OneDrive and the Rug Pulled from Underneath Me

 

As someone who has set up many new computers over the years, I've gotten used to the tedious process of loading software from discs and installers. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how streamlined Microsoft has made the setup experience on my latest PC. Getting Windows and Office installed was a breeze compared to the olden days of swapping floppy disks and CD-ROMs. 

However, this simplicity came with a devious dark underbelly that left me incredibly frustrated - the aggressive integration and default setting of OneDrive for storage. At every turn, Microsoft seemed to be steering me towards using its cloud service whether I wanted to or not. Most insidiously, it had automatically set my Documents, Photos and my Desktop Folders to be synced and stored in OneDrive. 

I already have a personal OneDrive account that I seldom use. But when I did a quick test of uploading some photos, not many from my camera, I quickly maxed out the free storage, most of which was being consumed by weird files on my desktop area. Suddenly, I was being pestered to pay for more OneDrive space that I never asked to use in the first place. Where was the option to opt-out of this default OneDrive setting during setup? It felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath me.

Instead of spending a couple days getting a new PC ready like I used to, I've now wasted that same time trying to unravel and opt-out of most of the undesired OneDrive integration that Microsoft shoved in my face. What initially looked like a fresh, streamlined setup experience left a sour taste thanks to this aggressive cloud storage agenda. 

Dear Microsoft, please make OneDrive an explicit choice again, not a default imposition!!!

Tales of Woe, and hopefully meeting a new friend

 After many trials and tribulations, so many, I had given up blogging about them. I’ve had a whole series of older computers from my business die off one by one over a few years. The majority have suffered death by upgrade, so i'm starting to fear those massive windows updates that never really worked. I guess one of the big problems was I had older hardware and it was stuck in Windows 10 land and not upgradeable.

I had replaced an old favourite PC in my studio with a slimed-down Lenovo box. It had a small ssd drive, supported by two hard drives, adequate memory, it was an i5 and it ran Windows 11, I love it. It did have problems running a large-screen TV when using the second screen/monitor or projector. But I do love the fact that I can have a large screen TV on the wall, perfect to paint from. Most of the computer gear sits on a narrow shelf and I have a couple of keyboards, one waterproof on my art table and a second wireless., that can be used anywhere. The table is set up such that I can draw and paint on it or I can also use with one of two easels standing up. I’ve also recovered an old sound bar so I can have good quality music as I’m painting. Its also set up for running Zoom meetings and making You tube videos (if I have the time!)

I still use an older Windows 10 HP Pavilion desktop in my office as the master for my network and main computer. It’s also got a small ssd drive but has 2 internal and 3 USB hard drives hanging off it. It is currently doubling as my master media storage, (eg photos videos and music). Unfortunately, it is misbehaving a bit, Finally I do miss my NAS storage, which no longer works on my upgraded LAN (windows 11 is implicated) , I really wish I knew why.

Quite a while ago the battery died in my beloved little HP Spectre. The little two-in-one that I took travelling, sitting on the couch or in fact all over the place. It was getting quite old and only had a small 11” screen but I still loved it and missed it dearly. The ordeal and potential expense associated with trying to get the battery replaced meant it is lying dormant.

I had a corneal graft last year and struggled a lot when one of my two monitors on my main computer decided to go dark, very dark, too dark to read easily. Taking the monitor off the computer and plugging it into something else showed it was fine so I assume it’s the graphics card on the computer, or a graphics driver upgrade issue, just another frustration with the Windows world. I’ve really had a lot of trouble getting used to what now appear contrasty monitors and smaller text (OK it’s the same size text just harder to see without an update to my glasses prescription after the corneal graft]. I can only get about one hour at the screen before my eyes feel strained. Usually not enough time when I’m playing with photos,

So I’ve been looking seriously at different screen technologies and decided I like TVs with OLED screens. I used to like the Apple iPhone style IPS format screens on my phone and Spectre, and was with LCD monitors. So I had begun investigating screen type and size, by actually looking at them in stores. When I noticed an advert on TV about the Lenovo Yoga Range, two-in-one style computers, checking the web there was a model based on an Intel EVO i7 processor with a 14inch  OLED screen. I was at Office Works on a different matter and so I checked it out. It was very easy to read at a standard viewing distance. I didn’t take long to decide it was time to get an upgrade.

