Category: fun stuff

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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 🙂

kettleAside 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.

Categories
End User fun stuff

The Christmas tree is dead, bring on 2014

xmastreeThese 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.

Categories
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:)

Categories
End User fun stuff

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+

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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

Categories
Business fun stuff

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:)

Categories
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.

Categories
End User fun stuff

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

A4 locomotivesI A4 Pacificshad 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 LNERlocosonly 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.

Categories
Cloud End User fun stuff Weekend

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.

Categories
Business fun stuff

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…

Categories
Business fun stuff

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.

 

Categories
End User fun stuff

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

Continue reading “Rainfall measurement techniques”
Categories
Business fun stuff

NHS IT

I came all over faint when these nurses asked to be photographed with meHad 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.

Categories
End User fun stuff

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? 🙂

Categories
Engineer fun stuff

What does an engineer wear underneath his kilt?

engineers and kiltsOch 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?

be oro at the phoenix artist club

Categories
End User fun stuff

It was 25 years ago last week

Had my Silver Wedding Anniversary Bash over the Bank Holiday weekend. A great time was had by all. Lots of people turned up to find out how Anne has managed to put up with me for all that time.

It’s made me think of what technology was available in 1988. Mobile phones existed. They were analogue and for the most part had to be plumbed in to the car battery to work. I had one when I was working as a Field Applications Engineer. I recall turning up outside Anne’s house in London and calling her from the car. It was an uber impressive thing to be able to do in those days (from my red Cavalier SRi).

When we got married her Uncle Harry did the wedding video. We watched it again for the first time in 25 years last week. Had to convert it from VHS to mp4 which we did after an appeal on twitter resulted in @ClivePetty bringing the kit around to the house the weekend before. Thanks Clive. There was no such thing as editing a video in those days, at least not by a layman. It came out raw and unexpurgated.

None of the guests would have had a mobile phone, an email address or an internet connection. Internet? Wossat? All the invitations would have been sent out in the post and the venue for the bash selected after physically driving around all the options to find out which dates were available.

The map telling people how to get from the Church to the Hotel was printed out on sheets of A4 with handwritten instructions. No Sat Nav.

The wedding photos are kept in an Album in the cupboard. We don’t have the negatives. Probably many of the guests have never seen them.  I’m not sure we have seen any other photos from our wedding. Sharing was too difficult. The inventor of Facebook might have been born, but only just.

We had typists at work and I once remember faxing a large US Government Contract proposal to our New York office and having to refax individual pages once they had been amended. It took too long to fax the whole contract again.

Moore’s Law was first described in 1965. By 1988 whilst people would be able to use it to forecast things like the memory size on a computer it isn’t something that would have been in the minds of most. Even businesses would have very few PCs around. Certainly the average household wouldn’t have had one. They were too expensive and there wasn’t much you could do with them.

I’m going to stop here. I’m not sure all this “showing my age” business fits with my life philosophy – and after all I’m only a kid.

Having seen all the developments in tech in the interim 25 years it’s quite exciting to think about what might be coming along over the next quarter of a century. Read all about it on trefor.net 🙂

Categories
Engineer engineering fun stuff

Milner’s Moisture Matic – technology made simple

john milner - top timico applications engineer

Meet John Milner, crazy genius inventor. He is one of a few. A bit like Nat Morris with his Twitter based dog feeder. You’ve met John before on this blog actually should you care to look.

Today John brings you Milner’s Moisture Matic. Arduino powered with a recycled power brick the Milner Moisture Matic puts a 5V field between two bolts buried in the soil of a plant pot. The resistance is measured between the two bolts. The more moist the soil the lower the resistance. When resistance hits a threshold, ie when the current hits a certain low point,  it tells the system that more water is required.

moisture maticA 10bit sensor is converted to 8bit for the processor to read. A 3 way LED tells us the state of the soil – green is good, amber is ok and red says it needs water at which point a pump kicks in for 7 seconds.

Separate sensors tell us the level of water in the reservoir (reused milk jug) and whether there is water in the outside pot. The pump will only work if the moisture sensor and the pot water sensor indicate dryness.

sensorThe Arduino processor comes with pre built twitter elements so we could extend the functionality to log reports on twitter – frequency of watering, whether the reservoir needs topping up etc.

Check out the images clicking either gets you a larger image or a different view.

milners moisture detector

Categories
Business fun stuff ofcom

Smart SEO makes a difference – NewNet wholesale comms provider

Web presence makes a huge difference to your business these days. You need to be on the front page of Google search rankings or you ain’t on the web.

