Category: End User

End User

IoM Ferry WiFi – the return journey

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 13 April, 2014
1 Comment on IoM Ferry WiFi – the return journey

Sat in the lounge on the IoM ferry Manannan. Using the free WiFi. In fact 5 out of 6 of the family are using the free WiFi and I’m using my droid and the Chromebook so that’s 6 devices. Most of us are listening to TalkSport – Liverpool v Man City. Crucial top of the table clash, must win game, the lads are up for it, etc etc etc

Just done a speedtest. 214ms ping to a Manx Telecom server in Douglas and about 150k down. Not surprising. The Davies family is probably single handedly using up all the connectivity. Looking around there aren’t that many people in the lounge and I can’t actually see anyone else using tinternet.

A bit later… the radio is buffering and I can’t seem to upload a photo to pixlr for editing. More people are settling into their gadgets, using up my bandwidth. Don’t they realise it’s making the experience pants for the rest of us. Selfish b$%^&*)$.

Outside the gale force 5 veering 6 is blowing white tops on the waves and it is a sunny afternoon on the high seas. The game is getting exciting – two all after Liverpool went two nil up early on. “The score is deliciously poised”, to quote one of the commentators.

The one thing the advent of gadgets has brought is easier travel. Everyone is quiet. It can be the same in the car – they all just hang off the MiFi (tx EE).

The boat is beginning to rock. It’s that “veering gale force 6”. I don’t typically get seasick though Kid3 does. They have all taken pills.

Liverpool have scored again. The family are Liverpool fans although tbh I’m Lincoln City (“till I die”) I’m happy to lend my voice to support the reds.

It’s a good job WordPress works offline on the Chromebook. Everything keeps buffering. You will have to wait until we get ashore for me to edit and post with a photo. Mind you the photo is of the speedtest and the conversation has moved on since then. Maybe I’ll stick up a panoramic view of the ship leaving harbour instead. Far more scenic¹.

A Vonage ad appears on the TV on the wall in front of me.

That’s it. Game over. Liverpool 3 Man City 2. We go 7 points clear of Man City who have played 2 fewer games and 5 points clear of Chelski who have 1 game in hand.

I may have to introduce a weekend sports section on the blog to supplement the travel.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your hearts…

Read the fabulous outbound ferry WiFi rambling here.

PS Handy tip when catching IoM ferry: always pay to take a trailer with the car. They wave you on to a spot at the front of the car deck so that you are one of the first off the boat.

PPS post completed using EE4G in the River Mersey

¹ Top panorama is Douglas harbour & bottom one is view as the ship leaves the Isle of Man

Cycle Gear

A long time ago I used to cycle everywhere; then I learned how to drive……. then I learned how to drink and how to hail (and afford) a taxi….. then I moved to the countryside with idiot drivers like me that didn’t really look out properly for cyclists….. then I moved to the Surrey / London border and the quack told me to stop abusing my joints.

But now, I have an all clear and the realisation that there is some epic cycling country around here. I write this, for example, after following National Cycle Route 4 pretty much from home to Tower Bridge this morning, through Richmond Park and substantially along the river (including past Craven Cottage, home of the mighty Fulham Football Club). I am now editing it a few days later after a 25 mile blast from home to Richmond Park to say hi to the deer.

Of course, being in telecoms means such a venture cannot be undertaken without some degree of geekist equipment. So, I have my bike, a Specialized Crosstrail. Hybrid, obviously, because (1) I don’t want to be associated with the LycraLouts that ride two abreast on main roads and (2) becasue there’s no way a roadbike can handle tow paths at speed.

There’s the Moon LED lights that charge from a microUSB socket, which is incredibly useful. They have a multitude of settings, which I cannot master despite them having only one button. Oh, and they’re bright, which I suppose is the main thing. There’s also the generic Chinese reverse engineered wireless speedometer, which is essential for knowing just how fast the idiot BMW driver that missed you with a nanometre clearance was going relative to you…. and, more importantly, how far it is to the pub for pie, chips and ale.

Which pretty much just leaves some form of mapping solution. And for that, I have two essential pieces of kit. The first is my iPhone; the second is something to put it in – for which I have this handle handlebar bag. It is importantly water resistent (to be fair it only gets mildly moist even in a monsoon downpoor). It’s large enough to hold a wallet and a battery pack (essential for mobile mapping, for reasons I have previously written about) and has a clear plastic cover on top and a pouch for your iPhone (apparently other devices are allegedly available). There’s also a neat slot for a headphone cable, though I for one would rather hear the idiot in the BMW coming than listen to my playlists.

Tags cycling

End User fun stuff

4 blades or 5 – the official verdict on which razor is best #wilkinson #comparison

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 13 April, 2014
1 Comment on 4 blades or 5 – the official verdict on which razor is best #wilkinson #comparison

This week I’ve been on holiday in the Isle of Man and have not shaved with a view to testing whether 4 or 5 blades are best for shaving. In theory I guess the 5 blades should give a better shave but there is also an argument that the fifth bade may be redundant.

The sequence of photos takes you though it. I order of appearance:

1The tools – including the King of Shaves shaving gel. Best in the game in my experience. 2 Close up of the razor heads. 3 Nivea aftershave – don’t normally use the stuff but thought I would for this test. 4 Before the shave. 5 Lathgered up. 6 the 5 blade result. 7 Half way through. 8 The finished job. 9 The 4 blade shave.

