Category: technology

Dodgy iPhone connection on lightning charger lead

On By vikkihaffendenIn technology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I replaced my iPhone 5s with an Android phone about 18 months ago. One of the reasons was that the charging was acting up. I tried it with two other leads, but it seemed to be the lightning port that was faulty. Of course there were other reasons – battery running out fast, storage limited, camera OK but not brilliant, apps getting slow and becoming un-updateable. Don’t start me about the iPad that is also getting totally unuseable because of these issues!

Anyway, Covid came along and I needed a webcam that had good resolution and zoom. I found out that I could use the old iPhone for this, and downloaded the IVCam app to my PC and iPhone on wifi. The app wasn’t brilliant, but I paid for the full version and updates have improved it hugely recently. The nice thing is you can use it wifi or with a lead. Wifi meant that the battery remained a problem, but on the lead it was excellent – except – the connection kept failing due to that dodgy port.

I did a bit of internet browsing and found a topic on a forum somewhere about this issue. The writer suggested using a wooden toothpick to clean any dust out of the port. Really? I thought, then I remembered the fluff and dust in my handbag and thought – yes, really, lets give it a go!

So I did, and its worked! Loads of fluff and dust came out and now the lead fits snuggly and securely in the port – its rare to loose the connection – and usually due to me tugging the lead. See how much fluff came out in the photo below. I still prefer the Android phone for use as a phone, but am chuffed to have found a use for my now redundant iPhone and to have solved the problem with the lightning port.

Only use a soft wooden toothpick, but it was certainly worth it for me. I guess because the lightning port doesn’t have a central bit you can’t really hurt it by poking something soft in there?

Photoshoot in the rain

On By vikkihaffendenIn British wool, clothing, craft, hand knitting, Knitted textiles, knitting, knitting patterns, knitwear, making, photography, Textiles, the knitting book, Translating between hand and machine knitting, Uncategorized, WoolLeave a comment

Today was the deadline for an Infinity Scarf pattern that I had been commissoned to write at short notice, you know the sort of thing that happens!

Anyway, as I’d only finished knitting it last night we had to do the photoshoot today, even though it was raining and grey. So we set off with a collection of coloured umberellas, plastic bags for camera stuff and my nifty, home made, shower-cap camera raincover! Luckily I had been clearing out the bathroom cupboard yesterday and unearthed a bundle of those freebie ones from hotels. I knew they would be useful some day. The other thing they are great for is proving bread, but I digress…

Finding a model at short notice was not easy, but my lovely friend Jo came up trumps, and offered to stand in the rain before shooting off to see her Mum.

It was fun anyway, because I love photoshoots; seeing your knit design come to life on a person is so rewarding.

As always there were loads and loads of shots to sift through, but it was well worth braving the rain for such a nice photo.


  • you can never have enough umbrellas

I will be releasing the pattern on this website once it has been published later on in the Autumn so do drop back if you would like to knit the scarf. There will be a page for the Infinity Scarf with the pattern, hints and tips on working the pattern, and tutorials for the various knitting techniques used. Techniques used in the pattern, including a great stretchy cast on, are also featured in my popular knitting ‘bible’, The Knitting Book.

…and here is the final image I selected, and I’m pretty pleased with the result!

Thanks once again to Jo for her stoicism and humour.

From fair-isle to football boots

On By vikkihaffendenIn clothing, Flechage, industrial knitting, Knitted textiles, knitting, knitting machine, knitwear, Machine knitting, Short-row shaping, Short-rows, technology, TextilesLeave a comment

This was a talk that I gave at the Textile Institute. In it I discussed seamless knitting technologies, their historical roots in hand knitting methods, and the potential the ‘new’ technolgies are bringing to commerical knitwear and knitted outputs. The audience had the opportunity to handle samples produced on flat-bed Shima Seiki Wholegarment and Santoni circular seamless machinery.

This was in 2014, and since then mass produced knitted footwear of varying degrees of sophistication has become common on the high street (and it is so comfortable).

I recently purchased a pair of hi-top elastic knit trainers, with flechage (short row) shaping on the ankle and other technical knit structures on the upper and toe, for a very moderate sum. In 2014 they were still expensive and quite exclusive – so we can see the impact on footwear without looking further than the high street (or online shopping of course).

I recently heard of a business in the US that knits custom made climbing boot uppers, fascinating!

Follow this link to my media page to read more about the talk.

 

 

Adding wifi to Lumix FZ38

On By vikkihaffendenIn photography, technologyLeave a comment

I have a Panasonic bridge camera, the Lumix FZ38, which is a great all round camera. I’ve used it for photographs for research and for my books, and it performs really well. However, once its on a tripod its a pain to remove the camera each time I want to see a large screen version of the photo to check colour, compostion, focus etc. The FZ38 won’t tether to my Windows laptop, and hasn’t got wifi to send the photos, so I either chance it that the small screen is showing me enough. In extreme cases where the camera is poised on the end of a boom and its hard to see the back screen, I just hope!

I was at the point of thinking of purchasing a new camera; and considering a DSLR with wifi and/or that would tether, when I came across wifi SD cards. I did a bit of reading around online and came to the conclusion that a Toshiba Flashair might work in my bridge camera. It will take SDHC cards, and that seemed to be the basic critera. If it worked, it would mean I could continue to use the camera that I know, and that isn’t too complicated, and takes a great picture that is perfect for my needs. So I ordered a 16gb Toshiba Flashair (version 4) and it arrived yesterday.

cat on a computer keyboard
The cat was helping me, so he gets his photo used as an example of my new set up with my wifi enabled Lumix FZ38

I couldn’t get to play with it until today, and it was a little un-nerving to start with, the instructions were OK, but didn’t tell you what you were trying to achieve, so it was a bit of a leap of faith. Fortunately my techie son was at hand to give me help when the PC failed to connect to the card. The reason for this turned out to be the a conflict between wifi and wired connections; I don’t have great wifi in my office, so use a wired ethernet connection. He discovered that I have to unplug the ethernet cable (or at least disconnect from ethernet connection) for the wifi to find the Flashair card – and as that worked I didn’t want him to spend ages trying to solve the problem. Someone may be able to tell me why? I just have to remember to disconnect from ethernet first before turning on wifi and connecting to the card.

For some reason the Flashair interface that should enable the easy drag and drop doesn’t seem to work, so he mapped the card as a drive, so it appears in Windows Explorer. This is better than the web browser interface as saving the photos is easier via Explorer.

So I have by Panasonic Lumix FZ38 sending pictures to my PC almost seamlessly. OK, the distance can’t be very far, a few feet is all, but thats fine for my uses. It means I don’t have to take the camera off the tripod to check my shots. Brilliant!!

Then next step is to install the Flashair app on my iPad and try viewing the photos on that as well, (I don’t necessarily want to save them on it). I can’t see it will be a problem, but just need to give myself a bit of time to sort this out.

I also want to test the card in my IXUS and see if it will work as well in that, wow this is so exciting!

The card cost under £30, so compared to updating my camera thats a good deal.

I think that because it makes a mini-network of its own, I could wifi pictures between the camera and laptop without being part of a wifi network as such – for example when out and about without a wifi signal – we shall see, that is something to experiment with later on.