I’m not saying we are up there for every search term we would like – that’s work in progress. However NewNet, our wholesale business is very much getting it right.

Check out the two screenshots below. The first is the top of the page showing the results for the “wholesale comms provider” search term. NewNet comes top for both paid for and organic. The other organic results on that page are mostly BT and then Ofcom. The second just shows you the rest of the screen. Nice.

google rankings wholesale comms provider

wholesale2

 

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End User fun stuff

Review of @ITISLENNYHENRY & @colinmcfarlane in #Fences at the Duchess Theatre

Fences at the Duchess TheatreOne of the nice things about writing a blog is that you get invited to all the top showbiz parties in London. I very rarely go to them but on this occasion I happened to be in town anyway so took them up on the offer.  Ok I can’t continue with this lie. I’ve never been invited to a showbiz party before:) Last night I went to one. This is the story.

tref with lenny henryYou may remember way back in November of last year when I was on my way to LINX79 I bumped into a neighbour of mine, Colin McFarlane. Colin is an actor and he was on his way to a second audition for a part playing opposite Lenny Henry in August Wilson’s Fences. Fences is one of a series of plays written by Wilson specifically for black actors.

We sat in the quiet coach and I read out some of Lenny Henry’s lines while Colin responded with his own. All done in an American drawl, y’awl. Well the great news is that Colin got thattref tom lenny part and Fences had a highly successful touring run before hitting the West End which it did this week. Feeling in no small part responsible for Colin getting the job I decided to go and see him in action. I was also invited with my son Tom to the after show drinks party where we got to chat with the cast.

The photos in this post come from that after show party because I know what you lot are like. Wanting to know all about the celebs and the gossip. Well I’m sorry. This is not Hello magazine or OK. It’s trefor.net. Yes there were celebs there but as far as gossip goes what goes on tour stays on tour, darling. Anyway we chatted about WebRTC, Agile computing and the internet.

Later when the theatre kicked us out we ended up in a bar called PJs which is near to the Marquis of Anglesey – the venue of “the day we nearly lost the internet.”

tref outside duchess theatreIt wouldn’t be fair of me to not mention the play and I have to come clean here. I cried through most of the second act. Fences is an utterly brilliant play. I’m not going to tell you the plot. I don’t want to spoil it for when you go which you should do 🙂 This one was a real emotional roller coaster. It made me want to go home, kiss the wife, hug the kids and tell them I loved them. You need to understand that when it comes to things like plays and movies I like nice simple happy ending stories – stuff like Mary Poppins. I was kept gripped to the seat and was exhausted by the end of it.

The performance got a standing ovation and Tom and I, as you know by now, decamped to the bar to meet Colin, Lenny and rest of the cast. They were all really lovely people and happy to indulge tourist Tref with some photoshoots which of course  I only did for journalistic reasons. Special thanks to Colin for the invitation.

Note the photo of Tref and Tom taken by Lenny Henry – nice touch I thought. Tom’s idea.

That’s it. That’s today’s post. It has only a loose association with technology but hey. It’s my blog… It’s also quite nice to round off the story from last November of the script reading on the train.

I’m off next week. Taking my daughter on a jaunt to Barcelona for a few days so there won’t be any blogging unless I feel like a break from the culture and the infernal heat.

The last photo is of me, Tom, Colin and Tanya Moodie who played Lenny Henry’s wife on stage. They were both top class. Catch ya later.

tref tom colin tanya

Categories
Business fun stuff surveillance & privacy

ISPA Internet Hero and Villain Finalists

Normally I like to add value to a news item if I am going to comment on it.  I see so many scraper websites that pick up my stuff you wonder what they get out of it.

I have just sat down to comment on the press release from ISPA announcing the internet Hero and Villain finalists for this year’s ISPA Awards. I found however that ISPA had already put across  much of what I might have said. I have therefore reproduced it below in its entirety with links to where you can buy tickets for the Awards on 11th July.

I will say that as one of those with a vote for these awards it is always easy to find candidates for heroes but not so for the villain. Actually that isn’t right. There are plenty of MPs that we could line up with very little understanding for how the internet works but with their own objectives in controlling it. I’m speaking personally here and not on behalf of ISPA but we have to be careful how we approach the subject of internet regulation in the UK. We need to work with MPs to help make things better in a sensible way without shooting from the hip in an emotion filled gunfight.

The winners will be announced on the night of the awards and you can read the ISPA release below. There are some great “goodies” and some shocking “baddies” taken, the internet being the global entity that it is, from around the world.

