Okey dokey

Came home from Ravinia–Joshua Bell, wonderful as always–played with pups, did dishes, had a piece of toast. Opened up the laptop. Time Machine kicked in as I was phutzing around…

…and it’s telling me it can’t find the Airport Extreme Base Station. I can go online, and everything–the external HD, the Base Station, the laptop–is functioning.

So I go online and find out that Apple doesn’t support Time Machine with Airport Extreme. People use the set-up, but it isn’t reliable and data can become corrupted and I may not even know it.

Okay.

If that’s the case, I don’t feel comfortable using it anymore. What’s the point? So what’s the best way to save works-in-progress? Save directly to an external HD with a hardwire connection? DropBox? I can’t use iCloud because it doesn’t work with Scrivener.

(A few minutes pass)

Okay, I unplugged the external HD, waited a few seconds, and plugged it back in. External HD woke up, AEBS read it, everything is talking to everything else again. I did see that sometimes TM/AEBS can’t wake up a sleeping HD, and the connection fails. But the fact remains that this is an unsupported, unreliable set-up.

If I use DropBox, does it function as a back-up, or do I save my files directly to DropBox?

See, I miss the old Backup application that worked with Mobile Me. I set up the files I wanted backed up–not the whole damn laptop, but just the writing files–and it backed up on the schedule I set up. Clockwork. Never failed.

Guess I could burn a DVD. Does anyone do that anymore?

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.

My tweets

• Thu, 00:08: Okey dokey http://t.co/H5OHylCV

Ravinia night

Last night. Hot night. 102F in the afternoon, and still in the high 90s at 6pm-ish, when I left for the Park. I debated staying home, but Joshua Bell is my favorite classical artist and I have seen him every summer for the last few years. So, off I went, sweating all the way.

Had a seat in the Pavilion, third row, right side. Great view of the stage.

The Chicago Symphony opened the recital with Barber’s School for Scandal Overture, Op. 5 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 in E-flat Major, Op. 70. I wasn’t familiar with either work and I am far from an expert. The CSO sounded marvelous, as usual, and I know they can’t play a Beethoven or Mozart symphony every night. All I can say is that I liked the Barber–that’s been a developing trend over the years–but felt the Shostakovich didn’t hold together as a coherent work. Good to have heard it, but not interested in hearing it again.

Intermission. I drank water, fanned myself, and watched the stagehands rearrange instruments, chairs, and stands. Even though the sun had set, the temp didn’t budge. Some of the female musicians wore skirts–the color scheme was white/off-white shirt with black skirt or trousers–but most of the men and women wore trousers and some wore long sleeves as well and I don’t know how they tolerated sitting under the lights.

The second half of the show was Bell’s. He wore casual trousers and a sensible t-shirt–black or dark brown, couldn’t tell which. Again, I wasn’t familiar with the works he played, Barber’s Violin Concerto, Op. 14 and Ravel’s Tzigane, Concert Rhapsody. But they were both works for a fast-fingered, passionate virtuoso, and that’s Bell. Hair tossing as he played. Rocking back and forth to the music during orchestral interludes, eyes closed. And sweating, the poor man. By the time he finished, his t-shirt was soaked and his face shone. He received a standing ovation and three curtain calls, and I think he would have played an encore if it had been cooler.

When I got back to my car, the thermometer read 91F. At 10 o’clock at night. I blasted the A/C, and watched the lightning flash in the far northwest as I headed home.

Mirrored from Kristine Smith.