The result is buried amongst the photos. Manipulating photos in WordPress isn’t easy and the text is where the text is:)
king of shaves

the blades

The result: Mrs Davies Senior thinks the 4 blade was smoothest. The current Mrs Davies preferred the 5 blader.

I think I might marginally prefer the feel of the 5 blader when shaving but tbh there isn’t much in it and if the 5 blades are significantly more expensive than the 4 then it’s a non starter.

Voila…

End User travel

Rod and chains and fishing boats

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 12 April, 2014
No Comments on Rod and chains and fishing boats

Other travel posts from the Isle of Man:

The empty sea
Chandlery
Signs of Danger

Back in the office Tuesday ish in case anyone’s wondering.

End User travel

Peel Hill

It’s worth the 501 foot climb to the top of Peel Hill. From there you can see pretty much the full length of the Isle of Man. Out across the sea can be seen Scotland to the North and the Mountains of Mourne to the West.

When I was a kid in one field on the side of the hill you could see a large 3 legs on Man planted in clover by Italian prisoners of war during their WW2 internment. It’s sadly not there any more.

On this occasion someone had left a bunch of yellow roses at Corrin’s Folly at the top of the hill. Made me wonder what was the story behind it. Will probably never find out.

501 ft might not sound that much to the expert hill climber (eg Snowdon is 3,500ft or so) but you still need to take care and take the right gear. The weather can blow in from the sea at very short notice. On our way up yesterday we encountered a couple going in the other direction. He wore sensible walking boots and she a flimsy pair of sandals. Probably looked a lot nicer in them than in boots!!!

They looked as if they had come from Glen Maye which is a few miles further along the coastal path. This trip is was easy to persuade the family to come on the walk. The last time we did it the kids were younger and far less enthusiastic.

Having got them to the top I decided we might as well carry on for a bit as it was mostly on the flat or even downhill. It’s a wonderfully scenic coastal path although if it does skirt dodgily close to the cliff edge from time to time. We found ourselves once or twice climbing into a field to find safer ground. Were those cows or bulls in there…

Eventually coming down to the beach (pic right) in Glen Maye we realised how far we had walked and were forced to take shelter in the pub at the top of the glen. My dad had to come and pick us up in the car. Close timing as he had been about to crack open a beer.

The video below was taken on this trip. It’s the waterfall in Glen Maye. V scenic and a v relaxing place to take a stroll.

Other travel posts from the Isle of Man:

The empty sea
Chandlery
Signs of Danger

End User travel

The dredger – latest in the weekend series of interesting nautical posts

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 12 April, 2014
No Comments on The dredger – latest in the weekend series of interesting nautical posts

Sometimes people have to be told what is good for them. You have to get your opinions from somewhere. That’s why they have leader columns in newspapers – to present ideas for you to mull over and chew and either spit out or swallow.

This is why it is good to be able to dip into the weekend section of this blog and be presented with subject matter that has been pre approved as being interesting.

In this case it is the dredging operation being carried out at Peel Marina. The post contains two videos shot live on location in the Isle of Man. The first is of the dredger scooping up silt from the marina “floor”¹. I didn’t know that’s what a dredger looked like. In this case it is just a big digger. I’d always assumed it was something dragged along the sea bed scooping up large quantities of gunge and depositing it via a chute into a waiting barge. Maybe there are different sorts of dredgers.

The second video, at the end of the post, shows the bridge across the river at the entrance to the marina swinging open to allow a couple of boats through. The boats are very colourful. I do somewhere have a video showing them lifting the bridge into place when it was first installed. If I come across it you will be the first to see it:)

In between the videos you are presented with some pics out of a sequence showing the muck being emptied into the barge. Note the glorious weather. Why holiday anywhere else?

Look out for other interesting weekend posts on trefor.net.

Chandlery

Some shops have magnetic properties. They are able to draw you in to extract the cash from your wallet. As if there is someone from a Harry Potter book pointing a wand at you and sucking out money. Almost certainly one of the Dark Lord’s sidekicks. B4$^4£). Earn yer own money.

A ship’s chandlery is one such shop. Very fortunately I don’t own a boat¹. So whilst I can’t pass a chandlery without feeling it’s hypnotic lure once inside all I can do is gaze jealously at the arrays of cleats, hooks, pulleys, blocks, ropes (of all sizes) and other useful artefacts of a nautical nature realising that the purchase of any one item would be totally unjustifiable.

I don’t think Mrs Davies would appreciate me coming home with some useful links of chain saying I thought it would look good on the mantelpiece. I will one day but I need to have a garden shed to keep this kind of stuff, where it will be appreciated. A classic yellow souwester would look just right hanging on the back of the shed door innit? Don’t know if they still do those. Will have to nip back and check…

This particular emporium, purveyor of useful seagoing supplies, sells mainly to the fishing industry – there are 20 vessels working out of Peel, harvesting crabs, queenies and scallops. You never know when that information is going to be handy in a pub quiz. I found that out from the bloke behind the counter yesterday. To get the most out of a visit to a ships chandlery you have to chat to the bloke behind the counter. What’s selling well this season? Is the catch up or down on last year? All good stuff:)

Anyway enjoy the pics. Splice the mainbrace…

¹ Every time we come to the Isle of Man I’m tempted and start looking at online yacht sales sites.

