Category: Weekend

something for the weekend – interesting non work related posts

Important announcement on a Sunday morning

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 19 January, 2014
5 Comments on Important announcement on a Sunday morning

This week we procured a George Foreman grill – family sized and henceforth referred to as the GFG. £20 from Lidl but I’m sure it is also available from other good supermarket and electrical retailers. This follows on from a similar acquisition by our daughter heading back to university for the new term. Hers wasn’t family sized but that is not material to this discussion.

You need to know that the GF is perfect for cooking breakfast on a Sunday morning. Due to the non uniform -sized nature of the raw materials involved (ie the ingredients) there are however some modifications to the normal cooking instructions that you will need to make.

Mushrooms and tomatoes are thicker than bacon and egg so you can’t have the lid down. The recommended cooking times provided by the GFG, with suitable disclaimers regarding food actually being properly cooked – it is an American product, are really only valid if you have the lid down and are thus cooking on both sides simultaneously (that’s at the same time yawl). It’s not as efficient this way but sometimes concessions have to be made for the sake of the art.

An element of judgement therefore has to be applied when cooking breakfast in this way with the GFG.

You should begin by preparing all the ingredients in advance and have them ready next to the GFG on the kitchen worktop. Any form of worktop is ok. It doesn’t have to be granite. Mushrooms should have their stalks remove which is a bit of a waste but necessary for this recipe. Switch on the GFG several minutes before you need to start using it. This is a guess but one imagines that one needs to wait a while for the cooking surface to reach its optimum temperature.

When the grill is hot enough place the mushrooms face down and the tomatoes with the round sides down on the left hand side leaving a suitable space for the bacon and egg that is to follow.

Tags Breakfast

Business travel

BA Executive Club Bronze is almost within my grasp

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 18 January, 2014
6 Comments on BA Executive Club Bronze is almost within my grasp

Just flicked through my emails to find one from British Airways telling me I’m only 140 tier points away from reaching bronze status.

A frisson of excitement ran through my entire body (not just bits of it). I eagerly scanned the rest of the email. With bronze I will be able to check in at the business class desk and earn extra Avios. Wahey.

Then someone opened a curtain and in streamed the harsh reality of daylight. My current tally of tier points stands at 160. Another 140 means booking almost as many flights again as I’ve taken in the whole of the last 12 months. That’s two whole trips.

It just not gonna happen.

My imagination began to

End User fun stuff

All in all it’s just another brick in a wall

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 12 January, 2014
4 Comments on All in all it’s just another brick in a wall

There’s something very artistic about a brick wall. The one was photographed in the corridor just outside the office. There isn’t much else to say about it really. I guess there is a scenario that it used to form part of some historic industrial building. The University of Lincoln is built on an old industrial site. One of the buildings, a bar and concert venue, is called the Engine Shed which gives you a bit of a hint to the past.

Sparkhouse is an interesting place to start a business. Interesting tech startups. The guys in the room next to us are into Bitcoin. In Lincoln! It’s something you really imagine happens in darkest Silicon Valley not quaint old Roman/medieval city of Lincoln. The Lincolnite office is just downstairs.

Not done much water cooler networking as yet which is what’s supposed to happen in these innovation centres. It’ll come no doubt:) There isn’t a water cooler anyway. You just run the cold tap for a bit. This isn’t Silicon Valley you know.

Anyway here’s the photo. The one after it is of a stone wall I pass on my walk home. Part of historic Lincoln. There are lots of them about. Nice. If anyone has any other good photos of walls then please send them in so that I can share them with the readers 🙂

Gotta go. Watching the snooker. Anne is a fan.

Tags brick, Lincoln, stone, wall

End User travel

Working time

I used to drive to the office.It was a 40 minute trip and consumed a tank of diesel a week. Now I walk to work. It takes 30 minutes. I have over the last two weeks only used a half a tank of fuel.

My walk to and from work takes me past Lincoln Cathedral. It’s a beautiful building. I am very lucky.

When I drove to work I would keep an eye on the time using the clock on the dashboard. Wouldn’t make much difference as to when I arrived mind you. Totally depended on the traffic.

Now that I walk to work I can if I so choose check the time as I pass the Cathedral. There is a sundial. It isn’t particularly accurate but there again it doesn’t particularly matter what time I get to work:)

Of course the sundial doesn’t work when it is cloudy and under those (extremely rare – this is Lincoln) circumstances I can pick up the time from my phone – it gets it from somewhere in the cloud. Today I start monitoring my progress using Runkeeper. Stay tuned.

Click on the picture for a close up of the sundial.

Business fun stuff

Kettles and fridges

I bought a kettle last night, or at least Anne did when she was in Tesco. Uhuh I hear you say?

The new trefor.net offices (room 18 in Sparkhouse Lincoln) are in a managed offices building purposely built for startups. It’s great fair play. The only thing is that in finding one’s feet (if one may express it in that manner) one finds the little idiosyncrasies (I had to check the spelling of that word) with one’s accommodation. At least they are things that you have to get used to (slipping back into the vernacular).

This little idiosyncrasy is that the kitchen doesn’t have a kettle. I saw someone wandering along the corridor kettle in hand and thought oy oy, nicking the kettle eh? No as it turns out. Everyone has their own kettle. Fair enough.

Yesterday was my first day in the office. I bought a cup of tea from the caff downstairs. It cost £1.65 or something similar – large one of course. Not sustainable though. This is a start up for goodness sake. At umpteen cups of tea a day we’d very soon be going back to the well for refinancing. I’d rather keep the funds for beer.

For the rest of yesterday I contented myself with drinking water from the recycled cardboard cup that the caff had given me.

Today on the way down to work – it’s a 30 minute walk from my house – I’m expecting the pounds to drop off – I stopped off at Tesco Express and bought a pint of milk and a box of PG Tips. When I got in I made a cup of tea. In yesterday’s cardboard cup. I forgot to get a mug.

Later on I’ll pop out to Debenhams and treat meself to a new mug. You can do that when you work for yourself you know 🙂 ! It’s only round the corner. Handy.

