulb.

I was up late, around 5:30 a.m. after having the air conditioning run all night to reduce the summer wet season humidity. Started a run of laundry, since the weather forecast is for late storms rather than early storms.

The Withings scale is recording my weight as 67.9 kilograms. There has been a change to the Withings web site, and it no longer works. I have really had it with all the internet enabled shit that silently stops working.

One load of laundry started around 5:30 a.m. Put that out on the line to dry just after seven, and started a second load of laundry. Already feels warm.

Willows did not have as annoying music this time. We managed to lurch around four time, with me clutching the fruit shopping from the third time around. So many discounts on fruit, especially Kiwi Fruit, that it came to less than $5 for a big bag. That was good.

I organised an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow, as my prescriptions have run out.

Put the second load of laundry out on the line. Jean took a lot of her stuff in, since it was already dry. I also put ant sand down on any ant trails I noticed. I also took the weed killer and sprayed anything in the garden that looked like weeds. It is really hot out there in the sun, even before ten.

I used the Withings Smart Blood Pressure monitor for the first time. It set up easily in the same iPhone app used by the phone. Blood pressure was 113/71, with a resting pulse of 42. It uses the same Withings app as the Withings scale.

I paired my new Withings Pulse step counter with my iPhone via Bluetooth. No problems in doing so. However there was a firmware upgrade to be installed, and the Withings app wanted me to charge the Pulse. Said it only had 23% charge. So I have left it plugged into a charger for the moment.

The Withings pulse produced step results slightly higher than Moves on my iPhone after our walk. However the differences were not so high as to make me suspect problems with either.

Surveillance as a business model. You can not trust Google, Facebook or Twitter https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/11/surveillance_as_1.html

On my internet connection, hardly any web site is responsive. Lots are not even visible before I give up on waiting for a response.

I attended the final meeting for the Carlyle Gardens Computer Club for 2013. Secretary Laurie reminded us that the club was holding a fund raiser at the Social Club event at the bar on Friday. Laurie then showed a number of amusing videos and photos.

Peter gave a Powerpoint presentation reminding club members of tips for using their Windows computers. There was a certain amount of reminders of XP systems that support expires in April, and of one of their choices being Windows 8 (he does not like it). A lot more pushing of Apple than I expected.

After helping put some chairs away, I went outside. Just in time for the 8:18 p.m. pass of the International Space Station (ISS). This was brief, only a minutes. the station was soon lost in Earth shadow.

A lot of scones were on hand. Helen was away, so the club had bought scones from Penny in the restaurant. There was some discussion, concluding that helens scones were made with both butter and cream. I took advantage of the plentiful supply of scones to have two entire scones, with strawberry jam and whipped cream.

Comet ISON turned out to be Comet ISOFF. Pity.

I was up just after five. It was very warm overnight, warmer outside than it, or so it feels.

My weight has dropped to 67.7 kilograms on the Withings scale, despite the scones.

Off to Willows. Jean managed an impressive four times around Willows. As we were leaving she noticed OPSM were empty, and entered to see about an appointment. i continued walking. Got a phone call from jean saying she had a 9 a.m. appointment. So I continued walking, and got around Willows another three times before she emerged. We were latish getting home.

I have such a slowdown on the internet at 6:15 a.m. that any web page coming from a URL shortener never completes the URL access. iTunes Store is stalling on processing any update of an app. Some apps are refusing to download at all. I had to restart iTunes, and then start downloading apps one at a time.

Back at Carlyle Gardens at 10 a.m. Internet is working too slow to actually access web pages. Technically it has not failed. I just doesn't work.

Broke an Arlec Lunar glass globe that got under my feet when attending to the printer.

I walked over to the doctor for a 2:30 p.m. appointment to get two prescriptions refilled. He really liked the Withings Pulse and the results from the Withings Scale. I also have a script for a full set of blood tests, which have not been done since April. If I get myself organised I could do them at seven tomorrow morning.

That let me get to the pub by 3:15 a.m. which was nice and early. The social club folks were meeting in the lounge. They asked about using my lights for their Xmas party. I was happy to have them use the lights. Bought a $20 ticket for their Sunday Xmas event.

Jeff turned up at the bar around four. Ian turned up a little later, and then Ray arrived. Chatted with Penny and with Laura as well. I am not sure the 4% ginger beer was a worthy drink, although it is inoffensive.

Actually packed up rather late. John came by, and invited me to his Xmas party, same day as the Social Club party. However he starts at 5, and I think the Social Club is a little later. John had also installed Xmas lights at Ray's place, as well as his own impressive set of lights.

Jeff rolled off on his Segway to make his way home. He tells me that Liz from the office had a ride on his Segway one of the days.