End User food and drink google

Collaboration using Google Docs “simplifies” ordering of takeaway curry

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 11 April, 2014
2 Comments on Collaboration using Google Docs “simplifies” ordering of takeaway curry

Last night we decided that tonight, Friday night, would be curry night. The only problem is that not everyone here likes Indian. Some prefer Chinese. Actually not a problem. The Chinese and Indian restaurants are next to each other on the street of a ~~thousand~~ three restaurants (the other one is a greasy spoon). People can order their preferred ethnic takeaway and I’ll pick both lots up near simultaneously. Simples.

What’s more we can mix and match. You’d prefer a Chinese starter and Indian main? Sure, gofrit.

Now then the only problem here is that juggling menu options starts to get complicated. It’s all very well writing it all down on a piece of paper but with so many possible combinations of nosh people keep changing their minds.

The solution? A shared Google Doc. Everyone has a gmail account or so it transpires. Even non google domains were resolved to a gmail address when an invite was sent. After dinner last night everyone sat round with their laptops editing the Google Doc – six persons at the same time (I did mam and dad’s).

This was pretty cool. ~~You can check out the creativity of the end result here.~~ I was going to share the doc publicly but the process of securing permission from 4 offspring was going to be too onerous and almost certainly cost me more than a curry so I haven’t bothered. A little interpretation is necessary as may be seen from the header photo and not a little simplification but it worked and there can be no quibbling over who ordered what.

A couple of links were included in the doc: The Poppadom Song and a hippo showing the after effects (presumably) of eating a curry.

Collaboration using Google Docs – not just for business 🙂

End User google

Adsense logic on trefor.net

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 11 April, 2014
7 Comments on Adsense logic on trefor.net

Be interested to hear what ads people see in the sidebar adsense box. Since installing it I’ve only ever seen BT infinity except once this morning on my mobile where I say some “ever taken out a bank loan” ad – I assume it was PPI related.

Normally I associate google ads with things I’ve been searching for myself but in this case I’m wondering whether the ads are based on the content of the site. There is a lot of broadband content and quite a number of posts where I slag off PPI phone calls.

What do you guys see?

broadband End User ofcom

Fit Broadband Policy

Is broadband fit for purpose, writes Lindsey Annison

Some years ago a few of us touted the notion that broadband could become an election issue on the next hustings. And it sort of did, although not to the extent that many of us at grassroots without a connection would have liked. It triggered some hastily written speeches for Party Conferences, though, and some grandiose promises which of course have never been implemented.

As we run up to the next election (<groan> Have the last lot even achieved anything yet?!), perhaps it is time to bite the bullet and consider some of the aspects of broadband that seriously need to be taken on board by those campaigning on the hustings, and also by those who have desks in Whitehall and Westminster, etc. (Could it be they all work from home these days? Doubtful, but it’d be nice to think that at least a few know the difficulties of teleworking in modern day Britain.)

Philip Virgo’s rather canny A Confucian view of UK broadband, spectrum and cybersecurity can be found on his Computer Weekly blog this week, and as we can but hope that the powers-that-be can actually find a free moment to read I would like to expound a little on the piece’s first section, to start educating our potential candidates for those doorstep meetings they shall soon be starting. Last week at TechQT the three considerations Virgo mentions were covered — transmission, capacity and protection — and Martin Geddes finally nailed it (in his inimitable style) to being a simple question that any person can ask and answer: Is my broadband fit for purpose?

Even the most non-techie person can assess whether or not the connection that they are paying for (or are using for free in a hotspot) is FIT FOR PURPOSE. It either works to do what you are endeavoring to, or it doesn’t. Simples.

Waiving wayleaves may seem like a simple solution to one problem, and the arguments given by Philip Virgo’s Confucius contributor covers some of the reasons why this is so. However, it goes beyond wayleaves to my old bugbear, fibre tax. We have made it nearly impossible for new entrants to enter a level playing field should they wish to play the fibre game. Aidan Pauls’ slide show on the UK VOA fibre tax illustrates just how problematic the issue is, and though it may be from 2010, sadly nothing notable has changed since 2000.

As a regulator, Ofcom is over-populated with ex-Telco employees and is toothless. Well, not so much toothless, but it is as if they are putting their dentures back in after a night’s sleep whenever circumstances require they react to current events of the day/week/month or year in a timely fashion. And that needs to change, and fast, if Britain is to catch up with other nations. Plenty of information is out there regarding developments, lessons learnt, what has been tried and tested, etc., so maybe the Ofcom guys and gals just need to get out more?!

Listen to the voters! Too often our candidates fail to do enough of this simple and essential task, and thus many of those who will be walking the pavements with their pretty rosettes are not sufficiently well-informed. And because they are not well-informed they assume that the constituents are in a similar boat, which is simply not the case. At the very least, the average householder can answer the Is my broadband fit for purpose? question. Enough “No.” responses, offered hand-in-hand with the odd constituent who pipes up to tell a prospective parliamentary candidate exactly how and why this is causing problems with life/work/play, and the message just might make its way back to the Houses in #thatlondon.

Can but hope. Toodlepip till next time.