I did wonder what the etiquette for leaving milk in the fridge would be. Will it get nicked if I leave it there? Others seem to have taken the risk so I’ve scribbled the letter T in biro on the lid and put in in there. What’s the downside? 60p? I could always ~~pinch~~ borrow someone elses 🙂

Aside from the mug buying decision I think I’ve also just about decided to invest in a small drinks fridge for the office. The sort with Budweiser branding etc. I’m not a Budwiser drinker but it looks cool enough (pun not intended – it just slipped out). That way I can also keep other forms of liquid in the office at the correct temperature.

The inspiration for this was Sir Terry Matthews who has, or used to have a drinks fridge in his office. V civilised I’d say. I’ll keep you posted re the fridge and the mug. I know it will be of interest. I’ll also have to get some trefor.net branded mugs done at some stage. We will have to get the megamug competitions going again.

Just to finish off on the right is a photo of the current brewing setup.

ttfn.

Tags drink, fridge, kettle, startup

End User fun stuff

The Christmas tree is dead, bring on 2014

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 4 January, 2014
No Comments on The Christmas tree is dead, bring on 2014

These days Christmas, much to my wife’s annoyance, is technology filled. Life is, in fact, technology filled. Us kids sit around buried in our gadgets, often having more of a conversation online than in real life.

We still though like the romantic images of Christmas time. Carol singing round the Christmas tree (I do it even if you don’t), the parties with bright lights and clink of champagne bottles (yes), the excitement of Christmas morning running downstairs to see if he’s been (he came – I must’ve been a good boy).

However everything has its time and now it’s all over for another year. The decorations are coming down as I write and the dead, needle shedding tree lies a shadow of its former self on the wood pile at the bottom of the garden. In our case this is just in front of last year’s tree which is still in the same place as I left it 12 months ago.

The discarded tree seems a total non-technological contrast with everything else that goes on. Twitter, Facebook, tablets, smartphones, trefor.net (:) ) etc etc etc

We are getting our house back, once the noise of the hoover has died down. My body needs a break from its December-long abuse. A period of simple living in which we need to get on with what will be an exciting 2014.

See ya.

PS It’s raining, a lot.

Tags tree, xmas

End User fun stuff

Predictions for 2014

Wooooo ooooo oooo. Ooooo ooooo ooooo. I gaze deep into my crystal ball. The mists are parting. I can see something! Can’t quite make it out though.

Wait a minute. Yes, yes, it’s getting clearer. It’s a phone. Someone has introduced a new phone! I wonder who the manufacturer is? Hey it’s Apple, no no no it’s Samsung, or is it HTC or Nokia or someone else maybe? Oh I don’t know. It’s one of them. The logo is a bit fuzzy. It doesn’t really matter. The phone will look pretty much the same whoever makes it.

Hang on something else is coming into view. Strange. Looks very thin. Oh it’s side on. I think it is some sort of laptop, or tablet maybe. Yes that’s probably it. Someone must be introducing a new tab in 2014. Oo exciting eh?

Blimey the camera is zooming out. I can see hundreds of phones and tablets and, wait a minute there’s TVs in there too, lots of em. What’s going on? I seem to be getting sucked into the crystal ball. I’m going down, down, and under. I’m going to have to hold my breath. I’m sinking into the pile of gadgets. Help, help I’m losing sight with reality. I can’t see anything anymore. Only screens. Hundreds of screens.

Perhaps if I log on to one of them I can do a quick Google search to find out what’s going on. But which to chose? I don’t know. I don’t know d’ya hear me. I don’t knooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

Wakes up, rubs eyes, stretches out arms. Must have been a dream. Anyway, it’s all happening in 2014. Read it first (ish) on trefor.net.

Have a good Christmas break, be nice to the mother in law and see you in 2014:)

Tags 2014, predictions

End User fun stuff

Christmas Cards and Carbon Emissions

Post author By Peter Farmer
Post date Wednesday, 18 December, 2013
5 Comments on Christmas Cards and Carbon Emissions

A title that conjures many eclectic images of what I might be writing about, I am sure.

In true “Bah, Humbug” style, I don’t send Christmas Cards. This started as a charity payment in penance for my apathy but the more I’ve reflected upon it over the years the more it seems like a chore. A relic of a pre-digital age. More latterly, I sat down and calculated (by extrapolating a BBC News piece) that the carbon emissions of the Christmas card making and despatching industry in the UK alone is equivalent to sending a laden jumbo jet around the world 280 something times.

Quite incredible that – a handful of posted cards multiplied up over the population reaches such a CO2 emission figure.

Which then leads to the emissions in telecommunications. I once heard that BT consumed 1% of the nation’s power. I have no reference for that but given the number of System Xs still around the network I can half believe it. We even recently went through a time when carbon trading was rapidly becoming a serious prospect for even moderate sized telecoms operators ….. thankfully that has at least been postponed unless you use more than 6,000 MWh on half hourly meters.

But what worries me is that the powers that be (pardon the pun) think we needed a stick to be more efficient. With rising energy prices, and 1kW of power needing, as a rule, 1kW of cooling, we are very well incentivised as an industry to minimise this cost. Regardless of what people may think of the climate change debate, energy efficiency reduces costs and improves profits (providing the capital investment is proportionate of course), which in our highly competitive industry we are all very focussed on.

The former incumbent has perverse incentives to cash cow inefficient legacy technology created by the regulatory construct; the rest of us have been on the case for years. Green levies on energy are just another barrier to incentivising the investment in technologies the Government is desperate to encourage, just like business rates which I have discussed before.

I sincerely hope that the rhetoric of the government of the day plays out, because I fear the alternative to achieving the ends they desire would be subsidies. And we’ve seen where they’ve ended up before.

Google+ Peter Farmer

Tags carbon, power

Business events

Advanced notice – blogging suspended due to #trefbash2013

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Thursday, 12 December, 2013
4 Comments on Advanced notice – blogging suspended due to #trefbash2013

This is to let you know not to expect anything coherent (ok ok I know what some of you are going to say…) out of this site until probably Tuesday. Technological revolutions can come and go and scoops, news, reviews, snippets, gleanings and gossip will pass by unnoticed.