ISPA release:

Continue reading “ISPA Internet Hero and Villain Finalists”
Categories
End User fun stuff

Bowater on the Warwick Summer Party

There comes a time on a Friday afternoon where a man’s thoughts turn to the Bank Holiday ahead. This weekend I am off on stag weekend in London taking in the Premiership Rugby Final between Leicester & Northampton followed by the England v Barbarians match on Sunday. No doubt we will also take advantage of being in London to pursue some cultural activities the details of which have yet to be disseminated to the travelling party.

In the meantime I have been given permission to show you a video. It has nothing to do with the stag weekend although there is a fleeting bit of rugby action near the beginning.

The video has been produced by the heir to the Davies title (currently 2nd in line seeing as my dad is still going strong and I am still around obv) in between taking his final exams at Warwick University and is an advertisement for the end of term celebrations. It stars Aaron Bowater who was the joke candidate in the elections for the Warwick Students Union President. During the elections my son, Tom, produced a number of promotional videos that received over 40,000 views on YouTube. This one is well worth watching.

Categories
Business fun stuff

STOP Press – how do you manage your FX exposure?

It’s Friday afternoon so I thought I’d show you an email I just received (name deleted to protect the naive and ill prepared):

Good afternoon Trefor

I’ve been directed towards you and I hope you don’t mind me initiating contact with you via this email.

My name is xxx and work for GPSFX as a Treasury and Risk management consultant. My expertise is helping companies develop tailored hedging solutions that have delivered considerable savings and improved management of their FX footprint.

Our expertise is viewing foreign exchange as a form of risk management, looking at exposures at a currency and entity level through: Balance Sheet Hedging, intercompany netting, bank balance reporting, cash flow forecasting and payment processing.

I think it would be beneficial to have an introductory meeting with your company next month.

I’m available on the 13th June after 1pm, can we meet at 2.15pm.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

xxx

I looked them up and they do appear to be a genuine business and the guy has a public LinkedIn profile. So it being Friday and me feeling a bit mischievous I’ve told him that the Exec Committee meeting I am at that day should be over by 2.15 if he wants to swing by and buy me a coffee.

His problem is that he is based in Twickenham and I am in Newark, Nottinghamshire. Not only has he not done is research properly re whether I am interested in Foreign Exchange (obv not) but there is no way he can get from Twickenham to Newark in 1hr 15minutes. He will find out soon enough if he replies asking for my address.

STOP Press – he has just asked me whether I’d like a latte or a coffee and do I manage our FX and what is our yearly exposure?

This breaking news story may play out before I finish writing this post and get back to some real work.

Otherwise I’ll keep you posted in the comment stream if there is anything further to report.

Ciao

Categories
Engineer fun stuff

Electric smart car in Hamburg

Just had to post this photo because it is so cool. It’s an electric smart car charging up on the street in Hamburg. I’ve never seen one before and it was uber impressive (appropriate that uber a German adjective 🙂 ) so I snapped it with my trusty SGS3 so that I could show it to y’all. Quite dinky as well. Wouldn’t have one meself mind you as I’d struggle to get the golf clubs in but it clearly suits someone.

That’s all folks.

electric car

Categories
Engineer fun stuff

Now this is a NOC – Hamburg Model Railway

Hamburg Model Railway NOCMany of you will be familiar with the Timico NOC. It’s a 24x7x365 top class resource for our customers. There aren’t many around as good as ours. On Sunday I saw one that came close. It’s the control centre of the Hamburg Model Railway and pictured in the header here. Click on the pic for a full size panorama.

It’s not 24x7x365. The place shuts at 8pm. It’s hugely impressive though. The whole place is. I first heard about it on a James May TV show and decided I just had to go and see it.  I went on my own without the kids. They wouldn’t have enjoyed it:)

Reality is I’m in Hamburg with LONAP for the Euro-IX meeting. You will no doubt hear more of the meeting in forthcoming blog posts but for the moment I’m happy to dwell on the Model Railway of the Miniatur Wunderland as they call it round here.

Hamburg Model RailwayRecognising that this is a technology related blog I include a photo of the three racks that they use to run the network. Not particularly tidy cabling but nobody is complaining. Also I’m not going to go into any depth on facts about the railway. I didn’t pick up any info like that. When you go to see it you spend all your time gazing at the layouts. If facts are what you want just catch up on the James May show.

Really the point of this post is just to brag about the fact that I’ve been to see the Hamburg Model Railway. If you don’t think it’s something worth bragging about then you are clearly not on my wavelength.