Related posts:

Tags broadband, policy

End User gadgets Mobile mobile connectivity phones

Conscious Uncoupling

In early 2010 I gave up Windows Mobile and my HTC TyTN II and made the leap to an iOS-saddled iPhone 3G. Making the switch was not necessary — the TyTN II still had a good amount of life in it, and I know it kept its next owner happy enough for roughly two years following — but when My Missus’s company upgraded her to an iPhone 3GS I thought I’d take the opportunity to shake myself out of my mobile comfort zone and repurpose her leftover phone.

I can see you drifting, treasured reader, so let me take a moment here to put my fingers in your nose and pull you back towards your screen. I am not going to go down the gorged-so-deep path of the iPhone-converted here. Promise. Stick a needle, man.

Continuing…I enjoyed my early experience with the iPhone, but felt then that it was more a toy than a tool, and that has not changed (yes, four years gone by and I am still wielding an iPhone, though I upgraded that original 3G to a iPhone 4 three years back because at the time it offered what was unequivocally the best phone-based camera on the market).

Now don’t get me wrong. Toys are great — anyone reading my stuff for any sustained period of time soon learns just how much I love my toys — and so long as the Internet-connected shiny in my pocket is able to provide pics, phone, text, email, and a wee spot of web browsing it really doesn’t need to be anything more. Thus I should be fat-n-happy with iPhoneKory, right? (If you haven’t caught on yet, yes, I sometimes name inanimate objects.) I shouldn’t be consumed with thoughts of moving into an Android phone, but should be content to remain comfortable and cared, warm and satisfied within iOS’s bright, colorful walls. I shouldn’t be…but I am.

End User travel

The empty sea

Saw someone on the beach yesterday. Was a bit of a surprise because it isn’t exactly high season in the Isle of Man. We have grown used to finding signs saying “Opening 12th April”. We are off back to the mainland on 13th so that’s a lot of things we will have to cram in on our last day. School holidays don’t start here until next week.

I took a look online for potential visitor attractions. I note that there are three films on at the cinema in Douglas and Peel has a Pilates class running on Friday. Seven quid. The local pool is closed this afternoon for schools swimming lessons.

The upshot is there is nobody around except for a few pensioners whiling away their days and one or two kids over from the UK staying with grandparents (ditto us).

There is bingo on Friday night but by popular demand we are off to the Royal India, one of the world’s great curry houses which happens to be just around the corner from where my ma and pa live. Handy that.

We still have fishing to do and a walk up Peel Hill which holds spectacular views for those who have made the effort. We are saving those activities for tomorrow when the weather is supposed to be at its best.

The header photo is a picture of no boats out on the sea. If you want boats you will have to use your imagination because here they are all safely tucked up in harbour. We did see a lone kayak yesterday but it was too far out to photograph. I could only see it through my binoculars. Bit dodgy I thought, being that far out in a kayak on your todd.

This morning we are off to the Sound to see the Calf of Man and thereafter for lunch at the caff at the far end of the beach in Port Erin. It’s a goodun.

Catch ya later.

PS I’m still alive (see previous post)

End User travel

Signs of Danger or Dangers Signs – latest in holiday series where Tref reports having a good time

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 10 April, 2014
No Comments on Signs of Danger or Dangers Signs – latest in holiday series where Tref reports having a good time

Felt a bit of a rebel taking this photo. It’s a sign on Peel breakwater listing dangers, prohibited activities and precautions that must be taken when passing the spot.

I was taking the pic with my Samsung Galaxy S4 and am clearly not wearing a hard hat. Hadn’t noticed that my eyes were shut when the shot was taken which at a stretch could be interpreted either as me being in denial about the dangers that lay ahead or pretending not to see the sign.

For completeness I should also mention that I wasn’t wearing high visibility clothing (unless the white legs exposed by a pair of shorts counts for high viz) , am not aware of being authorised but can reassure you that I was not smoking.

You will have to wait to see whether I post again after this to find out if I survived. Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye. Fingers crossed…

Heartbleed – a pain in the proverbial

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 10 April, 2014
4 Comments on Heartbleed – a pain in the proverbial

Big fuss doing the rounds over the Heartbleed bug. Google it. Every man and his dog¹ is saying it is really bad and offering advice which basically says change your passwords oh and btw it might not make sense to change it yet because your specific service might not have patched their SSL.

Now this is the problem. I have 75 sets of credentials for accessing online services. Each one has a complex and unique password. It’s going to take hours to change them all.

A few are more important than others, Google and banking for example. I checked Lloyds Bank. There are no notifications on their website. No advice. No words of comfort saying “don’t worry Tref you are ok son”. Now I can’t believe that a bank like Lloyds with presumably a huge security team hasn’t got it covered.

I checked them using LastPass and got the message “A Server header was not reported, you should assume this site could be vulnerable.” Now this may be because the site is vulnerable or it may be that Lloyds has its website nailed down so that services such as LastPass can’t ping it for information. Not being an expert in this field I don’t know.

Maybe I don’t need to worry about it anyway. Lloyds uses 2 factor authentication. Is that affected? Hmm. No idea.

I read about tech so picked up the Heartbleed story. My dad doesn’t read this stuff. He is 80. He reads the sports pages, the political news and, oh I don’t know, headlines from 1956. Anything really but not news about Heartbleed. Yeeeeoooooooowwwwnggg – right over his head. He probably doesn’t even know most passwords he has created. Probably a majority of the population will be in the same boat.