This is because tonight is #trefbash2013. An annual event designed for the readers of this blog to let what hair they have left, down. There is no hidden agenda at these events. They are simply there to have a good time and this for a substantial majority of the attendees means drinking lots of booze. Last year having started at 5.30 we finally finished at 3am, somewhere in SoHo – anyone who knows me will know that it is a miracle for me to stay awake beyond 10ish – praise be.

This year we are planning to drink more champagne than in 2012 with relaxation further aided by a vodka luge in the shape of an elephant’s head. The vodka comes out of the trunk. I have been told of other shapes that these luges can be sculpted into, for hen parties for example. This is not such a party or such a design.

In 2013 we are hoping to avoid the damages roll of 2012 in which suits were ruined whilst falling off Boris Bikes, heads split open and subsequently glued to bed sheets and trips to casualty. All separate incidents. But we shall see.

Being effectively a two day event you should expect no posting on Friday and seeing as I have a Lonap board meeting all day Monday that too will be probably be devoid of any new material.

I will have photos again this year courtesy of the magnificent Buzz from Timico engineering. If I get a chance before Tuesday I will stick them up.

Sorry if you are not coming tonight. The tickets go “on sale” sometime in September and you have to be fairly quick off the mark to bag one. Numbers are limited by the capacity of the venue and in any case there comes a point where you can have too many people at a party.

To those who will be there I’m looking forward to seeing you. There is a dress code but I have no idea what it is although I have been telling people it’s “pink tutus” so come in whatever is comfortable. I have a new bow tie for the occasion.

Tags trefbash2013

Business fun stuff

The trefor.net story

Once upon a time there was a bloke who wrote a blog. He did it on the quiet in the evenings because he wasn’t sure what people at work would think of it. Over a period of five and a half years he grew in confidence with what he was writing as the readership of the blog grew.

There came a time where the bloke would just start typing and he would publish whatever came out, regardless of what drivel it was. It was a lot of fun to see what did come out. There came a time, as it does for every bloke, where our bloke decided he wanted to spend all his time having fun, writing his blog.

Writing a blog doesn’t usually put bread on the table though so this bloke decided to turn his blog into a business. His kids are a very demanding lot and the bloke was very cognisant of the price of cricket equipment, trumpets and University accommodation fees not to mention Waitrose Aberdeen Angus aged rib-eye steaks and decent red wine.

So this is going to be the story of how the bloke turned his blog, trefor.net, into a business. The tale will cover how he chose to set up his business from scratch. Although the blog had 1,700 post or more it was a very simple organ hosted thanks to the generosity of his employer, a well respected Internet Service Provider serving the business market.

In setting up his business the bloke took on a partner, more of whom later. He needed to find office premises, formally set up the business – a process that involved lawyers and accountants – and find a member of staff. The blog structure needed updating, it needed a long term solution for somewhere to live – in other words here it would be hosted, and it needed a means of bringing in money to pay for everything.

The story is going to be covered, step by step, on the blog. How did the bloke decide what to do at each stage of the game? The process has already started with the advert for a developer. That bit of the story hasn’t ended yet but when it has you will be able to find out how it happened by reading the blog. In fact the whole story is like an ongoing blog post. It’s going to be an interesting journey. Although this process of setting up a business isn’t a totally new experience for the bloke the world changes and there is plenty to be learned by starting afresh.

Come along on the journey and find out how it all happened by returning to this blog on a regular basis.

PS Can’t carry on with that style of writing. It’s too hard going yaknow innit eh?

Ciao bebe

Business fun stuff

Bit of news – Trefor Davies to leave Timico at Christmas

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 4 December, 2013
17 Comments on Bit of news – Trefor Davies to leave Timico at Christmas

Bit of news for you. Friday 20th December will be my last day working at Timico.

What’s going on do I hear you say? Nothing untoward. You may know that I was one of the founding directors of Timico and in the ten great years since we started the business we have taken it from four people in the stable block of a country house (it’s true – ask me about it when next we meet) to a nationally known communications provider with 244 staff at four different locations in the UK. In that time we have made 7 or so acquisitions. It’s been an interesting place to be.

Timico now has many thousands of customers including some listed in the FTSE100 – amongst the largest businesses in the country.

Timico is going great guns and we now have a terrific set of operational managers who are well qualified to take the business on to new heights. This is very satisfying on a personal level but I now also find myself wanting to move on to achieve other things.

For the past few years I have been writing this blog and despite it being somewhat of a hobby have seen a steady growth in its readership. My immediate plans are to make the blog more of a full time activity and to turn it into a business in its own right.

Although trefor.net will be physically located in offices at the campus of the University of Lincoln it is going to be a fully automated and fully internet based business. No paper. Maybe not even a phone number. Who needs a phone number when you can do a Google Hangout or Skype or just a mention on Twitter?

There is a new universe out there that is totally unexplored. The New World before Columbus sailed West. Will I sail over the edge? Well who knows but I can tell you that I’m going to cast off from the known world and go exploring. The new world of the web is a bit like a map of Africa before anyone entered the interior – at this point in time all we have is an idea of what is around the edges.

One of my first steps will be to find a developer who can work with me. Developers are the ship-builders of the new world. If you are a developer and are interested in chatting about this please get in touch. No Recruitment Agencies please. It’s going to be a fun place to work with interesting personal development opportunities and the chance to make some money.

In the meantime I will be with Timico up until Christmas. If you are a customer, supplier, member of staff or someone I have dealt with in the industry I would be happy to discuss my plans. In particular the message to Timico customers is that I remain a shareholder in the business and you can be assured that your services are in good hands. Timico staff should also feel confident that they are working for a growing business that is going places and will provide them with great career opportunities. There will in any case be an ongoing relationship between Timico and trefor.net. You know it makes sense.

If you want to keep in touch follow me @tref on Twitter or keep reading this blog:)

Ciao, bebe…

PS for Timico staff in Newark I’ll be buying the drinks in a pub (spot tbc) somewhere in Newark at lunchtime on Friday 20th Dec – you are all welcome to join me:)

agricultural End User

The Christmas tree season is upon us

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 27 November, 2013
No Comments on The Christmas tree season is upon us

As my express ~~speeds~~ trundles at a modest pace in a Southerly direction, laden with the additional passengers of two earlier broken down trains (or simlar) I note a conversation on Twitter turning to Christmas trees and decorations.

