The inbuilt iSight video camera wasn’t working in Skype or PhotoBooth. In both cases it was giving an “No video camera detected” error message.

Rummaging around turned up this note that confirms the console view that there’s a missing QuickTime file. This is how to fix it:

Close the relevant apps, then running the following (from a Terminal window) entering your account password if required:

cd /System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeUSBVDCDigitizer.component/Contents/MacOS
sudo chmod 755 QuickTimeUSBVDCDigitizer

And relaunch the programs using the camera.

In the last 6 months I have run 50 miles, in 7.5 hours. Not that much really, and it only lost me 4,500 calories. My average pace was 9 min 20 a mile — which is only a paltry 6.4 mph.

I hardly think this qualifies me to call myself a runner. I’ve not landed up being bitten by the bug, or entered races, or noticed a difference in my fitness level, but at least I’ve not injured myself. (Perhaps I’m lucky, as I don’t really understand what sort of warm-up and the all-important warm-down I should do.) But what does make a runner? If a writer is just someone who regularly writes — whatever the quantity or quality — then perhaps I am a runner. Perhaps I’ll settle for now to call myself an “intermittent jogger”.

What do you think makes a runner?

I’ve not yet dug my camera out, but I chanced across a site who’d recently run an Annapolis photo competition. Here are some of the highlights:

(It’s not clear what the reproduction rights are for the photos; I’ll remove if necessary.)

Hotel internet access can be a problem for wireless-enabled mobile devices. For example, they may pick up only quite strong networks. Or there are some networks that need authentication tokens that are too large for some devices (such as my iPod Touch) to handle.

This and this reminded me that many laptops can create an ad-hoc WiFi network, if its internet connection can be provided by some others means. I tried the directions on the second, and it worked just fine. The first contains further ideas if the second method doesn’t entirely work.

First morning in the US, so I knew it would be easy to go for a run, as the body clock won’t have adjusted to a later wake-up. I was looking forward to seeing Annapolis again, as I remember it having the old-world charm (OK, it’s America; not that old-world) of Boston’s Back Bay. Sure enough, lots of redbrick buildings, and red-brick sidewalks.

I ran to the Harbour and back again (2 miles). Unfortunately the view wasn’t that great, as it was still dark, and the second half was all up hill, but I did at least some early morning dog walkers, runners and the delivery men starting. I chose different music to listen to for a change, and was interesting to see the effect. Picking some of my favorite worship songs made it easier to keep going, particularly up the hill, as I was joy-ful, literally. Nothing like having the focus on our amazing God and the heavenly future to keep from worrying about the current minute. The track ‘Oh to see the Dawn’ also gave me an idea for my next sermon

Maggie’s been with us for a month, and so high time for a decent picture of her:

With lots of help from Martha, she’s now doing 5 miles walkies a day, and so not surprisingly she’s losing some necessary weight. Down from 31kg to 28kg so far, but still quite a way to go. She’s waking up way too early for us, but she’s getting later, as is getting the consistent message from us that she’s not going to get much fuss and attention until 7am. Quite early enough! She’s clear who her pack leader is: she’s goes fairly wild when Martha appears back after absences of more than about 15 minutes. In my mind she still deserves the “velcro dog” nickname …

Schrank nails it in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday: