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Sage Drive Service Unavailable [FIX – kind of, just click Disconnect]

Sage have recently ventured into the cloud storage arena with their new Sage Drive feature for Sage 50 Accounts. This constantly updates a copy of your accounts database to Sage Drive servers so that remote workers and mobile devices can access, view and edit things and syncs changes made remotely back to your main locally stored master copy.

However, they’ve had more than their fair share of teething problems with their servers being offline/down for some time. This shouldn’t cause a huge problem because your main accounts database is actually stored locally on your local computer (or server in a multi-user network setup) but it seems like Sage didn’t allow for Sage Drive failures or program a clean failover into Sage Accounts should Sage Drive be unavailable. Inevitably, when Sage Drive goes down, your Sage 50 Accounts program will freeze and become unresponsive, if you are lucky you might be present with a warning saying:

The Sage Drive Service is currently unavailable and may be unavailable for some time.
To check again to see if Sage Drive is available, click Retry.
To stop accessing your data on Sage Drive, click Disconnect.
To discard your changes and close Sage 50 Accounts, click Close.

This error message is very misleading, OK so the click to Rety is quite obvious but as long as Sage Drive is down you just end up with the same error message. You probably won’t be brave enough to try the Disconnect option nor the Close button, especially if you have been entering transactions all day into Sage along with several other team members. Instead you’ll probably do the sensible thing and pick up the phone to Sage for support (you all pay for Sage Support right!?), but since Sage Drive has gone down for all users globally, you’ll be on hold for over an hour in most cases.

So for those who have staff members twiddling their thumbs because they can’t get into Sage 50 Accounts to carry on working locally, let me reassure you that clicking Disconnect is the option you want to carry on working on your local copy of your data. This isn’t clear from the error message shown but since I had a backup of my sage from 5 mins prior to the downtime I had nothing to lose so thought I’d take the risk and try the disconnect option. Effectively what happens is you disconnect from Sage Drive and continue working on your local copy of the data (assuming you are the host for your data on your local network) and then when Sage Drive comes back online you will need to reconnnect and it will push a new copy of your entire local database to Sage Drive. It will NOT just push the most recent transactions to Sage Drive since you last connected, you would think this is logically but it doesn’t work like that. As you have disconnected, when you reconnect to Sage Drive it will have to push an entirely fresh copy of your data to Sage Drive. This might not be a problem for some with small databases, but if you have a slow connection and a huge Sage backup file it may take a while.

WARNING: If you are working remotely and accessing your accounts via Sage Drive then do not click disconnect or close, wait and wait and wait clicking retry every now and again. The above suggestions to click disconnect is only useful for those working locally with their Sage 50 accounts on a local or networked computer.

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Sony DSCRX100M3 Real World Review from a Photographer [REVIEW]

Sony RX100M3 – Photographer by trade and this is now my “Go To” camera for holidays and personal shots.

I was a little sceptical about this camera but having now spent a few weeks with it I love it.

{LONG REVIEW}

I have a lot of big camera equipment (5D3, 5D2, 7D, and pretty much every Canon L-series lens with a focal length of 200mm or less, speedlights, extenders, strobes etc) but that’s because photographer is my day to day business.

I used to take at least a full frame 5D and perhaps 24-70 F2.8L with me on holliday along with an entry P&S like an IXUS but I hated the results from the small sensor IXUS and loathed carrying the heavy 5D combo around when trying to enjoy a holiday but I was always afraid I’d miss a great and memorable shot with the family.

Some time in 2011 Fuji released the X10 which ticked a lot of boxes for me, compact(ish), larger than normal sensor and good manual zoom lens with viewfinder. I went on a ski holiday packing only that camera and never looked back. My bulky SLRs were banished from all future holidays. Then I added the APS-C sensor X100S to my travel kit and on a trip to NYC that was the only camera I took and the photographs (aka future memories) are amazing but the X100S is not pocketable, it’s small and light and fine for walking around with a small shoulder strap but I still craved a pocketable camera. My X10 was stolen but with the insurance payout I bought the Fuji XF1, even smaller than the X10, same sensor and manual zoom but I never really fell in love with it. Yes the XF1 was tiny and IXUS sized and fits in a jeans front pocket but the lens opening was fiddly, the focussing was hit and miss and the quality was good but obviously not a patch on the X100S images I had become accostomed to.

[I know I’m going on a tangent here but I’m sure a few people considering the RX100M3 will own or had experience with the X10, X100S and XF1 so I’m just setting the scene on what I was after in a camera.]

Roll on Amazon Black Friday and the Sony A5100 with kit lens comes up so I take a punt and buy it. I loved it, APS-C sensor, flash you can bounce off ceilings, wifi, touch screen, flip screen, and so on. I used it for a week at home and around my home city and thought I’d found a winner but it was just a little too big with the kit lens. It would fit in most jacket pockets but not jeans pocket so I decided I’d rather sell it to a friend who wanted one and keep looking.

Then I spoke with somebody who had just bought an RX100M3 and raved about it and they very rarely raved about a camera. I took the plunge and bought one and I’m really glad I did. Ok so the sensor is smaller than the APS-C in the X100S and A5100 but it’s still a huge sensor for this size of camera and the lens is phenomenal. F1.8 at the wide end and F2.8 at max zoom, coupled with steady image and dedicated multi-shot night time modes mean I’ve been able to get some low light shots of the Christmas light switch on that you would struggle to get even with a tripod mounted SLR. The tilting screen I thought would be gimmicky but it really helps get low shots with more accuracy and frame high shots with ease.