At this juncture it would be remiss of me not to draw your attention to a post from one year ago in which the science of growing Christmas trees was explored along with techniques of wrapping kids using a tree bagging machine.

We Davies’ do not consider putting up Christmas decs until around mid December but I do realise that there are some enthusiasts out there who like to get in the swing early. Presumably they don’t use a real tree if they put it up in November as all the needles will have fallen off by the big day.

It is at Christmas that cultural differences do come to the surface in our house. Anne likes outside lights, I don’t. Unfortunately (it’s all about perspective) I think ours are broken. Ah well. We also have the annual hunt for the sets of Christmas tree lights that work. In the old days it was a matter of hunting down and replacing the bulb that was broken – otherwise the whole lot wouldn’t work. And you could only get one type. These days lights are almost disposable – if they don’t work just buy another set. Unfortunately I haven’t quite got that in my mindset yet so we still have to separate the good from the bad, once they have all been untangled, which is another story.

This Christmas will also represent a (quite sad) milestone where all four kids “know”. It makes it easier in some respects as we don’t have to wield threats of instant torture for revealing the truth but it represents the passing of an era, a great era in the life of any family.

Now that I’m momentarily (we have to remember it is still only November 27th) in a nostalgic Christmassy mood I have to reconfirm that I am a huge fan. Two of our kids are now away from home and it is we the parents who now are the ones that get excited about the holiday.

Also I’m not a Christian but I like the tradition, the constancy of the time of year. We do the same things year after year. This tradition is expanding to include events like the #trefbash which is in it’s fourth year and also the Carol Singing night in the Morning Star pub in Lincoln. We get together around the piano and bash out a couple of hours of carols accompanied by a few pints and some mince pies. This is open to all – if you want to come the details are on Facebook here.

Happy November.

Tags Christmas, science, tree

End User gadgets media Weekend

Sony 4KUltra HD TV KD-55X9005A and XBox1 Console sales

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 24 November, 2013
7 Comments on Sony 4KUltra HD TV KD-55X9005A and XBox1 Console sales

Continuing with the weekend posts I swung by PC World and Currys. Looking for a speaker system to add a bit of richness of experience to the Chromecast we installed last week. PC World hardly has anything – they are moving back to their computing roots.

Currys is where it is at for this kind of stuff. I was unnaturally thrilled to come across this Sony 4K Ultra HD TV (the good old KD-55X9005A). A snip at £3,299. OK it is a nice TV. The picture quality was great. However £3,299 puts it in the more money than sense bracket. Since when has that been a problem for the multi-millionaire looking to impress the bloke in the next mansion.

I imagine that the promo video it was playing on the loop was one of the few bits of content you could get for it. Apparently you get 8 “free” Blu-ray discs to watch when you buy the TV. I managed to find 10 movies available in 4K format on one site and 11 on another – all Blu-ray. I’m sure there will be more.

It is early days for 4k TVs. Of course prices will come down. However I may be wrong but I can’t imagine that Currys will sell many this Christmas. If you are going to blow the dough you might as well buy the Bose sound bar for three hundred quid. Great offer.

The XBox1 console on the other hand is a different kettle of anchovies. If you ain’t planned ahead on this one you’re not going to be taking it home from the Lincoln Currys store, nosireebob.

Currys look as if they were caught by surprise with the rush because they have had to scribble a quick sign guaranteed to disappoint the eager gamer looking to upgrade his or her experience for the festive season.

Can’t understand why you’d want it meself but I don’t think I’m representative.

I leave you with a video taken of the TVs in Currys Lincoln. I am easily impressed and thought that the splendid array of colour was very nice.

Ciao beb.

Tags 4K, Currys, KD-55X9005A, Sony, TV, UltraHD, xbox1

Business spam Weekend

Tesco spam – more expensive than ham!

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Sunday, 24 November, 2013
No Comments on Tesco spam – more expensive than ham!

Tesco spam more expensive than ham.

It’s the weekend so I thought we’d have a bit of fun. Just been to Tesco to get a few staples – bread, milk, custard. As ever I left with far more in my trolley than what was on my list.

Passing the tinned meats section I spotted some spam! I haven’t had any spam since I was a kid, other than the crap that gets caught in my spam filter. When I was a kid spam was the everyday meat “replacement” for those of us who lived in shoeboxes on the central reservation of the M4 (etc). Now spam is priced as if it were luxury goods!

The two pics inset show the price of spam and the price of tinned ham on the shelf next to it. Spam is £1.99 for 340g (58.6pence per 100g) whilst the tinned ham is only £1.89 for the same weight.

The ham doesn’t look particularly appetising mind you but there again neither does the spam. I still bought a tin.

Tesco spam – just about acceptable but only for old times’ sake.

Having bought the tin I am willing to let someone else have it if you can persuade me your need is greater than mine. I will need a postal address. Addresses that don’t mention shoeboxes will be ineligible.

PS fwiw Tesco have 25% off wine if you buy six or more bottles. We have a party coming up so I bought a few bottles of Heisdieck Monopole blue top. The bottles were down from £30 to £15 with a further 25% off making them £11.25 each! At that price I don’t even have to like the stuff.

Loads of spam related stuff on this site – follow the spam category here.

End User fun stuff

Food for thought

Got a question for you. Is it cheaper to eat lots of carrots so that you can sit at home on a dark winter’s night without having to switch the lights on or is it cheaper to pay for the electricity?

I think for the purposes of this debate one has to assume that the consumption of an adequate amount of carrots really does allow you to see in the dark.

Obviously the amount of carrots that need eating for it to work will be different for different people so you will have to make some assumptions. The best answer wins a pair of tickets to the sold out trefor.net xmas bash in London on 12th December.

As Confucious said “It is better to eat one small carrot than to sit alone in the darkness”.

It’s true…

PS read another carrot post here or perform a search on this blog.

