After upgrading Plesk to version 9.2.1 the following error displayed whenever I tried to update Web Hosting Settings :-

Unable to update hosting preferences: hosting update failed: webstatmng is failed –unset-config –domain-name=yourdomain.com –stat-prog=

The cause, it turned out, was an empty field in the main Plesk database. The solution was to login as root via a Terminal session and type the following command :-

mysql -Ns -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` psa -e ‘update domains d, hosting h set h.webstat=”none” where h.dom_id=d.id and d.name=”yourdomain.com”‘

The entire command should be entered on one line, and you should substitute yourdomain.com for your actual domain name. You need to repeat the command for each of the domains on your server.

It’s been a year since I gave up on Microsoft Windows and swapped to Mac OS X and I’ve never regretted it. I’m hoping the same will be true of the decision I made today to exchange Facebook for Flickr.

Facebook is great if you want to make loads of online “friends” - which I don’t. All I want to do is share my photographs with a few people I know and have them leave a brief comment so I can gauge how well I’m doing. Facebook has the ability to share photos and receive comments, but the social networking side of things, in my opinion, is chaotic and difficult to control.

When I upload a photo to Facebook I can choose who sees it - everyone, or just my “friends”. So far, so good. But my “friends” have “friends”, who also have “friends”. And when I comment on a photograph of someone I know, I receive an email alert telling me that someone (who I don’t know) has also commented on it. It also seems to me that when I share a photo (or anything else for that matter) it’s not only my friends that see it, but also their friends, and their friends ad infinitum.

I know you’re going to tell me that I can set my privacy settings to not allow certain things, but it seems an all-or-nothing affair. I can’t, for example, find a way of including my own friends, but excluding their friends. At the end of the day, I’m sure that’s the idea - it is, after all, a social networking site where the main intention is for people to meet people (via people they know) and become “friends”. Maybe I’m just anti-social but (a) I don’t really want to meet other people’s friends and (b) I don’t think online friends are necessarily ”friends” in the true sense of the word and (c) all I want to do is SHARE MY PHOTOS.

So today I switched exclusively to Flickr. It allows me to upload my photos. It allows me to add a small number of “contacts” (who are not pining for my friendship) and it allows them to comment on my photos. I don’t get to see what their contacts are doing. I don’t get annoying emails every two minutes telling me that someone who knows someone has done something I’m not bothered about. It is, quite simply, more simple and less stressful.

It’s very rare that Mac OS X goes wrong, which is why I switched from Windows over a year ago. Another great thing about Mac OS X is the built in backup system called Time Machine which backs up your data every hour, every day, every week, every year so you can literally “go back in time” and retrieve lost files. Time Machine has been a life saver for me on numerous occasions. However, like all things Mac, when it goes wrong (which it will occasionally) it can be tricky to fix. This is a case in point. My electricity went off while I was away from my computer. My UPS kicked in but drained down after 15 minutes causing my iMac and my external hard-drive which was running a Time Machine Backup at the time to turn off abruptly. Following this incident all my hourly Time Machine Backups were failing. When I went into Time Machine Preferences to try to remount the backup drive it gave me the above error. Chances are, you’re reading this because the same thing happened to you. So what to do ?

Basically, the file .xxxxxxxxx which Mac is complaining about is corrupt and can’t be written to the hard-drive. As far as I can make out it’s a file that was being created during the backup process (which crashed when the power went down) and it’s permissions (who own’s it, what they can do with it etc.) have gone loopy. Mac OS X is unable to write the file to the backup drive. Fortunately, the solution is simple, at least in theory. All you have to do is delete the file it’s complaining about. However, finding the file is not so easy. See that . in front of the file name ? That means it’s a hidden file which Mac OS X doesn’t let you see. You’ll certainly not be able to find it using Finder. You’ll need to use Terminal which you can find in your Applications folder.

Having opened Terminal, you need to navigate to the folder called Volumes. Depending on the location Terminal has opened at you might be lucky first time by typing the following into the Terminal window and clicking the Enter or Return key.

cd /Volumes

That might not (probably won’t( hack it though, and Terminal will usually complain the Volume doesn’t exist. It does exist. It’s just Terminal isn’t looking in the right place. Type the following and hit the Enter or Return Key.

cd ..

