App check

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With another round of OS updates from Apple it is time to test some apps to check they still work. Inevitably there will be some that fail for some reason. This can be tolerable from individual developers; their life/career move on and their old apps become abandoned and eventually fail. But apps that have been purchased from major corporations should not be abandoned so readily. The TNR-i app, based on the original Tenori-on instrument from Yamaha, is one such. It was abandoned and withdrawn from the App Store in 2020; they warned “However, future iOS updates may cause TNR-i and TNR-e not to work.” The good news: it is still working…

Some research found that listening to stuff was helpful for older people. This may not have been what they had in mind.

From ADB to SCSI

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I share Jim Nielsen’s delight in the words of Tyler Gaw:

I just dug to the bottom of my Big Box of Cables to find two cables that I needed for something. They’ve been in the bottom for 10+ years. So, “when are you ever gonna use these?” was today. Don’t ever let anyone take your Big Box of Cables away.

Four cardboard boxes storing redundant cables

My box of cables and gubbins had expanded to four boxes which are augmented by a stack of drawers and hanging racks for those likely to be needed more often.

Rack of hanging assorted cables

Have we reached a point where we can fill an alphabet: ADB, BNC, DIN … RSS-422, SCART, SCSI? Leave it with me.

Adding benches

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The Open Benches site collects images of memorial benches; usually comprising a close up of the memorial plaque, a view of the bench and the view from the bench. Previously I have failed to add a bench because of some GPS problem – possibly because I was uploading from the library on the iPad. But I found that I can add them directly from the phone so added this splendid example from St. Paul’s at Horn Hill on a recent trip to Chalfont St. Peter.

I have a few more to add.

Developers are great – an ongoing series

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Did they even look at this stuff before presenting it to the public? Talking of which here is the farcical nonsense from the i newspaper. They changed their puzzle pages to some weird (presumably) vibe coded nonsense created by a teenager on their phone. While holding your iPad in a landscape position you are told to rotate it:

I rotated it 180º but that did not help. Apparently you need to turn it to a portrait orientation to enjoy the clutter of clues and colours and characters (just in case your iPad came without a functioning keyboard) to partake of their crosswords – which would look exactly the same in a landscape orientation.

These changes certainly generated some cross words and one star reviews:

While rotated one can better enjoy even more of them.

Did they even look at this stuff before presenting it to the public?

Update 27th August:

For some reason my one star review has been removed. Perhaps referring to the inept buffoons as “inept buffoons” was going too far. Their latest update to rectify this embarrassing disaster means you now no longer have to rotate your device. It does, of course, look exactly the same whichever way you look at it.