Tags carrot

Apps End User mobile apps mobile connectivity phones Weekend

Lost phone phound

I normally keep my phone overnight on my bedside table – muted for obvious social reasons. It stems back to the days when I was at the top of the escalation ladder for network issues. Nowadays it’s there for a bit of surreptitious tweeting before Mrs Davies wakes up.

Well I woke up this morning and my phone it wasn’t there, oh no (sung to a blues tune). Yes I woke up this morning and like I said my phone it wasn’t there, oh no. I went downstairs and looked all around the house but still I couldn’t find that darned Samsung Galaxy S4 phone. Oh no.

At this point my imagination started to take hold. Did I leave it at the jazz gig last night? In the taxi? I rang it several times but no joy.

Fortunately technology comes to the rescue these days. I logged on to my Samsung account and clicked “find my phone”. It was somewhere in our house. Hmm. Location info could be wrong though. I looked at the phone logs. Nobody had pinched it and was using it to call Senegal (random exotic destination that is probably expensive to call).

Then I rang the phone from the Samsung account. This overrides any volume settings on the phone. Wandering around the house I began to hear the faint strains of a Samsung Galaxy S4. It was calling to me. I’m here Tref, here I am.

I found my phone under my pillow, oh yea (followed by a riff on a Fender Stratocaster and a nifty bit of drumming to finish off.

Fat lady sings.

THE END

End User fun stuff

A ride on Stephenson’s Rocket at the National Railway Museum

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 8 November, 2013
No Comments on A ride on Stephenson’s Rocket at the National Railway Museum

I had a ride on Stephenson’s Rocket. Ok it’s only a replica but it is pretty authentic. It was a two minute trip and we only went a few hundred yards. In theory the train should be able to do 35mph but they don’t allow it to go that fast. Couldn’t find anyone who could run that fast in front of the train whilst carrying a red flag I suppose. Usain Bolt could have done it but he doesn’t live anywhere near York and I suspect doesn’t like the cold.

The firebox only took a couple of bits of coal for each leg of the journey. I imagine in real life the fireman would have been shovelling coal in almost non stop. The steam pressure only amounts to 50psi which is roughly what you have in your bicycle tyres – assuming you keep them pumped up properly unlike my kids.

The Rocket btw was at the National Railway Museum in York. I was there to marvel at the 6 remaining A4 Pacifics they have there on temporary display – click on the header pic for a full size version. The world record breaking Mallard is normally there on permanent show.

35 A4 Pacific engines were built in total in two batches. It’s very sad that only 6 remain. The booklet is a little treasure that belongs to my father in law Keith. He was an avid trainspotter in his youth and used to visit engine sheds all around the country. When you see the engines at York you can understand this. Anyway in those days train fans used to carry a book detailing all the engines in service with a specific train company and if they saw a loco they would tick it off in their book. Named locos were more “valuable” than just numbered ones. The book cost 2 shillings in 1948! Flicking through the book it’s astonishing how many engines there actually were. The rail network would have been a very busy one.

You can see from the pic (click to enlarge) how many Keith saw – they are the underlined ones. What is interesting is that there are only 34 A4 listed here whilst I mentioned that 35 were built. One of them suffered a direct hit from a German bomb whilst stood in York railway station during WW2. After the war they renumbered them all so there is no gap in the sequence.

More pics from the trip here. Also the video of the Rocket is below. Enjoy.

Cloud End User fun stuff Weekend

Fireworks in Lincoln for Bonfire Night #GuyFawkes

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 5 November, 2013
No Comments on Fireworks in Lincoln for Bonfire Night #GuyFawkes

This is a simple post with a short video showing the fireworks that were on display at the Lindum Sports Club in Lincoln on Sunday night.

Simple as that really:)

PS I’ve categorised this post under cloud though as I recall it was a fairly cloudless night 🙂 Also I know that Sunday night wasn’t actually bonfire night – tonight is. However it is sensible to have it at the weekend and not a school night. Oooooh, aaaaahh.

Tags Association, fireworks, Lincoln, Lindum, Sports

Business fun stuff

Communication modes for the 21st century

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 4 November, 2013
3 Comments on Communication modes for the 21st century

Just rang to book my car in for a service. After navigating an auto-attendant and then holding for some time I eventually got through to a receptionist who was clearly not at the department I’d navigated to. Ok. It happens. Phones get busy etc etc.

She asked me if I’d like someone to ring back which is fair enough. I do want to get my ~~tire~~ tyre pressure sensor system sorted out. It’s annoying being told that one of your tyres has a problem when it doesn’t. I readily gave her my mobile number and said my name was Tref (actually I pronounced it Trev but it doesn’t matter for the purpose of this conversation – I don’t want to complicate the spiel). What she really wanted was my surname which in case you don’t know (she didn’t, obvs) is Davies.

She then politely referred to me as Mr Davies and said someone would get back to me. Fine.

It’s interesting though how people communicate isn’t it? I’m not particularly having a go at the dealer. It’s an honest enough business (did I really say that?) earning a few hundred quid for doing not that much to your car because you are hamstrung by having to use a dealer for the particular problem.

It’s interesting how we, the business community, communicate with people, our customers. I didn’t really want to talk to someone at the car dealer, other than I wanted at least a ballpark understanding of how much they were going to charge me for the service. I’d rather have been able to book online or chat to someone via IM.

I want to be able to go to someone’s website, see that a relevant agent is available to chat to me, be shown a list of available time slots I could book for the service by that agent, see the range of charges and then agree to book the car in. This might be an interface through the Facebook page of that organisation, where there is a ready made IM system, or it might be through another platform – Google+ say, or Skype or it may be all of them.

I as a punter would clearly be willing to share some of my personal details with that business by virtue of the fact that they would now have my Facebook/G+/Skype address (etc). After all I’m willing to let them have my mobile phone number to call me back. From a business perspective this is great. It’s what Salesforce.com with it’s social media integration is trying to get at. Lots of information about customers.

From a punter’s perspective it would make things a lot more convenient than having to hang on the phone. I could be waiting in a window whilst doing something else. I could always escalate the conversation to a phone call if needed once connected.