A lot of people out there will be oblivious to Heartbleed, oblivious to whether their services are affected and oblivious as to whether they need to do anything about it. What’s to do?

I’d envisage each of the 75 services I have an username and password with will be wanting to send me an email advising me of a course of action. Not received one yet…

Poignant phonebox photo

There is something about a photo of a phonebox taken using a mobile phone camera. It’s almost gloating. An icon of the past captured by the technology that rendered it obsolete. There should be an air of dereliction about the picture. Sadness. There isn’t. I’m smiling though the photo is not helped by the fact that it’s a cloudy day.

I may have asked this one before but it’s worth asking again: when did you last use a phonebox?

Other posts containing images of phoneboxes:

HTC Desire HD review
What to do about automated spam calls to mobile
Non internet use > neo-monsaticism

End User google travel

Allow location use #GoogleNow

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 9 April, 2014
No Comments on Allow location use #GoogleNow

I’ve just allowed Google to use my location. Up until now I’ve always rejected the request. Having mulled it over for a few years (I don’t like to rush these things) I’ve decided I’m ok with it. It will enhance online services for me. I don’t care about whether others know where I am or not. My location is pretty obvious if you read this blog.

Location data is useful to me when I use Google Now. I’m happy that it is able to give me hints about things in my locality. Currently it shows photos of nearby places. V handy I’d say.

Years ago when we were working on the commercialisation of SIP one of the things it was going to bring to the party was presence. Presence wasn’t really just about whether you were online and available or not. It was also about where you were online.

Getting off a plane in a new place was going to be made easy by automatically telling the hotel you had landed and pointing out good bars and restaurants you might want to hit. Only possible with location information.

I think I also like the idea that all my photos will have location information in them. Why not? It’s hard enough finding photos. Why not make it easier by telling you where the photo was taen?

Embrace the future. The future has the presence. The future is here and Google Now.

PS I’ve written about GoogleNow before. Had forgotten when writing this article. I don’t think I’ve had location switched on as standard before though.

PPS Off for a stroll now. There are places to see within 14 minutes walk! 🙂

End User travel

Holiday videos, wink wink ;) Peel Castle IoM

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 9 April, 2014
No Comments on Holiday videos, wink wink ;) Peel Castle IoM

We present for your entertainment and delight three short holiday videos. The first is an artistic work filmed on the rocks surrounding Peel Castle. Whilst the video requires no commentary the small element of speech inserted towards the end serves to draw the viewer’s attention to some of the key environmental content.

The second video was taken during a weekend break a few weeks ago. The weather here is very different. The filming was done at Fenella Beach on the other side of Peel Castle during a violent storm.

This final video shows a working fishing boat unloading a sack of crabs at the quayside at Peel breakwater on a bright sunny day. The skipper had called ahead and the lorry arrived at the quay just before the arrival of the boat.

Look out for more evidence of good times being had on trefor.net.

ADSL upload speeds – ugh

ADSL upload speeds at parents house make me appreciate how good my own superfast broadband is.

At home I get about 7Mbps upload and on a reasonable day 35Mbps down. In the office on the ja.net we can on occasion get 100Mbps symmetrical. Yeeeeooooowwwwnnnggggg. That is good.

At my parents in the Isle of Man the much slower ADSL upload speed is really noticeable. Improved upload speeds are the one game changer that FTTC or superfast broadband has brought. In our media dominated world where ad hoc videos and pictures of interesting sights that we think “oo I’ll take a photo of that” and never look at it again though it is taking up storage space at more than one location, having good upload bandwidth is v important.

I feel somewhat awkward complaining about an ADSL connection where many people don’t even have that. In a world where broadband has become another utility ADSL seems almost like having a gas or electricity supply that only comes on at certain times of the day. Or it’s like having to always cook using a slow cooker. It’s something you have to plan around.

Added 06/07/2014: Now that I have kids living away from home the upload speeds they have for their own broadband connections are very noticeable. Kid3 at Uni in Durham always shows up quite pixelated whereas I’m sure that my own upload stream will result in a good clear image of me

Images of Peel

I like a good sign. This one is a particularly fine example at the end of the promenade in Peel, Isle of Man. It is a very helpful sign especially if you are looking for a tourist attraction.

We have visited each attraction many times. I particularly like the chandlery which has lots of useful supplies for the seagoing type: ropes, pulleys, blocks, sou westers etc. Although the sign mentions “Town Centre” Peel is actually a City because despite only being a small town it has a cathedral.

The panorama is the view towards the beach from the breakwater in Peel. The view has changed very little since Victorian times. The @harbour_lights cafe and the Davidsons ice cream parlour are just right of centre. Clicking on the image brings up the full size 6ish Megs original and you might be able to zoom in.

Look out for other holiday snaps from the Isle of Man during this week’s vacation:)

Turn, Turn, Turn, A Time to Every Purpose

Post author By Kory Kessel
Post date Monday, 7 April, 2014
1 Comment on Turn, Turn, Turn, A Time to Every Purpose

19.11 GB of 471.48 GB – About 6 hours

Roughly 8 minutes ago I fired up my brand-spanking-new 3.5” hard drive enclosure (complete with newly-installed and formatted 4TB 3.5” hard drive), navigated via Finder to my bursting-at-the-seams 500GB 3.5” hard drive (also happily enclosed, and for over 5 years now), nimbly hit Ctrl+A to highlight everything, and dragged the highlighted contents over to begin the process of copying the data therein to its new home.

