My father once summarised the plot of Jane Eyre for me as :
Lost, found, lost, found, lost found
But what did I want to tell you about? As some of you might know I use a Mac, I have always had Macs and never the other sort. They have their issues, paradoxically one of the things which causes problems is their superb user interface which makes it easy for people like me never to have to delve around in the workings or know where stuff is stored on their Macs.
I bravely took the plunge and updated the operating system the other day to the latest version and in the process I ‘lost’ something. Well I probably lost lots of things that I haven’t noticed yet, but why worry about things I haven’t missed? But I did miss this. I missed Bradley Hand. Bradley is a font. I think of him as an American school kid with neat handwriting. He’s the one I use to write Zeb Bakes on my photos for the blog. That’s his job. To write Zeb Bakes on the photos I have a little sub routine, maybe not the best, but it works for me. It’s not a watermark (I tried one of those programmes and couldn’t be bothered, I looked at Picassa and Flickr and decided I didn’t want to edit my photos somewhere else, I wanted to do it here on my own drive.
Anyway Bradley had gone AWOL from the Preview programme I used to add him to my photos. I sighed, resigned myself to Apple’s mysterious ways and started to use another font the last couple of days, but I don’t like it. I miss Bradley.
Then I was doing something in the iPhoto programme and noticed that Bradley was still showing up there…. hmmm….. I googled on and off for several days, posted on a forum at Apple, asked a patient Twitter friend who has a Mac and then googled again and changed my terms and hey presto! Bob’s Your Uncle and I claim my £10 because I have now found where the fonts hide on the mac and all thanks to Nomulous.
His post explained it all and I have found Bradley where he was hidden and installed him in the Fonts folder for all my applications to use.
I feel so very pleased with myself, because my inner Geek is rather pathetic most days. I struggle with taps and slides and finger gestures on the trackpad; I spent two hours last night trying to bluetooth some photos from the new phone that he-who-loves-new-gadgets-we-don’t-understand persuaded me to buy and failed. I then emailed Ricky who sold it to me at Carphonewarehouse and he said ‘try the usb cable’ and that worked. That was kind of him as well to answer my emails so late on a Sunday night.
So what am I saying? I am saying thank you to people who blog, people who share, people who help because they can, people who tag their posts so you can find them with Google, and I am giving myself a small pat on the back too for finding Bradley after looking for him everywhere.
What you really want to know about is the cat though…
That is a happy story too. My neighbour rang me with a cat that had started haunting the newspaper shop and never went home. The newspaper man was worried about him, so we took him to the vets to see if he was chipped. He wasn’t. The vets said take him back where you found him and hope he finds his way home. He’s a dear old chap, very gentle and sweet. We took him to the library across the way from the newspaper shop and they kept him there for a few days, and put up posters with his picture on them in the shops and finally someone recognised him and he was reunited with his owner who has a broken leg and couldn’t get out to look for him. Apparently he is a Russian Blue and 16 years old. He had a lovely time in the library being fussed over. I have a warm fuzzy feeling now, knowing he is safe home again.
Zeb Bakes 
Aaaaah. I so do love a happy ending. Fonts and a cat. Perrrrfect day, eh? xx
Purr-cisely ! Hey, see Fran’s comment below and ask her about La Cloche, I met Fran baking in Yorkshire, she’s a great baker.
I’m so pleased your cat story had a happy ending there.
He’s gorgeous and would have been sorely missed by his owner if he’d not made it home.
We’re Apple people too and I’m sure there’s all sorts of wizardry my macbook is capable of that I don’t even know about!
He was a very laid back character, I’m really pleased he got home too :)
bradley had a happy ending and so did Blue cat, what a feel-good post.. lovely.. c
Small happinesses are my favourites :)
Joanna,
A happy ending about Bradley but more so deep joy about the lovely cat. As a cat lover I am always extra joyful about such a happy ending. Must dash have a mill loaf in my new La Cloche baking dome. Love bakery bits…
Fran
I would like one too, but I am not sure if I have space, Misk was asking if they were good, maybe you could let us know what you think of it? it was about time a cat sneaked onto this dog dominated blog :)
Re: La Cloche baking dome. I have only baked with the dome the last few months. It is fabulous and gives excellent results.I heat the base up for 15-20 mins. Then semolina or flour the base pop the loaf in immediately + dome. Voil a lovely golden loaf.