Back to my immediate needs this car dealer, a substantial business in the East Midlands, was not on the front page of a Google search for Lincoln car dealers – not even for “Jeep car dealer in Lincoln”. I didn’t bother looking on page 2. So it has some way to go before understanding how to navigate a web orientated world. It looks therefore as if I will have to continue to use its existing booking service as long as I have to use that dealer. An hour or more later I still haven’t been called back.

Now before anyone starts thinking about leaving a comment re how Timico works (it’s happened before) hold your fire. Whilst I’m happy to be proved wrong I suspect that nobody has the system I have just described, yet. We do have web chat as do many other companies but it is not integrated with any social media platform. It can’t be far off general realization though and I do accept there are a few stumbling blocks such as the fact that people may not want to open up their Facebook selves to third parties. But it has to be the way ahead¹.

As far as being called Mr Davies it doesn’t sit comfortably with my inner kid. My business card, such as it is, mentions only my twitter handle @tref and my websites. It’s not a Madonna-like branding thing. It’s just that I’m not a formal kind of guy.

That’s all for now folks.

PS my tyre pressure sensor system has needed doing for a while. I’ve been putting it off because I know it’s going to be expensive. Call it an early Christmas present!

¹ Specifically irksome as I very specifically don’t trust Facebook. It doesn’t have to be Facebook. It could be LinkedIn or Google or Microsoft et al. None of them are really trustworthy but you have to go with one of them. It’s unavoidable unless you want to pick up that plain old fashioned telephone and wait…

Tags dealer, Jeep, media, social

End User travel

Urho ice breaker Helsinki Finland – big boys toys

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Monday, 28 October, 2013
2 Comments on Urho ice breaker Helsinki Finland – big boys toys

There comes a time in a man’s life when he must visit an icebreaker. The cognoscenti amongst you, and I know there are many, will know that an icebreaker is the ultimate boy’s toy.

You may talk about fast cars (0 – 60 in 3.5 seconds) or the latest and greatest (Android) gadget but let me tell you that none of them come close to being as cool as having your own icebreaker. Urho, moored for the summer months in Helsinki, is such a beast. I visited Urho on Sunday.

An icebreaker is something where size really does matter. A few numbers would aid the understanding. Five main diesel generators with 22,000 horsepower can generate 17 MegaWatts of power – yes I said 17 MegaWatts!! That’s enough to supply 708 houses with standard 100Amp feeds. Basically a small town. They typically use 40 tonnes of diesel a day but can peak at 100 tonnes.

The diesel generators don’t power the ships four engines, two in the front and two in the back (sorry none of this bow/stern stuff, nosiree Bob :)). These are driven by electric motors. The stress put on diesel engines would be too great of they were directly driving the propellers. They have to go from full power forwards to full power backwards at the flick of a switch.

There is more. A normal ocean going ship will have “stabilizers” to minimise discomfort to its passengers. Not on an icebreaker. An icebreaker has “destabilisers”. 1,000 tonnes of water can be pumped from side to side of the ship to create a rocking effect. You have to have good sea legs to work on an icebreaker. As the ship’s sides rock against the ice some lubrication is provided by air bubbles released from underneath.

The main method of crushing the ice however is from the sloping bow (oh ok then). The ship “climbs” over the ice and crushes it with its weight. Doing this is obviously quite stressful on the ship itself so as you can imagine it is built from very thick metal plates. There was some debate afterwards about the thickness of these plates. I thought they were 3.5 cms thick but others said 9cms so I’m not sure. Anyway they are thick plates. The median thickness of the ice in the depths of winter is 80cms.

The season is of course the winter. The seas around northern Finland freeze every winter. It’s a tough part of the world to live in – Helsinki is only 60km from St Petersburg. The country still has to function so the icebreaking service is provided free of charge as part of the standard shipping license fees paid by each boat operator.

Each of the four icebreakers assists around 250 ships a year. I say assist but really I mean rescue. The icebreakers come to the aid of ships locked in ice. In fact they only come out when the ships are stuck. Typically they will circle a trapped ship and this usually does the trick. Occasionally they will have to tow the “customer” (struggling to find other suitable nouns so I don’t have to keep using the words ship and boat).

The freed boat will follow the icebreaker, sometimes as close as a few metres behind because the pressure of the ice field soon closes the gap.

The ship’s company of 21 persons includes a captain and four watch officers together with engineers and other ranks. The officers and other ranks eat and live separately. Watches are 6 hours on six hours off. It’s an all consuming lifestyle during the season.

These icebreakers are big. The accommodation is also fairly extensive and includes a gym including a ping pong table, sauna (two – officers and other ranks) and even a pool. The pool was empty when we were there. Empty of water that is. Note the sign reads “allas tyhja”. That is for the benefit of litigious American readers – in case they are daft enough to dive in and hurt themselves.

So there we go. Icebreakers. Every bloke should visit one at least once in their life. Been there, done that. Tick.

As a footnote I visited Helsinki for Euro-IX 23. On the Sunday morning the sun, low in the northern hemisphere sky, was dazzling. Helsinki looked beautiful. Later and without warning the mists descended and you began to get a sense of what like would be like in the winter at such latitudes. Stay warm and take care…

🙂

Tags Finland, Helsinki, icebreaker, Urho

Business fun stuff

Online marketing – it’s in the DNA

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 19 October, 2013
No Comments on Online marketing – it’s in the DNA

The Davies house is yet again at peace. Child 4 is upstairs, no doubt playing on the XBox, having been soundly beaten at table tennis in the conservatory. Number 3 is out a band practice – they have a gig tonight at the Lincoln Drill Hall. The other two are no longer at home.

I’ve whizzed through my jobslist. Apples picked, wood sorted in back garden, ski gear purchased for #4, tree moved (yes), methylated spirits sourced for tonight’s cheese fondue. Mrs Davies is down town foraging for some provisions in the market.

I have to pick the band up at 4.45 to transport them to the venue – drums and double bass and 5 lads. That’s ok. They are called The Pylons – check out their Facebook page. Their website is here. They are also on Twitter.