31.41 GB of 471.48 GB – About 6 hours

Speaking only for myself (though I suspect my words will ring true for a great many, if not the majority), I am not at all surprised to find the act of upgrading my external storage to be akin to cleaning out a household “junk drawer”. Generally speaking, I know what I have collected on Compote – the original 500GB drive – over the years, and yet many surprises abound.

55.10 GB of 471.48 GB – About 6 hours

Before I go any further, I should come (somewhat) clean by saying that not all of the flotsam-and-whatnot that resides in my digital universe has come into my possession in a pure and unassailable manner. Without admitting anything that could be used against me in a court of law (somewhat mad I am for “Law & Order” in its various flavors, and it is especially good when viewed in pristine .mkv on such-and-such device at my leisure), I will just say that I am, have been, and always will be a music/film/TV junkie and leave it at that.

Windfall Status

So I am seeing that all kinds of curious things are moving over to the new neighborhood (Windfall be its name, and in case you aren’t paying close enough attention, yes, I do use a certain fruit as the basis for the network drive naming convention at Chez Kessel). To offer just a hint of flavor, these were the last three items I saw go by:

BBC.Pink.Floyd.1of3.The.Story.of.Wish.You.Were.Here.x264.AAC.mkv
Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble – Texas Flood (1983) [FLAC] (2-CD) {2013 30th Anniversary Legacy Edition}
Marvel chronology disk 11 v2.0

A part of a television documentary, lossless Stevie Ray Vaughan music files, part 11 of a Galactus-sized collection of Marvel comics in .cbr format…any moment now I expect to see a box of old staples, a airline-issued personal sewing kit, and a too-well-thumbed and dog-eared deck of cards!

125.45 GB of 471.48 GB – About 5 hours

Just to fill in some of the backstory here, Compote is actually only one of three long-maintained “junk drives” whose contents will be making their way over to the oh-so-shiny-and-sparkly Windfall today (and from the looks of it, into tomorrow). Decorum restrains me from naming the other two, but suffice it to say they don’t fall very far from the tree, and each one is chock full of the same kind of gotta-have-it-and-someday-I-will-get-around-to-doing-something-with-it digital entertainment media detritus.

161.02 GB of 471.48 GB – About 4 hours

To be clear, I am not what used to be called a “packrat” or what today is more readily referred to by the darker and far less cute-sounding “hoarder”. No, I actually have real purpose in maintaining the nearly 2 TB of this-that-and-the-other that is currently undergoing consolidation onto the honker of a hard drive that is Windfall! You see, the center of my aforementioned digital universe, AppleKory (feel free to take a short break here to point fingers, cover your mouth, and enjoy a giggle at my expense), is sacrosanct, and new content must be scrubbed and polished before being allowed to cross the barrier into the vast media libraries I am forever building there. Thus the external drives? Holding pens of a spinning platter order.

206.26 GB of 471.48 GB – About 3 hours

Insight and useful lessons are no doubt popping off of these pixels, different depending on the individual reader (none of whom, I hope and pray, has the legal standing needed to commit me for observation or my own safety). I do want to share one last piece of information, though, to anyone out there who is finding inspiration in my personal data migration exercise and is now considering moving down their own amalgamation road: make sure the enclosure you have or will buy is capable of handling the new hard drive. SATA is SATA is SATA, right? Well, no. The SATA enclosures I bought years ago for my soon-to-be-pensioned 500GB drives were only able to handle the new 4TB drive up to a maximum of 1.8TB, a key fact I learned only after the shoes and socks were off, the screwdrivers were pulled out, the hard drive was relieved of its antistatic bag and installed into the enclosure, and the whole schmear was connected up and awaiting formatting.

258.14 GB of 471.48 GB – About 3 hours

<sigh>

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End User travel

A roaming, a roaming it’s always been my ru i in

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 7 April, 2014
No Comments on A roaming, a roaming it’s always been my ru i in

Off roaming again. Mobile roaming that is. The Isle of Man. A place which will be all about relaxation, healthy walks, tea and scones in the @harbour_lights cafe, fishing boats, fishing from the breakwater, a stroll along the prom, ruined castles, seals, guillemots, rock pippits, basking sharks, meals out, meals in, great food and drink, sleep.

I might call in on Manx Telecom for a chat. Check out the latest developments in offshore telecom. I made a call over the Manx 3G network before it was introduced in the UK. Few years ago now. Was quite a cool thing to do. The Isle of Man was a test bed for O2 at the time.

The beauty of our modern world is that we can work from wherever we are. Although this is a holiday I like my job and can spend a couple of profitable hours each day doing stuff. Travel time is also time that can now be usefully spent rather than just staring out of the window wondering how much longer it will be before we sight land – something to break the monotony of the journey.

The hotel had WiFi. There was 4G in Liverpool whilst we queued to get on the ferry, the ferry has free WiFi, at least where I am sat. My mam and dad’s place has WiFi, the Harbour Lights Cafe has WiFi. The Whitehouse pub doesn’t have WiFi but who on earth would want to waste good pub banter time by staring into a screen.

I switch off mobile data roaming because the cost would be ruinous and there is in any case plenty of connectivity. I’ll settle for ruining my waistline.