So welcome Slaty, so named because it’s very thin, layered and a dark grey. I look forward to you becoming a great friend.

Keeping it Simple for Plein Air Painting

Nothing kills the joy of plein air painting faster than battling the elements and lugging around excessive gear. As a passionate outdoor painter, I've learned some tricks to streamline my setup and focus on the act of creating.

The biggest hassle is managing the paper, the surface to paint on. Wind is the natural enemy of a damp painting, and rain can smudge your masterpiece in seconds if you're not prepared. Over the years, I've realized that less is more when it comes to plein air essentials.

My humble blue canvas bag has become an invaluable ally. It comfortably fits pads and blocks up to roughly A3 size - plenty of room for field studies done in the open air's changeable conditions. I typically pack A4 or A5 pads or blocks of watercolor paper, sometimes supplemented with  inexpensive cartridge paper for simple sketches and pen drawings

A couple of drawing boards with tripod attachments also slip into the bag nicely. Their firm surfaces help keep the pads in place, and a few bulldog clips allow me to secure paintings-in-progress between the boards if I need to pack up quickly due to unexpected showers.

By the way, painting outdoors is great I love it

The Beauty of Minimalist Plein Air Sketching

Sometimes the most memorable artistic moments happen spontaneously without an elaborate setup. A case in point - I was out enjoying the late afternoon on the forshore at Cowes, intending to stay to paint the sunset. However, as I awaited the warm light a ship standing by and people milling about on the beach provided the perfect scene for a quick sketch.

That's when the beauty of a minimalist sketching kit came into play. I didn't need much more than a small sketch pad, a couple of water brushes, and my trusty little dot chart colour wheel. 

There's something immensely satisfying about working with just the bare essentials out in the field. You become hyper-focused on transcribing the essence of the moment through swift brushstrokes. No fiddling with complex setups or hauling cumbersome gear - just you, the scene, and a sparse collection of tools.

Speaking of those essential tools, one item that continues to prove invaluable is my homemade dot chart colour wheel. Not only is it highly portable, but crafting your own allows you to arrange pigment scales exactly how your artistic brain understands colour relationships best.

Making one is also delightfully simple...

Are LLM amazing or simply stupid?

I watched a very relevant TED talk by Yejin Chai “Why Ai isincredibly smart and shockingly stupid”, which opens with the quote “Common sense is not so common” which comes from Voltaire around 3  centuries ago. I totally agree that the current large language models {LLM}, which many call AI (but I call Artifically Intelligent), lack common sense. This should be very obvious if you he ever used them.

Still I am finding LLMs helpful. They're sometimes amazing for cleaning up typos, especially for folks like me who struggle with dyslexia.  They're also good for fixing the weird stuff that happens when you dictate and/or use predictive text.

I've been trying out a few of the most popular ones.  To compare them, I created an informal scorecard system that tracks how well they handle different aspects of text, like key ideas and paragraph sentiments.  Here's how it works:

• OK: This means I can use the text without any changes.
• Reword: Sometimes the wording needs a little tweaking, to sound less know-it-all.
• Fact Check: often some points get over-embellished
• Wrong: clearly made up or simply wrong
• Missing: important information left out (ignored)

So I recently was asked to speak and I outlined some ideas but in a rehersal it took 20 minutes. I recorded and timed it by dictating into a Word document (<windows key> and H) roughly 6 pages of rabbling text, lots of good stuff but… … So I asked each of ChatGPT, Claude.AI and Google’s Gemini (previously Bard)  each to summarize it into a single page.

Their score cards were not so good

I feel that it is the Dunning-Kruger effect that AI suffer most!  These AI Bots display a smug self-confidence that they know everything but show no common sense to realise how little human norms and values they actually understand.