Uhuh you say. Well I guess where this is going is that these are 15 and 16 year old lads and they already have a handle on all the tools they need to promote their band. Their EP is currently in production, being recorded in a friend’s garage. They have more technology than your average pro studio would have had only a few years ago. They are a connected generation. They know how to make it work.

Tags marketing, online

Business events

Champagne drinkers outselling the rest 22hours into #trefbash2013 launch #bigdata

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Tuesday, 15 October, 2013
No Comments on Champagne drinkers outselling the rest 22hours into #trefbash2013 launch #bigdata

Bigdata is trendy and I have a little bit of big data here for your interest (or not – might be totally boring). Out of 75 tickets “sold” in the 22 hours since the announcement of #trefbash2013 went live 24 were “champagne drinkers”, 17 “volume beer drinkers”, 14 Hard core vodka types”, 13 “friends of Tref” and 7 “sophisticated cocktail drinkers”.

Considering that most of these people are in the tech industry the fact that champagne drinkers are leading the way says volumes about the amount of cash sloshing about in this business. I suspect that had there not been a champagne category then most of them would have gone for the cocktail drinker tickets.

In a male dominated engineering world there are always going to be a fair number of volume beer drinkers. These guys I guess are more likely to stay the pace than any of the other ticket types except perhaps the friends of Tref. Considering this was the teetotal ticket type (poetry there) I am both surprised and touched by the fact that 13 of you have held up your hands and said we were pals. Thanks guys 🙂

Like the two year run up to the US Presidential Election this is a story that will run and run, at least until all the tickets have sold out and we have recovered from the party.

Ciao baby (puts middle finger into mouth and makes champagne cork popping sound)…

Tags party, trebash2013

End User fun stuff

Rainfall measurement techniques

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Saturday, 12 October, 2013
No Comments on Rainfall measurement techniques

It’s a rare Saturday morning. I’m on my own in the house and although I have a jobslist they are all outdoors ones such as picking apples which because it is chucking it down will have to wait. It is therefore a lazy Saturday morning and I am going to write what I’ve decided to categorise as a “weekend” blog post.

A weekend blog post is can be about any subject, not just technology. On this occasion because it is raining it is going to be about a rainfall measurement technique invented in the Victoria pub in Lincoln one wet Friday evening. This way of measuring rainfall also doubles up as a bit of entertainment in the pub on a cold winters evening so you get far more added value than the old fashioned way which is to collect the rain in some sort of container and then see how many inches (or mm) you’ve got.

Rainfall measurement techniques #1

Business fun stuff

NHS IT

Had my annual check up at my local GP today. You’ll all be relieved to know I have the thumbs up. Amazing I know.

The nurse was having a real problem with her mouse as she tried to navigate her way through the NHS computer records system – it must have a name (white elephant, major cost overrun IT disaster, I dunno). So I asked her to move over, opened up the mouse, cleaned it and put it back together again. Worked perfectly. She was very happy.

What’s more she is now fully trained in mouse maintenance. The surgery would previously have probably had to call out the IT department or more likely a contractor at an exorbitant rate.

It’s nice to give something back every now and again – we should all do our little bit:)

That is all.

PS the photo is one I found in my library. These nurses aren’t the same ones that work at my GP’s surgery. Thought you would want to know.

End User fun stuff

What goes on tour stays on tour

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 25 September, 2013
No Comments on What goes on tour stays on tour

As the old saying goes – what goes on tour stays on tour. Having said that some stories are far to good to be kept from the public and today I picked up a couple of stonkers. Names have been withheld to protect the innocent.

First up was a text that came in this morning. This was very much the morning after the night before. The sms read “woke up in f%$£*&g Brighton. This individual, the CEO of a company in the internet business, came to the Lonap ISPA Party Party last night. He had reservations about coming as he was flying to Las Vegas the next day and for want of a better word wanted an early night.

He checked in to a hotel in Gatwick then headed into town for the bash. One thing lead to another and he caught a train at some blurry hour in the night, fell asleep and woke up in Brighton. His return train got him to the hotel at dawn and he was able to snatch an hour’s kip before getting up to go and check in for his flight:)

The next story was related to me over lunch by the Chief Operating Officer of a major multinational business. One of the world’s most recognised brands actually. My friend had taken his family out for dinner including his brother in law who had a reputation for always ordering the most expensive item on the menu.

My pal, who remember was paying for the meal, nipped to the toilet and got back to find a magnum of posh champagne at the table. At this point he snapped and had a go at his brother in law. “I don’t mind paying for your meal but this really is taking the p!55“. At this point his wife, who is a midwife, pointed at one of the waiters and said she had delivered his wife’s baby a couple of weeks earlier. The magnum was a thank you present from the waiter.

The rest of the meal was eaten in silence:)

It’s a funny old world innit? 🙂

Engineer fun stuff

What does an engineer wear underneath his kilt?

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Wednesday, 25 September, 2013
No Comments on What does an engineer wear underneath his kilt?

Och aye the noo. Whassup? Worrayulukinat? Actually no.

The four gentlemen in kilts here are far better spoken than Rab C Nesbitt. They aren’t all Scottish but engineers like a bit of a laugh and that’s what we had at the Lonap ISPA Party Party at the Phoenix Artist Club in London last night.

The boys concerned here are Thomas Weible, Marcus Arnold, Fearghas McKay and James Blessing.

The question is what does an engineer wear under his kilt?

4g Engineer mobile connectivity olympics

4G speed test results in London – comparison of O2, EE and Vodafone

Post author By Trefor Davies
Post date Friday, 20 September, 2013
8 Comments on 4G speed test results in London – comparison of O2, EE and Vodafone

4G test results in London – comparison of O2, EE and Vodafone on a road trip.

Competition in 4G has been a long time coming. It’s almost a year since EE launched their service and we now have the Vodafone and O2 4G networks running, at least in London. When I took part in the O2 4G trials in 2013 the results were spectacular (43Mbps in the Devonshire Arms pub off Oxford Street) if confined to a few places – O2 used 25 cell sites for these trials. The results were great partly because I doubt that there were that many people using the network given that we all had dongles and not phones. You had to have your laptop out which aside from my coverage experiment conducted from the top deck of a moving number 25 bus meant that you had to be in a static location.