It is now 11.49 and we would appear to be out of sight of land. The windows in the lounge have steamed up so we wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway:) All is quiet.

End User travel

Level crossings and the quirks of the taxi fare system

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 7 April, 2014
No Comments on Level crossings and the quirks of the taxi fare system

When walking to work I have to cross a railway line. There is of course a set of barriers that come down every now and again when a train comes by. I find myself picking up my walking pace as I get nearer to the crossing so that if the warning the barriers are about to come down starts to sound I can get across before my way is barred. I have sometimes had to wait 4 minutes before a train comes. Not good.

Whilst I normally walk I have had occasion to take a taxi home. If I get the cab to pick me up from the side of the level crossing nearest my house the fare is £4.20. A pick up from the side nearest the office, that’s the side with the Tower Bar in the pic, costs £5.40!!!

I have for your information and education taken photos of the queues caused when the barriers come down. Enjoy:)

The view from the office

agricultural End User fun stuff Weekend

Saturday Snapshot (5-April-2014)

Post author By Kory Kessel
Post date Sunday, 6 April, 2014
5 Comments on Saturday Snapshot (5-April-2014)

Yanked to the surface of consciousness on this Normandy morning by the potent combination of bright sky warmth-providing orb, insistent cat, breakfast aromas (coffee, toasting raisin bread), My Missus yelling “À table!”, and the promise of the Saturday farmer’s market in Lisieux (gotta get there before those Orbec mushrooms are gone!).

April in Paris? Schmapril in Schmaris!

** I do plan to return to the whole “April in Paris” in a positive, musical sense in these pages quite soon, but let’s stay on point, shall we? **

Basket in hand, car keys in other hand, shoes on feet…OK, I’ve got the appendages covered (rest of the body too, as the last thing this American wants to do is throw a fright into scads and scads of provincial Frenchies). A few coins in my pocket, and a rough-but-working-itself-out lunch scheme forming.

Our late arrival at the market had My Missus and I worried we would go Orbec-less this weekend, but I am happy to report (and indicate via photograph) that this was not the case.

800 grams of the finest and freshest Normandy-grown Cremini mushrooms secured, our market wander could take on a more relaxed pace and did, leading us to various vegetables and to our lunch plate protein of choice, which today we had decided would be a few nice sole. With no less than five fish mongers hawking their wares at the Lisieux farmer’s market, the selection and pricing is usually in line with expectation and today was no exception (though our score – five good-sized sole for just 10€ — certainly could be described as ‘exceptional’).

agricultural End User Weekend

The yellow flower

It’s a yellow flower at the weekend. The green leaves around it look quite manky but the flower shines through. I’m ashamed to admit that I have no idea what make of flower it is. What brand. Wouldn’t surprise me if companies try to register flower names as brands.

If I saw a rose I could name that. Tulips and daffodils I can also identify. Otherwise I begin to struggle. I’m ok with grass. I quite like grass although our lawn needs some seeing to. It’s not worth the effort as it gets hammered all year round by kids.

I quite like mowing the lawn in the summer followed by lighting the barbecue and cracking open a tin or two. It’s not often the weather is good enough for us to sit out to eat but the conservatory is fine. We have a nice conservatory opening out onto the back garden and the table will seat ten or twelve people if we open out the leaves so it’s a good place for a relaxing Sunday barbecue that lasts all afternoon.

We also have a couple of gazebos that can come in handy both when there is a threat of rain and conversely it is too sunny. Anyway hope you enjoyed the picture of the flower. It’s the weekend. Make it a lazy one 🙂

PS if anyone has a favourite flower do let us know:)

broken gear End User gadgets H/W phones

SD card unexpectedly removed SGS4

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 5 April, 2014
7 Comments on SD card unexpectedly removed SGS4

It’s not looking good. Just had notification on Samsung Galaxy S4 that “SD card unexpectedly removed”. This is the same message I was getting before the last SD card was wiped.

If we recall, the SGS4 was launched on 26th April 2013. This means that my SGS4 is less than 1 year old¹ and it looks a if it is about to destroy a second SD card. Notwithstanding the fact that the phone is less than a year old and it is already my second SGS4. My first had a faulty USB socket.

Frankly this is totally unacceptable. These are very expensive devices. The reliability is atrocious. I am going to take this up with Samsung as a point of principle. Stay tuned…

¹ in fact I got it on 13th May 2013.

broken gear End User

This is a broken badminton racket

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 5 April, 2014
3 Comments on This is a broken badminton racket

Born in a factory somewhere in the manufacturing world of a design by Carlton this badminton racket survived only two outings before it met an untimely end. We shall shed no tears. Mourn not. We have to move on. There is nothing to be gained by dwelling on what may have been. It is what it is. It is no more.

RIP Carlton KINESIS. Length 670mm, frame weight 86g, balance even, flex medium. Delivered on a Monday, smashed on the following Saturday.

End User fun stuff Weekend

The kecks are ready

Just had Waitrose on the dog and bone saying the kecks are ready. They didn’t actually use those words. I translated for you. The woman on the other end of the phone actually said “Mr Davies it’s Waitrose dry cleaners here. Your trousers are ready to collect.”

I’ve started to use a lot more natural language on this blog. Eased into it. I don’t think you could be reading through back issues of posts and say to yourselves “hey he’s started to change his style”. There wasn’t one of those transformational moments.