Some vids below for your entertainment:

Categories
Business fun stuff

It’s in the book

the phonebookphonebookGot home last night to find a brand new phonebook on the doorstep. Fair took me by surprise as I didn’t realise they still did them.

What struck me was the size of it. Tiny. Thinner than my index finger. I wondered whether this was because they didn’t have every Lincoln number in it but they must have because mine was there which scientifically proves everyone’s number is there. Presumably fewer businesses are advertising in it these days.

When Anne and I first bought a house together she sorted out the phone line. It was before we got married and when she filled out the entry for the telephone directory she quite naturally used her own name. This caused problems because nobody could find our number. They all expected it to be under my name – HT Davies. Even the H used to cause problems – many people don’t know that Tref is my middle name. We changed the entry the following year1.

In those days people actually used to use the phone book. The phrase “it’s in the book” was quite common. That was before people had their own mobile phones and before the internet. Nowadays not only do people rarely use the home phone line but the concept of looking up someone’s telephone number “in the book” is redundant.

If I need to call someone I will already have their mobile number in my mobile directory. If I don’t have that number then I will likely ask someone to text me so that I know where they are or I’ll drop them a line on Facebook or Twitter.

That’s all.

PS Some of you may think the photo would have been better positioned upright in portrait mode because you keep tilting your head to try and read it. It’s like that because this blog likes to push the boundaries and sometimes that is uncomfortable for people. Also the header pic is slightly out of focus – that’s either artistic or it’s because I couldn’t get it to focus that close up on the phone – you decide 🙂

1 that’s the last concession she ever had to make – I know who the boss is in our house 🙂

Categories
Engineer fun stuff ofcom

And the hot news is…

Normally I’m fending off ideas for blog posts. This last couple of weeks I’ve been wading through a soup of Awards Entries which take yonks to write, especially when they limit you to writing your life story in 250 words. Bit of an  exaggeration but those of you who have to do that sort of thing will know what I mean.

So I’ve looked up, drawn breath and thought what do I want to write about. There’s the massive DDoS attack against CloudFlare that was in all the news earlier in the week. “Internet grinds to a halt” – that kind of thing. It didn’t affect us.

Then there was the cable cutting by Egyptian insurgents, demonstrators, rebels, whatever they were. Didn’t affect us though I know one or two people with operations in the Middle East and lots of traffic to Pakistan that were affected. Not us though like I said.

I note today the Register talking about how capital expenditure by network operators is very rarely recovered. I guess that doesn’t apply in our case as we are not just a bits shifter. We are into added value services that generate good gross margin. We are in this game to make money.

If you’re not in the trade you might not have noticed the Ofcom consultation on Narrowband Markets which closed on Tuesday. Amongst it’s various nuggets the Ofcom proposals contain suggestions like “if you get your line rental from BT then they would also be able to compel you to get your minutes from them as well”.  Not good really and I’m to sure that is what Ofcom wanted to say but that is how it came out on paper. Timico responded through ITSPA, that fine Trade Association that looks after everyone’s interests in the Internet Telephony space – that’s yours and mine if you but knew it. I thought about a specific blog post on the subject but no, too tedious! Yawn…

Yesterday’s news was the 40th anniversary of the mobile phone. In those days it was the size of a phone box but, hey, you could stick it in your boot (trunk) and drive it around. That was yesterday’s news. This blog ain’t a retrospective. It’s progressive and funky. Move on.

Today all the broadsheet tech pages, at least the currently free to access ones such as the Grauniad and Torygraph, are talking about the leaks of info about the forthcoming Facebook phone – poetic license intended – more here. It might interest some people but not me. I don’t trust Facebook though I do use it to keep in touch with the kids and have to admit to having two Facebook Pages of my own (here and here). One assumes btw that with modern spellcheckers they never get the Guardian spelling wrong these days, unless they use an American dictionary maybe. Whilst claiming immunity to nostalgia there are still some things worth gazing back wistfully over your shoulders. The Grauniad spelling is one.

I’m a bit of a mixed up kid when it comes to these social media platforms and online privacy. On the one hand I complain about it and say I don’t trust any of them. On the other hand I still carry on using them all in one form or another. It’s unavoidable unless I just take an allotment and spend all my time growing carrots (or peas, beans and spuds – that kind of stuff anyway. Not sprouts as I’m not very fond of them and as for broccoli!!!). #isnotgonnahappen!