Now type cd /Volumes and see if Mac OS X finds it. If it doesn’t, type cd .. again, then cd /Volumes. Do this however times you need to. Eventually you’ll arrive at the Volumes folder.

Now type

ls

This will list the files and folders in the Volumes folder. You’ll see one called Time Machine Backups. You now need to go into this folder, but if you type cd /Time Machine Backups it won’t work. Try the following instead.

cd /Time*

This should work, and you should be able to type ls again and see what’s in the Time Machine Backups folder. Chances are though, you’ll not see the file you’re looking for to delete because, as I explained above, it’s hidden. But it is there, trust me. Type the following replacing {filename} with the file you want to delete, not forgetting the .

rm {filename}

It might ask if you want to delete it or give some other message asking you to confirm. Just press the Y key and then Enter or Return and the file will have gone. If you want to make sure it’s gone, type the following :-

cat {filename}

OS X will say the file doesn’t exist (because you deleted it).

Now get Time Machine to start a backup and you should find it no longer complains.

British organisation The Vyouz Network has been the first to launch not one, but two, brand-new reuse websites in the USA on the same day. The anticipated launch of Born Recycling (www.bornrecycling.com) and Student Cycle (www.studentcycle.com) was today confirmed as both sites went live at 17:00 BST.

The new reuse websites are based on the Network’s existing websites bornrecycling.co.uk and studentcycle.co.uk which were launched recently in the UK. At the heart of each of these websites is the unique concept of “virtual skips”, known as “virtual dumpsters” in the USA. The Vyouz Network first introduced the UK to the idea of virtual skip diving when it launchedvSkips in January 2004. Since then, tens of thousands of the British public have embraced the idea as a viable alternative to sending unwanted waste to landfill via real skips. The US equivilent, vDumpsters, was released in December 2007 and has since gained an impressive following among environmentally concerned Americans.

It is hoped that the new sites, Born Recycling and Student Cycle, will compliment vDumpsters in the same way that the UK versions have done vSkips.

A spokesperson for The Vyouz Network said today: “vSkips and vDumpsters are great for reusing, well… just about anything, but Born Recycling and Student Cycle are designed to be much more targetted. In the case of Born Recycling, we’re hoping that parents with babies and small children will find it a useful place to give away and find unwanted items like prams, pushchairs, high chairs, toys and so forth. Student Cycle on the other hand is rather like vSkips and vDumpsters - pretty much anything can be given away or picked up for free - except this site is specifically aimed at those in education, particularly university students who are known for leading the way in recycling.”

With a solid Social Networking platform built in to all the Vyouz websites, and with sites like Facebook and Twitter becoming more popular each day, it’s easy to see how parents and students will enjoy using the new websites not only to recycle, but also to connect with like-minded individuals online.

Gadget show fans queuing up. The crowds were massive.

One of the best things about being in the IT and photography business is visiting trade shows where the latest high-end tech is displayed. This week we went to the Gadget Show Live hosted at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. The crowds were massive, with all tickets being sold out a week before the show, but crowd control was excellent.

Once inside, we were treated to hundreds of exhibitors showing off their latest gadgets. My favorites were, of course, photography-related. I was given a demo of a new GPS tracing device which can be used in conjunction with Google Earth to show exactly where a photograph was shot. The only downside was that it is not currently available for Mac users, the old excuse of “it’s not worth it for only 5% of the market” being given. Shame.

Signed merchandise from the Gadget Show presenters.

We met Gail Porter face to face and she signed Brendan’s Gadget Show bag. We also picked up a signed edition of Jason Bradbury’s new book “Dot Robot” which Brendan had read by the time we got home.

There were a number of environmentally-friendly gadgets being exhibited including a wi-fi enabled box that clips around your mains electricity cable. Magnets in the clip measure the current passing through the cable and pass it to the box, which then sends it’s data to a display unit via wi-fi. You’re given a “live” view of how much electricity you’re using and how much it would cost you over a year. I was shocked to find that if you left a kettle boiling 24/7 it would cost over £2500 per year to run !

