Got a new app for iPhone called ‘noir’, very nice looks and I imagine it will be great for street photography.

I subscribed to iTunes Match and installed iCloud on my PC and whilst generally i’m really happy with it, there does seem to be quite a few teething problems. As soon as i installed iCloud (so that i could see my iPhone Photo stream on my PC’s) i could no longer use iTunes on my main PC. Once i launched iTunes it completely froze and became unresponsive. Well after much searching i found this:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3540759?start=0&tstart=0
(Post number 5 and 6)

I’ll also paste it here in case the thread ever gets deleted:

Ok not sure if this will work for you, I did the following – task manager APSDaemon.exe*32 end the process tree and the go into the following: Click Start Then Local Disk (C:) – Program Files (x86) – Common Files – Apple – Apple Application Support – delete APS Daemon.exe *32 And the APS Deamon dll – dont delete the ApplePushService.dll – then run the crapcleaner registry cleaner. download iTunes and iCloud click on them, then repair iTunes and iCloud and re start your PC – seems to have fixed it! Will keep you posted

**sorry its APS daemon_main.dll to delete

So there, you have it. I followed the above advice and it did indeed fix my iTunes. Now on my second laptop i have a different problem. The iTunes on that laptop has all of the songs that are in the cloud greyed out so i can’t do anything with them and the only way around it that i’ve found so far is to deactivate iTunes Match and then re-activate it EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU OPEN ITUNES!

I thought Apple stuff was supposed to “Just Work”? Well that’s not been my experience of it so far. I’ve always had one problem or another with iTunes.

But all that aside, i do like iTunes Match and iCloud (when they work). It’s nice having your iTunes in synch on every device and computer and it’s very handy having your photo stream automatically downloaded to your computer(s). Makes backing up very easy as i believe that unlike the photo stream on iPhone, the one on your computer doesn’t get deleted after so many days or images.

This was taken yesterday on what was officially the first day of winter. A ladybird on a surviving summer bedding plant. Very mild Christmas in the uk!

Well i wish that i could say that we are snuggled up indoors with the tree lights blinking playing Xmas tunes whilst we look out of the window watching the lovely snowflakes turn the garden white. But in fact it’s one of the mildest Christmases we have had in a long time – there were Ladybirds in the garden yesterday! – the other half is drilling and sawing creating a new bedroom and i’m working (and blogging). Oh well! have a good one.

I got this cheap iPhone macro lens off eBay and considering it was under a tenner i think the results are pretty darn good! You have to get in extremely close but whaddaya want for a few quid! It comes with a metal ring that you stick to the back of your iPhone around the camera lens and the macro lens is magnetic so when you want to use it just pop it on. I think i’d be tempted to put a protector on the back of the iPhone first before sticking rings to it in case the glue leaves a mark on the phone. Incidentally you can screw on a wide angle attachment and some lenses come with a fisheye attachment too. I’ll see how i get on with it and i might buy myself a more expensive olloclip one day.