Now I have three networks to play with: EE, Vodafone and O2. It would be natural to expect that having had longer to roll out their network the EE coverage would be better. However with more subscribers using the EE service would their speeds be as good as the relatively empty networks of the new kids on the block?

The 4G test tools to hand were a Samsung GalaxyS4 running O2, a Nokia Lumia 920 on Vodafone and a Huawei 4G Mobile WiFi E5776 (MiFi) loaned to be my EE. The tests were conducted over two separate trips and on each occasion I had a Twitter pal along for the ride: @flosoft and @UKTamo. We also used @UKTamo’s SGS3 LTE running on EE.

In one sense because I was using four different devices the test conditions were not going to survive academic scrutiny. However having to go to the effort of swapping SIMs every time I wanted to run a test just so that I could do like for like testing wasn’t going to be practical. What you get here therefore is a mix of experiences with some real results mixed with subjectivity. It should provide a feel for the 4G experience in London.

We started off in McDonalds in Kings Cross. Day one was not an unbridled success as for much of the day the only network I had working was EE. Having only just provisioned them, the new 4G SIMs on the other two took a while to kick in. Before realising this I thought that maybe the S4 and Lumia 920 needed a firmware upgrade. @flosoft averaged around 5Mbps using the McDonalds WiFi to download the software for the Samsung whereas I was getting double that using the EE 4G MiFi for the Nokia. Nokia took well over half an hour to perform the actual upgrade after downloading the software but it had still finished the job before the WiFi based software download for the Samsung had ended, let alone start the installation.

This became a theme. During lunch at the Nag’s Head in Covent Garden hanging off the EE4G Huawei MiFi was a better experience than using the pub’s WiFi. This is despite the fact that my Galaxy S4 is set to backup media to Google+ when connected via WiFi. Because of this any speed testing and usage on the MiFi will have been degraded because of the background uploading yet the experience was still good. It suggests to me that as 4G becomes more ubiquitous, cost of data aside, public venues will need to upgrade their broadband service if they want people to continue their WiFi rather than a cellular service.

As an aside during the 2012 Olympics I spent a lot of time testing mobile connectivity in London and found that when walking around the cellular networks were far more useful than the hundreds of thousands of WiFi hotspots in town.

Will 4G render public WiFi networks obsolete I wonder?

Roaming around central London saw very variable results with all three networks working on 4G. Handsets would switch between 3G and 4G by just turning a corner and 4G performance when in a low signal strength area felt not to be as good as 3G in the same circumstance. In theory 4G should be no different to 3G in this respect – maybe it just needs a bit more playing with.

Sat on the Number 73 bus between Kings Cross and Oxford Circus the EE network had more consistent 4G coverage than Vodafone – see the video. EE averaged 18Mbps on this route with only a couple of results dropping below 10Mbps to 5Mbps and 8Mbps.

Following on from the Nags Head lunch experience indoor coverage seemed better than I had been expecting. When my Vodafone 4G kicked in I managed to get 65.85Mbps at the back of the Pop Up Brittain shop on Piccadilly. We saw 48.62Mbps down and 43.31Mbps upload with EE in a 2^nd Floor Office in Castle Lane near Victoria which was the best combined performance. I was getting around 10Mbps down with both O2 and Vodafone at this location.

Vodafone and O2 are sharing cell sites so where you got 4G with one you would naturally expect the other to be present. This was by and large the case though sometimes one network would have better performance than the other at these locations which might be explained by traffic volumes.

We used speedtest.net for the testing and when comparing different networks it was important to be using the same server. For EE performance at one location rose dramatically when we switched away from the Vodafone London speedtest server – no dirty work on the go here I’m sure:). It was also funny that when I stood next to Yoda between Covent Garden Station and the Piazza I got a very poor Vodafone signal – the force was obviously elsewhere unless he wasn’t the real Yoda (Vodafone uses Yoda from the Star Wars movies for advertising purposes).

The fastest download seen was 73Mbps on O2 at South Kensington tube station. Sat at the Champagne Bar in Paddington I was regularly getting 58Mbps on Vodafone – indoors again (video here). The EE MiFi in this environment didn’t perform so well. Indoors in Paddington Station might be a poor EE coverage area but my guess is that there were too many WiFi enabled devices in the area and the MiFi struggled with the noise.

Overall I didn’t see quite the same peak speeds on EE compared with O2 and Vodafone. The fact that there are far more people on the EE network would explain this. As you might expect EE did seem to have better overall coverage, though this coverage was far from ubiquitous. There seemed to be pretty good 4G from all three networks in the main tourist and commuter hotspots – Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus (video here) and major train stations for example.

One additional data point is that I had to plug both the Nokia and Samsung phones in to charge by around 2pm after a day’s testing. I was carrying two Powergen Mobile Juice Pack 6000s especially for this purpose. Whether that tells you anything about battery life when using 4G I’m not sure considering I was hammering the phones. It probably does.

Overall it’s exciting to see three networks up and running now albeit only in London. It won’t be long before competition sees coverage improve everywhere – although it isn’t advertised I could get 4G from all three networks on the platform at Slough Railway Station.

Even the slower 4G speeds were pretty fast compared to 3G. I have to believe that with 4G the mobile networks have finally moved into the 21^st century.

4G is definitely going to drive usage. I used almost 2GBytes in two days of testing with O2 – I’m on an 8GB package. I suspect the real issue is how quickly the networks will want to drive usage/fill their capacity. They will be able to control this with pricing. However although the mobile operators are desperate to move away from selling on price I can’t see them being able to do so long term. The market will have its way…

More speed test screenshots here from O2, Vodafone and EE. Thanks to @flosoft and to @UKTamo for their able assistance especially for the photos and screenshots of the test results. Thanks to EE for the loan of the Huawei MiFi – it’s a great piece of kit. I was hoping to be able to publish a comprehensive database of the tests but unfortunately the speedtest.net app only kept a certain number of results and the Windows 8 Phone version didn’t even seem to allow you to export the data. Ah well.