I printing one side of 28 copies of four sheets for ANZAPA. The printer failed before I could complete the second side of the first page. I got 21 pages printed, and then the Brother HL-3045CN printer stopped. I remain totally unimpressed by printers.

I could not spare the time to find out what bloody printing fault had happened this time around.

I was up around four, unable to sleep. I blame going to the pub for this. Hungry, but I am having a fasting blood test this morning, so I can not eat something yet.

My weight had gone up again to 67.9 kilograms on the Withings scale.

Walked across the village, and dropped the accumuated Whitsunday Times off for Neil. Then over to the Carlyle Medical Centre, where Pathology tests are available from seven. I was the first and only person there, so I got in as soon as the medical technician arrived. Needed both arms to get sufficient blood for the tests. I should have had a few glasses of water, instead of giving up when I realised I had to fast. I was back home by 7:15 a.m. after walking about two kilometres.

After scrambled eggs for breakfast we drove to Willows. Walked around Willows four times, which is a reasonable distance for Jean. I bought bread rolls and the Misty Mountain full cream Jersey milk at Coles, so I had something to snack on.

A few minutes after we arrived home we got eParcel deliveries. A cover for Jean's Macintosh, and a spare charger and Lightning cable for my iPad.

I inspected the almost unreadable display on the Brother H-3045CN printer connected to the Apple Time Capsule. Nothing. The moderately broken software for the Apple Macintosh seemed to be indicating it was not managing to push print files out to the printer over the network.

After my regular backup via the network ended, I powered down the Time Capsule, the printer, and the Philips Hue hub. Powered up the Time Capsule, and checked I still had an internet connection via it. I did. I also powered up the Philips Hue hub, and checked I could access the light bulbs. I could.

Last step was to power up the printer, and make another attempt at printing. I got the last seven pages of the second side of the first page done. I tried 28 copies of the second side of page 3.

The printer did half of the second side of page 5, and then stopped. Again it seems not to have a connection. Later I discovered the first run of page 7 was two pages short as well.

I still have no idea why there are so many issues with printers.

I am finding the internet too slow to use. A large proportion of web sites simply do not open. However ping to Google is averaging around 44ms. Traceroute is reasonable until it hits iiNet Brisbane. Then it slows down hitting Sydney, and across to Los Angeles. iTunes Store and iTunes web site are essentially unusable.

I was up late about 5:30 a.m. after sleeping well for once.

My weight was 67.6 kilograms according to the Withings scale.

We drove to Willows for the shopping, but did manage to walk around the shopping centre three times. Checked Target and BigW without finding anything on our lists. Got food in Coles, after checking Woolworths for different bread mix styles. Then off to collect a dozen eggs. Got given a nice egg board calendar.

Big Ray turned up on our back porch just after we arrived home. He was going through old paperwork at the office, putting it into the many three ring binders we had donated. He wanted to borrow Jean's three hole drill punch. Luckily Jean was able to put her hand on it immediately.

I started clearing things out of my room for my cleanup. Jean kindly offered space in her living room for furniture, which made life a lot easier. I sure have a lot of clutter. And dust. As soon as I started, the hidden dust bunnies came out to play.

Off to the reception to get a form for additional solar panels, in case the Diamond brand ones will work. Ray came by. Then John came by.

Lunch at the restaurant with Ray, John and Dot. John told of earth balance relay issues. Ray told some really bad jokes. Dot had her right wrist in a purple cast. Tripped over a broomstick, reinforcing my own fear of cleaning. Way too dangerous.

Noel had cooked a really nice barramundi, in a herb bread crust. I took the side salad away with me, as I had too much to eat in any case. I should not have bought a can of Coke, even as a way to avoid wine.

NSW government overturns smoking ban in casino for rich smokers. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-santa-and-the-tooth-fairy-collaborated-to-allow-smoking-at-barangaroo-20131128-2ye0y.html Who cares about staff? What a bunch of wankers.

NBN: So I will still be stuck on ADSL1 under 1mbps for the next decade, on new copper in a new estate, on the days internet works at all @telstra

@GChristensenMP: A very sensible and sound decision by the Treasurer. http://t.co/UJlFyWpd3F Behind a cookie wall. As usual for Australian

I did not have an internet connection when I returned from lunch. Numeric ping and numeric traceroute failed. I power sequenced the Belkin ADSL modem in the garage. However I notice my Time Capsule router is not indicating any sort of connection at all on the Tendo Ethernet hub. Bad Ethernet cable? Still no connection. I had stop the pending backup (previous one was at 12:43 p.m shortly before I returned) and power sequence the Apple Time Capsule before I regained my internet connection. I am starting to suspect a Time Capsule power supply problem. However I can now collect my email.