It does take a little longer to bake say 1 hour as opposed to 40 mins well worth the extra time. The dome does take up space but worth it.
I will try and post a pic. PS. love cats, but Zeb is gorgeous and I like dogs too!
Fran
Thanks for the info on the La Cloche. Space is a premium in my kitchen, actually in my entire house, so I might have to pass on the purchase … or rent a storage unit. Now that’s a good idea!! Something that’s 30cm dia is pretty large for my space. :)
I’m a Mac fan and that’s what I use. It’s just that when I go to work they make me use one of the PC dinosaurs – so frustrating! Everything takes so much longer to do. I’ve started sneaking my lap top into the office and I work off that.
I know they don’t do everything better but I just like them, good idea to take yours to work. I would probably do the same :)
I’m in the Mac club too!!! Only type I have ever used so can’t compare it to other types but if I was to get a new one it would be another Mac.
Hi Jeannette, surprising how many there are these days :)
Glad to hear both cat and font were reunited with their owners, happy endings are such a joy.
Now, oh patient, kind blogging friend, how do you watermark your photos – via iPhoto? I’ve known for ages I should be doing this, but not being the least bit techie, I keep giving up with a frustrated sigh – admittedly after not very long.
Short answer – you can’t add text direct to an image in iPhoto. You have to do it in another programme. However, in the most recent versions of iPhoto you can create greeting cards and collages and send them via email, but there is, annoyingly, no direct way to do this from the ordinary editing screen, which is why I got so sad when I lost Bradley.
I use Preview which comes with the Mac, which is fairly crude, but enough for what you see here. lots of people upload their photos to sites like Picassa which has editing functions. other people buy proper watermarking programmes. If you have Preview, open a duplicate of the image you want to write on, and the annotate text is in the Tools menu. Choose font, colour size etc write your text and save. It has changed in the new Os, more options than before.Choclette, if you have no inner geek to summon your eyes will have gently glazed by this point…
Awww,a happy ending all round -beautiful :)) Now if the cat turns out to be called Bradley…………… ;)
Thanks for your help Lynds, it’s so satisfying to solve these puzzles. As to the cat’s name, my neighbour called him “nimbus’ but we have been told his name is Puck. :)
Good news to hear you’ve found your favourite font again! I love it when I manage to do something ‘tech-y’ that I thought beyond my capabilities, it’s such a satisfying feeling and gives me the (brief) impression that I may actually be more intelligent than the computer systems that seem to run my life! This impression soon fades…
So glad to hear there was a happy ending for your found pussycat. His fur looks amazingly soft and lush!
You’ve captured how I feel exactly about the computer C (grins). Nurturing one’s inner geek is a delicate process …
He is a very fine puss cat I agree!
Well done on finding your font :) I don’t use a Mac but can imagine how nice it would be to reunite with a lost typeface – and the cat too!
Thanks Kari, I should have asked one of those questions at the end about things that people lose and find. I spend vast amounts of time losing and finding things… :)
I’m glad you solved your Mac issue, but gladder still that the magnificent Russian Blue made it home. I am not a cat person, but have always said that if I were to have a cat, it would be a Russian Blue, they are magnificent creatures. Smart too, although obviously not that street smart.. ;-)
Well, I think he is quite smart, he’s made it to 16 years of age, he survived being out and about on a busy main road, being abducted by us (to the vets) and back again. He was a very cool cat, calm, friendly, self contained and I think he has life sussed. I don’t know the whole story of the owner and the broken leg, maybe the cat got shut out when he expected to be let in and so took himself off to the newsagents to keep warm…
Oh happy days. Bradley is found and Kitty went back home. I am slightly frightened to admit this amongst all you Mac users. I am still on a PC. I get frustrated from time to time. Yesterday my computer decided that it wasn’t going to recognize my camera anymore. Really? I am glad I have a few posts lined up for the next week and I hope by the time I need more photos I have figured it out.
On a side note, I have been thinking and thinking more about getting a mac, just wanted you all to breathe a sigh of relief out there.
They’re not all Mac users, don’t think that! I think Macs act up from time to time too. I hope you sort your camera problems out as I love your photos and your blog xx