Site Upgrade
Squarespace, the site host, has recently made some upgrades. As a result, the styles on the site have broken.
I’m still in the process of updating everything, if things look odd, sorry, I will get to it!
Removing the Stickers from VW California [Video]
Wanting to tone-down the summer-holiday vibe, on a car we will be using for more routine things and long-distance travel; we opted [read: I opted with no resistance] to de-badge our VW California.
I found plenty online about de-badging cars; yet nothing specific to removing the foil stickers from the Volkswagen California. Fine, I’ll do my homework then.
I looked a bit deeper at what people used to remove the glue after de-badging and removing decals. Many would use a “glue remover” product. But, what exactly is glue remover. One YouTube video showed someone demonstrating their home-made extra strong glue remover on cars; which they had made using white spirit (mineral spirits) and acetone. I didn’t have acetone, but I did have white spirit! And I don’t need it to be extra strong anyway.
I’m not going to take one YouTuber’s word for it, however. At least, not when it comes to a car that’s brand new (to us). I did a bit more research on whether white spirit can damage paint, specifically car paint. In the end, I was finding white spirit could clean off paint when it was still wet, but isn’t what you’d generally use for removing paint. It does like to remove glue however. Great!
So, I can clean the residual glue off with the white spirit I already have at home.
The last part that came up often in the de-badging videos was the ghosting or shadow left on the paint after removing and badges. One cause I have heard of is that the paint fades over years; and the shaded paint under the badge hasn’t had the same exposure. So that would be a difference in pigment or ageing of the clear-coat. But my car is only a couple of years old, and with the benefit of hindsight, wasn’t a problem. My impression is that the ghosting/shadow I had was a combination of: dirt that is essentially impossible to clean off around the edges of the lettering/badge; and a lack of any wax or other surface coat that’s been used over the years on the paintwork, that hasn’t touched the paint under the stickers/badges.
During the course of my YouTubing research, I found some polishing should be enough to bring the paint back to a consistent surface under and around the stickers. As people polish cars all the time, I didn’t feel the need to confirm this info with other sources. However, I did not have polish at home. But, the fuel station up the road did. Easily bought. A squirt and a rub, and the ghosting I had was gone.
I am very pleased with the result. The van doesn’t now shout “I’m a California, look at me”, with the combination of the de-badging and sticker removal. But, I’m learning those who know the California can easily pick one out from a line up of other VW Vans! The biggest give-away is the giant awning strapped to the side!
Time Machine on Synology keeps running out of space!
Having Time Machine backing up to Synology NAS is magic. Once on the home wifi, it just works. No having to remember to plug in a drive. Sure, backup speeds aren’t as fast as wired, but I don’t even have to think about it. That is, until the notification pops up every hour: Backup Failed, there isn’t enough space…
I have been increasing the allocation of Time Machine within my Synology over the past year or so, as Time Machine used more space. However, now I have 10Tb assigned to Time Machine. Today I watched Time Machine ‘clear space’ for an hour or so. Backup Failed, not enough space.
How can it be clearing space, then immediately not have enough space?
Recycle Bin, as Synology calls it. I had terabytes of backup data hidden in the Recycle Bin. So, as Time Machine deletes old backups, Synology is keeping them as if they were deleted files. Oops. That’s not how that was supposed to work.
I have disabled and deleted files within the Recycle Bin on the Time Machine shared folder. This has freed 7Tb of storage. Computers are backing up once again.
A very helpful feature to prevent accidental file loss on shared folders, was accidentally hoarding old backups that Time Machine was supposed to be managing and deleting. I’m pretty sure this was the cause of the problem! Time will tell if this is the permanent solution. I’ll add an update if not!
In-App Purchases in Apple Business
At work, we went down the path of purchasing iPads. These were primarily to be used as the screen/computer for running the teleprompter. We had been using Teleprompter Premium from JoeAllenPro on mine & my wife’s iPads for this purpose. It was time to get some for the company.
We are a small team. Just four. But I thought I should go down the path of setting up Apple Business accounts and managed Apple IDs for everyone. Do everything right.
After a fair amount of googling and troubleshooting, I was stumped at how to buy the ‘in-app purchase’ required to access the pro features we needed. Time to contact Apple Support.
On my second attempt, someone from the Apple Business support team was available. In the end, they were able to clarify: Businesses cannot purchase ‘in-app purchases’
The two solutions were to:
Set up with standard consumer accounts, and buy just like any normal customer.
Contact each developer directly and negotiate a business-to-business purchase of the unlocked app. The app file would then be uploaded to the iPads as ‘Custom Apps’
After a bunch of work setting up Apple Business, and configuring the iPads for the company, we had the answer.
I unrolled all of the work of the past days, we set the iPads up with standard consumer Apple IDs.
The second option felt like it’s for the big-boy companies who use words like synergy and have middle managers to manage the middle managers.
Car LED Upgrades
It’s a tricky thing to upgrade to LED lights in a car. Here’s a few of the problems I had.
Light pattern doesn’t match that of normal bulb
LED Indicators cause hyper-flash
Permanent wiring change required to fix
Flash relay unable to be changed in my car (Honda Jazz 2006)
Complicated process to access headlight bulbs. (Rear was simple)
[I hope to update this post to include more detail at a later date]
As a bonus, I was also able to re-polish the headlight lenses to remove some haze that has built up on the plastic over the years. They are very shiny now!
Experimenting with Hyperlapse
This is the first time I’m attempting a hyperlapse. It’s a very cool version of a timelapse, adding a movement into the mix.
After some first attempts to get some smooth footage, I’m a little disappointed. Turns out it’s not as easy as slapping on some image stabilisation!
Story so far…
I started out by searching for video tutorials. One thing I noticed quickly was that the most top ranked videos are all from Premier Pro users. This doesn’t usually put me off, as there are often parallel features in Final Cut. However this time might be the exception!
Most of the tutorials went though these steps:
Take photos
Set up your camera
set up your framing
Import photos
do basic colour correction in batch
export photos to lower res
import into video editor
add the warp-stabilise
done!
However, the all important warp-stabilise isn’t an option in Final Cut. The stabilisation options in Final Cut simply don’t do the same thing as Warp Stabilise!
So, with the easy option of importing and slapping on stabilisation gone…
what’s next?
There is the manual method. Setting up a crosshair overlaying the sequence of pictures, and then manually lining up the focal point with the crosshair. Tedious.
One video has spoken about stabilisation through motion tracking. I know Apple’s Motion has some motion tracking, however Motion is new to me, so need to do a bit more learning!
Hopefully with some learnin’ and a bit more work I can get somewhat decent hyperlapse out!