Anyway I can’t think of anything to write about today so I’m going to give it a miss. Feel free to post some ideas as comments. If nobody does I’ll take it as an endorsement of my own inactivity and assume that you are either still in Tenerife catching some rays, or skiing in Bognor Regis, WL.

Catch ya later 🙂

Categories
End User fun stuff

Is there a Lord Trefor Davies in the house?

I’ve recently discovered a wonderful way to avoid nuisance sales calls. A lot of these calls come as a result of visiting trade shows. You have to hand over your contact details to be allowed in and over the years I’ve been to a lot of trade shows.

The last few I’ve signed up for I’ve used the title Lord or Reverend, for a laugh really and partly out of admiration for the Rev Adrian Kennard over at AAISP.

After the first time I used these titles I’d turn up in the office the following week and Verity our receptionist would say “you had three or four calls for “Lord Trefor Davies”. It was an Eureka moment. Now whenever Verity gets a call for Lord Davies she understands the game and tells them I’m in a meeting (at the House of Lords maybe 🙂  ).

Now it’s become a regular bit of fun for us after a trade show. Simples. I’ve ruined it now though because if all of you start doing the same thing the game will be up.

Categories
End User fun stuff

station announcements

I have just invented two new and different ways of making train announcements at railway stations. The ideas came to me when standing around at Kings Cross station waiting for my own train to be announced. Announcements for other trains came and went but not my own. I found myself saying to myself “that’s all well and good but it’s not my train and I am therefore not interested”.

The first idea is that you should only be able to hear the announcements that affect you. I have no idea how to go about implementing this idea but that’s not my problem. I’m the ideas man – someone else goes away and makes it happen.

The second idea is that the accent of the station announcement should reflect the destination of the train and each of the stopping points along the way. This came to me when I noted that “Hull” was pronounced with a decidedly “correct” English accent rather than saying “Ull” as they do in that part of the world.

So a train going from London to Aberdeen via York should have announcements that start in Cockney, flow through a Yorkshire brogue and end up with a strong Scottish lilt.

Och aye!

Categories
Business fun stuff

The long tail

southern syringe servicesYou have to love life. If you don’t love life you need to do something about it. One of the reasons you should love life is its diversity. I was walking to Kings Cross Station this morning and passed a lorry with “Southern Syringe Services” emblazoned across its side.

My first thought was “wow what a cool name”. I was compelled to take the photo. Neil Armstrong was with me and marvelled at “the long tail of business”.

Timico has roughly 20,000 customers. Some are big household names but most you will never have heard of: golf clubs, plumbers, cocktail bars, manufacturers of oscillators etc etc.  This is the long tail. There are lots of ways of making money out there. You don’t have to do anything fancy or exotic.

I don’t know if Southern Syringe Services are a customer, probably not. It’s a big big market out there. Very big and very diverse. I note that they don’t appear to have a website which should represent an opportunity for someone but there again they were acquired by Bunzl in 2006 so maybe they are still thinking of what to do with the brand. Also their market is pretty niche so I guess they already know all their customers.

Anyway you know where to go if you ever need any syringe services.

Categories
End User fun stuff

Sgt Reckless 5.15 Wednesday Cheltenham Festival

Sgt Reckless - running at Cheltenham Wednesday 5.15

I’ve been struggling to get post out in recent weeks. Too much travelling. I’m back in the office today. More meetings! Back in London tomorrow. Meetings. I might get a chance to stick a word or two down.

In the meantime I’m in a meeting. However I have just taken time out to put a bet on a horse. Our CEO Tim owns a few gee gees and every now and again comes in very excitedly telling us we must put a bet on one particular horse or another.

The first time he did this we were quite a small business. His horse Racing Demon was running somewhere and the whole office bet on it – we brought in a TV especially to watch the race. I won a few hundred quid.

Since then he has given me a few tips and one way or another I’ve not been able to get a bet on. When that happens the horse has usually been just out of the money. Phew.

Today Tim came in to the meeting oozing excitement. He has a horse running. Sgt Reckless 5.15 Wednesday, Cheltenham. That’s it in the pic. No idea who the others are. Tim can probably tell us if he feels like leaving a comment.

I’ve opened an account with William Hill and made a bet. Won’t mention how much. I got 13/2. It was 15/2 when I started to look. Tim got in early and got 33s.

Not told Mrs Davies. She will find out soon enough when she looks at the bank balance.  All will be well, when it wins…

Watch the race and join in the fun:)

That’s all folks.

PS racing is like the stock market – horses can win and lose – I take no responsibility for your losses but am happy to be welcomed to the champagne party if it wins.