We browsed the Gadget Hall of Fame where I saw a BBC micro computer and a Commodore PET, the computers I learned to program on at school in the 1980’s. There was also a Commodore 64, the first computer that I owned. 

The Gadget Show presenters personal transport challenge.

The highlight of the event was seeing the Gadget Show presenters live in the Super Theatre. We were treated to an excellent show consisting of live challenges, audience participation games and guest acts such as Feeding the Fish jugglers. All in all it was an excellent day giving us the heads-up on all the latest tech to be coming our way over the next year.

We went to a car boot sale today and bought a new fold-up chair for my daughter, Madison. She seems to like it and I love this photo of her trying it out. She really loves the camera and gave some excellent poses during this fun and informal photoshoot. I especially like how the sunlight is just catching Madison’s wisps of hair.

This was admittedly rubbish when it first launched. Quite unlike Apple I must say. But now it’s excellent. The bugs appear to be ironed out and I have so much confidence in it that I’ve moved all my business mail over to the MobileMe platform. What I particularly like now is the syncing options. In the past, as a PC user, I’d always struggled to keep my Contacts, Calendars and Mail synchronized between the desktop PC I’d use for designing websites, my laptop I’d use when I was on the road visiting clients, and my phone. Now, as an Apple convert using MobileMe, it’s just so easy ! Any change I make on my iPhone is almost instantly updated on my iMac and my MacBook. I don’t even need to plug anything in since MobileMe works “over the air” via Wi-Fi or the 3G cellular network. It really is a very cool idea, and best of all… it works !

Just upgraded to Photoshop CS4 and wow is it good ! Much faster than previous versions thanks to it deligating much of it’s processing to the hardware via Open GL. Some very cool new features such as Content Aware Scaling. Check out a full list here.

I also want to rave about the new plugin I’ve just purchased - Topaz Adjust. The above photo was processed using Topaz and I must say I’m pretty impressed with the results. The original photo was okay, but was quite drab. Topaz Adjust makes it “pop” out of the page and gives it almost a painted look. Love it. You can download Topaz Adjust here.

Loch Torridon

This time my photo shoot takes me back to Torridon - an area of outstanding natural beauty situated around the sea lochs of Torridon and Shieldaig and inland to Kinlochewe. Its combination of rock and water, changing seasons and moods make this an awe-inspiring place to visit. With it’s magnificent mountains, awesome lochs and variety of wildlife including Red Deer, Golden Eagles and Otters, Torridon is the perfect place for the photographer.

Beinn Eighe

Glacial erosion has played a significant role in creating the breathtaking landscape mountains that are the hallmark of the beautiful Torridon Mountain area. The area was so imporrtant to Scotland’s heritage that in 1951 the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve was formed. The reserve is home to some of the last remnants of the old Caledonian Forest which once spread across the greater part of the Highlands.

Gairloch

To the north of Torridon is Gairloch (Geàrrloch means “short loch” in Gaelic), an area famous for its sandy beaches. Gairloch offers visitords spectacular scenery, with unforgettable sunsets across the Minch to the dramatic backdrop of the Torridon mountains to the south.

Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to run Windows and Mac OS X at the same time without rebooting (unlike Boot Camp).

You can run Windows software without loosing the security, functionality and comfort of your Mac. If your Mac is an Intel one, Parallels Desktop is great. It can easily run each and every version of Windows.

Installing Parallels

When you install Parallels Desktop on a Mac computer, it is the same as installing any other OS X software. Just double click on the installer and follow the prompts.

Key Features:

1. Run Windows and Mac OS X without the need to reboot
2. All versions of Windows supported, including Windows Vista
3. Easily run Windows games and applications
4. USB supported

System Requirements:-

1. Mac OS X 10.4.6 or later
2. Intel CPU
4. Minimum of 768MB of RAM
8. 200 MB of hard disk space
9. Sufficient memory space to allocate for the virtual machines

1 GB RAM is recommended. Installation of Parallels Desktop software on your Mac is not difficult. Once it is installed you can easily install multiple operation systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and even Linux !