It’s great to have the EVF built in too. I’ve been spoilt with the hybrid EFV in the X100S which is still one of thes best systems I’ve ever used but this little EVF on the RX100M3 is perfect for what I need. It really helps you see what you’re shooting in direct sunlight and using a viewfinder generally helps me keep the camera steady too compared to arm extended screen composing.

Size

What can I say, it fits in my front and back jeans pockets, that’s all I needed. It’s heavy and you know it’s there but it fits and it means I can take it with me almost everywhere meaning I don’t miss a shot. It’s a little slippy in use, there’s a small thumb grip on the rear but nothing on the front so I’ve ordered the offical sony stick on grip for the front to eliminate that minor issue.

Technical

I’m very impressed. The 1″ sensor and fast lens combo (24-70 equiv) mean you can get some great sharp shots even in low light, you can get some great shallow DOF shots if that’s your cup of tea, you can get some equally great wide landscape shots too. The focusing is fast and accurate, I must admit I don’t ever have a need to photograph any fast moving subjects to test out the tracking focus but in every day people, landscape, holiday photography it seems fast and accurate. I grumbled a little that at this price Sony don’t give you a stand alone battery charger and you charge the battery via USB but then I realised it’s perfect for me as I have a 15000 mah portable USB charger so I can simply take that on holidays and it gives me the added benefit of being able to charge the camera whilst out and about which is something you can’t normally do so I always buy spare batteries for my cameras but I’ll stick with just the one battery with this.

Movies

you’ll have to ask somebody else for a review on this. I don’t shoot movies, perhaps a shot 5 second clip on an iPhone 6 which I then never do anything with. Others praise the new video codec in this camera, I believe them that it’s good, but no point in me commenting on something I know nothing about.

Surprises

WiFi connectivity. I know this isn’t new or specific to the RX100M3 and in fact I had a few days playing with it on the A5100 I had but I love it. I’m used to coming back from a shoot (work or personal), taking out a memory card and downloading from CF or SD cards to my computer into lightroom for editing or straight into iPhoto if it’s just general snaps. Sometimes you just want a photo to share on social media or quickly send to a family member and you don’t want to have to wait until you get home, download it and then share it. Previously I’d end up taking two shots, one with the X100S and one with my iPhone 6 for instant sharing. Now I just take it with the RX100M3 and can pick and choose which ones to upload to my iPhone (at reduced size or full resolution if I want) for instant sharing/backup. Once upon a time I bought an eyefi card to do this but it was clunky and just didn’t work reliably, Sony have a nice fast and streamlined system integrated into this camera which works well and also lets you use your smartphone as a remote trigger, handy for long exposure shots. Built in ND filter – I have this on the X100S and it’s great for portrait shots at low aperture in bright sunlight, I forgot the RX100M3 has one too, nice bonus.

Cons

No real deal breaker cons to mention although there are a few things I wish were different. The flash could do with a little more power so I could bounce it off very high ceilings but considering tiliting the flash backwards to bounce it isn’t actually listed as a feature I can’t complain. Even thought the A5100 touch screen was limited in functionality, I did find tap to focus useful every now and again to quickly focus on a subject that auto-focus kept missing. There is no touch screen on the RX100M3 but I can live with that (until an M4 comes out with touch screen and envy kicks in). The camera powers off when you close the EVF, this is by design but sometimes you just want to get the EVF out the way and carry on shooting.

The low down

My XF1 has been sold and I’m even contemplating selling my X100S and just keeping this as my one and only go to camera for non-work related photography it is that good. If you are tempted by the RX100M3 but it’s just a little too pricey then opt for the RX100M2. You won’t get the EVF and the lens is a little slower (but longer) and screen doesn’t tilt as much but it’s substantially cheaper.

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Call from 0102100 – Fake Microsoft Technical Support

If by chance you did a Google Search for 0102100 and you are still on the phone to these muppets, hang up.

We have 30 sequential direct line telephone numbers and over the last few days we’ve been receiving calls from 0102100 to each DDI one by one. My employees said it was “Microsoft Technical Support” on the phone saying they had a virus or vulnerability on their computer and that they needed to install an easy patch/fix immediately. Thankfully all my staff are clever and spot a scam a long way off, some even suggested putting them through to our IT Department (me) which they didn’t like.

I was looking forward to them calling my DDI (I know, sad isn’t it!) so I could play along with their little charade and at the end tell them I’m on a Mac but I missed their call. Fortunately they were stupid enough to think that my voicemail was a real human and left a message which comes through to me as an email so I upload it to SoundCloud:

I was hoping to speak to them to see exactly what it was they tried to get you to install and post more detailed description here to help warn others or aid with malware removal. My guess is they send you to a URL which would be some crappy trying-to-look-like-microsoft-tech-support-domain and ask you to download an .exe which would then give them access to your machine to do as they please, perhaps cryptolocker, perhaps just a key or screen logger or just install an unnecessary PC Protection app for an annual fee.

Long story short. If you get a call from 0102100 it is FAKE, HANG UP!

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https Certificate Errors Caused by Wrong Date on Macbook Air

My MacBook Air keeps losing date and time when the main battery is completely depleted. Once it’s charged back up the date and time are wrong which leads to strange behaviour with emails, web pages, apps etc

I noticed I couldn’t go to any https secure page with an error of ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID which is caused by the date of the machine differening from the ssl certifcate server.

FIX: Setting date and time back to correct values instantly fixes this.

This webpage is not available

The webpage at https://plus.google.com/?hl=en might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
Error 201 (net::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID): Unknown error.