Makes you think about the use of language though. In one sense it surely doesn’t matter what words are used. As long as people understand what you are trying to say. Wft, fyi, btw, atb, brb, lol,swalk. Most people will know what I’m on about there. At least most people whose native tongue is English. Oh and below a certain age, except for the last acronym in which case it may well only be people above a certain age that get it.

The extent to which the language used almost depends on how far you can push it before people begin to not understand what you are trying to say. knowworramean? Grammatical conventions should also evolve. why does it matter that we have to use upper case for the first letter after a full stop (that’s a period for those over the pond – I realise that I overstepped the limits if comprehension there for some). the full stop informs that the end of the sentence has been reach thus allowing the reader to draw mental breath.

I may still chose to start someone’s name with upper case but it isn’t absolutely necessary. tref or Tref. You still understand what I’m trying to say.

In the interest of research I herewith request that you leave a comment with an alternative word for trousers. One go per comment. There are two prizes on offer. A pint of beer goes to the person with the most variants and another pint goes to whoever leaves the last comment with a word for trousers. All entries must be in English and in the event of a dispute you must be able to somehow prove common usage of your word. If beer is not your thing I’ll stretch to a small sherry. Prizes must collected in person.

More good reeds:
rong spelins

End User fun stuff

The darling buds of April – latest in a fun series of posts on nothing in particular

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 5 April, 2014
2 Comments on The darling buds of April – latest in a fun series of posts on nothing in particular

All you tech heads out there think your stuff is cool don’t you? Your tablet computers, new phones, operating systems and other stuff my grandmother would not have heard of. No new product introduction can compare with what you see in this picture.

It’s new life coming into the apple tree we planted in our back garden a couple of years ago. It will grow and produce apples. More apples than the two we got last year. They were two good ones. Two of the best.

The only good Apple is one that grew on a tree. Read into that what you like:) It’s the weekend and what does the weekend mean? Jobs list. Jobs that don’t get done during the week. Things like clean out the car¹ because we are off on holiday. Mow the lawn for the first time this year. Take Kid4 to a badminton tournament.

When all that is done I should be able to relax a little. Maybe stroll into the Bailgate. Bump in to a few people I know and talk about nothing. Look in a shop window.

I do ~~need~~ want to buy a Leatherman. I had two but they both got nicked. With a leather man if you have a bit of string that needs cutting there is no problem. Need to tighten a screw? Hey that’s easy. Simply chose the correct screwdriver bit and you’re away. Stone in your horse’s hoof. The Leatherman will have something for it. Chop down that enormous tree that gradually grew in the middle of your back garden and before you realised was taller than the house…

My memory was jogged re my Leatherman shortage when strolling round the new GO Outdoors shop that’s opened just down the road from us. Doing a bit of bag procurement I was. There is a half decent range of ~~Leathermans~~ Leathermen on display. I noted the top of the range model had £30 knocked off if I had a discount card, which I do. However a quick search noted that I could get it with a further £30 knocked off from Amazon. I didn’t make that impulse buy.

This week I revisited the Amazon store with a view to making a one click purchase. I didn’t make that purchase because I found out that the model I had my eye on wasn’t the top of the range after all. There was a titanium version. Gordon Bennet! That made sense to me. However the titanium version was about £130.

So this was my dilemma. Feed the kids/buy them shoes/go on a family holiday/pay off the mortgage/fund a cure for stupidity or buy the Leatherman. Well I am going to buy the Leatherman but I will wait until I have a piece of string that needs cutting. Then I’ll feel I bought it because I needed it and it won’t have been such an extravagance.

Anyway gotta go. I have to prepare to take a kid somewhere and then build up the mental strength to clean the car…

¹Whether it needs it or not – actually even I think it needs doing!

End User fun stuff Weekend

Offer to end all offers – free Wilkinson Sword 5 blade razor – something for the weekend

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 5 April, 2014
No Comments on Offer to end all offers – free Wilkinson Sword 5 blade razor – something for the weekend

Wilkinson Sword Hydro – the ultimate razor?

In the run up to Christmas Kid4 scours the online free give away offers for presents for the family. Very resourceful.

One of these offers has just come through: a Wilkinson Sword Hydro 5 blade razor job. It looks very good quality albeit over 3 months late. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth especially if it is going to give me a shave or two but you do have to wonder about the marketing of this offer.

Either it proved to be more popular than their wildest dreams and they ran out of stock very quickly or their planning was v poor and the execution terrible. If the first was the case it’s interesting to note that their manufacturing lead times would appear to be around 3 months. Seems a lot for a bit of plastic even if it did come personalised.

Whichever is the case I am going to end up using it because I have it, it has 5 blades and it was free. I will of course report back so that you, the unshaven masses, can benefit from the experience. It will be quite annoying if I end up thinking it is good becasuse I will have to go out and buy more blades and you can bet your bottom peseta that they are even more expensive than my usual quad blades.

Maybe I’ll let Anne decide which is best for smooth cheeks. I was going to finish this post with the sign off “something for the weekend?” but I don’t bother shaving at the weekend. A hangover from my old rugby playing days when I needed to look as rugged as possible on a Saturday afternoon.

So on Monday morning you shall know. If I remember.

Ciao bebe (strokes his non existent beard and rides off into the sunset)…