I went along to the regular Social Club Friday evening event at the restaurant. This was the second week of the computer club fund raiser, so I made sure I bought a second lot of raffle tickets from Laurie. I saw Ray and later John, and had a chat with a heap of other people. Caught up with Neil, to whom I had delivered copies of the Whitsunday Times newspaper earlier in the week. I sat with our neighbours Mary and Allen.

Laurie came by to invite me to the Computer Club snacks after the event. I am deliberately not on the committee, but have tried to be helpful on things relating to Apple devices. So I got to try dangerous looking deep fried triangular curried snacks, which I would normally avoid. It was good to see how well the computer club was going with their fund raising. I did take the opportunity to raise the matter of WiFi for the whole quadrangle.

After that started breaking up, Penny invited me to join the restaurant staff at supper. She remembered back when she was a waitress there, and did experimental drinks for a few of us. Usually involved a lot of ice cream and a lot of Bailey's Irish Cream. Lots more calories than I would be likely to have now. So I got away somewhat later than expected, and did not get back until around eight.

I woke up after two, and could not get back to sleep. Even a few glasses of alcohol spoil my sleep. By four I figured I might just as well get up.

My weight was 67.7 kilograms on the Withings scale. Little wonder after the full lunch and then evening snacks.

We drove to Willows and walked around three times, getting slower and slower. Jean wanted some vegetables.

I still have very slow internet access. For example, the Apple Mac App Store is so slow that I can not complete download of any pages at all. I just have to close the store page. I also suspect some real problem with Apple's Safari 7 web browser.

Internet out of action at 1 p.m. I think it must have failed some time before that. No response to numeric ping. A numeric traceroute got to iiNet's Pipe connection in Brisbane. Ping still does not work. However email is getting through! What gives? It seems Google is out of action. I was using convenient Google IP numbers to check ping and traceroute. I can not get the Google website. Twitter also seems to have been out of action since 9:22 this morning, some four hours ago.

About one web site in three does not actually download. Internet sucks. Ping still does not work on many sites. Traceroute tends to get lost. Maybe some extra security on more sites? Twitter feeds have started again. Google is still missing, both via ping and via web site.

In the evening the internet was far too slow for anything that included photographs to work. Google is unreachable. Bing is unreachable. DuckDuckGo works, and so does Yahoo.

The problem appears to be that the Apple Time Capsule no longer connects correctly. My last backup was 6:14 a.m. some 15 hours ago. I power sequenced the Time Capsule. I can now get at a lot more of the internet, although it is very slow. I could also download some apps into iTunes.

Now I am getting 33% packet loss on ping.

I power sequenced the Time Capsule. This appears to have vastly improved Internet access. However what is wrong with the time capsule.

I moved furniture. I cleaned the floor. I steam cleaned the floor. Still looks disgusting.

My solar inverter output figures are 5166kWh in 14907 hours. The previous figures in October were E-total 5017kWh, h-total 14526 hours. This makes 149kWh power generated in 381 hours. 4.96kW per day or 391 Watts per active hour, in October. Panels are 1000 Watts nominal.

The Ergon electricity meter for October 2013 are 5403kWh purchased on Tariff 11, Tariff 33 is at 4201kWh, and solar power export is 2286kWh. November figures are 5544kWh, 4388kWh on Tariff 33, and 2345kWh for exports. Use for the month of November is 85kWh, air conditioning use is 187kWh. Solar export is 59kWh, and we used 90kWh of solar power ourselves.

AB, CG, Travel

@gryphyn59: @ericlindsay Have you seen this site, resurrecting the Microbee? http://www.microbeetechnology.com.au/index.htm Unable to access site.

A cloudy mostly overcast day. Output from a one kilowatt array of six solar panels facing east.

Time, Voltage, Watts, kWh, Total kWh 5:40, 145, 1, 0, 0 6:00, 195, 86, .01, .01 6:30, 191, 126, .12, .13 7:00, 187, 430, .09, .22 7:30, 186, 494, .25, .47 8:00, , ,.18, .65 8:30, 191, 330, .20, .85 9:00, 193, 232, .17, 1.02 9:30, 180, 973, .27, 1.29 10:00, 197, 196, .15, 1.44 10:30, 185, 380, .32, 1.76 11.00, 191, 327, .33, 2.09 11:30, 178, 940, .29, 2.38 12:00, 189, 946, .23, 2.61 12:30, 181, 876, .35, 2.96 13:00, 181, 722, .35, 3.31 13:30, 194, 196, .21, 3.52 14:00, 197, 199, .09, 3.61 14:30, 192, 352, .13, 3.74 15:00, 197, 289, .14, 3.88 15:30, 192, 184, .16, 4.04 16:00, 194, 177, .09, 4.13 16:30, , , .08, 4.21 17:00, , , .03, 4.24 17:30, 104, 48, .01, 4.25